Free Beyond The Shadows by Brent Weeks

was light and pure and strong, the kind of voice that begged to sing. “They’ve only
     sent deaf-mutes before. What’s your name?”
    “It is death for me to speak, milady, and yet. . . .  How afraid of them are you?” Halfman asked. Giving his real name was
     the ultimate commitment. He wanted to throw it down at her feet and abandon himself to her whim, but that was madness on a
     par with the madness he’d escaped by throwing away his gift of prophecy.
    Jenine paused, biting her lip. Her lips were full, pink despite the coolness of this high tower. Dorian—for Halfman would
     never have dared—couldn’t help but imagine kissing those soft, full lips. He blinked, forcing things carnal from his mind,
     impressed that this young woman was actually devoting thought to his question. In Khalidor, fear was wisdom.
    “I’m always afraid here,” she said. “I don’t believe I will betray you, but if they torture me?” She scowled. “That isn’t
     much to give, is it? I will keep your confidence to the last extremity I can endure. It is a poor and lame vow, but I have
     been stripped of riches outside and in.” She smiled then, the same beautiful, sad smile.
    And he loved her. May the God who saved him have mercy, he couldn’t believe it was happening so fast. He’d never believed
     in instant love. Such a thing could surely be only infatuation or lust, and he couldn’t deny that he felt both. But at seeing
     her, he had an odd feeling of meeting an old friend. His Modaini friend Antoninus Wervel said such things happened when those
     who had known each other in past lives met. Dorian didn’t believe that. Perhaps, instead, it was his visions. At Screaming
     Winds, he’d been in trances for weeks. Though his memory had been mostly scoured of those images, he knew he’d lived lifetimes
     with this woman in those visions. Perhaps that had primed him for love. For he believed that this was real love, that here
     was the woman to whom he would yield body and mind and soul and future and hopes, unflinching. He would marry her, or no one.
     She would bear his son, or no one would.
    It was either that—or the insanity Dorian had feared for so long had finally caught up with him.
    “They call me Halfman,” he said. “But I am Dorian Ursuul, first acknowledged son and heir to Garoth Ursuul, and long since
     stricken from the Citadel’s records for my betrayal of the Godking and his ways.”
    “I don’t understand,” she said. Her forehead wrinkled. He’d seen that wrinkle, in his visions, when it had become a worry
     line, permanent on her brow. He had to stop himself from reaching a hand up to smooth it away. It would be too familiar. By
     the God, he thought he’d left all the confusions of being a prophet behind! “Why are you here?”
    “For you, Jeni.”
    She stiffened. “You may call me Your Highness, or—as you have evidently come at great risk—you may call me Jenine.”
    “Yes, of course, Your Highness.” Dorian’s head swirled. Here he was, a prince himself, being granted permission to address
     a young girl by her full name. That grated. And it disappointed. Love at first sight was bad enough, but finding out that
     it wasn’t mutual . . .  well, he would have thought her a flighty girl if she’d thrown herself at him, wouldn’t he?
    “I think you’d better explain yourself,” she said.
    Stupid, Dorian. Stupid. She’s far from home. She’s seen her land laid waste by your people. She’s isolated. She’s scared—and
     you’re not exactly at your best for romance, are you?
    Ah hell, she thinks I’m a eunuch! There was a nice dilemma. How does one interject into a polite conversation, “By the way, in case you’re ever interested,
     I do have a penis.”?
    “I know it seems implausible, Your Highness,” he said. “But I’ve come to res . . .  help you escape.”
    She put her hands on her hips—damn she was cute!—and said, “Oh, I see. You’re a prince. I’m a