Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 192
He brushed back his hair. She seemed happy at the
thought, and he did not want to disappoint her. Still... "I can’t
stay," he said.
Her face fell. "Why not? You’re not going back to your
damnable army?"
"This is another army, and another war." He shrugged
uncomfortably. "I want to talk to Queen Galas. She's the only
one on this off-chart world who seems to know what the Winds
are. The only human on Ventus with vision. Naturally, she's
going to be killed for it. So I have to reach her immediately."
Megan folded her arms under her breasts. "You know
this queen?"
"No. Never met her."
Megan watched him pick his way carefully out of the
garden. He hadn’t said he was in love with the queen. Still, he
was willing to leave Megan to see her.
He paused next to her, waiting for her to fall into step as
he headed for the cottage. His recovery had been unnaturally
swift, so that by now he showed no sign of having been at
death's door. Quite the contrary; his face glowed with health,
and he moved with a cat-like grace he had sometimes caught
her admiring. None of this surprised Megan; he was a morph,
or some spirit very like that, so such powers were to be
expected. But he was still a wounded man, she knew,
regardless of his bodily strength. He walked and ate like one in
shock, and their conversations had continued to be brief and
awkward. Some men trod heavily on their own hurt; the worse
it was, the harder they would push it down, but it showed--in
premature age, in lines of exhaustion and anger in the face.
And she well knew that a man who will not salve his own pain
will often put all his energy into healing that of others'. To
Megan, such brutality against oneself combined the most noble