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Barryn tensed but complied. He wasn't afraid of this stranger. His rival was taller but slimmer and younger. If the confrontation came to blows, the medtech was confident who would come out on top. Behind them, Clarity stood frowning and watching.

Flinx did not raise his hands, however. Nor did he raise his voice.

“I can't tell you the specifics of why I had to leave Clarity in the care of friends. I've had a difficult time since I've been gone.” The smile returned, confident and, oddly enough, almost sympathetic. “There have been others before you. Now that I'm back, this time there will never be any more.”

Barryn refused to be lulled by his challenger's easygoing manner or to be provoked by his quiet insistence. “And if I tell you that I plan on sticking around and that I'm not going anywhere … ?”

“You don't understand,” Flinx told him quietly. “I've—had—a—difficult—time.” His eyes peered directly into those of the other man.

He could have sought to project onto the medtech. He didn't have to. He certainly did not try to, at least not consciously. Whatever flowed outward from him to pass between them was for once unforced and involuntary.

Meeting that stare, Barryn found himself gazing upon a thousand years worth of sorrow and worry. There was pain there, and heartbreak. A sense of loss beyond anything he had ever encountered before. Knowledge, terrible knowledge, of matters beyond his imagining. Answers there for the taking to questions he shrank from asking. So much suffering, so much anguish, a wealth of bereavement. Failure, inadequacy, hopelessness, desperation.

An inescapable and palpable emptiness.

Swallowing hard, feeling a sudden dry tightness in his throat, Tambrogh Barryn retreated from that stare. “I—I didn't know,” was all he could mumble.

Flinx responded with the slightest of shrugs. “I didn't want you to have to know. The fewer who know, the better.” He glanced briefly to his left. “Clarity knows. More than that, she understands. Hardly anyone else understands even a little. I need that understanding. Without it, I'm afraid that inside myself I'll shrivel down to nothingness. If that happens, a great many more mortals than me will learn things they don't want to learn and would be better off not knowing.”

Barryn found himself nodding without thinking. “I'm sorry,” he heard himself whispering. “I'm so very, very sorry.”

Flinx's smile returned. “It's all right. I understand. You understand.”

“Yes.” With that, Tambrogh Barryn, who had never turned away from a confrontation or a challenge in his life, pivoted sharply and walked away, striding upslope at a rapid pace toward the nearest building.

Approaching from behind, Clarity slipped her arm through Flinx's as they both watched the medtech take his leave. “What did you say to him?” Her expression narrowed slightly. “You didn't threaten him, did you? He's like so many men, at heart desperately in love with himself, but he means well.”

Turning back to her, Flinx let out a tired sigh. “I didn't say anything. I let him look into my soul a little bit. I know he's not a bad guy. If he was, he wouldn't have seen what he saw, or react to it the way he did. He understands.”

She blinked. “Understands what, Flinx?”

“This.”

Taking her in his arms, he used his mouth to forestall any more questions. Watching the two lovers, other patients and medical personnel smiled, or commented, or sniggered under their breath. None of it mattered to the young couple. It had been a long, long time, and they had a lot of catching up to do.

Out in the lake, a tree that had taken leave of its rooting was drifting unhurriedly southward. Something bright-winged and swift had coiled itself around one of its bare upper branches. The creature's iridescent emerald-green head tilted back to gaze upward as a slightly smaller version of itself dropped toward it from the increasingly cloud-filled sky. Rain began to fall as Pip loosened her grip on the branch, spread her wings,