“Yeah.”
“So?”
“So it’s a choice I made a long time ago.”
Her neck bent a little more, lowering her face closer to the pony’s hoof. She turned the rasp to the heel buttress. Her silences had a way of making him feel like a liar.
After a while, he said, “It’s … complicated.”
Her answer came from behind her hair. “Everything is, with you.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s a desperate life, to be beloved of God.”
He got interested in the snow-smoked distance. “Depends on the god.”
“Does it?”
“Christ, I hope so.”
His eyes followed the ascending saw-curve of the mountain’s flank, toward its blunt, vaguely spork-shaped peak pewtered with last year’s winter. He didn’t know its name. He didn’t know the names of any of these mountains, or the passes. Or the valleys that opened below them. Something about being with her let names slip away from him. Names are only words people assign to things.
He didn’t know hers. She’d told him once that she’d never had a name. She didn’t use his. Any of them. He’d asked her about it once. She only shrugged.
She didn’t talk much, most of the time.
Eventually he figured it out. Took a while; he could be kind of slow about some things. Horses don’t deal in abstractions. They have no use for them. She knew him. He knew her. Names are masks. They get in the way.
Like how all his names had gotten in his way, all these years.
What few names she had for him were nicknames, usually to mock his sillier poses. He had more than his share: affectations left over from his Acting career. She called him tough guy sometimes, and sometimes wolf king. More often, if she used a name at all, it was dumbass. He never minded. He usually earned it.
When she was mad at him, she called him killer. He never told her his father used to call him that. A lifetime ago. A universe away.
He looked down at the long fine curve of her neck parting the fall of her honey-streaked hair, and for a second his body hummed like a harp string tightened to breaking. He didn’t let himself touch her.
“So,” he said, eventually. “Where you headed?”
Her nearside shoulder lifted the thickness of the blade of her knife: a ghost-shrug that somehow took in the witch-herd, and the mountains, and the sky. And him. “Winter’s coming.”
This was why she didn’t talk much. She didn’t have to.
“Yeah.” He looked up into the steel swirl; the wind had freshened enough that the flakes were starting to sting his eyes. “I’m going the other way.”
She gave the pony’s hoof a last few light scrapes, then set it down. She held out her hand and the pony shifted its weight; she touched its opposite hock and it picked up the other foot. “This is about the end of the world.”
“Probably.” He looked at his hands. “Orbek probably figured he didn’t have anything to lose.”
“He’s very young.”
“Yeah.”
“The world didn’t end, you know. It changed. Not for the better. It didn’t end.”
“Without the Covenant … look, the Deomachy isn’t actually over, y’know? All Jantho did was engineer a five-hundred-year truce.”
“What do you think you can do about it? Any of it. Even Orbek.”
“Sometimes life surprises me.”
“You hate surprises.” She still hadn’t looked at him. “Where?”
“Over the mountains, north of Thorncleft,” he said. “Into the Boedecken. The Khryllian holdfast, now—they call it the Battleground.”
He felt her nod more than saw it. “You still haven’t said why you’re here.”
He shrugged into the mountains. “The herd’ll be passing Harrakha on your way downland. I was hoping maybe you could stop at the manor and tell Faith good-bye for me—”
The pony jerked its hoof off her knee and bucked as it skipped away. The hoof knife clattered off a rock a foot or two past him. It had missed his leg by almost an inch.
Almost.
This was how he knew she cared for him: she did not miss by accident.
And
“So?”
“So it’s a choice I made a long time ago.”
Her neck bent a little more, lowering her face closer to the pony’s hoof. She turned the rasp to the heel buttress. Her silences had a way of making him feel like a liar.
After a while, he said, “It’s … complicated.”
Her answer came from behind her hair. “Everything is, with you.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s a desperate life, to be beloved of God.”
He got interested in the snow-smoked distance. “Depends on the god.”
“Does it?”
“Christ, I hope so.”
His eyes followed the ascending saw-curve of the mountain’s flank, toward its blunt, vaguely spork-shaped peak pewtered with last year’s winter. He didn’t know its name. He didn’t know the names of any of these mountains, or the passes. Or the valleys that opened below them. Something about being with her let names slip away from him. Names are only words people assign to things.
He didn’t know hers. She’d told him once that she’d never had a name. She didn’t use his. Any of them. He’d asked her about it once. She only shrugged.
She didn’t talk much, most of the time.
Eventually he figured it out. Took a while; he could be kind of slow about some things. Horses don’t deal in abstractions. They have no use for them. She knew him. He knew her. Names are masks. They get in the way.
Like how all his names had gotten in his way, all these years.
What few names she had for him were nicknames, usually to mock his sillier poses. He had more than his share: affectations left over from his Acting career. She called him tough guy sometimes, and sometimes wolf king. More often, if she used a name at all, it was dumbass. He never minded. He usually earned it.
When she was mad at him, she called him killer. He never told her his father used to call him that. A lifetime ago. A universe away.
He looked down at the long fine curve of her neck parting the fall of her honey-streaked hair, and for a second his body hummed like a harp string tightened to breaking. He didn’t let himself touch her.
“So,” he said, eventually. “Where you headed?”
Her nearside shoulder lifted the thickness of the blade of her knife: a ghost-shrug that somehow took in the witch-herd, and the mountains, and the sky. And him. “Winter’s coming.”
This was why she didn’t talk much. She didn’t have to.
“Yeah.” He looked up into the steel swirl; the wind had freshened enough that the flakes were starting to sting his eyes. “I’m going the other way.”
She gave the pony’s hoof a last few light scrapes, then set it down. She held out her hand and the pony shifted its weight; she touched its opposite hock and it picked up the other foot. “This is about the end of the world.”
“Probably.” He looked at his hands. “Orbek probably figured he didn’t have anything to lose.”
“He’s very young.”
“Yeah.”
“The world didn’t end, you know. It changed. Not for the better. It didn’t end.”
“Without the Covenant … look, the Deomachy isn’t actually over, y’know? All Jantho did was engineer a five-hundred-year truce.”
“What do you think you can do about it? Any of it. Even Orbek.”
“Sometimes life surprises me.”
“You hate surprises.” She still hadn’t looked at him. “Where?”
“Over the mountains, north of Thorncleft,” he said. “Into the Boedecken. The Khryllian holdfast, now—they call it the Battleground.”
He felt her nod more than saw it. “You still haven’t said why you’re here.”
He shrugged into the mountains. “The herd’ll be passing Harrakha on your way downland. I was hoping maybe you could stop at the manor and tell Faith good-bye for me—”
The pony jerked its hoof off her knee and bucked as it skipped away. The hoof knife clattered off a rock a foot or two past him. It had missed his leg by almost an inch.
Almost.
This was how he knew she cared for him: she did not miss by accident.
And
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