A/N: And we have reached the end of the story. Many, many thanks to everyone who has enjoyed the ride with me.

Epilogue

(Excerpt From The Private Journal of Herran Turnlong).

"When you think it is over, it begins again."

I do not know who said that, or if anyone did. It may be merely a platitude to which my mind returns now and again because it created it. It is deceptively simple- banal, really. But considering what happened tonight, or rather almost happened...

Tandra called me to the Guards' compound today, and a summons from her is so rare- she needs me far less than I need her, I sometimes think, what I often see in her eyes notwithstanding- that I went the moment the Council decided to rest from our business for a short while. (Translation of this: To brood in silence for a while, until we have enough anger and sourness built up in our bellies to fight about it again).

But I am digressing.

I came into the Guards' compound near sunset, and I lingered to watch the sky for a moment. Sunset always reminds me of her, perhaps because of the color of her hair. If we have been apart for days, unable to touch, unable to speak, unable to look into each other's eyes and reassume the friendship that we each only share with one other Elwen in the world, then I can look at the sunset and dream of her without ever closing my eyes.

But this time I turned around, and she was there, and I had no need of sunsets.

Stars above. Sunset above. She is lovely. And not from face or form. There are many who would call her plain, unable to read the emotions in her dark eyes, unable to see what makes her face so striking is not mere arrangement of features but the spirit that blazes through.

That spirit...

I firmly believe there is nothing in the world more lovely, nothing more worthy of love, and nothing I love more.

It shone through her eyes today as she came to me, and clasped her arms about me, and leaned her head against my chest. There was no one else about, which was part of the reason behind her action. Usually, we do not want to do anything to encourage the rumor that we are lovers, and so we do not touch in the presence of others. But she did this, so we were alone.

I held her, and asked into her hair what the matter was, what she had called me here for. She reaches out to me, even when we are alone, usually only in times of deepest grief or when the memories are too strong.

But this time, I had misjudged her. Or perhaps I had been doing that all along. She looked up into my eyes, and I understood that she had reached out for me to share her joy, because the joy was too much.

"Vindia has left her post." Her voice was softer than the wind, softer than the hair I drew gently along my finger, one of my favorite gestures to make. "I am Captain of the Guards now."

A shattering star.

That was the feeling, the picture, I received at once. It was as if my heart had burst in my chest, or a star had gone supernova there. I could not recall feeling so completely happy in all my life, not when I became the Councilmaster, not when I first realized that I had cowed Quirrin into obeying my edicts, not when I accepted the betrothal collar from my beloved.

"Tandra."

My breathing of her name said it all. She looked into my eyes, and smiled, and then began to weep at the joy she saw there, her own joy gathered, fanned back at her in radiant rays from the surface of a mirror, and redoubled because of that.

I knew this would change everything. I knew that from now on, she would not have as many moments to slip away to the Council building and speak with me, about the Game or about the sunset that she saw the other night. I knew we would both be separated by our guards, and that the rumors about us being lovers would now be more troublesome than ever, as there were many who would not want power to link to such power.

But, in that moment, none of that mattered.

That moment was hers, and mine, in a strange way that it could not have been if I was thinking clearly, that no moment of Chemilli's life could ever have been, because she would not have trusted me enough to share every nuance of it as Tandra had.

Tandra could read the thoughts migrating through my mind- I knew she could- and she lifted her head, closed her eyes, and waited.

My kiss was hungrier than any I have ever given her. It has been sadness that bonded us before, or fear, or desperate need. The times that I have come closest to breaking my vow are always on the eve of a duel, or a time when Quirrin seems ready to rebel against me. Then we fear that we might never see each other again, and as if by instinct, we try to share this, the one thing we have never shared.

And never will. Tonight we came so close to sharing it that I still tremble to think about it. Or perhaps I tremble with the knowledge that Tandra would have loved to share it, that she would have welcomed me in her bed, even though she knows of the vow, even though she knows that I love another woman, even though she has her share of admirers herself, any of whom would make her a good husband, and several of whom she has confessed to me she dreams of, now and then.

I never ask her whom she dreams of the rest of the time. I hope that she never thinks to ask me.

I could feel the sweetness that bound us, sweetness without the bitterness that this act would have had had I performed it with Chemilli, trust and love and an innocent shining wonder in the hunger that filled our bodies. Tandra's delight in being desired as I desired her was as great as mine in the way that she desired me, though I think that mine had more justification. There is so little reason in the way that she wants me, as if she thinks with her heart in the sole matter of me.

It almost breaks my heart to tell her no, but I have already had it broken that way, and that means that no one else will ever touch it again that way.

Almost.

This time, it was a Guard walking around the corner who snapped the spell. Tandra moved away from me and laid her hand on my arm as if we had been merely speaking. It would not have fooled anyone with a nose for emotion, of course, with the slightest sensitivity. They could have smelled the desire, known what we so wanted to do, and stared at us, I am sure, in a mixture of disgust and incomprehension that we did not simply consummate our desire, if we wanted to so very badly.

Preferably not in front of him, of course, but other than that...

No. I will not joke any longer, or say things I do not mean. I owe myself the truth here if nowhere else, so that I will not be tempted to say these things or think these thoughts again.

I would have broken my vow if not for that Guard. It was not he who broke the spell, though. It was me, and the oath and the remorse that came rushing back at the last moment.

"Herran?"

Tandra was looking at me with concern in her eyes- and something more. Oh, yes, it was me who held us apart and back that night.

"Tandra," I said at last, slowly inclining my head and smiling with my eyes at her, though my voice was slow and solemn- and hoarse. "Congratulations."

She tilted her head. "I thought that you might wish to spend some time speaking with me about the curalli the Guards caught outside the walls yesterday," she said quietly. "It is my affair now, and anything that you might have kept secret because of my position then-"

"Of course."

I began to speak.

It is safer than some things.

But I would not yield being so alive again for anything in the world, or out of it, that I can think of.