Chapter 40

Forbear

It was a strange new familiarity to wake beside him in the gray before dawn. He slept on in the dreamless depths hollowed out by relief, and she saw exhaustion etched in the dark skin under his eyes.

Each morning thereafter, she listened to his breathing as she waited for him to awaken, content to watch the darkness recede gradually. And she learned that forgiveness came easier in the quiet hours of the dawn, when the mind and memory were as misted glass.

The first day, she forgave him for his silence in the wake of her diagnosis, for crushing her with a burden twice as heavy when he had finally allowed the physician to tell her.

The second, for the fevered night in Getzistan, when he had demanded a sacrifice and left her awake in the aftermath, alone and sickened.

The third, for bowing to the ill counsel of petty, stone-hearted men who bore neither respect nor wisdom for the sake of the sultan and kingdom they claimed to serve.

He forgave her as well in brief, unadorned words, and she no longer doubted their weight.

First, for the steep walls she had built, which had rendered her deaf to entreaties for reason.

Second, for leaving him to face the petty, stone-hearted council alone, without her respect or wisdom as a vital support.

Third, for a cold kiss and the assurance of indifference, which burned more harshly than hate.

But there they both stopped.

Forgiveness would take time, they both knew. The fourth morning, they were silent, and though the exhaustion had faded considerably from his eyes, there was still an impasse to cross. An impasse carved by questions, accusations neither could voice without shattering the mirror of absolution they held together with tentative hands. The trespass of rosewater into their bed, flawed promises and a secondary embrace; three words, once cherished, bereaved of meaning in an instant. The unspoken other, darkly filling the distance between them and her nights in the desert; the scars on her skin, telltale wounds meant for him, he had realized with sick dread.

We'll wait. The words stood in his eyes, this time without renitence.