The next day I did not see Taelon at all until that evening when he came back, shirt sleeves soaked in blood. And though he answered my greeting with one of his own, with no hints of the earlier silent treatment, I felt that things were still not completely right between us.

This feeling was confirmed when I offered to wash his tunic for him and he refused, saying he would do it himself. He accepted no more offers of help throughout the next three days, and though all our conversations were both respectful and cordial, we were missing the friendliness that had once been there, and after the third evening that ended with silence, I decided I would put aside my pride and be the first to offer the olive branch.

I stewed up the shellfish that had sat untouched in the cool box until then, and made them up in a light soup, much like my mother would make for me when Father brought home some clams, mussels, or oysters.

It was a shame, I thought as I stirred them around. They were finished and smelled lovely, but they looked lonely swimming about in the stew all by themselves. A bit like me.

Taelon came through the door embracing several odd-shaped packages in his arms. He placed them on the table, and only then did he see me.

“I made something to eat,” I told him nervously before he had the chance to make an excuse and go away. “Shellfish. They’ll taste good. Will you eat with me?”

And that was how we ended up at the table together.

We ate in strained silence for a minute and a half, and then I’d had enough.

“Don’t let’s be enemies,” I begged. “Truly, we must stop being so cool toward each other or we’ll be strangers again by the time winter comes around. I do and say the silliest things sometimes, and I hardly ever mean any of it. I’d ask you to forgive me, and not be angry at me.”

“I’m not angry at you, Ingrith,” Taelon said as he pried apart the juicy gums of a mussel.

“You are. Don’t lie to me to spare my feelings. It won’t have the effect you want.”

“Ingrith—” His voice was very soft and when he met my eyes, his were full of honesty. “I am not mad at you. I was, a little perhaps, but it was for a stupid reason. And I am not anymore.”

“Then—” I placed an empty shell on the table beside my bowl. “—are we still friends?”

His smile was relieving. It was his smile; bright and genuine, and I immediately felt better for seeing it. So much better that I ignored the small shadow of sorrow that tilted his lips. A sorrow that he did not let seep into his voice.

“We’ll always be friends, Ingrith. I’m sure of it. Yes.”

After that, the meal passed much more pleasantly. At the end of it, I inquired after the parcels that he had brought home, and he seemed to recognize suddenly that he had neglected to show them to me.

“Chickens?” I exclaimed when one of them had been unwrapped for my appraisal.

“Dragon and company.”

“Oh! These are those chickens? What a shame.” I patted the featherless breast of the poor creature. “I did like them.”

“You’ll like eating them too, I should think.”

“True, but I do wish that there was a way to eat animals without killing them first.”

“Unless you plan on eating one alive—” Taelon folded the chicken back up and rested his hand over it, “—it’s impossible. I used to agonize over such things, and it never did any good. Put the subject from your mind.”

“Oh, I will.” I sighed. “And sooner than I should. I really am a cruel creature.”

“It took you seeing a dead chicken to accept it?”

“It’s been coming on.” I picked up three of them. “Do you want help carrying them into the cellar?”

He hesitated. I could see him deciding what to answer, and I prayed he would say yes.

“Alright.” He nodded to my delight and scooped up the other three. “They are a bother to carry all by myself, anyway.”

The sight of the leaves on the trees turning red and gold and auburn was startling. As always, autumn came with little warning; a few smudges of copper here and there, just enough to please the eyes but not enough to sound the alarm and announce that summer was ending. Then one morning I came out into the garden and saw that almost the entire island had changed its cloak.

I used to love autumn. I loved the smells, the colors, and the change in the air.

Now I was frightened of it. After autumn ended, it would be winter, and then I would have been gone from home for more than an entire year. James would have been dead for more than an entire year.

Even the arrival of my dresses, three months late, could not urge me up from my dismal shadow.

“So what if they’re pretty?” I said gloomily to myself as I fingered the smooth material of one of them. “It’s not as if I’ll be wearing them anytime soon, shall I?”

“This doesn’t have to be true.” Taelon sat down beside me and took one of my hands in his. His touch was gentle and comforting, but it caused my heart to beat faster and so I let my fingers slide from his grasp. He didn’t reclaim them, and I wasn’t as relieved as I would have preferred to be.

