After a moment, he recovered his senses and let her go. He tried to find her gaze, but she would not meet it. With the initial shock wearing off, he realized that something had changed.

Elk Charm looked different. The feathers were placed in her fur in a different way. Of course, she was different. Of course, all was changed. He did not know in what way, or to what end; only he saw that the gap between them was wider than ever. Slowly, doubt crept in. He averted his eyes to the ground and stepped back to give her space.

“I’m sorry,” he managed after a moment. Weak, foolish words. “I was—I was looking for you, for a long time.”

He had left and been gone. Not by choice, he wanted to say. But he had made the choice to leave, hadn’t he? He could have argued with Chakliux. He could have told the seal hunters to forget him and turned back. Instead he had made the very same mistake as the boy of sixteen had. He followed his father into battle; he followed the seal hunters to the sea. The Romans captured him. Then the sea claimed him. It would have kept him, too, if not for a passing stroke of luck.

Only the first time, he had paid for his mistake. This time, Elk Charm had paid for it. He wanted to say something but he could not think what. There was nothing he could say to undo what he had done. Only that—he would never have been worthy of her anyways. He was a slave and nothing more; whatever was good in him, the dominus had beaten out. Whatever was good in him had been tarnished by what he’d done in the arena. And then he had gone and let her believe he was a good freedman.

Those words never left his throat.

Quietly, he turned to grab the deerskin off his back. He folded it carefully into a bundle, and nudged it towards her.

“This is for you,” he said, ”if you would like it.”