“Just another helpless female waiting to be rescued. I’ll work on the magicks, and I’ll work harder and longer. Just like I’ll train harder and longer. But what I won’t do is sit up in the tower day and night with my cauldron and crystals, writing spells while the rest of you fight.”
“You had your first battle today, and it nearly killed you.”
“And gave me a lot more respect for what we’re up against. I was called to this, just like the rest of us. I won’t hide from it.”
“Using your strengths isn’t hiding. I was given the charge of this army—”
“Well, let me slap some bars on you and call you Colonel.”
“Why are you so angry?”
“I don’t want you to protect me. I want you to value me.”
“Value you?” He shoved to his feet so the red shimmer from the fire washed over his face. “I value you almost more than I can bear. I’ve lost too much already. I’ve watched my brother, the one who shared the womb with me, taken. I’ve stood over the graves of my family. I won’t see you cut down by these things—you, the single light for me in all of this. I won’t risk your life again. I won’t stand over your grave.”
“But I can risk your life? I can stand over your grave?”
“I’m a man.”
He said it so simply, the way an adult might tell a child the sky is blue, that she couldn’t speak for ten full seconds. Then she plopped back against the pillows. “The only reason I’m not working on turning you into a braying jackass this very moment is I’m giving you some slack due to the fact you come from an unenlightened age.”
“Un…unenlightened?”
“Let me clue you in to mine, Merlin. Women are equals. We work, we go into combat, we vote, and above all, we make our own decisions regarding our own lives, our own bodies, our own minds. Men don’t rule here.”
“I’ve never known a world where men rule,” he muttered. “In physical strength, Glenna, you’re not equal.”
“We make up for it with other advantages.”
“However keen your minds, your wiles, your bodies are more fragile. They’re made to bear children.”
“You just gave me a contradiction in terms. If men were responsible for childbearing, the world would’ve ended a long time ago, with no help from a bunch of glory-seeking vampires. And let me point out one little fact. The one causing this whole mess is a female.”
“Somehow that should be my point.”
“Well, it’s just not. So forget it. And the one who brought us together is also female, so you’re way outnumbered. And I have more ammo, but this ridiculous conversation is giving me a headache.”
“You should rest. We’ll talk more of this tomorrow.”
“I’m not going to rest, and we’re not going to talk about this tomorrow.”
His single light? he thought. Sometimes she was a beam searing straight into his eyes. “You are a contrary and exasperating woman.”
“Yes.” Now she smiled, and once more held out her hands. “Sit down here, would you? You’re worried about me, and for me. I understand that, appreciate that.”
“If you would do this thing for me.” He lifted her hands to his lips. “It would ease my mind. Make me a better leader.”
“Oh, that’s good.” She drew her hands away to poke him gently in the chest. “Very good. Women aren’t the only ones with wiles.”
“Not wile, but truth.”
“Ask me for something else, and I’ll try to give it to you. But I can’t give you this, Hoyt. I worry for you, too, and about you. For all of us. And I question what we can do, what we’re capable of. And I wonder why in all the world—the worlds—we’re the ones who have to do this thing. But none of that changes anything. We are the ones. And we’ve lost a very good man already.”
“If I lose you…Glenna, there’s a void in me at the very thought of it.”
Sometimes, she knew, the woman had to be stronger. “There are so many worlds, and so many ways. I don’t think we could ever lose each other now. What I have now is more than I’ve ever had before. I think it makes us better than we were. Maybe that’s part of why we’re here. To find each other.”
She leaned into him, sighed when his arms encircled her. “Stay with me. Come lie with me. Love me.”