“Hamma shall be held soon. We may go if you like.”

This snagged my interest.

The festival Hamma was held every autumn, just before the leaves turned brown, while the air was still warm, to mark the end of the harvest. There was drinking and feasting and music and dancing. I had never been. I had watched; I had hidden inside hay bales and watched everything, but I had never taken part in it myself.

“You’ll go,” my mother told me when I used to whine and clutch at her skirts as she prepared to go herself with my father. “You’ll go when you’re old enough, Judeth.”

“When shall I be old enough?” I’d asked.

“When you’re pretty enough to be asked to dance.”

I wasn’t sure that I was pretty enough to be asked to dance now, but I knew that I was at least three years older than many of the girls who had gone before, and so surely it would be alright.

“We may?” I breathed.

“If you like. I’ve been a few times in the past years. Maybe it will make you happy.”

I pretended that it was only the concern sharpening his features that made me say that we should indeed go, and not that I truly thirsted to.

I had grown tired of mourning, and I could see that now. I feared it. Wanting happiness was wanting to let go. I felt James fading every day, and seized onto his memory, onto the pain his memory gave me until it was solid and blunt inside me.

I would go. I would drink. I would dance. But I would not forget.

The evening of Hamma was delivered to us warm and clear. When I looked out of the window, down into the town, I could see the winking lights of lanterns spread about like fireflies, and a steady thrill beat with my pulse.

I walked all the way to the well and painstakingly lugged a full water bucket back with me. I used a rough rag to soak it up and scrub my neck, face, ears, and hands furiously until my skin was burning and raw, but undeniably cleaner than it had been for months.

Once I had patted myself dry, I put on the more beautiful dress of the two Rollo had made for me. It wasn’t anything like a queen would wear. There were no jewels, no beads, no silk, or velvet, but it was the most beautiful thing I had ever owned. The underdress was white, with large, loose sleeves. The overdress was a deep, opulent, green cotton, trimmed with white and yellow thread, and the bodice laced up with leather strings at the front.

There was no mirror to grant me a glimpse of my image, so I went to Taelon to have him give his opinion.

He had little to say, which was infuriating, and I was of half a mind to turn away and sulk. But then he handed me a few ribbons for my hair, with the offer to tie them in for me, and I reminded myself that I didn’t need his flattery to be beautiful. So, I accepted.

“What’s taking so long?” I asked after I had been sitting for three minutes straight, waiting for him to finish. It irked me that I couldn’t see what he was doing.

“Your hair is very stubborn,” was his answer, and I imagined he had a frown on his face. The frown he always had when he was concentrating.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

“It’s no inconvenience. Anything beautiful and worth having must be at least a little troublesome.”

“Perhaps.”

“There,” he said at last, and he looked exceptionally pleased with himself, so I had to imagine that it looked alright.

I reached back and smoothed a hand through my hair, feeling my fingers brush against a twist of braids and ribbons.

“It feels as though it looks pretty,” I said, sounding more astonished than I meant to. “Where do you get all these unusual talents, dare I ask?”

He shrugged, and I supposed it was all I would be getting as an answer that night.

“What about you?” I asked. He looked much the same as he always did, except that the opening of his tunic closed and did up over his right collarbone, and the light grey fabric was wrinkle-free. I had noticed, though I’d tried not to, that he often put more effort into his appearance than any other boys I knew. Certainly, more than James, who could slather himself in mud and wear it proudly, confident we would all swoon no matter the state he was in. Which we did.

I didn’t know if Taelon hadn’t this certainty of self, or if he just preferred to look kept together. He had grown up the son of a merchant after all. Either way, I had no problem with it. Perhaps it was a sign that there was something wrong with me, for traditionally, Saje women were deterred from appreciating handsome men. But I did appreciate them. I’d appreciated James, with his rugged good looks, charismatic personality, and charming smile. I was also undeniably showing increasing appreciation of Taelon; the well-proportioned contours of his features, his soft but dependable temperament, and strong, lithe form. In fact, I appreciated everything about him. From the faint, but still noticeable difference in his accent from mine to the way he looked at things. And his smile. I could hardly forgo mentioning his smile. It wasn’t at all like James’s. It didn’t have the similar brigandish but innocent quirk of the lips and puffing of cheeks. It was something else. His lips pulled out more than up; and his cheeks looked always just shy of dimpling like they knew how to but never quite managed it. The one real similarity between the two was the way their eyes smiled with their mouths when they were truly happy.

