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Leadem, Christopher

"The Mantooth"


IS THIS THE MAN I WANT TO SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE WITH? And as much
as she wanted to say yes, she couldn't. Because she didn't know.

*

In the chill hour of dawn Kalus woke, and in turn looked upon the
sleeping figure into whom he had poured his life's blood. To see her
lying there beside him, breathing evenly, her face warm and softened
like a child's, was all that he had ever asked, or ever could ask, of
the Nameless. His love for her in that moment, when he knew, or feared,
that her loyalty to him would soon be put to its severest test, was
almost unbearable. Thoughts of a life without her he could not begin to
face, and he, too, felt a moment of doubt.
'Sometimes if you love someone, you have to let them go.' She
hadn't meant the words then, but what if now..... If their love
could not stand, in the bright and hard light of day, then the efforts
of a lifetime were in vain. For if she, who knew him to the depths of
his being---his trials and broken dreams, his personal weakness and
indomitable strength---if she found in him nothing to love and cherish
and hold on to, then who in all the cold, lonely world ever would?
If he had known the full quotation, or she the effect its partial
phrasing would have on him, perhaps they could have talked it out, and
both found in these simple but profound words some solace:
'If you love something, set it free.


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