Varina smiled at him, stroking his sunken, stubbled cheek. She turned away because the tears threatened her again. She sniffed, taking in a long breath that shuddered with the ghost of the sobs that racked her when she was away from him, when she allowed the grief and emotions to take her. She brushed at her eyes with the sleeve of her tashta and turned back to him, the smile fixed again on her face. “The Kraljica sent over a letter, saying how much she missed us at the Gschnas last night. She said that her entrance went better than she could have wished, and that the globes I enchanted for her worked perfectly. And, oh, I forgot to tell you-a letter also came today from your son Colin. He says that your great-daughter Katerina is getting married next month, and that he wishes… he wishes you…” She stopped. Karl would not be going to the wedding. “Anyway, I’ve written back to him, and told him that you’re not… you’re not well enough to travel to Paeti right now.”

Karl stared at her. That was all he could do now. Stare. His skin was stretched tautly over the skull of his face, the eyes sunken into deep, black hollows; Varina wondered if he even saw her, if he noticed how old she’d become as well, how her studies of the Tehuantin magic had taken a terrible physical toll on her. Karl ate almost nothing-it was all she could do to get warm broth down his throat. He had difficulty swallowing even that. The healer only shook her head on her daily visits. “I’m sorry, Councillor ca’Pallo,” she said to Varina. “But the Ambassador is beyond any skill I have. He’s lived a good life, he has, and it’s been longer than most. You have to be ready to let him go.”

But she wasn’t ready. She wasn’t certain she would ever be, could ever be. After all the years she’d wanted to be with him, after all those years when his love for Ana ca’Seranta had blinded him to her, she was to be with him only for so short a time? Less than two decades? When he was gone, there’d be nothing left of him.