I wondered if mine did the same.

“I combed my hair,” Taelon said self-consciously, with a hint of injured defensiveness. And when I looked closer, I could see that he had. The twisting strands that always did their best to fall over his eyes had been smoothed away, so that I could fully see them, and how blue they were. It was a dangerous color, and unnatural for a mortal being. Blue, like the eyes of a god. And yet they didn’t scare me now as they might have. The fire that burned within them was a human flame. The feelings behind them were human, and they lived in a human body, with a beating human heart.

But still, it bothered me, it did, that Taelon was so obviously of Radkkan descent.

If only your eyes were green, I thought to myself. Or brown, or gold, or grey.

But they are beautiful eyes, a voice whispered in the back of my mind. Blue is beautiful. And he’s all the more beautiful himself for it.

Blue was beautiful. It was terrifying and beautiful. It was death and terror in the face of my enemy. But what was it with him?

I was prejudiced; I knew without having to be told that this was the case. I also knew that I wasn’t ready to get over it. Not just yet.

Taelon looked uncomfortable. He couldn’t possibly know what I had been thinking of while staring at him in silence.

“Let’s go,” he said and put an end to my deliberations.

Hamma on Seaggis was held in a large meadow at the bottom of the hill, inside the stone gate. The grass had been painstakingly swept of the leaves from the trees that littered it. Lanterns were everywhere, flickering and winking in the failing light of the sunset, and tents had been set up here and there, beneath which were tables laden with food, and under one bigger tent, decorated with ribbons, was a gathering of bards.

“I hadn’t realized that there were bards on Seaggis,” I whispered in Taelon’s ear excitedly, keeping my eyes fixed on them.

“How else did you suppose we would have music?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t stop to wonder.”

They had already begun playing. One, a young man with gold hair played on a lute, while another, an elderly man with a silver beard, used a fiddle.

There were others: a drum, Uilleann pipes, and a flute. But my attention was immediately captured by a woman with long, grey, plaited hair who held a Psaltery in her lap. Each time her bow slid along a string, a beautiful note sang hauntingly into the mix of the others, and I felt a delighted shiver run up my spine.

“That’s a woman,” I said, astonished.

Taelon nodded, though his eyes were watching the people who danced, spiraling, circling, twirling. There couldn’t have been over thirty people dancing, and a hundred counting those who stayed at the sidelines to watch and talk and eat, but somehow there suddenly seemed to me to be so many.

“I didn’t know women could be bards.”

“She’s from Lyra,” he told me. “The island of music and art. Her name is Mechdeild. She’s been here at least twenty years, from what I know.”

An enormous pile of sticks and logs was being stacked up steadily a few yards away from us, each piece of wood placed standing upward and leaning on the others for support, like a pointed roof.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing.

“It’s a bonfire,” said Taelon, peering at it. “They’ll light it as soon as the sun has set.” He gazed at me with a thoughtful frown.

“You know very little about these things. I thought you’d been before?”

“This is the first time I’ve ever been to Hamma since I was a child.” I plucked a large, juicy, red grape off a platter and stuck it in my mouth, enjoying the pop as my teeth crunched down on it and the sweet tang that teased my tongue. Back in Saje, I’d only ever had the luxury of eating them when fruit traders came to us. Here, with an entire field dedicated to the growing of them, they were plentiful.

“When I was quite young, I would sneak into the large barn where our Hamma festival was always held, and I would hide inside a haystack and watch until I got caught and taken home. It can’t have been more than ten years ago when I made my last attempt, but I feel as though the memory is so far away.”

I let my eyes flit to the dancers. The women laughed and spread their arms wide, weaving in and out of the spaces between their partners. Now and then, a man would sneak out a mischievous hand and steal one of the ribbons in a girl’s hair and hold it aloft so that she couldn’t get it back.

Every face was smiling. All eyes were alight with happiness and excitement.

Such a thing should not have seemed so foreign to me.

