The words were calm, matter-of-fact, barely laced with that lurking ferocity, and Amara found herself feeling irrationally comforted by it. Her shoulders loosened a little, and the trembling that had been threatening her hands receded.
"Besides," Bernard drawled, "it's a lovely morning for a ride in the country with a pretty girl. Why not enjoy it?"
Amara rolled her eyes and began to smile, but Serai's words echoed quietly in her heart.
Of course you'll have to leave him.
She drew in a breath, forced her expression into a neutral mask, and said, "I think it's better for all of us if I remove any potential distraction, Your Excellency. Your mind should be upon your duty."
Bernard blinked and looked at her with open surprise on his face. "Amara?"
"If you will excuse me, Count," she said in a polite voice, and nudged her horse out of line, letting him nibble at new grass while she waited for the column to pass her. She felt Bernard's eyes on her for a moment, but she did not acknowledge him.
She waited until the carts had passed, then nudged her horse to pace alongside Doroga's giant gargant. The horse refused to move within twenty feet of the beast, despite Amara's best efforts.
"Doroga," she called up to the Marat chieftain.
"I am," he called back. He watched her struggle with the nervous horse, his expression amused. "You wish something?"
"To speak to you," she said. "I was hoping-" She broke off as a low branch slapped her in the face, a stinging annoyance. "Hoping to ask you some questions."
Doroga rumbled out a rolling laugh. "Your head will get knocked off. Your chieftain Gaius will come take it from my hide." He shifted an arm and tossed a rope of braided leather over the side of the saddle-mat to dangle five feet from the earth. "Come up."
Amara dipped her head to him and passed the reins of her horse off to a nearby holder. She dismounted, and jogged over to pace Doroga's gargant. She seized the saddle rope and hauled herself carefully up to its back, where Doroga clamped a big fist down on her forearm and hauled her to a more stable perch.
"So," Doroga rumbled, turning back to face forward. "I see that Bernard ate the wrong soup."
Amara blinked at him. "What?"
Doroga smiled. "When I was young and had just taken my wife as mate, I woke up the next morning, went to my fire, and ate the soup there. I declared it the best soup that any woman ever made for a man. To everyone in the camp."
Amara lifted her eyebrows. "Your wife hadn't made it?"
"She had not," Doroga confirmed. "Hashat did. And after our wedding night, I spent the next seven days sleeping on the ground outside her tent to apologize."
Amara laughed. "I can't imagine you doing that."
"I was very young," Doroga said. "And I very much wanted her to be happy with me again." He glanced over his shoulder. "Just as Bernard wants you to be happy with him."
Amara shook her head. "It isn't anything like that."
"Yes. Because Bernard does not know he ate the wrong soup."
She sighed. "No. Because we aren't married."
Doroga snorted. "You are mates."
"No, not like that."
"You have mated," he said, patient as if he spoke to a small child. "Which makes you mates."
Amara's cheeks flamed. "We… did. We have. But we aren't."
Doroga looked back at her, his expression scrunched into a skeptical frown. "You people make everything too complicated. Tell him he ate the wrong soup and have done."
"It's nothing Bernard has done."
"You ate the soup?" Doroga asked.
"No," Amara said, exasperated. "There was no soup. Doroga, Bernard and I… we can't be together."
"Oh," Doroga said. He shook his head in a mystified gesture and briefly put his hand over his eyes, mimicking a blindfold. "I see."
"I have obligations to Gaius," Amara said. "So does he."
"This Gaius," Doroga said. "To me he seemed smart."
"Yes."
"Then he should know that no chieftain can command the heart." Doroga nodded. "He gets in the way of that, he will learn that love will be love, and he can do nothing but kill everyone or stand aside. You should learn that, too."
"Learn what?" Amara said.
Doroga thumped a finger against his skull. "Head got nothing to do with the heart. Your heart wants what it wants. Head got to learn that it can only kill the heart or else get out of the way."
"You're saying it would kill my heart to turn away from Bernard?" Amara asked.
"Your heart. His too." Doroga rolled a shoulder in a shrug. "You get to choose."
"Broken hearts heal in time," Amara said.
Something washed over Doroga's features, making them look heavier, more sad. He lifted a hand to one of his braids, where he had braided his pale hair together with plaits of fine reddish tresses Amara had assumed were dyed. "Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't." He turned to face her, and said, "Amara, you got something not everyone finds. Those who lose it would gladly die to have it again. Do not cast it away lightly."
Amara rode in silence, swaying in the rhythm of the gargant's long, slow steps.
It was difficult to consider Doroga's words. No one had ever spoken to her of love in that way before. She had believed in it, of course. Her own mother and father had been very much in love, or so it had seemed to her as a small child. But since she had been taken in by the Cursors, love had been something that existed as a means to an end. Or as the lead player in a sad story about loss and duty. The only love a Cursor could allow herself to feel was for lord and Realm. Amara had known this since before she completed her training. What's more, she had believed it.
But in the past two years, things had changed. She had changed. Bernard had become, not so much important to her as he was natural to her whole being. He was as much a part of her thoughts as breath, food, and sleep. At once present and not present, conspicuous with his absence and filling her with a sense of completion when he was there.
For a man so strong, he was gentle. When his hands, his arms, his mouth were on her, he moved as if afraid she might shatter if held too tightly. Their nights together had been, and remained a blaze of passion, for he was a wickedly patient lover who took delight in her responses to him. But more than that, in the quiet hours after he would hold her, both of them weary, content, sleepy. She would lie in his arms and feel no worry, or sadness, or anxiety. She only felt beautiful. And desired. And safe.
Safe. She had to make a sharp effort to keep tears from her eyes. She knew well how little safety truly existed in the world. She knew how much danger threatened the Realm; how a single mistake had the potential to bring it down. She could not allow emotions to cloud her judgment.
No matter how much she might want them to.
She was a Cursor. Sworn vassal of the Crown, a servant of the Realm of Alera, entrusted with its direst secrets, guarding against its most insidious foes. Her duty called for many sacrifices so that others could be safe and free. She had long ago given up the notion of a life of safety. Her duty called her to give up such luxuries as love as well.
Didn't it?
"I will consider your words," she told Doroga quietly.
"Good," he responded.
"But now is not the time for such things," Amara said. Already, her emotions were distracting her. She needed to know more about the dangers they currently faced, and for the moment Doroga was their sole source of information. "We have a more immediate problem."
"We do," Doroga agreed. "The ancient enemy. The Abomination before The One."
Amara looked from the Marat chieftain up to the sun and back, frowning. "Before the One. You mean, before the sun?"