Terry Brooks - The Weapons Master's Choice

He left her there and went down the hallway, out through the door into the streets of the city and over its walls to the world beyond. It had been a long time since he had cried, and he didn’t cry now.

He understood better now why he had been drawn to her, what it was that had attracted him so. He had sensed the connection between them, but had not understood it. Now he did. He was as damaged as she was, and just as lost. He was fated to die of a cause not of his making as surely as she was; it was only a question of when. But while she had achieved peace of mind, his own remained a slippery and elusive thing. Lyriana had shown him how he must be if he were ever to find his way, and it had generated in him something that approached love.

Perhaps, in its own fashion, that’s what it actually was.

The courage she evidenced in accepting what was to happen to her was the true measure of her strength. He would learn from that. He would find grace as she had. But he could not help wishing he had been able to do so with her beside him. He had wanted his kiss to express how much he wished it.

So much so that even the risk of contracting leprosy by placing his mouth on hers had not been enough to dissuade him from doing it.

For the first two days of travel back to Tombara, he was miserable. He could not stop thinking about her. He could not stop his aching. Then, on the third day, the pain began to ease as his thoughts drifted to other things. He was the Weapons Master first and always, and the time he had envisioned for himself and Lyriana–even in the best of circumstances–would never have lasted. It would have required him to change, and it was too late for that. His path in life was already determined, and he knew he was fated to follow it to its end.

In Tombara he found the commission waiting that would take him to Varfleet. And by then, Lyriana and Tajarin were already fading into the dark well of his past.