“Yeah,” he said. “I can appreciate that. What can I do to make it easier?”
“Saints,” Cassia told him dryly. “Nothing, please. You all have done more than I can wrap my head around. And I don’t want to get into it more than that, please.”
“...Sure,” Aevrin agreed. But he wished she’d given himsomethingto do. He’d feel much better if he could help her.
“So, do you ever actually think about leaving?” Cassia wanted to know. Her tone was firmer now, probing instead of tentative. “Do you have a plan? Some daydream, ‘this is what I’d do, this is where I’d go?’”
“Naw,” Aevrin said, a little scandalized. “I never got that far. This is home.”
“Oh, c’mon,” Cassia said. She leaned onto her rocking chair’s armrest towards him. Her hair, freed from the braid she'd worn cooking, spilled over her shoulder. The light from the inside window glowed in a lacey pattern on her pretty face and made her waves burn golden. She was, without a doubt, the most breathtaking woman he’d ever known. “Every child’s got some crazy dream, right? I was going to move to the southern reach and be an oarswoman. And make friends with the mermaids.”
That dream hadn’t aged well, he thought wryly, not with the fiends and Horrors the army was trying to stave off now. Besides, he was glad she was at the ranch, even if he hated how she’d arrived.
“You wanna be a merman’s wife, Miss Cassia?” Aevrin asked, trying not to laugh. He didn’t manage well. A chuckle slipped between his lips.
“Saints, no,” Cassia grinned. “I can’t even swim. It was just something dumb I thought up when I was a child. Tell me yours.”
It was fresh enough on his mind, after the spellstone.
“I wanted to be a wizard for a bit when I was real young.”
“Awizard?” Cassia grinned and balanced her chin on her fist. “Aevrin Riveker, worker of wonders.” The light glimmered in her eyes and Aevrin couldn't look away.
Maybe it was alright to fall a pinch in love with her, so long as he didn’t act on it. He could think whatever he wanted.Dreamwhatever he wanted. She wouldn’t have to know.
“Yup. Till I realized it meant locking myself in a tower and reading about a thousand dusty old books just to learn how to make a single source-plant sprout. Then it got a lot less interesting to me.” He tipped the rocking chair back, one foot braced up against the porch railing. “Guess mostly I just dream about getting my own house now.”
“Where, in town?”
“No, building here. We each got a plot on the land when we turned 18. They're all real close, walking distance.”
“So everyone’s moving out.” She sounded sad at the thought.
“Not anytime soon, I guess. But it'd get mighty crowded in here when we…ifwe all get married and start making babies.” He couldn't meet Cassia's eyes then. He wished he hadn't brought up marriage and children.
“So you want children. That's the dream?”
He gulped. The back of his neck felt unaccountably hot. Aevrin reached up to rub it.
“Oh, I dunno about all that, Miss Cassia,” he mumbled, staring at his shadowed boots with a frown and feeling stupid for admitting it in front of a girl. “Kind of takes two for that. So depends if I ever meet anyone.”
“Of course you will. Look at you.”
He let her words hang in the air for a moment, savoring the kindness, and let himself imagine a future with a woman like Cassia to come home to and hold. Not Cassia; she wasn't his. Just a woman who looked like her and sounded like her andmade the kind of jokes she made and ducked her head to hide her smile like Cassia did. Who laughed like Cassia and had all the strength Cassia had and a heart that hadn't gone hard after how bad a hand she'd been dealt. And definitely a woman who cooked like Cassia.
Just not Cassia Clarek herself. Because he didn’t dare force her to choose between the ranch’s safety and saying no to him.
It was an infatuation. Infatuations passed.
“Look at what about me?” He asked her anyways, his voice low, knowing better but unable to help himself.
“Don't go panning for compliments,” she told him, and jutted a foot out from where her legs were curled up on the chair to poke his thigh with her toes. “Tell me about the house.”
He turned towards her a little in his chair.
“You wanna see the lot? I can show you. Tomorrow, maybe, when it's light out.”
“Sure.” She grinned. “The spot Aevrin Riveker will live one day with his wife and all their babies.”