Perhaps this was what led me to accept a request to dance from a young man who approached me not long after arriving.

He paid no mind to Taelon, who stood quietly beside me and said, with all the boldness and courage of a king, “My name is Harid, son of Halndin. Would you take the next dance with me?”

And I surprised myself by saying yes. That I would be thrilled to.

He went away, promising to collect me when the time came, and I had to ask Taelon to fetch me something to drink upon finding my mouth completely dry.

“Why did you say yes?” Taelon asked, returning to my side with a tankard full of rich, honey-colored liquid.

“Should I not have?” I took a large sip and found that the liquid was sweet.

“I thought—” He declined to meet my eyes, “—I thought that you were in mourning.”

“I am,” I confirmed. “Or at least, I shall be, starting again tomorrow.” I drained the rest of my drink and set the tankard down on the table beside me. “But I am tired of living with sorrow clinging to the back of my mind. Tonight, I won’t think of anything. I shall only enjoy myself. Tonight, I set myself free.”

“Why tonight alone?” Taelon asked as our eyes met, and there was something in his. Something I refused to explore. “If you open the doors to your cage, why not keep them open?”

“I am not ready.” It was strangely difficult to admit to this truth; like it was something to be ashamed of. And maybe it was. “I’m not ready for complete freedom yet, but I will be. Eventually.”

The bards ended their song and prepared to begin again. I smoothed down my dress and patted my hair, though I knew that there was no point. By the end of the night, my appearance would be a fright.

I let myself remember; picture for a moment my mother every time she returned from the festival, hair a mess, dress rumpled, but cheeks rosy and eyes twinkling. She and Father would stumble through the door in each other’s arms, giggling and whispering to each other, then tripped and laughed their way to their bedroom, and fell inside.

Did it matter if you became a mess, if it was a happy one?

“I’ll take the liberty of assuming that you haven’t the faintest idea of how to dance,” Taelon said, and despite the reprimanding tone of his voice, his eyes were hopeful.

“It looks simple enough. I’ve been watching them.” I raised my hand to wave as I saw Harid picking his way through the milling people toward me.

“I’ll go now,” I told the man beside me.

“Enjoy yourself.” I had to give him credit for his smile. Warm and genuine without a hint of strain. It was almost disappointing, but then Harid took my hand and I left it all behind to dance in the melting glow of the fire that had been lit, the sparks leaping up into the darkening sky.

It is difficult to worry, to grieve, to be sorrowful on such a night when my joys were the people’s, and the people’s joys were mine.

With every brush of a hand or link of the elbow, we shared something beautiful. So, so amazingly beautiful that I found myself breathless.

It would be a lie if I said that my head hadn’t grown that night. After dancing seven dances with five men, I was feeling very confident and pleased with myself.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” I told one of my admirers, Bri’arc, when he asked me for one more dance.

“Truly, I cannot.” I laughed when he insisted. “I’m afraid if I try, I’ll end up in a heap on the ground and you shall have to carry me away.”

“I wouldn’t mind.” He grinned at me, his hand still firmly on my waist, only quite a bit lower than it was supposed to be.

“I imagine I would. It’s embarrassing just to think about.” I touched my hands to my heated cheeks and took advantage of the movement to slide away from him. “And I’m parched. Thank you again.”

I left him and swayed dreamily back to where I’d left Taelon. Only, I found upon my arrival that he was nowhere in sight, and panicked, the thought of being alone suddenly very alarming.

Luckily, he found me before I had the chance to start imagining something terrible might have happened. Like his being seduced by a flattery of pretty girls in the long grass. Or urged to help one recover from a swoon behind a haystack, or something similar.

“You’re flushed,” he noted immediately upon our reunion.

“Am I?” I touched the back of my hand to my brow and felt the pulsing heat of my excitement dancing on my skin.

“I may have danced a bit too much,” I thought aloud.

“I would think so.”

I could see that he wanted me to suggest that we leave. He wanted me to say that I’d had enough and was ready to go back home. But I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t had enough.

“Dance with me,” I suggested brilliantly.

“I think we should go back home, Ingrith.” He should have been dazzled by my request. He should have told me I was the cleverest person alive, and that he would love to dance with me. Why was he reluctant? Where was the blush that so became him?

