#rookarin

[nerdanel01]

Dilemma

Emmrich Volkarin/F!Rook 5k+ wc | SFW, CW profane language (Johanna drops some f-bombs) EXCERPT: “Ah, yes, Emmrich. Come in. Close the door behind you.”

That had the alarms in his head ringing. What did Johanna have to say to him that she did not want anyone else in the Mourn Watch to overhear? His stomach flipped, terrified that she had ill news to share with him.

“Did you find something?” he asked, his voice both keen and fearful. “Is she—”

“No,” Johanna said, shaking her head, dragging the heels of her palms over her forehead as though she were trying to smooth away a budding migraine. Bitterly, she continued, “No, there is still no sign of her. It is like the Maker himself scooped her up in his hands and set her down half a continent away.” But then, with a frustrated sigh and a shake of her head, Johanna changed tact. “But I did not call you here to talk about her. I wanted to talk about you.”

“About me?”

“Yes, you.” Johanna put both her elbows on the desk, folding her hands together, and gave him an unbearable look of concern. “How are you, Emmrich?"

9:52 Dragon

He would have thought it impossible, but it was true: after all these years, so late in his life, Emmrich was still discovering new things about himself. Though he had never before felt himself inclined towards habitual self-loathing and self-punishment, he had found himself, over the last two years, developing a taste for such masochism. 

When, by chance, he had seen the promotional poster for The Elixir of Love displayed outside the opera house, he had made an immediate beeline for the box office. Not unaware of the pain it would cause him to sit through the performance—indeed, perhaps in anticipation of it—he impulsively bought out the whole box he had shared with Agnes during their first outing at the theatre so long ago. 

The music that had once felt so sweet and buoyant to him now tugged painfully at his heart. How utterly stupid he had been—nearly as foolish as Adina, the opera’s heroine, though she at least had realized her mistake before it was too late, before Nemorino was lost to her forever. He could not escape the memory of Agnes, her parted lips colored with red pigment as she had watched the opera, breathless. 

He leaned back into the shadows of the box so that no one else in the theatre would see his wet cheeks shining in the dim performance light. 

And, unable to bear even the first melancholy opening notes when Nemorino took the stage for his final aria, Emmrich stood up from his seat and made a discreet exit. 

‘What more need I look for? She loves me! Yes, she loves me, I see it, I see it.’

But instead of returning to the Necropolis he had waited on the opera house steps, trying to calm his eager, hopeful, thundering heart while he waited for the performance to conclude. As the audience began to stream out of the theatre, Emmrich stood, facing the lobby doors and scanning every face, just as he had scrutinized the audience from his box before the curtain rose on the production. There was no reason to believe Agnes was still in Nevarra City. Two years, they had been searching for her; the other Watchers, that they might officially and dishonorably discharge her from their ranks for her abandonment of her post; and Emmrich, that he might fall at her feet and beg her forgiveness. And as the crowd swelled, then thinned to a trickle—as the ushers began to snuff the theater lamps and lock the doors for the night—Emmrich should have acknowledged his defeat. 

Still, he held out an impossible hope. The crowd had been thick; the theatre packed. Emmrich made his way to the public gardens, and posted himself on a bench beneath the watchful gaze of Caspar Pentagahst, mere feet from where he had danced with Agnes over seven years ago. Where he should have kissed her, fully and deeply, had he not been a coward and a fool. If she were here, if she had been drawn back to the city, to the opera, might she retrace their steps, as Emmrich himself now did? An impossible hope. Still, Emmrich sat in the park through the night, tormented by ghosts and regrets, languishing in memories, until dawn cracked the sky. 

Though Emmrich had tried to hide it, losing Agnes had changed him. He was less ebullient than he had been, more withdrawn. Slower to make connections with the younger initiates that joined the ranks of the Mourn Watch. His work, to which he had always been devoted, took on the mania of obsession. When an unfortunate incident in the Necropolis had claimed Wilfred, he had virtually locked himself in his study. Only eating when Myrna brought him food from the dining hall and bullied him into forcing down a few bites; only sleeping in fitful starts in his armchair. He had emerged at last two and a half weeks later, unshaven, haggard, and over a full stone lighter, with Manfred—his most splendid creation yet—trailing sentiently behind him. Compared to his predecessors, Manfred was so complex, so alive, that he was a perfect proxy for genuine human contact. And rather than resting, rather than celebrating, and allowing himself a respite from his work, his success with Manfred had only thrown him deeper into it. 

