"You know her?" I asked, curious about the side of Batu that didn't involve war and survival.
"Yes." His gaze dropped to the fire. "She was to be my wife, if I had not chosen to become a guardian."
"Oh." Why did I feel a small twinge of envy? Or was it jealousy? "Maybe she will wait until you are forty seasons and marry you."
He snorted. "She married another." The words were casual with no sign of suffering, yet I sensed there was more to the story or at least, emotions he was glossing over.
My Batu was not as simple as I thought.
And I really was jealous. I had no idea why, though. He had never shown interest in me, and I certainly didn't gravitate towards someone who was violent.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I took you from her, didn't I?"
"I chose duty," he replied with a shrug. "I knew what that meant."
"But that doesn't mean it's easy."
He met my gaze. "You are right, Moonbeam. It was not easy, but it was right."
I wished I could think of Taylor in that light. His loss could never be right or necessary.
Batu and I looked at each other for a long moment. The exchange felt … intimate, two people who understood loss and the suffering that followed. I dropped my gaze to the fire, not liking the way my blood often stirred when we gazed too long at one another.
"Moonbeam, where did Batu … find you?" Ghoajin asked, awake once more.
"Tell us a story, Batu!" one of the children exclaimed.
A chorus of others joined in.
Batu rose, and they fell silent. "Are you prepared for a tale of adventure, battle and magic?" he started solemnly.
The ger was silent. The woman preparing food smiled at one another at his dramatic start, and the children all gathered around the feast.
Someone set a wooden plate of food before me, and I ate.
Batu stepped away and began a ridiculously melodramatic re-enactment of being captured by the Arabs, tortured in their dungeon and then breaking free to rescue me and battle free from the soldiers at the castle. He mixed humor and hyperbole, brandishing his sword to fight off imaginary attackers and pretending to stroke his hair whenever he mentioned me.
I found myself laughing along with the others. I already knew he had a sense of humor, and seeing his one-man play helped me appreciate his view of the world even more. I wasn't accustomed to being the serious, pensive one, but between the two of us, I was.
The children cheered when he reached the end of his tale, and he bowed to them. Batu sat at the feast down the table. The space beside me had been taken by an older woman.