Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [230]
“No,” he whispered. “Not really.”
An expression that Damien couldn’t begin to read flickered across the youth’s face. Something strange, intensely human, an emotion that would have been ill-suited to the Hunter’s former mien. Affection? Regret? “Good-bye, Damien Vryce.” The youth bowed ever so slightly, his eyes never leaving Vryce’s own. “Good luck.”
And then he turned with easy grace and began to walk back toward the pass, silken sleeves fluttering in the wind. Damien almost ran after him. There were things he needed to say, farewells and gratitudes and hopes for the future that he’d never had a chance to express in the Hunter’s lifetime. But he didn’t go after him. Nor did he call out the name that was on his lips, though it took all his self control not to. Because if what the youth said was true, then such words could prove fatal. Instead he watched the young man walk away in silence as if he were truly a stranger, feeling something inside himself twist into a knot as the distance between them grew. Not until a little girl brushed against the stranger, leaving a smear of dirt on that crimson sleeve—not until a gloved hand rose up to brush off the offending stain, and once more came short of succeeding—did a new thought, a startling thought, take shape within Damien’s brain.
If the Hunter had made a bid for life (he reasoned), and if he had talked Andrys Tarrant into going along with it ... if he had sacrificed himself in the way this youth suggested, and done so successfully, so that he now walked the earth as another man, no longer a sorcerer because the Patriarch’s sacrifice had stripped them all of power ... then that man, if he happened to get dirty now, would have to take a bath to get himself clean. Just like everybody else.
In the dawn of a new world, Damien Vryce smiled.