One day, after this had gone on for three months, Johanna had summoned him to her office. Emmrich had stood in her doorway, exhausted and listless from another late night in the study. “You wished to speak with me?”

Johanna looked up at him, set her spectacles down on her desk and rubbed wearily at her eyes. At the time the search for Agnes had still been fully active; the failure to find her was weighing on Johanna, though Emmrich could have told her months ago that she would not succeed in her pursuit. Perhaps, if Agnes had genuinely intended to betray the Mourn Watch by profiting from the sale of its secrets, there might have been a trail to follow. But Emmrich had been certain her only goal in departing the Mourn Watch had been to disappear entirely. 

“Ah, yes, Emmrich. Come in. Close the door behind you.”

That had the alarms in his head ringing. What did Johanna have to say to him that she did not want anyone else in the Mourn Watch to overhear? His stomach flipped, terrified that she had ill news to share with him.

“Did you find something?” he asked, his voice both keen and fearful. “Is she—”

“No,” Johanna said, shaking her head, dragging the heels of her palms over her forehead as though she were trying to smooth away a budding migraine. Bitterly, she continued, “No, there is still no sign of her. It is like the Maker himself scooped her up in his hands and set her down half a continent away.” But then, with a frustrated sigh and a shake of her head, Johanna changed tact. “But I did not call you here to talk about her. I wanted to talk about you.”

“About me?”

“Yes, you.” Johanna put both her elbows on the desk, folding her hands together, and gave him an unbearable look of concern. “How are you, Emmrich?"

“How am I?” he repeated, incredulous. Had she called him here to talk about his feelings? “I’m fine.”

Johanna hummed, looking at him skeptically. “Not sure I believe that, frankly. You have not been yourself, not since…” Johanna’s voice trailed off, reconsidering, but she did not need to say it. Not since Agnes left. Neither of them had spoken her name, and yet her ghost was just as present in the room, as material as the both of them. Johanna’s voice became gentler. “I thought perhaps you would like to take some time off. Visit your family’s estate in the countryside, before winter is upon us.”

Emmrich had not spent any real length of time with his family since he had joined the Mourn Watch. He did not think he would enjoy the curiosity and questions, the gossip his sudden reappearance after all this time would provoke. “You were thinking I could?” he asked, a barbed edge to his tone. He knew he was being surly; he could not help it. “Or you are insisting that I do?”

“Are you asking me if that’s an order?” Johanna asked, unable to hide her faint amusement. “Emmrich, I know you well enough by now to know that I could not force you to do anything you do not want to do yourself.” Again, an uncharacteristic edge of concern crept into her voice. “But I am worried about you. I’m not the only one.”

“Then leave me to my work,” Emmrich insisted. “It is what I am good at. What I am best at.” “Emmrich—”

He cut her off; he would say it more plainly, if he needed to. “It is the only time I do not feel utterly wretched,” he told her, emphatically. “It is the only time… the only time I am not thinking about it. When I am working. I need the work, Johanna. If I were to stop…”

If he were to stop, Emmrich feared it would break him. The agony he felt at her loss, at that terrible severance, was difficult enough to bear with the distraction of work. If he did not have his studies—if he were consigned to the Nevarran countryside for some tortuous, indefinite period, forced to politely sip tea with his sister and play lawn games and do nothing of interest or of use to anyone—the grief would open its jaws and swallow him whole. 

For a moment, Emmrich feared Johanna would fight him. Certainly she had never shied from a confrontation in the past. But something in his face must have convinced her, because finally, she nodded. 

“Very well,” she acquiesced. “But Emmrich—you are not alone. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.” “You already have,” Emmrich told her, honestly. “You looked.” For different reasons, perhaps, than Emmrich’s, but they both wanted her to be found, and Johanna had done everything in her power to make it happen. “That she was so determined to vanish, that she left no trace… I do not hold you responsible for that.”

Without missing a beat, Johanna flung the question at him: “But you hold yourself responsible?”

Emmrich blinked at her, surprised she even had to ask. “Of course.” 

‘It was my fault, all of it, from beginning to end. If it were not for me, she never would have come here; if it were not for how I treated her, she never would have left.’

“Oh, Emmrich.” The pity and the compassion in her voice—two traits Johanna often kept in reserve—were devastating to him. She rose from behind her desk, circled around it to his side. In a rare display of intimacy and warmth, she lay her hand down on his shoulder, and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“If there is anything at all I can do—if you change your mind and want to take some time—please do not hesitate to let me know.”

