Maybe I’m immortal.
My breath catches.
Isthatwhy Zan is planning to leave me? Because I might die on him?
What if Iammortal, and we get even closer, and then I die while he keeps living, like Tasa and Kovan but so much worse?
How wouldhecope?
All this time I’ve been talking about wanting him to be happy, and I didn’t even see this dragon in the kitchen.
Zan is hardly the one who needs to beat himself up about not realizing things before it’s too late.
“It’s also different,” Teren interjects into my now-whirling thoughts, “because Zan hasn’t ever been part of this community. People don’t know him. They’d react differently when it’s me. And I think... you may not be giving people enough credit, too.”
His fingers are on the talisman again.
“How many people today, Yora, tried to help you when you’d never met them before? Sure, they have some self-interest because of ice cream, and the fact that I was with you lent you some cachet. But most people actually just want to help each other.”
“Unless their other interests are more important to them,” Zan says.
I shove more penance salad into my mouth.
Pretty shoddy as penance goes, honestly, since Zan managed to pick a dish made primarily of fatless, sugarless leaves that I actually like.
“Sure.” Teren waves Zan’s words off. “And if you point a sword at my throat, I might not make the most virtuous decisions either, because there’s the immediate problem of a sword at my throat. Just because people want to survive doesn’t mean they wouldn’t choose to help people when they’re not personally at risk. That’s not a fair comparison.”
I swallow and point out, “But if they know about you, theywillbe at risk, and so will you. Isn’t that the whole problem? You’renotconfident that no one in the entire village would betray you.”
“If there’s anything I know about humans,” Zan adds softly, “it’s that they’re not a monolith.”
And he would know, wouldn’t he?
Five hundred years of testing who can be trusted and who can’t and to what degree.
Five hundred years of helping sages for no gain, and working with guardians who also gave freely of themselves.
Five hundred years of being hunted by humans.
Five hundred years of having known humans who defended him unasked.
Five hundred years of anyone he cared about dying.
It’s not fair for me to be pushing him as I have.
I don’t understand enough to help Teren, either.
But I still want to try.
I still want for all of us to be happier than we are.
If I can’t even strive for that, then what’s the point of being here?
I steal a bite of salad from Zan’s plate—the fruit part.
It’s good. I look at him inquiringly.
“Peach,” he says.
