Sylas continued watching Cassarae through the connection to Earth while another challenge formed around him. Her sword moved against Tomoe's, her Will carrying a freedom he had never felt from her before, yet his thoughts had gone too far inward for even the battle to hold them for long.
He had spent the last several minutes questioning how well he knew his wife, then his father and grandfather, and eventually himself. Once he started looking, memories he had spent years accepting without examination began returning with different meanings.
Cassarae was seventeen the first time he became afraid of himself around her. She had told him she had a surprise, and Sylas had expected some stupid prank right until she stepped out of her bedroom flushed from head to toe, nervous in a way he almost never saw from her.
