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.This vine is life to us.’I turn it over carefully in my hands.Thick, fleshy and sharp.‘Cut several coils of that vine and leave it in the sun for a day.Then collect it at night and burn it.The smoke it will make, it smells very bad.’I look up at him.‘I don’t understand.’‘If it is burned in the right place, it will carry very far.For someone who can read the wind, it is easy to find.It means you need help.They will come.The scha’rak smell even more further.They can trace you.’‘They can track you,’ I correct him.It’s become a habit now, even though it seems pointless, knowing how little time we have left together.I wish I could stay with him, just to talk, just to make his task of mastering Eskaran easier.No, that’s not the reason.I just wish I could stay with him.Saving his life committed me somehow, and his saving mine just drove the hooks deeper.I can’t decipher my feelings concerning this boy.I’ve turned it over and over in my mind, but I can’t find an answer that satisfies me.I protected him in prison, I risked myself to go back for him when I could have escaped far more easily alone.Now we’re sharing a bed, and even though there’s no more touching since that first day I awoke to find him there, the proximity unsettles me.I feel tugged towards him; it’s an effort of will to keep a gap between us under the covers.Even the thought of it inspires a poisonous feeling of guilt, of wrongness.Every day I find myself wondering why I don’t just ask to move beds, to sleep with the old woman or the children.And yet I never do.What is he to me? A surrogate for Jai, for a mother who misses her son? A replacement for Rynn, for a wife who’s lost her husband? Both? Was it just that I needed to save somebody, to make up for those I couldn’t in the past?Or is it simply that he represents a way of life to me, this SunChild world, a place utterly apart from obligation? A place away from the war, away from the conflict that killed the man I love, away from roofs and ceilings and walls.It’s a harsh world, but it’s a life with more freedom than I’ve ever had.Is it because he’s a new start?I tell myself he’s too young, far too young, but under this canopy of stars it doesn’t seem to matter.I don’t know what I feel.But I know I’m too tangled to make smart choices where my heart is concerned, and he knows it too.Rynn’s death is too fresh, and my mind is on my son.I wonder, if not for that, would things be different? Is he holding back because he knows I need time to make sense of this? He’s so difficult to read.One thing’s for sure.The goodbyes are going to be tough.Memory is an awful thing.A journey can seem like a lifetime while you’re on it.One perfect turn can stretch like a season.But when it’s over, and you look back, it seems like the whole thing happened in the beat of a heart.It’s gone and can’t be brought back.The caravan waits at the crest of the rise against a purple-blue sky.The aurorae of impending dawn are just beginning to stroke the horizon.The wind is rising, blowing my hair about my face.At my back is a cave: dry, unremarkable, crooked.It will take me home.Feyn stands with me.The others have already retreated inside the carriages, but he doesn’t seem in a hurry.He assures me that he knows the dawn, and it won’t catch him out.I’ve said my farewells to the rest of the coterie.They were very kind.Several of them pointed to the mark on the inside of my wrist and made encouraging gestures.I didn’t need Feyn to tell me that I was always welcome among them.Their simple generosity makes me feel vaguely ashamed of my cynical Veyan attitude towards friendship.In the city it’s not given freely, it’s subject to conditions and it can shatter with a single blow.They’ve loaded me up with a pack full of food and given me shortblades to replace the ones I lost, back in another life.They’re beautifully crafted, and undoubtedly valuable to a people who probably have to trade for all the metal they obtain.‘I wish you would come with me,’ I say, though the unselfish half of me hopes he will refuse.‘I wish you would stay,’ he replies.‘I have a son.’‘I know.’That hangs in the air between us for a time.‘Do you think he will come with you, if you find him? Do you think he will turn his back on war?’‘Yes,’ I say, then: ‘Maybe.His father is dead now.You can’t reason with a memory.Maybe he’ll decide to stick it out, in Rynn’s honour.I don’t know.I just have to talk with him.’‘And will your master let him do it?’