Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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his position and property, who kills the Imperator becomes the Imperator, who kills a child's parents
becomes his parents. She felt her calculated hardness against him flash and roar into sincere anger.Has
he forgotten she's missing in action, how that must feel to me ? "She can be like that." Her voice
came out flat. "Or perhaps I should say,could be."
For a moment there was silence. "Forgive me," he said then, with formal sincerity. "I meant no ill of her.
You love her, and fear she's dead. I've spoken callously, I'm sorry."
There was nothing to say to that, but "It's all right." She felt the anger drain away.
They were standing before her tent. She didn't want to talk to him, hear his questions, be near him. "Will
you sit for a while?"
"Sure," he answered, "if it's no trouble; as I say, don't let me impose. You're sure? All right." They sat
just outside the flap. "You made things very interesting for yourselves, acquiring a child that way…
though I guess parents always do, even acquiring them the usual way."
"Kids are the purest teachers. They'll delve out your imperfections, and shine them blinding in your face."
"Yes. We've found that. But we'll work things out."
"I'm sure you will. Megan, if there's anything I can do, you need only ask."
Die, she thought.Go out and get killed in battle, so I don't have to have either your blood or my
son's on my hands . "Thank you. I'll keep that in mind."
For another moment they sat silent, listening to the crickets and watching the fire-flies blink all over the
hill and field. It grew oppressive, his presence beside her, without words. She cut through it.
"Shchevenga. What you said earlier, about Arkans… That general. Did you find it convenient then, that
your duty and pleasure were happily allied?"
For a moment after it was out she regretted saying it; now he'd draw himself up, offended, snap back,
wonder why, have her truth-drugged again… But the motion she feared didn't come, and the silence
lengthened. He was thinking.
"Convenient isn't the word," he said finally. "The sense of virtue either way… if I told you I didn't feel
that, and relish it at the time, I'd be lying. Afterward, though, I closed myself in my tent, threw up and hit
my head against the floor until someone stopped me."
That looks too good, Gold-bottom, she thought sharply.Why did you leave out, to everyone but me,
the part that does you most credit? You enjoyed what you did. You've admitted that . "You didn't
need to tell me that. It really is none of my business."
She felt his shrug as much as saw it. "It's no secret. Besides, it is your business, by what I agreed to
before."
To lie with her, he meant, as she'd asked, to help her fight her fear of men.Dark Lord curse you, you
would remember that! Like any fish-gutted man would. You're all the same .
"It reminds me of something someone else and I were chewing on," he said musingly. "Imagine this: you
see a rockslide starting, that will grow big enough to crush the town below, where live ten thousand