“As did I,” the blond Witch asserted, before she could tack a but . . . onto her statement. “That’s all he cares about—and he only cares about it because he is my friend.” Shrugging to resettle his shoulders and spine, he said, “It’s my body and my life, and I quite enjoyed it. Nothing will change that part, if we don’t let it. Besides, you can request that he step into the Dark in the future, if that is what you truly want.”
His matter-of-fact attitude was somewhat reassuring, but Saleria still felt a little odd about the situation. While kissing him, she had only been aware of Aradin, not Teral. It was only when that awareness came back to her that things had felt awkward. Unlike her previous worries, however, a new one had surfaced.
“What if he doesn’t like being shut out?” Saleria found herself asking. “Is that honestly fair to him? I mean, yes, he’s technically no longer alive, and it’s not his body . . . but he does have a life of sorts. I guess . . .” She frowned and picked at some of the moss growing between them, trying to order her thoughts as well as her words. “It’s not fair to expect the woman to have to deal with two men at once, one always constantly there and watching, but is it at all fair for the man and the woman to expect the watcher to have to leave, to . . . ah . . . never know intimacy, even if it’s only secondhand? Not that I’m advocating he, uh . . . I mean . . .”
(Give me the body and I’ll tell her myself,) Teral offered.
(I’m too comfortable to move,) Aradin grumbled. He moderated his complaint with an extension of that thought. (Besides, this is part and parcel of her complaint. Here—tell her much more directly.) Unfolding one arm, he reached over and covered Saleria’s fingers with his own. “Here. Let Teral tell you himself, directly.”
“Directly?” Saleria asked.
(Yes, directly,) she heard the lighter-voiced, older Witch say in her mind. Gasping, she started to pull away, but Aradin tightened his grip, keeping her close physically. Teral, however, was the one to reassure her verbally. (This is just a part of our holy magics—and no, it does not break the Laws of God and Man that state how the thoughts of mortals are our last bastion of privacy, and that there shall never be a spell to peer into the head of another living mortal.)
“It . . . it’s not?” she asked, blinking in confusion. “But I thought . . .”
“The Gods have decreed that no living mortal may read the mind of another living mortal,” Aradin told her, gently squeezing her fingers. “But Guides are no longer alive, for all that I have given Teral a semblance of life.”
(If you think of it another way, there is no way that I could be a Guide, residing within my Host, if we could not share our thoughts,) Teral added, silencing her next question. (And I do not do this lightly, nor casually. It is holy magic, and as such, should not be profaned by carelessness or malice, or other ill intentions. I do this to reassure you directly, with no lies between us, that I will accept any request you make to have me step into the Dark whenever you wish to be intimate with my Host. It is his life, and no longer mine.)
Aradin could hear what Teral was saying to her because Teral willed him to hear it. But Aradin could not share his thoughts with her, which left him with mere speech. “The choice is yours, Saleria. But I will be completely honest with you. Teral is now my closest friend . . . and like all closest friends, I’d be inclined to discuss any relationship I may enter into with him, to ask for advice, to offer a moment of humor, to seek sympathy over a misunderstanding or a mistake. I would try to refrain if you asked . . . but would you honestly refrain from discussing such details with your own best, closest friend?”
At his words, a face flashed into her thoughts, nut-brown and heart-shaped, with hazel eyes, tight dark curls, and flashing white teeth frequently bared in a smile. Saleria hadn’t thought about Aslyn in weeks, but she did remember how close she and her fellow acolyte had been, back during their temple training. They still wrote to each other, with Daranen keeping Aslyn’s letters separate from the constant stream of petitions so that Saleria could answer them in her spare time, rather than assume it was meant for some prayer.
Aslyn was now a full-fledged Priestess, not just a Deacon, but her assigned parish and chapel were far to the south. And in her most recent letter, she did talk about the romance budding between her and one of the local landholders, and I wrote back to her with some comments and encouragements I felt I could add, Saleria acknowledged. “I suppose that’s fair. That you can talk to each other. But . . . watch?”