She said the woman did not need Fox to live with her, and as Fox had reached her majority, I conceded, tried not to cry, and kissed her forehead.
Soon, during the day, it was just me and Jade cleaning the house. In the evenings, subdued by labor and grief, we ate together. I avoided Thane’s looks that hardly masked his longing for me. I knew I would have to confess to being a party to both his father’s and brother’s deaths.
When he quietly referenced that he knew they had both died, that one of his men had heard this and reported it, I told him, leaving out the magic, what had transpired in the chamber of Fear’s tongue. I implied a torch had been used to set fire to the fate’s spittle.
“I overlooked so much about them,” he said when I had concluded my retelling. “I do not hold anything against you, Robbie. I must now learn how to grieve people who loved me but seemed to hate so many others. And I must eradicate any of that hatred from myself. I have been weak because of this.”
We were sitting at the rickety table where we took our meals, just he and I. I took his hand in mine. I said, “Your daughter loves you.And that is something for which you should have pride. Not all daughters have good fathers.”
Thane’s head was bent, but he looked up at me and asked, “And does her aunt love me still? What if I were to repeat, correctly this time, my question I first asked more than half a lifetime ago? What if I asked you to be my wife?”
I took him in, handsome, refined, kind, rich by some folks’ standards, an ideal husband. Age had only enhanced his looks, adding a silver to his raven-black hair, more definition to his face. It was a vision I had avoided for so long, not allowing myself to see him, my head always turned. But now I looked. And what I saw was the man who had likely saved my sister from burning. I saw a man who had done his best. All the love I had left for Thane in my heart took on the shape of gratitude and admiration. All I saw when I looked at him was Rowena, safe and happy.
That long-suffered heartache was gone from me now. I shook my head. “Our time as lovers is far behind us. Don’t you think?”
Thane ran a hand over his mouth. “No. I think what truly prohibits us is that your heart belongs to someone else. And I cannot begrudge him for that. Not if he gives you joy. And freedom. I want you, Robbie, but I think more so, I want you to be free. For once in your life.”
98
NOW: BOOK
As the ten days of Reed and Dermid’s absence drew to a close, I could not contain the worry in me over’s Reed’s insinuation of a proposal. Thoughts plagued me, our age difference, our only knowing each other for a few seasons, and the fact that I really had never desired wifehood, even though I had been happy with Avery. What would I say to him? What exactly would he ask?
The morning of his return, when he and Dermid would be dropped off by one of Thane’s wagons at the hitching post nearest to our street, I was alone in the house. Everyone was at their work, and Jade was meeting with an apothecary to recommend herself as an herbalist, having trained alongside me for so long.
“I want my own work,” she had declared. “I’m not just going to be Keir’swife.” Then she had, saying the word that had spooked me of late and not knowing how much it affected me, left the house with a determined air.
I was restless, going from room to room, sweeping the constant dust that seeped inside. When I reached Reed and Dermid’s room, I was so lost in thought, the only thing that shook me out of it waswhen my broom caught the edge of something under Reed’s straw mattress and it spun across the floor, spurred on by my broom’s swipe.
I dropped the broom and bent down to pick it up, recognizing it as the thin booklet Reed always stowed in the pocket of his jerkin. When I opened it, I saw that most of it was full of bland notations about Sheridan, the size of the population, the bounty of Torm’s crops that past autumn, the amount of townsfolk compared to the growing number of Perpatanian troops, and so on. The ink was in differing colors, some a dark brown and some reddish, most of it looking as if it came from bark or berries.
I realized this must have been how he recorded what to report back to the Tintarian army in his work as a forest warden. I flipped through it and then snapped it shut. I leaned to replace it under the mattress and then hesitated. Straightening, I opened it again, rifling to the very back of it, certain I had not seen what I thought I had.
Dear Robbie.
The last several pages of the booklet appeared to be a letter to me. I sank down onto his mattress, transfixed. A better woman would have replaced it, would have let him keep his secrets, but the first line of it captivated me.
The first time I saw you, I fell out of a tree. You were cursing the gods, telling them you pissed on their magic. You were clearly in the throes of grief, and I would venture a guess that this was when you lost your beloved husband. But despite your pain and despair, you were a jagged vein of lightning stabbing the earth. I had never seen something so beautiful.
At that time, I had just left the army and taken up work as a warden of Nyossa. It is laborthat requires stealth and air magic. I felt this suited me better than soldiering. I have told you of the Procurer trials that led to me briefly seeing my father. I could not live in Pikestully after that. I was happier posted in the woods, in the wild. I have never cared for cities. I was stationed in the part of the forest just outside Sheridan. I was told not to enter the town unless necessary but to monitor the growing presence of Perpatane. I reported back every season, spent my leave with my brothers. Then I would return to the trees along the border. There was an old shed I was supposed to live in if I did not want to camp rough, but I could see someone was living there. Now I know that was Jade. The wardens had designated roosts, marked trees along the border I was to cycle through. Because of my gifts, because I can see beyond horizons and hear things that are mostly out of range for other ears, no matter what Sheridan roost I took, I could almost always hear and see you. I feel compelled to tell you that first. I feel guilt for the winters I spent watching you, for the happiness I took in witnessing you at ease in the forest, talking to yourself or the fox or your apprentice or your friends.
But that first day, I fell from my roost. I had the initial reaction a man does to a comely woman. I wanted you. Your hair was braided away from your face, and I could make out the line of your cheekbones, your proud brow, and the twist of your angry mouth. You wore a tunic and men’s breeches. Your figure enticed me. Your brash yells enchanted me. Who was this woman shouting at the sky?
I wish you could have seen yourself then. You were more wild than the wild around you.
I have always been a man of grace. Even in my most ungainly winters, those between boy and man, I never tripped or moved awkwardly. I have walked along ropes strung between buildings. I have scaled walls with little to no footing. I have caught things in midair before my mind understood that something had fallen. My air magic is strong, and I am so grateful to that god for their gifts.
But that day, I had no grace. I watched you shout a handful of things at the gods, watched you disown them, curse them, condemn them. You demanded an answer from them. I was so taken with you, so mystified by your strength and spirit, by the perfection of your fury. I was so taken by you that I fell right out of my tree.
Fortunately, for my pride, I landed on my feet. And fortunately, that was when you decided, shocking me even further, to step inside a god tree.
You talk to yourself a lot. I love that about you. It does make for a piss-poor criminal, but I will not revive that disagreement. What I mean to say is, many times you have protested that I do not know you. It hurt me every time you said it, because, I did know you. I watched you for so long, watched you fight a lord, a church, even a town that wanted you gone. I watched women flock to your house, in need, in despair. I watched them leave with the one thing you often deny yourself: hope.
How could I not fall in love? Do you know that you have a certain crease in your forehead that tells me you are thinking hard? Do you know you have a dipin the center of your upper lip that spreads when you smile? There is a freckle near your right eye that disappears if you are happy, sinking in the laugh lines there. If I cannot see that freckle, I know you are well.
I was already drawn in by your beauty. But to witness this continual fight, a resistance to not only your oppressors but those who would seek to harm others, stole the entirety of me. By the end of that first handful of weeks, I was yours.
I saw it all, Robbie. I saw you offer the act of care. I saw you harvest mother’s moss, risking your neck for the women of Sheridan. I saw you raising a girl not your own. I saw you with your banned books. Perhaps you are blessed by Father Fire, not for your ability to enhance a flame but because for so many others you were a star in a dismal sky.
