From the strain in her voice to the tears she tried to hide from him, Roland could see then the knife he'd jabbed into her heart. And here he was twisting it. Roland stepped back, watching her in silence. There was no excuse to forgive what he had done, nothing be could say that would give her the respite she deserved, for all the years she'd been clinging the memory of him.
Roland maneuvered around her and reached for her hands and pried them from her body, placing them instead against his chest, to where his heart is. "Then know me again, Alanna. I'm not asking for forgiveness. After what I've done to you. I don't deserve it. Know me again."
He let her hands go and braced her face between his. "The man I was then versus the man I am now, I would have given you a shadow, Alanna. You call me coward, and I will not protest it. Because I was a coward. And I couldn't face you. I was a corpse on that field. If I came home, I would have been a husk, a shell. I would have killed myself for all the quiet pain I had inside, unable to get out."
Roland kept her face steady and he pressed his forehead to hers, tilting his head in to kiss at her cheeks, still wet with tears, letting the salt linger on his lips. "Know me again," he whispered, voice begging. "Please."