You’ve lived this all before.
That’s the thought that keeps me going, through the acrid sting of mage-smoke in my nostrils and the terror of almost having lost you already. There’s fear on your face, too you’re only now straightening, one trembling hand clutching at your sleeve, and and no. I find I cannot call this woman
you. You look older than your years, your hair streaked with silver. This woman is barely thirty. She does not have your easy calm; she flinches at the sight of the Tierran assassin pinned neatly to the floor by my sword. She is not you, and will not be for years to come.
What I cannot tell Fallon is who I am now. I cannot tell her about the new home I make. I cannot tell her that you were the only person I could ever fight for, because you looked at war and saw only despair. That, having set my blade down, you were the only person for whom I would pick it up again.
She is Fallon Deere, First Minister to the Free State of Altorania, and you are you, the woman who sent me to her side.