Tasamakesustea.
I bake bread.
It’s improved, but I can do better still.
Touch between us comes easily now, but always weighted.
I don’t think I will ever take being able—beingallowed—to touch her for granted.
It’s almost as though our normal positions are reversed, in a way. With every touch from her, I lose track of what I was doing and focus entirely on her.
With every touch from me, she centers.
That, too, I cannottake for granted.
When we return to Crystal Hollow the next day, it’s a whole new experience.
The village hasn’t changed, but we have.
Or rather: we have become more at ease in ourselves.
I made a list of requests from Crystal Hollow for Tasa to choose from in case she wasn’t feeling inspired—focus offered, but not trapping her into drudgery.
She built exactly one item from it in her workshop before having a better idea in the middle of the second and hyper-focusing on something entirely new and brilliant.
Now, in town, I defend her from people’s demands to speed her way to her collection to finish the piece while she still feels the fire of invention.
I deliver the completed piece—imbued with dragon scale—to the woman who asked for it. When she goes to retrieve the payment in the coin that I insist on rather than dry goods, I take the opportunity to revisit everyone I can find about their requests and inform them of the new status quo.
Tasa stumbles when she returns from installing her new creation for Noten and hears me pitching her building abilities to Noten, whose sister-in-law’s family needs more space for their growing family.
“Kovan!My house is crooked,” she hisses at me, aghast.
“Crooked houses are actually more valuable, because they take greater skill, and they aren’t boring,” I continue to Noten in a normal tone. “Your niblings will be thrilled with a house so uniquely their own.”
Noten snorts. “They probably will. Their parents will be glad of anything with walls that stand. Can you really do it, Tasa?”
“I mean—yes,” she says, glancing at me wide-eyed. “Would you really trust me to?”
To Noten’s credit, he doesn’t glance at me for assurance.
He simply steps right up to Tasa, where everyone in eyesight can see.
“My stove has never worked so reliably,” he says, raising his voice slightly. “Not a single blip. If you want to build another house, I’ll be the first in line.”
I manage not to shout my satisfaction, but it’s a near thing.
NowNoten glances at me, and has the gall to wink.
I bite back a laugh and incline my head.
He’s a better man than I gave him credit for.
Maybe they all are.
But the exhilaration is all at the sprouting from a seed that I planted.
Until I have restored the safety of Tasa’s cottage, I will make it safe for her to be here, in Crystal Hollow. The first step is removing people’s wariness of her—and I will help get dragon scales into every house that opens to her, to make them safe for her, to make that happen.
