“I can manage,” I insisted, but I didn’t reach for the hare.
He glanced at me with those ever-dark eyes, waiting for me to resist. When I didn’t, he took the hare and made quick work of it. His cuts weren’t the neatest, but it didn’t matter—the pelt was too thin to sell, anyway.
“You can manage it,” he said softly once he’d finished with the hare, set it over the fire, and washed his hands with collected stream water. “Manage it, escape it, or grow with it. Pain, I mean.” I noticed the fire didn’t reflect in his eyes. “But you can’t forget it. Even if you could, you would lose the strength it gave you. There is always strength in pain. It’s small and it’s hidden, but it’s always there.”
My lips parted, but no sound passed them. I felt like the hare once more—opened up, the excess stripped away to reveal what lay underneath. It hurt, but not like a wound. Like a balm that stung once applied, but would hasten healing.
Shifting close to me, Ristriel gingerly took my heel in his palm; I’d taken off my shoes while he was out. When I didn’t protest, he pulled off my wool sock and turned my foot so we could both see the red spot on my heel, where the shoe had chafed during our long walk.
“Our souls are like blisters,” he said, a whisper of smile flavoring the words. “The irritant, the hardship, the pain, will make your skin tougher. Stronger.” He delicately touched the sore spot. “But take that away, and you take away the growth.”
He set my foot down like it were made of glass. Reaching forward, I grasped his hand. He studied my fingers for several heartbeats before he met my eyes.
“Thank you.” I swallowed to keep my emotions at bay, though tears threatened the corners of my eyes. I would remember the metaphor of the blister for years—centuries—to come. “Thank you, for saying that.”
We finished roasting the hare in silence. I had no salt to season it, but it was warm and filled my belly. And this time, when I offered a portion to Ristriel, he accepted it, marveling at the glistening meat as though I had bequeathed him a bar of gold.
I woke on my own to early morning birds chirping in the boughs overhead. The sky was still dark, but the dawn seemed close. Ristriel was awake, a wolf again, prowling around our campsite, standing guard. He rustled through uneven patches of long grass in the small glade, the blades towering over the shy grass of early spring.
I grabbed my second dress and a bar of soap. “I’m going to wash in that pond we passed.”
The wolf nodded, and I stepped carefully through the trees, my path still dark. I got turned around once, but managed to find the pond. Bowing to it, I asked, “Does any godling claim these waters?”
When I received no response, I stripped out of my dress and submerged into the water, biting down on a gasp for how cold it was. Working quickly, I scrubbed the hem and then the underarms of the dress I’d shed, then hurriedly ran the soap over myself, pulling my hair out of its braid to get at my scalp. I slowed in my scouring only once, when my fingers passed over the stretch marks on my hips. I imagined a little babe tied to my back, crying for the chill, comforted on my breast. The longing for it bit harder than the icy pond did.
Teeth chattering, I waded out of the pond, wrung out my hair, and pulled on my second dress, tight muscles slowly relaxing as the dry fabric warmed them. I had just finished braiding my hair when the Sun grew bright as noonday over the pond, although the woods around me remained basked in shadow.
I turned toward the brightest light, pulse quickening. It was either a godling come for Ristriel, or—
Sun.
“Hello, Ceris.” The grass curled at His feet. Swaths of celestial fabric looped over both of His shoulders, coming down into a golden belt before splaying over fiery legs. The way it hugged and flowed would be any sculptor’s dream.
He seemed so radically out of place in the forest. His presence did nothing to stir the sleeping Earth Mother, but Her trees seemed to bow to Him.
I blinked as my eyes adjusted to His brightness. “H-Hello.” I remembered to bow, but a burst of excitement stuck my spine up straight again. “Is it time? Now?”
Sun frowned, diamond eyes gleaming. “I am sorry, Ceris. I have very little time, and the way to her is more dangerous now than it was before.”
Hope evaporated from my skin. “Oh.”
“I wish to speak with you.”
“Is that not what we’re doing?” I stepped closer to Him, drawn to the heat of His presence. He was a bonfire that would not burn me, and the cold touch of the pond quickly receded from my limbs. “What has happened?”