He takes a step back, and then two steps forward. His hands, large and strong, go to her shoulders, holding her while he stares at her face.

"They told me," he says, voice rough, holding her like a vise, "that you were dead. Oh my gods. Isplourr, they said you were dead."

But she's not. She's not dead. She's not and everything's going to be okay and he wonders, for a second, at the relief sweeping through him, the overwhelming conviction that things are okay now. She's alive.

So is he.