‘I persuaded him before [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.This vine is life to us.’I turn it over carefully in my hands.Thick, fleshy and sharp.‘Cut several coils of that vine and leave it in the sun for a day.Then collect it at night and burn it.The smoke it will make, it smells very bad.’I look up at him.‘I don’t understand.’‘If it is burned in the right place, it will carry very far.For someone who can read the wind, it is easy to find.It means you need help.They will come.The scha’rak smell even more further.They can trace you.’‘They can track you,’ I correct him.It’s become a habit now, even though it seems pointless, knowing how little time we have left together.I wish I could stay with him, just to talk, just to make his task of mastering Eskaran easier.No, that’s not the reason.I just wish I could stay with him.Saving his life committed me somehow, and his saving mine just drove the hooks deeper.I can’t decipher my feelings concerning this boy.I’ve turned it over and over in my mind, but I can’t find an answer that satisfies me.I protected him in prison, I risked myself to go back for him when I could have escaped far more easily alone.Now we’re sharing a bed, and even though there’s no more touching since that first day I awoke to find him there, the proximity unsettles me.I feel tugged towards him; it’s an effort of will to keep a gap between us under the covers.Even the thought of it inspires a poisonous feeling of guilt, of wrongness.Every day I find myself wondering why I don’t just ask to move beds, to sleep with the old woman or the children.And yet I never do.What is he to me? A surrogate for Jai, for a mother who misses her son? A replacement for Rynn, for a wife who’s lost her husband? Both? Was it just that I needed to save somebody, to make up for those I couldn’t in the past?Or is it simply that he represents a way of life to me, this SunChild world, a place utterly apart from obligation? A place away from the war, away from the conflict that killed the man I love, away from roofs and ceilings and walls.It’s a harsh world, but it’s a life with more freedom than I’ve ever had.Is it because he’s a new start?I tell myself he’s too young, far too young, but under this canopy of stars it doesn’t seem to matter.I don’t know what I feel.But I know I’m too tangled to make smart choices where my heart is concerned, and he knows it too.Rynn’s death is too fresh, and my mind is on my son.I wonder, if not for that, would things be different? Is he holding back because he knows I need time to make sense of this? He’s so difficult to read.One thing’s for sure.The goodbyes are going to be tough.Memory is an awful thing.A journey can seem like a lifetime while you’re on it.One perfect turn can stretch like a season.But when it’s over, and you look back, it seems like the whole thing happened in the beat of a heart.It’s gone and can’t be brought back.The caravan waits at the crest of the rise against a purple-blue sky.The aurorae of impending dawn are just beginning to stroke the horizon.The wind is rising, blowing my hair about my face.At my back is a cave: dry, unremarkable, crooked.It will take me home.Feyn stands with me.The others have already retreated inside the carriages, but he doesn’t seem in a hurry.He assures me that he knows the dawn, and it won’t catch him out.I’ve said my farewells to the rest of the coterie.They were very kind.Several of them pointed to the mark on the inside of my wrist and made encouraging gestures.I didn’t need Feyn to tell me that I was always welcome among them.Their simple generosity makes me feel vaguely ashamed of my cynical Veyan attitude towards friendship.In the city it’s not given freely, it’s subject to conditions and it can shatter with a single blow.They’ve loaded me up with a pack full of food and given me shortblades to replace the ones I lost, back in another life.They’re beautifully crafted, and undoubtedly valuable to a people who probably have to trade for all the metal they obtain.‘I wish you would come with me,’ I say, though the unselfish half of me hopes he will refuse.‘I wish you would stay,’ he replies.‘I have a son.’‘I know.’That hangs in the air between us for a time.‘Do you think he will come with you, if you find him? Do you think he will turn his back on war?’‘Yes,’ I say, then: ‘Maybe.His father is dead now.You can’t reason with a memory.Maybe he’ll decide to stick it out, in Rynn’s honour.I don’t know.I just have to talk with him.’‘And will your master let him do it?’‘I persuaded him before [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]