That had been over a year ago. In the ensuing months, Emmrich had only retreated deeper into his work. He did resume taking his meals in the dining hall with the other Watchers, and made better efforts to keep himself as immaculately groomed as he had always been before. But these were hollow gestures, rituals performed out of the fear that if he did not improve, Johanna might change her mind and take things into her own hands, placing him on a forced leave of absence after all. At dinner, he no longer smiled or laughed as he once did. At night, when Myrna had left the study and returned to her own quarters, he sometimes found himself pulling out the special folio he had purchased for Agnes’ drawings, running his fingers over the fine linework and reminiscing. He felt himself becoming every bit as bitter and distant as his own father, and hated himself for it, but saw nothing he could do otherwise to stop it. To move through the world in any other way—to be present in it, to fully confront the totality of his loss and contend with it—would have been far too painful. 

Even his partnership with Myrna was strained. She had been one of his dearest friends in the Mourn Watch before they had been assigned to work together. Now, Emmrich suspected there was a part of her that resented him. After what had happened with Agnes, Emmrich had, perhaps, overcorrected. His partnership with Myrna he was determined to keep formal, clinical, professional; although he would also begrudgingly admit that it was anything but professional that Myrna was often forced to bring him food from the kitchens out of the fear that Emmrich was inadvertently starving himself. They shared the study, but even when Emmrich was just across the room from Myrna, he was worlds away, easily distracted, lost in rumination and self-recrimination. Even when the study was full—Emmrich, Myrna and Manfred altogether, working busily alongside one another—the room still felt empty, an essential warmth missing.

“Hello? Emmrich? Emmrich!”

With a start, Myrna’s voice pulled him out of his morose reverie. Across the study, from where they were working in tandem on some alchemical concoction, Myrna and Manfred were both staring at him; Manfred with concern, Myrna with no small amount of impatience. 

“Do you intend to answer that, or should I take your silence to mean that you expect myself or Manfred to do so on your behalf?”

‘Answer what…?’ Emmrich almost asked, but just then he heard Johanna’s voice, cast from the enchanted sending-stone set near the entrance of the study.

“Emmrich! Emmrich Volkarin! Are you going to answer me, or are you going to make me come down there myself?”

“Apologies, Myrna,” Emmrich answered, leaping up from his armchair and hastening to the crystal. “Lost in thought.”

He did not miss the soft, chididing, ‘as per usual’ that Myrna whispered under her breath, head bent conspiratorially with Manfred’s over their experiment. 

Stepping over to the doorway, Emmrich touched his fingers to the yellow facets of the carved stone, gleaming with prisms of magical energy as they transmitted Johanna’s voice.

“Yes, Johanna, I am here.”

“Excellent,” Johanna’s voice replied, unusually quick to forgive the sloth with which he’d answered her call. “Would you please join me in the public parlors, please? With all haste…!” And with that, the sending stone grew clouded.

“She’s in a remarkably good mood,” Myrna commented from across the room. She had not failed to notice the odd sweetness in Johanna’s voice, rare to begin with but rarer still in the last few weeks. Of late, the disturbances in the Necropolis had reached a fever pitch, exceeding even the danger that they had experienced when the Breach had opened in the South ten years prior. 

Emmrich had not missed it, either. “That cannot be a good thing,” he replied, with no small amount of trepidation. 

“Eager as she is, it will be worse if you keep her waiting,” Myrna added, which was all the impetus Emmrich needed to get on his way. 

But Johanna was not waiting for him in the public parlors. Curiously, she had posted herself up in the corridor leading in their direction. The past months had worn on her, aged her. Now, however—even from a distance—Emmrich could see that she was literally bouncing on the balls of her feet with excitement, her hand clasped briskly behind her back. The Mourn Watch insignia gleaming white upon her breastplate matched the glint of her teeth, revealed by the too-pleased grin on her face. 

Approaching her, he asked, “I thought you were going to meet me in the parlors?”

“Couldn’t resist.” Johanna’s grin widened. “You are not going to believe it. I didn’t believe it myself, when the docents came to tell me.”

“To tell you…?”

“Who was waiting for me,” Johanna replied, sweetly, “on the Necropolis steps.” 

Johanna gestured for Emmrich to follow her, turning and leading him down the corridors, to the public parlors the Mourn Watch staged to receive visitors. “You recall, of course, how the lower levels of the Necropolis have devolved into a quite literal den of horrors after the sky opened up and started spitting out demons a few months ago?”

