Yes, Smoke told him reluctantly, Lucivar had cried. Heart pain. Caught-in-a-trap pain. The Lady had petted and petted, sung and sung. It had been more than a dream, then. In one of the dreamscapes Black Widows spun so well, Jaenelle had met the boy he had been and had drawn the poison from the soul wound. He had wept for the boy, for the things he hadn’t been allowed to do, for the things he hadn’t been allowed to be. But he didn’t weep for the man he’d become.

“Ah, Lucivar,” she’d said regretfully as they’d walked through the dreamscape. “I can heal the scars on your body, but I can’t heal the scars of the soul. Not yours, not mine. You have to learn to live with them. You have to choose to live beyond them.

Author: Anne Bishop