“Now,” Kovan says in a hoarse voice, then clears his throat. “I know you’re worried about taking me to Crystal Hollow.”
I immediately tense in his arms, and he nods.
“I can go by myself, if that would be easier—”
“No.” I let my arms drop. “No, I think this matters.”
Better for him to see.
Better for me to know.
Kovan nods again. “I know you can’t believe me yet. But no one can make me doubt you.”
He’s right; I don’t believe that.
Maybe this is a sage thing, or a resolve thing, that he just assumes he’ll be unaffected by me the way everyone else is.
He is different.
But no one has ever been that different.
Kovan takes my hand; squeezes it. “Help me try?” he asks softly. “And then we’ll go home.”
My heart clenches.
It’s too late for me already.
So I squeeze his hand once before letting go and just say, “Let’s go.”
It’s too bad that he managed to reassure me about where I stand with him just in time to throw that shaky foundation against a mountain.
It always cracks.
Kovan
Therestofourhike down the mountain is almost unbearably sweet.
Tasa knowseverythingabout what is on this mountain. She can identify everything from slugs to moss and enthusiastically tell me their histories and likes and dislikes and hopes and fears, as if they have been her friends when no one else would.
What makes it unbearable is that she has been safer to share herself with the moss than with the people in her life.
What makes it unbearable is that I know she is still doubting me.
What makes it unbearable is that I haven’t proven yet that I will be able to keep myself in her life, when I want this hike to be one of many for us.
So when we reach the end of it I want to both hold her to me and kiss her sweet lips again and never leave the mountain, and Iwant to charge ahead and raze this village that’s made her doubt herself to the ground.
But the village is not the only problem; I am.
So I don’t reach for Tasa when she squares her shoulders, pastes on a bright,falsesmile, and leads the way, putting space between us. I let her lead; I let her take care of herself the way she knows how.
But I do close the distance.
Because right now, Iamwith her.
Tasa glances at me; swallows; continues on.
(She, too, has practiced resolve.)
