I will stay with you.

Kvothe found neither comfort nor courage in the answer that she’d hoped for, but she found something else in the moments that followed. In the press of the golden stallion’s body against hers, the touch of his lips across the pale strip of flesh that marked her cheek. The desolation that had threatened to consume her only moments ago couldn’t be banished, not even by Tyr’s kindness. But it was suddenly buried by a side of him that the slender chestnut had long denied— by the unspoken avarice with which he sought to claim her. By the soft music of his voice, a fervent prayer for her to stay breathed into the smoldering embers of her skin. By the desperature nature of the bachelor’s desire, as if he sought to hold her to him by the undeniable force of his affections.

And as a creature of flesh and blood, the red woman could not help but to respond to these forbidden caresses— even though they forced her down a path that neither her mind nor heart followed willingly.

But Kvothe’s body— that she did surrender freely, standing silent and still even when Tyr rose to claim her for a second time. She might not love the spotted male in the way that she did Ironclad, but she wanted… no, she needed him to be happy. After all that this kind stranger had given her, was this small act truly so much to offer in return? Inexplicable though the reason for his desire might be, she would let Tyr find whatever comfort he could in her before she left. Of course, the consequences of their actions escaped her in the haste and impulse of the moment— and by the time reason returned, it was too late to turn back. By then, the dunalino had already slid back to the earth, coiling his muscular form back around hers as if he had no intention of ever releasing her.

Heart beating frantically, Kvothe wondered whether she had yielded her freedom along with her body.

In the moments of silence that followed, the chestnut mare might have fled. But after the sorrow that both had suffered today, finding the strength for solitude was beyond her. So instead she stood frozen against the continued heat of the chimeric stallion’s ardor, uncertainty carved into every line of her face. “Tyr…” Kvothe began after a moment, her voice wavering even on the single syllable of his name. Expressing her weakness and willingness, even as her body attempted to argue otherwise. “I—you—” I didn’t want you, she might have said. Or, you shouldn’t want me. But her heart ached at the thought of repaying his kindness with such cruelty, and when the red Friesian continued it was with a gentler choice of words. “I can’t stay. I belong to the Inlet, Tyr...to Ironclad.”

Of course, these words were no longer true in their entirety. When Aslan was born, a piece of her had broken away— and even in his death, that fragment remained apart from the rest. And in her little lion’s absence, it clung to the closest living remnant that remained of the boy.

That part of her belonged now to Tyr— though it could never be enough to bind them together.