Wan Lan's vision went dark again and again, and she rolled her eyes, speechless.
"There's no such thing. I just made it up on the spot to calm you down and distract you. I'm not Su Wuwei. I have no interest in collecting people's embarrassing pasts."
Slyder's mouth twitched. "Find another way to distract me next time."
He had believed her. He really had.
Wan Lan sighed, filled with emotion.
"Duke Slyder, I originally thought you'd be the one most likely to lose control. I misjudged you. Your friend Gerard was absolutely fierce, and so was Kelin. The urge to jump into the fight herself was practically spilling out of her eyes."
She leaned over the carved railing and spoke with heartfelt sincerity.
"All those years of manipulation and threats, both open and covert-you really endured a lot. If it were me, I might really have gone mad."
"It wouldn't help."
Slyder repeated himself.
"It wouldn't help. Going mad, crying-none of it would solve anything. I had no choice but to endure it. I wanted to go wild too, to just die and have it over with. But without the strength, I couldn't even find a target to unleash that madness on."
He spread his hands, poking fun at himself.
Then he followed Wan Lan's example and leaned over the railing, narrowing his eyes in the warm, tranquil sunlight.
"When I learned the truth, there was no way I wasn't hurting, and no way I wasn't furious. I really did want to charge in, but you pulled me back. I realized I couldn't do it. I still can't kill it now. That's a fact.
"If I'd gone mad then, Kelin, Gerard, you... any of you might have died. Then all those years of endurance would have been completely wasted."
Wan