Her father halted at the foot of the dais. He looked at Alaric for a long moment, the way a man looks at a bridge he is about to trust with everything he owns. Then he lifted Salviana's hand from his arm and held it out, palm up, between them.
"I do not hand her over," he said, in his quiet, careful voice. "She has never been a thing to be handed. I am only the one who is allowed to walk beside her this far." His gaze did not waver. "You will walk beside her the rest of the way. Do you understand me, son?"
Alaric's throat moved. "I understand, sir."
"Then take her hand."
He hesitated. Salviana saw it, the flicker of old terror in his dark eyes, the memory of every time he had pulled away because he was afraid of what his touch might do. His fingers hovered over hers, bare, trembling, so close the cold of them stirred the fine hairs on her wrist.
"Alaric," she said, very softly.
His eyes lifted.
"It's only me."
He laid his palm against hers.
