But later that night, unable to sleep and watching his familiar form beside her in the darkness, she was dismayed by a strange voice that told her she wished she was going alone. Even as he had said, she began to wonder how deep, how true, how honest was their love? And for the first time in many months she felt the terrible uncertainty of the dreamer who has wrapped all hope and affection about the shoulders of a single lover.
IS THIS THE MAN I WANT TO SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE WITH? And as much as she wanted to say yes, she couldn't. Because she didn't know.
*
In the chill hour of dawn Kalus woke, and in turn looked upon the sleeping figure into whom he had poured his life's blood. To see her lying there beside him, breathing evenly, her face warm and softened like a child's, was all that he had ever asked, or ever could ask, of the Nameless. His love for her in that moment, when he knew, or feared, that her loyalty to him would soon be put to its severest test, was almost unbearable. Thoughts of a life without her he could not begin to face, and he, too, felt a moment of doubt.
'Sometimes if you love someone, you have to let them go.' She hadn't meant the words then, but what if now….. If their love could not stand, in the bright and hard light of day, then the efforts of a lifetime were in vain. For if she, who knew him to the depths of his being—-his trials and broken dreams, his personal weakness and indomitable strength—-if she found in him nothing to love and cherish and hold on to, then who in all the cold, lonely world ever would?
If he had known the full quotation, or she the effect its partial phrasing would have on him, perhaps they could have talked it out, and both found in these simple but profound words some solace:
'If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it is yours. If it does not, it never was.'
And if, in that moment he had woken her, perhaps she would have seen in his eyes a depth of love that put aside all questions, and in the returning echo of her heart, sealed their bond forever. But he did not wake her, because he was afraid. And she never told him the full quote, because like so many of life's precious and irretrievable moments, it was gone forever.
He couldn't cage her, and he knew it. She couldn't love him fully without knowing. So be it.
So it was.