I push the bread back and inform her, “I will be baking Tasa’s bread.”
She holds my gaze for a long moment.
Nods sharply.
“Make sure she brings my dish back,” she says.
And then storms out of the room without another word.
People are a wonder.
After all this time, and me a sage, I understand them sovery little.
Tasa’s head pokes up from under the kitchen sink. “What was—Kovan? She let you in? Oh my goodness, is that herbutter?”
Her gasp is one of wonder and sheer delight.
It is soeasyto make Tasa happy that even I can manage it.
I am angry all over again that no one else has tried.
She dared me to try.
To start, and to keep going from there.
And I will.
For her, I can do this.
Tasa’s head whips around the room in shock, looking for the old woman, before returning to me. “What did you do?!”
The fierceness of my resolve has set me to glowing again.
But I answer the important part of her question.
“I planted a seed.”
Tasa
I’mbeginningtofeellike I’ve finally glimpsed the sage inside Kovan.
But, bafflingly, not in a bad way?
At some point, in between me yelling at him and kissing him and chattering about moss at him, and him visiting CrystalHollow and seeing what things are like there and glowing at me, Kovan settled into himself.
I’d thought, when we arrived in Crystal Hollow, that I was throwing our shaky foundation against a mountain and bracing for it to crack.
I had it wrong.
Until now I’ve seen him at his worst, and I still wanted him.
But at his best, heisthe mountain.
Foundations don’t crack with him; he strengthens them by his very being.
That’s what it means to be the sage of resolve.
And I’m beginning to feel like what he’s resolved is to make me, personally, swoon at his feet.