“It is impossible to forget,” Emmrich answered, cagily. What did that have to do with the visitor they were on their way to greet? And why was Johanna in such high spirits about it? Johanna was his friend, and it was good to see her happy, but he did not like the smug look of satisfaction on her face one bit—

“Guess who just showed up offering to help us with that particular problem.”

Emmrich’s mouth and throat went dry. “Who?”

“Oh, I don’t know…” Johanna teased, giving an exaggerated, theatrical shrug. “Could it be, perhaps, one of the best Watchers I have ever had the pleasure of serving alongside? Perhaps even someone I proudly recruited myself?” Emmrich’s heart dropped into his stomach. ‘She cannot be saying—’ “Perhaps, someone you chased out of my guard over two years ago? But that would be crazy! What are the odds?”

The door to the public parlor was just coming into view around the curve of the hallway. From within, Emmrich could clearly hear a set of voices, raised in argument.

“Oooh,” Johanna said, furtively, “it sounds like the girls are fighting.”

“Johanna,” Emmrich said, fighting to keep his voice even, commanding. “Who is in there?”

Johanna only lifted an eyebrow at him, too self-satisfied, it seemed, to give him a straight answer. As they neared the entrance, the voices within the parlor became more distinct:

“…able to face the Elvhen God of Rebellion, but not your old boss?”

“…sounds like an appropriate division of labor! I brought you here, Lace. Now I’ll handle Fen’Harel, and you can deal with the Mourn Watch—”

Hot and cold all at once, mind blank and fuzzy, paralyzed with hope. Emmrich nearly tripped over his feet, forgetting how to walk, how to breathe as he reached for the doorknob. He knew that voice, he was sure of it—!

And if he had not been—if there was even the tiniest part of Emmrich that was not wholly confident of what he was about to find—it was not left to wonder long. Because as soon as she had thrown those words in response to whomever it was she was arguing with inside the parlor, Agnes had flung open the door.

Her eyes met his, and she froze like a stag, a prey animal trapped on the threshold between fight and flight. Emmrich could not think, could not breathe, possessed of but one beaming, brilliant thought: ‘It is her!’ Changed subtly by the two years she had been gone (the scar on her brow, the lines around her eyes) but still certainly Agnes, Agnes Gallatus, beloved , standing before him. He had given up hope. He had resigned himself to the belief that he would breathe his last with only the memory of her to comfort him. He wanted to laugh; he wanted to weep; he wanted to wrap his arms around her and draw her against him, press her body to his to be sure she was real. But the sight of her arrested him, elated him even as it threatened to asphyxiate him, and all he could do was stand dumbstruck before her, drinking in the sight of her.

It did not matter that she was unhappy to see him—and that was clear from a mere glance at her grey eyes. Irrelevant, too, that she had clearly been trying to sneak back out of the Necropolis and avoid this encounter entirely. All that mattered in that moment was that she was here, alive, in front of him. A gift he was certain he did not deserve. It felt so selfish to be happy, to be so pleased to see her here again. Perhaps he was just a selfish old man, after all. Emmrich fought the urge to fall to her feet, to wrap his arms around her calves so that she could not go until he finished debasing himself, begging for her forgiveness. 

So tight was the ache in his chest, so loud the pounding of his blood, he could barely draw the breath required to speak her name. "Agnes?"

Grief and shame pulled at her face. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then favored him with a maddeningly neutral expression of defeat. 

“Hello, Volkarin.”

An uncomfortable silence fell between them, only to be interrupted by one of the visitors seated in the parlor beyond the doorway. 

“Whoa. Is it just me, or did the vibe in here get really weird all of a sudden?”

Over Agnes’ shoulder, Emmrich saw a red-headed dwarf deliver a chastening shove of her elbow to the tattooed elf beside her, hissing, “Bellara!”

Taking that as her cue, Johanna stepped around Emmrich, placing herself squarely between himself and Agnes in the doorway. Sickeningly sweet, she asked: “And no greeting for me, after all this time?”

At the sight of Johanna, Agnes’ face flushed red with shame. She dropped her eyes to the floor, acknowledged her with a respectful, dutiful dip of her head. “Hello, Commander Hezenkoss.”

