“A real one. About you when you were little.”
“When I was little…” Her eyes went soft with memory. “I was a terrible troublemaker.”
“You were not,” Dani said immediately.
“I absolutely was. Mama used to say I had more curiosity than sense. I was always getting into things—climbing trees I couldn’t get down from, following the goats into the hills, trying to take apart her loom to see how it worked.”
“Did you break it?”
“Spectacularly. I was maybe seven. I’d been watching her weave for years by then, completely fascinated by how all those separate threads became cloth. One day when she was at the market, I decided I needed to understand every single piece of the mechanism.” Jessa laughed softly. “I got it apart in about an hour. Getting it back together took her three days.”
“Was she angry?”
“Furious. For about ten minutes. Then she sat me down and made me help with the repairs, explaining every piece as we went. She said…”
Her voice caught, and she took a breath before continuing.
“She said curiosity was never wrong, only impatience. That if I’d asked, she would have shown me. The mistake wasn’t wanting to understand, it was not trusting her to help me get there.”
The fire crackled in the silence that followed. He watched the flames dance, thinking about trust and asking for help. He thought about all the times he’d chosen to handle things alone because he couldn’t bear to burden someone else with his failures.
“Your mother sounds wise,” he said finally.
“She was.” she smiled, though her eyes were bright. “She really was.”
Dani licked the last of the honey off her fingers and fixed him with an expectant stare.
“Your turn.”
He went still. “I don’t have stories.”
“Everyone has stories. Jessa just told one. Now you.”
“Dani—” Jessa started.
“It’s okay.” The words came out before he could stop them. He looked at the fire, not at the two faces watching him. “I will tell you… something. From before.”
They waited patiently.
Where to begin? What can I give them that won’t reveal too much?
“When I was young,” he heard himself say, “younger than you are now, I had a teacher. A mentor. His name was—”Carmet. Carmet who believed in me when no one else did.“—notimportant. He was very old, and very wise, and he had no patience for children who didn’t pay attention.”
“Were you a good student?”
A rough sound escaped him, not quite a laugh.
“No. I was… difficult. Angry, most of the time. I didn’t like being told what to do.”
“That hasn’t changed,” Jessa murmured.
He shot her a look, but her expression was teasing rather than critical and he relaxed a little.
“It has not,” he admitted. “But this teacher—he understood that. He never demanded obedience. He asked questions. Terrible questions, the kind that made your head hurt because there were no easy answers. ‘Why should a healer—’” He caught himself, and continued carefully. “Why should someone with power use it gently when force would be faster? Why should the strong protect the weak when the weak could not return the favor? Why should anyone show mercy when the world showed none?”
“What were the answers?” Dani asked, rapt.
“That was the point. There were no answers, at least not ones he would give me. I had to find them myself.” He stared into the flames, seeing another fire, another time. “It took me years. I argued with him constantly, convinced I was right and he was a foolish old male clinging to outdated ideas. But eventually…”
