One arm settled around her waist, holding her to him, but the other found her hair. He buried his fingers in it, tipped his head forward, and shut his eyes, letting her words rush over him, her guilt and want and pain and feelings of duty, and deeper still, her heart-

The lines of the worlds and threads of fate seemed to spool out endlessly before them, and Kell looked out on them bitterly in his mind's eye, heavy with the knowing. The last time he'd been selfish, hundreds had died.

The last time he'd tried to do the right thing, it had been thousands, and Neria still carried the scars of what they'd done to her.

No matter what they did, they were destined to be tangled up in this.

Grim, Kell stroked her hair, slowly shutting his eyes. He took what she'd handed him, and tucked it away, knowing.

We will sort this.

Somehow.