Page 59 of The Summer Pass

“I don’t think that’s true. They were angry because I hurt you.”

Vanu wanted to deny that. He’d been trying to deny it for months. How could he have been hurt? He was stronger than that. Yes, Lill left, but he was supposed to kill me. How else could he prove he was never going to do that? But it had just slipped out, what he’d been hiding even from himself. It broke my heart.

He sat down on the stairs, a couple of steps below Lill. He pushed back his hair and ran his thumb along the scar on his cheek—all the fidgety things he did, until he noticed what he was doing and dropped his hands deliberately into his lap.

“Know what?” he said aloud. His voice was still rougher than usual from shouting through the cellar door hours ago. “Didn’t think I could have my heart broken.”

“Hands,” Lill signed, then winced when he tried to move his arms more than he should.

“Mouth,” Vanu growled back, jabbing a finger at Lill.

A surprised smile bloomed on Lill’s face, and a little laugh bubbled out of him. At once Vanu found himself laughing too.

“Why didn’t you think you could have your heart broken?” Lill asked.

Vanu shrugged. “I suppose I didn’t risk it much lately. It was different when I was your age, but in the years we were fighting the king’s men, I never let anyone share my bed for more than a couple of weeks. I fucked a lot of men I didn’t like much, and I didn’t want them to get attached to me—to think they could work their way into my family. And after a while I’d want a change anyway. The sex was never good enough for me to want any of them to stick around. You’re thinking this doesn’t sound like me, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“It was different with you.”

Lill winced. “I was afraid you were going to say that. And then I left you after a couple of weeks. You didn’t even … you didn’t actually get any sex.”

“It didn’t feel that way. Just looking at you feels like sex sometimes. Sorry, that’s not—maybe you don’t want to hear that.”

One thing he’d realized after reading Arsha’s confession—though it hadn’t exactly been spelled out there—was that sex had been part of the mission for Lill. And it had obviously been the hardest part. Vanu had thought there was just some internal battle between what Lill wanted and what he’d been told he was allowed to want, but it had been more—and worse—than that. It still made him sick to think about.

“I’ll give you a divorce if you want that,” Vanu signed. “If you want to come back and live with us and not be my wife, you can do that. I’ll give you whatever you want—anything that’s in my power.”

“I want you to have something real,” Lill said immediately. And then, after a moment, softly, as if he might have been afraid to admit it: “I want to be real for you.”

Vanu reached out and put his hand on Lill’s knee—very, very lightly, because he wasn’t sure it was wanted, and because he couldn’t remember where all Lill’s bruises were.

“You are real for me, Lill.” He coughed and had to go back to signing, which meant he couldn’t touch Lill at the same time. Maybe just as well. “Do you know how much better I like the truth of you than what you were pretending to be?”

Lill gave him a wide-eyed look. “What, really?”

“Heart of the Blue Heaven. Of course. I wanted you when I thought you were Madurasha’s son and—probably—didn’t want to kill me. But an assassin from the Order of the Sworn Defenders who was hired to kill me and just … didn’t, because … ”

“I fell in love with you,” Lill whispered.

“That,” said Vanu, grinning. “That’s the real you. And I want the real you so much more.”

Chapter 22

A Council of War

They looked at each other and smiled and smiled. Lill hadn’t realized your face could get tired just from smiling. He reached for Vanu’s hand, and Vanu reached back. Their fingers interlaced.

I want the real you, Vanu had said. Lill felt giddy, as if he’d drunk too much wine again. He didn’t deserve any of this, a voice in his head reminded him.

“I do love you,” he said. “I knew I loved you when I left. I … That was why I felt I had to leave … ”

Vanu nodded. “Thought it was that. Hoped.”

Overhead, the weak grey light coming through the grate had strengthened to a watery dawn. It wasn’t a flattering light; it picked out all the weariness in Vanu’s face, the dark shadows under his eyes, the pale stubble of his beard. Lill remembered the bandage he’d seen on Vanu’s arm. He laid Vanu’s hand in his lap and rolled up his sleeve to see whether it was still there. It was gone, but there was a long cut on his arm, scabbed over.

“How did you get hurt?” Lill asked.