“Watcher Gallatus!” Though her back was to him, Emmrich could tell from the tone of Johanna’s voice alone that she was favoring Agnes with the same smarmy grin she’d worn the whole journey down the hallway. “The prodigal daughter returns! I have to say, I was confident we had seen the last of you.” Pausing for dramatic effect, she then added, “I am going to be charitable, and assume we are not catching you thusly on the threshold because you were about to embark on yet another hasty departure.”

Johanna had her pegged; Agnes’ blush deepened, the distress on her face plain. “Of course not, Commander.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Gallatus,” Johanna told her, pleasantly. “Come. Let us sit.”

Agnes bowed her head once more, then backed into the room, retreating to the tufted red velvet sofa against the far wall. She sat at the leftmost edge, next to the Dalish elf—Bellara, Emmrich guessed. On Bellara’s opposite side sat the red-headed dwarf; Johanna dropped into the high back chair beside her, forcing Emmrich to assume the only remaining chair in the room—not two feet from where Agnes sat on the sofa, her posture painfully straight, looking like she was ready to bolt from the room at the first opportunity granted to her.

The parlor was dimly lit by a magnificent chandelier that hung from the center of the ceiling, an artwork of wrought iron and pink glass that cast the room in a warm, rosy glow. As was customary, tea had been set out on the table for the guests, but it looked like only Bellara had welcomed herself to it. The elf anxiously passed her eyes between Johanna, Agnes, and Emmrich, then back to Agnes again; the awkwardness between them must have been painfully obvious.

“Hello, Commander Hezenkoss,” she chirped at last, raising a hand to wave, attempting to dispel the tension by the power of her cheer alone. “I’m Bellara Lutara, and this is Lace Harding,” she said, gesturing to the dwarf at her side; then, waving at Agnes, she added, “And of course, you already know Rook. It’s a delight to meet you! I love all the cute little skulls on your tea cups.”

“Rook?” Johanna said, grinning with interest, turning her eyes from Bellara back to Agnes. “What an enigmatic little moniker! No wonder we couldn’t find you, no matter how we searched.” 

Not one to eschew decorum, however, she relieved Agnes at last of her scrutiny and turned back to Bellara. “It is a pleasure to meet you both, Bellara Lutara and Lace Harding. You have my deepest gratitude for whatever role you played in reuniting us with our dear Agnes once more.”

Bellara smiled back at Johanna, not quite in on the joke. “Oh, believe me, it took a lot of convincing—”

But Agnes’ hand closed over Bellara’s, squeezing firmly enough to turn her knuckles white, the unspoken directive in the gesture immediately obvious: ‘I am begging you to shut the fuck up . ’

Johanna’s grin only widened, to near cheshire-cat proportions. She leaned forward, pouring herself a cup of tea from the steaming kettle on the table. “The docent who admitted you told me the most fascinating rumor,” she said at last, her voice still in that pitch of near-sadistic sing-song delight. “That you have come looking for our help. That is, the help of the Mourn Watch Guard.”

“That’s not quite the whole story,” Lace said, shifting to sit on the edge of the couch, the better to meet Johanna’s gaze. “We aren’t here to hold our hands out, looking for charity. We want to help you, too. We’re a part of the Veilguard…”

Lace went on, but Emmrich was hardly paying any attention to their exchange. He could not help himself from stealing glances at Agnes—Rook?—out of the corner of his eye. She would not look at him—would not look at anyone. She had at last released Bellara’s hand and folded her own tightly in her lap, and she was staring at the floor, somewhere between her legs. Her legs! In all the years that he had known Agnes, Emmrich had never seen her wear anything but skirts. That she now wore trousers was the most shocking part of her transformation, far more so than the slight wrinkles in her face or the strands of white beginning to weave with the black of her hair. What had happened to her, in the two years that she had been gone? Had they reshaped her into a different person entirely?

“So let me make sure I am understanding correctly,” Johanna said at last, folding her arms over her chest as she leaned back in her chair, looking directly at Agnes. “You, Agnes Gallatus, want to help me? Assist me, even? A prospect which was apparently unbearable, unthinkable to you two years ago? Maker, how things can change in time.” Then, sliding her eyes to Emmrich (having not failed to notice, he was sure, how he had been unable to keep his eyes off of Agnes since he had seen her) she added, with just as much dry humor, “And yet how many things stay the same. Wouldn’t you agree, Emmrich?”

For the first time since they’d nearly collided in the doorway, Agnes glanced at him, however briefly. Emmrich only locked his eyes on Johanna, praying that Agnes had not also caught him staring. He shrugged, made only a vaguely tortured, noncommittal noise in response. 

