The Only One

all."
    "You didn't like the way things were, so you sought to change them. Don't you see? You chose." He took her chin between his finger and thumb, forced her to look at him. "You used tragedy as a springboard for action. But what did I do after I lost Seri and the infant? Nothing, Taj. Nothing."
    Those bleak days, months, years played out in his mind as if he'd experienced them yesterday. Nostrils flaring, he waited until the demons sank back into his psyche before he spoke again. "I let sorrow get the best of me. I allowed loss to hold me back. Never again, Taj. Never again. "
    He smoothed his hands over her hair as he searched her face. "You don't remember the poor excuse for a man I was back then." When he was seventeen, she was only eleven, protected by a doting father who did his best to shelter her—as much as a child of Sienna could be sheltered. "We're seven years apart—"
    "Six," she corrected, seething.
    "Six and a half. I was an apathetic cynic. I drank too much. I didn't care if I lived or died, and I was dangerous to everyone because of it."
    "You still grieved for Seri."
    "That's what everyone thought. But that grief had run its course. Rather, I used Seri's death as an excuse—
    an excuse for indifference. It allowed me to avoid dealing with my failures as a man, because to tell the truth, at that time I didn't feel much like one."
    Taj glanced away, her throat moving. "I curse myself for the remark I made at dinner last night. It wasn't your fault, what happened to your wife. How could it have been? She was ill; we didn't have the ability to treat her. Or the baby. There was nothing you could have done."
    "Perhaps. But whose fault is it for what I let myself become afterward?" he asked a little too harshly. "I accept full blame for those wasted years. I could have taken concrete steps to help improve our lives, to make it easier, healthier, safer."
    He took a breath that he suspected broadcast the intensity of his pain, and jammed his fingers through his hair. "Then Pasha died and you came into the Big Room. ..." He broke off and watched as many unnamed emotions crossed Taj's face.
    "You bid for the position of raider commander soon after that. We started working together," she said. Her voice softened a fraction. "I was able to achieve so much of what I'd wanted with your support. Your philosophy, your plans—they were aligned with my own," she murmured. Her expression darkened again.
    "But not anymore," she finished bitterly. "Stay low, stay safe—pah!"
    She lurched off the bed. "They're waiting for you, aren't they?"
    Something inside Romjha wrenched with the heavy-hearted sound of her voice.
    He sighed and went after her. She whirled on him. "No! No more stories about words I said, my apparent inspiration. How I changed your path! I will not be your personal rallying call to war, Romjha B'kah. I will not be the justification for this madness."
    "You are my reason for everything. Everything, Taj."
    She froze.
    He closed on her. "I wasn't much more than a boy when I married. Sixteen, going on seventeen."
    Clearly knocked off balance, she glanced at him askance.
    "I loved Seri, yes, but it was a different love from what I believe I'm capable of now." Patiently, and yet with his heart pumping, he watched Taj absorb the implications of his admission. "Yes, Inajh d'anah," he said quietly, reaching up to smooth his thumb over her soft, suddenly parted lips. "I love you. I love you as the man I am now."
    She made a strangled noise. Her entire body trembled, and she squeezed her eyes shut. He wasn't quite sure what it meant, but it wasn't the reaction he'd hoped for.
    A wave of insecurity settled over him, self-doubt. What if she doesn't want me? What if my feelings for her are forever one-sided? But he refused to listen to those doubts. He would win her over, no matter how long it took.
    "No. Don't. You can't love." She sneered the word as if it were a curse. "There's no point. The probability of loss is too high."
    "We're not mixing explosives, Taj. We're talking about our future."
    "Exactly. You have to control your destiny, or it will control you. That's the way I want to live my life."
    "By not living it?" he demanded. "I've been there, Taj. You don't want to go down that path, believe me. I won't let you."
    She took several deep gulps of air. Then the rage he'd seen building in her finally exploded. "No!" She thumped her fists onto his chest, pushing at him.
    The force of her fury nearly