The First King of Shannara - Terry Brooks [139]
“Kira is married,” he said softly, his voice breaking.
“Kira is alive. Life breeds hope. If you want her badly enough, perhaps you can find a way to have her. But you cannot have both of us. I have lost one of the two most important men in my life. I lost him without ever taking time to speak with him as I am speaking with you. I will not let that happen a second time.”
She paused, uncomfortable with what she was about to say, but refusing to look away. “I am going to tell you something. If Tay had asked me to choose between you, I might have chosen him.”
There was an endless silence between them. Their eyes locked and held. They stood in the center of the room, motionless. The fire in the hearth crackled softly and the rain beat down. The shadows in the room had begun to lengthen with the approach of nightfall.
“I do not want to lose you,” Jerle said quietly.
Preia did not respond. She was waiting to hear more.
“I did love Kira once,” he admitted. “I love her still, I suppose. But it’s not the same as it was. I know I have lost her, and I no longer mourn that loss. I haven’t for years. I care for her. I think of her when I think of Tay and our childhood. She was part of that, and I would be foolish if I tried to pretend that it was otherwise.”
He took a deep breath. “You asked me if I loved you. I do. I haven’t really thought about it in any deliberate way — I just always accepted it. I suppose I believed that you would always be there and so dismissed any further consideration as unnecessary. Why examine something that was so obvious? There seemed no need to do so. But I was wrong. I see that. I took you for granted without even realizing it. I thought that what we shared was sufficient as it was. I didn’t allow for change or doubts or complacency.
“But I have lost Tay and a large part of myself with him. I have lost direction and purpose. I am come to the end of a road I have traveled for a long time and find no way to turn. When you ask if I love you, I am faced with the fact that loving you is perhaps all I have left. It is no small thing, no consolation to measure against my pain. It is much more than that. I feel foolish saying this. It is the one real truth I can acknowledge. It means more than anything else in my life. Tay let me discover this by dying. It is a high cost to pay, but there it is.”
His big hands reached out and fastened gently on her shoulders.
“I do love you, Preia.”
“Do you?” she asked quietly.
He felt a vast distance open between them as she spoke the words. He felt an immense weight settle on his shoulders. He stood awkwardly in front of her, unable to think of what else he could do. His size and strength had always been a source of reassurance, but with Preia they seemed to work against him.
“Yes, Preia,” he said finally. “I do. I love you as much as I have ever loved anyone. I don’t know what else to say. This, I guess — that I hope you still love me.”
She said nothing even then, standing there motionless before him, looking into his eyes. The tears had stopped, but her face was streaked and damp. A tiny smile lifted the comers of her mouth. “I have never stopped loving you,” she whispered.
She stepped forward into his arms and let him hold her. After a while, she held him back.
They were sitting together before the fire when Vree Erreden appeared several hours later. It was dark by then, the last of the daylight faded, the rain lessened to a drizzle that fell without sound on the already drenched woodlands. A silence had fallen across the weary city, and lights had begun to appear in the windows of buildings barely glimpsed through gaps in the sagging, water-laden boughs of the trees. No one lived in the palace now, the building empty while repairs were made and a ruler determined, and only the summerhouse saw