Don't you think you can get me something to help me sleep?" She sighed and shook her head. "I can, if I know who you'll sleep with, of course." He laughed and closed his eyes. "Might as well ask for the moon." "All right, then." "Shayla, I'm done." She nodded. "Goodnight, my lord." He didn't answer. And not only because he had drifted back to sleep. He had never answered to his name, never used it. It wasn't the elven way. "My lord?" "Yes?" "May I still call you Ciarlo if I want to get you out of bed?" She smiled and closed her eyes. "Yes, of course. Goodnight, Ciarlo." He could have fallen asleep then, or he could have sat up and taken her hand as she slipped out of the bed, but he chose to stay where he was and let his mind wander. How many times had he done this before? He knew he had done it at least once or twice after the first month or so of their relationship, before he had given in and made her a part of his life in whatever way he had. And no doubt there had been times when he had done it after _he_ had ended their relationship. It was why he had the scars on his legs, why he had his limp, why he walked with a bit of a limp himself now. Because when he fell asleep, he slipped out of his physical form, and slipped back into the body of a dead child. How many times had he done that? He wasn't sure. A hundred, two hundred, five hundred? No matter how many times he had died in his sleep, no matter how many times he died in this body, no matter how many times he was reborn, he always found himself here again. He was trapped in the same place, the same body, the same life, the same dream. Always. The first time he had done it, he had woken up in his bed, his first time back. He could remember exactly what he had felt that first time, waking to find himself where he had died. He could have cried. He wanted to cry, but he didn't. He had lain there and considered. In that moment, he realized that for all his life, if he hadn't known his own name, if he had thought of himself as Ciarlo, the way his mother called him, he would have felt the same way he did when he woke up the morning after his first time. Why had he wanted to cry? Why had he wanted to? The door opened. A maid, young and pretty. He knew her; she helped the healers. The old crone had called on the young woman more than once, and he remembered the woman sitting by him, holding his hand, wiping his brow with the cloth. It had felt wonderful, being cared for. "Ciarlo?" she said softly. "Yes?" he asked. "Your mother is here." He pushed up in the bed and looked at her. "She didn't say what she wanted to see you about. She said she would only talk to you." He nodded. "And what else would she say?" The girl frowned. "I don't know." "You know what she'd say, don't you?" She frowned. "She'd say she missed you, and that she wanted to be with you. She'd be angry." "Ah, yes." He slipped out of the bed and began getting dressed. He didn't need a bath. He needed to make a choice. "What are you doing?" "I've decided. If she wants to be with me, I will be with her." "With who?" "Don't you hear it? Who do you think? She's here." He put on his tunic and walked out of the room, walking into the courtyard where, in the moonlight, she stood and waited. Her hair was a bit wilder now, and she was heavier. She looked nothing like herself, and he wondered why he had never noticed before. But he looked around the room. It was empty save for a broken wooden chair and a table, and he sat down, holding her hand. He smiled at her and she began to cry. She knelt down and put her arms around him. He could smell the scent of her hair and skin and—and him. It was then he noticed he was growing taller, like he did when he died, taller and thinner and wearing his mother's robes. He patted her arm. "Go to the house, Ritualia," he said. "I'll join you in a little while." He watched as she got up and walked out of the room. He sighed and looked up at his mother, leaning against the wall, looking away. "Mother," he whispered. She looked at him. "I heard." "You didn't answer. Did you hear what I said?" She nodded. "I heard." He looked into her eyes. "You will be reborn." She smiled. "And so will I." "Why?" "Because we're the same person. This is your rebirth." She turned around and walked away. He followed her back into the house, where he spent the next several minutes convincing her to join him for the night. It was not the first time he had gotten her to do this. His mother liked to stay awake, as long as it was late enough, and she liked to talk while she slept. His mother never slept in the daytime. "I don't want to be reborn," he said. "You don't know what you want," she said. "Yes, I do." "That's right, dear," he said. "You do." "You used to be so nice." She took his hand and kissed it. "Then you got all dark and angry. Do you remember when you were young?" He nodded. He knew he couldn't hide anything from her. "You were so funny." "Funny?" "You tried so hard." He looked at her. He remembered those days, how funny he had been, how he had tried so hard to keep his mother amused when all she wanted was to sleep and forget everything. How easy it had been then, when there was no one to stop him from giving everything he had to her. When she had wanted to give everything back. "And I remember when your father died." "Why don't you tell me about that?" "You weren't there." "No," he said, "I wasn't." She nodded and reached for his hand. "Would you do that for me?" "For you?" She nodded. "If I asked you, would you go back to him?" He nodded. "Yes, Mother, I would." He watched her, trying to get used to the way she looked now. He wanted to ask her if this was how she had looked when she had been alive, if she was telling him this because she was asleep. But he knew the answer already. He had been asleep that day, too. "I love you, my dear," his mother said. "I love you, too," he said. She smiled, her face relaxing, her head slightly cocked to the side, her body slumped into a less rigid form. And she was beautiful. She had always been beautiful. He just didn't know why she was beautiful now. "I don't want to be reborn anymore," he whispered. "No?" "No." She smiled. "You can't say that." "But I do." He leaned over and kissed her forehead. "That's why you're here, isn't it?" "Yes." She cupped his face in her hands. "And what I would do for you is the same as you would do for me." He kissed her softly. "Mother, I don't—" "I know, my dear, but I want to try this." "My lord," she said, interrupting his thoughts, "if you have something to say, please, say it now." He looked at her and sighed. He had never understood why people always asked so many questions when they already knew the answers. If you were asking a question, it was usually because you were curious. This question was simply his way of trying to change the way he had to live. "My lord?" "It's time," he said. "Time for what, my lord?" He patted her hand. "I will be reborn. I will continue to be reborn." He got up. "It's time I found someone to teach me how to live." "Who?" "I don't know," he said. "But it will be someone who knows about humans and their lives. Someone who knows about the dead." She nodded. "And we will learn how to love one another. We will tell