At that moment, the door to the healing center opened and Lariana walked through. She was as striking as ever, even dressed in common clothes that were stained and worn. As soon as she caught sight of Paxon, she stopped. “You!”

Paxon held up his hands in a placating gesture. “I’m not here to cause trouble. I came for something else entirely. Reyn can explain it to you.”

Which the other did, taking great pains to be certain that all the rough spots were smoothed over and the concerns and fears put to rest. Paxon didn’t miss the way he deferred to her as he did so, how solicitous he seemed, as if perhaps his dependence on her exceeded normal boundaries. He supposed it was the result of what Reyn had gone through, but it bothered him nevertheless. It took time and patience for the healer to complete his explanation, but in the end Lariana simply nodded her acceptance and sat down next to him, taking his hands in hers.

But when she looked over at Paxon, her eyes were cold and hard. “Then we won’t be seeing you again after this, will we?”

She was every bit as beautiful now as the first time he had seen her, but her protective attitude toward the healer seemed almost dangerous. There was a determination mirrored on her face and evident in her voice that reflected more clearly than words the way she felt about him. The two had made a life for themselves in this remote section of the Westland—a life she had clearly imagined from the beginning and likely had brought to pass in large part through sheer force of will once they escaped Arcannen.

“No, you won’t be seeing me again,” he affirmed. “It’s sufficient for me to know you survived and have a life devoted to helping others.”

“It was Lariana who suggested I take up healing,” Reyn was quick to point out. “She wanted me to find a constructive way to learn to control it. I found I was good at it, that the magic had a good side to it. I knew I could never go back to singing in taverns and the like. Not with Arcannen and the Druids still out there. I can do more good with it this way in any case, curing sickness, mending bones, giving life back to those who are in danger of losing it …”

He trailed off, looking over at his wife for what Paxon believed was approval. “It helps make up for the ways in which I used it before. It gives something back of what I took away.”

They were quiet for a moment, all of them, lost in their separate thoughts. Lariana continued to clasp Reyn’s hands in her own. He, in turn, leaned against her, head lowered.

Like a puppy, Paxon thought. Like his need for her was so overwhelming, so unabashedly desperate, that he constantly required reaffirmation that it was still there.

He was suddenly troubled by the urgency of it, by the depth of his dependence on her. In this relationship, she was clearly the dominant party.

He glanced out the window, noted the approaching dark, and rose abruptly. “I have to go. I have another visit to make and a long way to travel to make it. If I learn anything you need to know about Arcannen, I will get word to you.”

Reyn and Lariana stood up with him. “You could spend the night,” she said quietly. “You could have dinner with us.”

“I think it’s best that I go.” He was suddenly uncomfortable; her attempt at hospitality felt insincere. “I’m happy for you. I’m glad you found a way to start over. This life seems right for you.”

“You’ll find something, too,” Reyn said quickly, as if suddenly wanting to give the Highlander some small reassurance.

“I imagine so.” Paxon Leah managed a smile, but it was an effort for him to do so. He didn’t believe what he was saying. He didn’t think he would ever find the sort of happiness they had found, whatever its true nature. He didn’t even think he would ever find any real peace of mind.

The Highlander nodded in farewell and went out the door into the growing dark. He did not look back.

Reyn Frosch watched him go, his arm still around Lariana, his thoughts tinged with sadness.

“I feel sorry for him,” he whispered.

Lariana’s gaze was steady and cool. “Don’t.”

“No?”

She shook her head slowly. “You have to make the best of the life you are given. He hasn’t learned that yet. So, no.”

“All right. It was just a comment.”

“I want you to forget about him. I want you to think about us. This life is ours, not his. He won’t be coming back.”

“Well, I don’t want him to come back.”

She leaned in and kissed him hard on the mouth. “Listen to me. You and I have our own life to live, our own path to follow. We made this life out of hopes and dreams we shared. The past and those who lived it don’t belong. Let them go.”

He smiled and nodded. “As long as I have you.”

Her eyes found his. “You will always have me. Always.”

She would make him feel even more certain of it that night when she told him she was carrying his child.

Paxon Leah returned to the Sprint he had left at the edge of Backing Fell when he had walked out to the healing center. It was the one he had built for himself years ago when he was still living in Wayford and running shipping for a living, knowing nothing of the magic of the Sword of Leah. He had left his airship behind when he went to live and train with the Druids. But after leaving the order he had gone home to retrieve it and begin his search for Reyn and Lariana.

He had been lucky, really, to find them. He had started with nothing but his hope that they had survived. He had considered asking the Druids to use the scrye waters to discover if he was right but had decided against it. Doing so would necessarily have required he reveal what he was looking for, and he didn’t want to do that.

So he had resorted to intuition, common sense, and five months of flying to places he thought they might go to hide. He talked to hundreds of people, investigated dozens of dead ends, listened to his heart, and constantly reminded himself how much this could end up meaning to him. He was beaten down and despairing of his life and its purpose. All the hopes he had harbored when becoming the Ard Rhys’s Blade lay shattered beneath the Horn of Honor on those burial grounds. He kept telling himself that it would make a difference if something good had come out of all the carnage Arcannen had created. It would matter if the boy and the girl had found a happy ending.

He had gotten lucky, of course. An old man in a village not far from Backing Fell, in a chance encounter at a tavern on a deeply silent and frosty night, had sat across from him as he told his story and recognized his description of the girl. A young couple, he said, recently come to a nearby village—she as beautiful as a new snowfall, he newly a healer of special skills. They could be the ones the Highlander was looking for.

And so they were. But now that he had found them, he found himself wondering exactly what it was he had found. Not the fairy-tale ending he had wanted. Theirs was a complex and personal relationship that he was not meant to understand. Certainly, it did not feel as warm and wonderful as he had hoped. There was an undercurrent of dominance and subjection that had left him feeling chilled and disappointed. It had not brought him the satisfaction he had sought. Instead, he was adrift again, his long search ended, its particular purpose fulfilled, but his peace of mind not yet found and the rest of his life a story still unwritten.

Oddly, it was the nature of his disappointment that gave him fresh direction. It was the conclusion to the one search that had revealed to him that he must undertake another. One more visit was needed to complete what he had come to perceive as not so much a quest to find how the lives of Reyn Frosch and Lariana had turned out as a journey of self-discovery.

He flew east again for a few hours, not wanting to linger in Backing Fell, even though he was immensely tired, knowing that his presence would only make Reyn and Lariana more uncomfortable than they already were. Better to press on to another place so they could begin the process of consigning him to a back corner of their lives once more. Better they should start to forget him again as soon as possible.