Johanna turned back to the others. “Lace Harding, you do not know me, nor do you seem to be fully privy to the drama surrounding Watcher Gallatus’ dishonorable desertion from the Mourn Watch in the first place. So you do not understand the true depth of pleasure it would give me to tell you, Miss Lutara here, and your companion Rook to fuck right off and leave my city, and never return.” 

Bellara blanched at Johanna’s language. For a brief moment, Agnes looked almost hopeful. 

Then Johanna sighed, uncrossing her arms, leaning her elbows on the chair’s armrests and steepling her fingers. “That being said,” she continued, “I cannot deny that patrolling the Necropolis has been an absolute shit show for the last few months.” Johanna’s voice was sober, now, no teasing to be heard in it. “We have lost more Watchers to incidents in the Necropolis in three months than we have in three decades. Our ranks are thinning faster than we can replenish them by training new initiates. In short, we are in over our heads. I am many things, but I am not a fool; and no matter how spiteful I may be, I would not do something so foolish as to refuse help when it is freely offered and so desperately needed.”

“However,” Johanna said, lifting a hand to point up an emphatic finger (and here her voice took a turn for the sharper), “therein lies a dilemma. Because when it comes to you, Agnes Gallatus,” Johanna said, pinning Agnes under her gaze, “the trust has been broken. I am truly and utterly incapable of believing that you, or by extension your associates who are outsiders otherwise unknown to me, will conduct yourselves as instructed and keep me apprised of your progress. And yet, because of how completely fucked we are at the moment, and because of the unique position of leadership in which I find myself, I am truly and utterly incapable of carving out the time or the energy to keep a close eye on you myself.”

Emmrich’s heart had begun to pound against his ribs; he wondered if the rest of them could hear it, frantically beating like a dance drum. 

Agnes was staring at Johanna, her jaw set. He saw by the muscles in her cheeks and her neck that she was grinding her teeth. A strained edge to her voice when she asked, “How do you propose we resolve that dilemma, Commander?”

And at that, the smug note returned to Johanna’s voice. 

“Well, it just so happens I have a solution.” 

And she extended her hand, palm up, to gesture at Emmrich.

“Johanna—” Agnes began to protest.

“Do not,” Johanna said, with a light and deeply unamused laugh, “‘Johanna’ me. We are not friends; we are not even colleagues. You saw to that.” Johanna took a deep breath, regaining control of her composure. Quietly, evenly, she explained: “A long time ago, I recruited you to the Mourn Watch to keep an eye on Emmrich, to make sure he did not get himself into any sort of trouble he couldn’t get himself out of. Emmrich, it is now your chance to return the favor. Is that acceptable to you?”

Immediately it was clear to Emmrich that Johanna had planned this all along, from the moment she had called him down from the study by the sending crystal. That she thought herself terribly clever, pairing the two of them off, making them each other’s problem and no one else’s. As for what he thought of it himself, Emmrich could not say. He could barely wrap his head around the reality that Agnes was here, beside him; the idea of descending with her into the Necropolis again after all of this time was almost too much to fathom.

Taking care to use her new chosen name, Emmrich answered, “I am not confident it is acceptable to Rook.”

Without missing a beat, Johanna snapped right back, “Well Rook and her friends will have to stomach it, because those are the terms.” Then, with a malicious gleam in her eye, Johanna turned to Agnes. “Or if you prefer, I can call Watcher Rolf down here to accompany you instead…?”

For a minute Emmrich thought Agnes was actually considering it. She was not looking at him, but he could see the wheels turning in her head, just the same. Weighing the options. How deeply it cut him! The thought that even after two years, her anger with him was still so fresh that she would prefer the company of a man Emmrich knew well she found to be an intolerable dullard to having to spend even a moment longer with Emmrich himself. Emmrich was not a fool. He did not think for a minute that after all this time and everything he had done to obliterate the bond between them, that any part of Agnes still loved him. Perhaps it was bold of him to hope that she would tolerate him, even just for a few days. But what a blessing it would be! What a pleasure, to discover what sort of woman she had grown into while she had been away from him—even if the years had hardened her into someone who could never forgive him. He did not deserve it. Selfishly, holding his breath, still he hoped for it.

At last, ever so slightly, Agnes dipped her head in Johanna’s direction. 

“Thank you, Commander Hezenkoss. Watcher Volkarin will be an acceptable escort.”