by Shadowy Star
April 2006
Disclaimer: I don't own the Coldfire trilogy. It belongs to C.S. Friedman. I do own this story. Characters not appearing or being mentioned in the original trilogy are likewise mine. Do not archive or translate or otherwise use the story without permission.
A/N: How do you confess love? A prequel to 'Survivals'.
He bent down to close his wife's eyes. The newborn child in his arms looked up at him with eyes as green as those of Alina had been and, suddenly, he felt regret. He'd never loved her. He'd felt sympathy and even some attraction, but no love. He'd married her and if she'd survived the birth he would have stayed with her, but no, he'd never loved her. How could he if his heart and his soul belonged to someone else, from the very first moment of their meeting. His sight went unfocused as he remembered a face and a pair of soft, warm brown eyes looking at him across a dae's common room. Such warmth…
"Mer da Silva," the midwife said. "What's the boy's name?"
The man once called Gerald Tarrant smiled and kissed the child very gently on the forehead. "Damien," he answered. "His name is Damien."
∞
Two years later another man bent down to place a kiss on the forehead of an other child
Mireille smiled tiredly at him. The birth hadn't been easy for both mother and child, and at some point he'd feared complications he wouldn't be able to deal with in this new world where the fae was no longer Workable.
"She's beautiful," she said.
"She is," Damien Vryce agreed.
"And she has your eyes," Mireille added. "Look, they're brown. Not blue like mine."
Damien looked at his wife who was comfortably settled on the bed, cradling their child in her arms. Three years ago he wouldn't have believed this possible. He felt a pang of guilt at the thought that –though he adored his newborn daughter– he didn't love her mother like he should. Mireille was pretty and intelligent and warmhearted, and it wasn't fair – but it was also true. There simply wasn't much of him left to feel love. That part of his soul he'd given to someone else long ago. He sighed heavily as memories surprisingly vivid even now, years later, came to surface. Eyes, pale as silver or black as true night, but the expression was still the same and… He swallowed against the tension in his throat and shoved those memories aside wondering if there would ever come a day when he could think of this without feeling pain.
"Her name," Mireille reminded him softly.
"Geraldine," he said. "I would like to name her Geraldine."