around his heart.
It wasn't long after Stephie was born that Gwen had decided she'd had enough. He couldn't give her what she wanted. He couldn't give anyone that much of himself. Except maybe his kids.
And now he hardly ever saw them. Especially since the arrival of the Esri.
God, but he hated those bastards. His gaze snapped to the one beside him, but that flare of hatred died as he took in her lovely, pensive face. She seemed sad to him, and for some reason that bothered him. But he thought he understood.
"You've traded one prison for another, haven't you?"
She turned to him, her face lit by the passing headlights, an unspoken question in her eyes.
"You look unhappy," he said quietly.
Turning back to the front, she tipped her head back against the seat. "I was thinking about my mother. It sounds foolish, but it's finally hit me that she won't be there when I return. I knew the moment she died. Three hundred years I've known she was gone. But I've been gone, too. In a different way, perhaps, but gone all the same."
"You haven't been out of that forest since she was killed."
"No. And in some illogical part of my mind I've always imagined she'd be there when I got home. Until tonight."
"Because the prospect of returning home is no longer a dream."
"Yes." She met his gaze again, as if surprised he understood.
Harrison nodded. "You haven't seen your world since it changed, since she left it. Not until you go back and see it for yourself will you be able to fully accept that she's gone. We call it closure."
She blinked rapidly. In the light of a streetlamp, he glimpsed a sheen of tears.
"I'm sorry, Ilaria. This has to be very hard for you."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her stiffen and waited for her pride to reassert itself.
To his surprise, she relaxed against the seat and sighed. "It's foolish to mourn her. We never got along."
He snorted softly. "Believe me, it doesn't matter. Parents are parents. It's a tie that never completely lets go of you, even when you want it to."
"I suppose." She lifted a hand to her forehead. "I'm concerned, too, about the reason King Rith gave my people for imprisoning me in the forest."
"You don't know?"
Dropping her hand, she turned her head, a hint of a smile lifting her lips, though no smile reached her eyes. "Unlike you, we have no form of communication except one. The guards were ordered to incarcerate me in the forest and so they did. We never heard from the outside world again."
He had trouble wrapping his mind around such a concept. Three hundred years.
"Are you afraid your people may have been turned against you?"
"Not turned against me, no. At least I hope not. But I have no illusions but that Rith will do whatever he must to keep his throne. He's always been an ambitious, power-hungry male without morals. He'll either try to capture me and send me back to the forest, or try to force someone to kill me as he did my mother. And that's if he doesn't get his stones. If he does, if he acquires the ultimate Caller's power, there will be no laws to contain him. We'll suffer as badly as you will."
Harrison's hand lifted from the steering wheel, as if to reach for her and give her shoulder a gentle squeeze of reassurance, but he forced his grip back on the wheel instead. What was he going to do, tell her everything would all work out in the end? What were the chances?
Instead, they continued through the streets of D.C. in silence.
As they crossed the bridge back into Virginia, Ilaria seemed to once more take an interest in the view outside the car. She leaned forward, looking up with awe as they passed beneath towering office buildings.
"Your world fascinates me."
"It's changed in fifteen hundred years."
"You have no idea."
"I have some idea. We were mostly goat-herders back then."
She glanced at him with a small, genuine smile before turning back to the window. "Humans were more than goat-herders. But what you've accomplished since is extraordinary. I wish I had time to fully explore the wonders of your world."
Her words were quietly said, but filled with such depth of longing that something inside him responded. For one inexplicable moment he wanted to be the one to show her, to teach her. He tried to imagine her in a ball cap and jersey cheering beside