I toyed with the idea of approaching you, though it went against my orders. But I reasoned with myself that you were in grief for your husband. After that, I told myself you did not seem in want of a man. Eventually, I thought perhaps a Tintarian, so loathed by the church, would only bring you more trouble. And then, I quit the wardens the day after they burned your books. I did not see it or I would have intervened. I would have abandoned all policy. I had been ordered to monitor Carver as well as Sheridan, and it was, of course, bad luck I spent that day elsewhere. When I returned to your spread of Nyossa, I witnessed your loss of hope. I understood what had been done to you. My heart broke to know you were breaking.
I could offer you nothing. I had never had any right to adore you from afar, to find solace and joy in watching you. So I quit. I reasoned I may as well rejoin the infantry and serve my country in that way.
I had not ascertained that the influx of soldiers in Sheridan was for the preparation of a mass deportation. I and other wardens reasoned they were merely occupying border towns of Tintar. When I was in Pikestully, I learned of the pilgrimages. A spy reporting in the office of the wardens told me that any townsfolk who did not join the pilgrimages would likely be later cut down by occupying Perpatanian soldiers.
I fled back to you. I sold myself to Thane as a scout, nearly begged for the work and then later for the employment of my friends. I was fortunate that he, a discerning man, already questioned the motives of the church and took us on.
Then, I learned you were not signing the penitents’ list. Do you remember when I first stopped you in the street? You kept saying that we did not know each other. I was unseated. How could I explain that I felt that I knew you? Your easy dismissal and lack of interest threw me.
When I learned that you had chosen to sign, I was grateful as my next step would have been to give Thane my apologies and camp out in Nyossa until your lives were threatened by either Perpatanian or Tintarian armies. My only plan was you. I had no other purpose.
But, and I should have known, you persisted in your outlawry. Though I was unsure as to why, I noticed that the church and their soldiers had eyes on you. When I was on night watch, I tried to impress upon you the danger you were putting yourself in. And you laughed at me, scorned me, and seemed to care little for me. I guessed that perhaps you did not see me as desirable, that I was but one more man who wanted you or wanted to harm you. I saw other men notice you, talk to you, flirt with you. You continuously mentioned your age, almost as if you wanted me to know you saw my own as something that would bar me from courting you.
After long observation of your wit and cunning, your wellspring of kindness and courage, I was not prepared for the nearness of you. I knew you were comely, but I did not know that your skin glowed, that your scent was intoxicating. I did not know that the very outline of your figure would devastate me. I did not know that watching the curve of your fiery mouth speak would reduce me to ash. I knew what it was to love you. I was not prepared to want you.
And so I resorted to near boyhood. In my effort to prove myself to you as a man on our journey, to recommend myself as a partner, I exhibited the pettiest jealousies and insecurities. I was beside myself with envy. I returned to the practices of a younger Reed. There is a study of air magic that says suffering comes from wanting and caring too much. This aided me in the last winters of my boyhood when I lost my eye, when my mother chose her husband over her son. I chose not to care. I adopted this throughout most of my life, save for Evangeline, Keir, and Dermid. It was better not to care, not to love, to dream, to hope. I did not grieve my father’s abandonment or my mother’s coldnessif I did not care.
But you made me care, didn’t you? I wrestled with who I was and what kind of man I wanted to be every night on the road. I could not be the careless man who refused to put his heart into anything. I could not wall off my heart if I wanted you to have it.
I have nothing to offer you but a house on a Vyggian cliff in the sea. But it is yours. If you want a place of your own, I will deed it to you. I do not have to be there. There is no condition. I would gladly call it yours and rest knowing you lived there even if you did not want me living there with you. I think you would love the ocean. She is untamed and unmatched. Like you.
I know there will be protestation on your part. But let me say this. You can be scared and not want this. You can reject me. All I ask is that you believe me. Do not dismiss this as an infatuation. Do not take this—this love—from me. It might be about you, entirely so, but it is mine. My love. You are the thing it shines on, but it is my light. You are the breath I breathe, but these are my lungs. Believe me when I tell you that I love you.
Perhaps you are to learn to be cared for and I am to learn not to fear the breadth of my care, the expanse and scope of it, this weightless but heavy thing my body barely contains. Learn next to me. Let this be our lifelong study, side by side. Marry me. Not even in law, but in spirit?—
His words ended there, a half-formed sentence. Throughout the letter, certain lines had been crossed out. There were illegible ones scratched in the margins. It appeared to be a letter he had crafted, and was still in the midst of crafting, over some time.
My cheeks were wet. I clutched the little booklet to my chest. For some time I sat there, trying to right myself, to regain control of my breath. I felt both torn in two and stitched back together. When I opened it again, convinced that rereading it might offer some clarity, I paused at my name at the beginning of the letter. The O of my name was drawn at a slant that seemed so familiar to me.
Before I could question it, I raced across the hall to the room I shared with Fox and Ilsit. Our pitiful collection of belongings was piled next to the large mattress, and I pulled my small trunk out from it, flipping the lid open. Plunging my hands into the folded clothes, extra pair of boots, and the tools for my trade, I fished outThe Life of Una. I set both it and Reed’s warden booklet on the floor,The Life of Unaopened to the title page.
Don’t lose hope.
It was written in the same hand.
99
NOW: HOPE
It was the end of winter now, and Eccleston was much farther up north than the low country where I had lived my entire life. We had spent coin on cloaks and shawls when we had first been paid for our labors. I wrapped myself in both a shawl and a cloak, wincing at the brisk wind in my face when I exited the house. Gracelessly, I stumbled out into the street, trying to get my bearings in this city. I remembered that one direction would lead to the hitching post where Reed and Dermid would be dropped off. As I began for the post, I heard my name called. Glancing up, I recognized Kate, the wheelwright’s wife.
She was waving to me across the street, from the doorway of a building that had sustained damage from the invasion.
“Robbie!” she called again. “I wondered what happened to you lot!”
I was taken aback.
She was cheerful looking, pink cheeked and eager, a far cry from the woman I had seen lost and dim in the tower. She was crossing the street, wiping her hands on her apron. Kate gave me an embrace, not seeming to be offended when I barely returned it.
“It’s you,” I said.
“Did you hear about the fire?” she asked, pulling away. “Is that how you left too? We didn’t see you on the road here.”
I must have nodded.
“My man saw the first flames and went for our horses. He was already cross, already didn’t think we were given the accommodations we were promised. People followed suit. They couldn’t resistallof us flooding outside at once, hollering for their Gates of Sound to be open.” Kate smiled, shaking her head. “Always thought I was a country mouse, but I love this city already. They’ve no mother’s moss here, but you can walk right into an apothecary and ask for their version of a woman’s tonic. It’s like they’ve never heard of Rodwin here, even if they were once allied with Perpatane. My man says he’s lost any faith he ever had anyway.”
“Once?”
