Have you passed through this night?

It was many years after their improbable marriage -- many, many years, he would add silently as his fingers searched his face, running along the still unfamiliar wrinkles -- when Imriel de la Courcel began to realize that something was not as right as it had once been. Perhaps it was a result of aging, of sensing the slow slipping away of the world, but, then, Imriel had watched Phèdre and Joscelin grow old with their characteristic grace, so he thought himself prepared for it, the inevitability of the accumulation of the years. But there was something unexpected about it, a hesitant melancholy that accompanied the long twilight of mortal existence. Sidonie comforted him, reminded him that he would not be growing old alone, but he thought that perhaps, this once, she did not comprehend, could not possibly comprehend what it was like to lose one's youth a second time.

And, perhaps, that was why he mentioned one night, casually, almost without understanding what he was saying or why he was saying it, that he missed Lucius and wanted to see him again, though it had been a long time since they had last corresponded. Perhaps it was not right of him to tell Sidonie, his heart's true beloved, such a thing, but she nodded, studying him with her dark eyes and understanding as well as he that they could each do no more than obey the most precious precept of Blessed Elua.

So Imriel wrote to Lucius and Lucius came, bearing down on the palace on a dappled gray stallion relegated to irrelevance as soon as he spotted Imriel standing by the gate and slipped into the other man's wordless embrace and they stood, knowing only the trembling syncopation of two beating hearts. Far from the eyes and ears of servants and couriers, Imriel led Lucius to a discrete guest chamber where burgundy curtains suffocated the light and they regarded each other over entwined hands.

Then it was just as Imriel had written in his letter -- no expression of desire but the brushing of skin and the weight of Lucius's chin on his shoulder as they lay in bed, no sound but I've missed you, you know exhaled into the silence, and two men, youth resurrected in the stillness and memory between them.