“Don’t be a bore,” I instructed. “How many dances have you had? Few, I’m sure. You don’t need to be worried, I’m an excellent dancer now. I’ll keep you safe.”

“I do not—”

“One dance,” I pressed, letting my hands run lightly up his chest and tangle with the leather laces of his tunic.

And there it was. The loving brush of rose painted delicately across his cheeks. He swallowed and looked away from me.

I had to marvel at the sheer incredibleness of it.

He was a creature, equal, if not superior to myself. His were hands that could do any multitude of tasks and chores. His was a body made to do strong, admirable things. He was a man. And all that I held him by were two thin pieces of leather, yet they might have been reins of fire because he trembled in my grip.

I knew immediately he would do what I asked, everything I asked, no matter what it was. But I let the laces go, dropping my hands to clasp his because I didn’t want his undying obedience. I only wanted him to dance with me. To have one moment where I could openly acknowledge that there was something, definitely something in my heart that was his.

“Alright,” he said softly, eyes fixed on our clasped hands.

I danced with him three times that night, and I let my eyes shine as bright as they wanted, tell him whatever they wanted. I hoped he would make sense of what it all meant like I couldn’t.

Finally, when I nearly fainted from exhaustion and bubbly delight, I admitted defeat and withdrew with Taelon to the tents again, where he handed me another tankard, and I drank from it eagerly, then frowned, my expectations poorly met.

It wasn’t the sweet liquid from before.

“What’s this?” I demanded, squinting down into it.

“Water,” he answered placidly.

“Can’t I have more of what I had before?”

“No, I don’t think so.

“Why not?” I glared magnificently, frustrated by his unflattering lack of response to my distress.

He took my arm gently and led me away, to a quieter part of the clearing. It was darker. The grass was long, and it felt peaceful. The sound of music and laughter was distant, but I could hear it, as well as the purring of crickets who lay unseen amongst the greenery.

It was later than I had realized; the moon was high in the sky, a thin, fugacious smile in the dark.

“You should rest,” Taelon told me, and his voice was quiet as though we were sharing some great secret, though there was no one near enough to hear even if we were.

“I am not tired,” I said. “Not all that much, anyway. I’ve had the most wondrous time.”

I felt James try to swim to the surface of my mind, and I pushed him back under, along with the guilt of doing so. I refused to feel sorrowful.

“I am glad.” Taelon was smiling his bright, genuine smile. “I am so very glad.”

I understood then that he had been worried for me; truly worried. He had seen me struggling underneath my damp cloud, even when I hadn’t displayed it to be seen.

I was struck with a swell of happiness.

That happiness certainly contributed to what happened next. Happiness, and how I realized then how truly beautiful he was. His face, his hair, his hands, his nose, his lips, his smile, his voice, his eyes. Even his blue eyes were so incredibly beautiful. And he looked at me as though I were his wishes planted in the ground and taken root.

I flung my arms around his neck and kissed him.

He shuddered still.

I was oblivious to time. It was meaningless to me. Though was that anything quite so profound? When, in the face of everything we lived for, had it ever any true meaning?

My heart thudded against the confines of my chest, once, twice, three times.

Finally, I relinquished my grip and took my lips back from Taelon, who was a statue underneath my hands. Except for his heart. I felt it beating wildly where our chests were still pressed together, and he stared at me, his eyes wide and his lips parted in a silent exclamation of surprise.

“You’ll get over it, old boy.” I patted him consolingly on the shoulder, then lay down in the grass and promptly fell asleep.

Upon awakening the next morning, I sat up at once, my stomach filled with horror and embarrassment, though it took me a few seconds to remember why.

By the time I had rushed into the kitchen, my face was aflame and I remembered exactly what I had done.

“It is perfectly alright, Ingrith,” he assured me several times after I had thrown myself into an elaborate bow and begged for his forgiveness. “I know you meant no harm by it.”

“But I’m so ashamed!” I wailed. “You should have pushed me away! Why didn’t you?”

“I was not expecting it,” he said, then added, “You’re very unpredictable, Ingrith.” I wasn’t sure that it wasn't a compliment.

“How did I get back?” I searched my memory, but after the kiss, it was blank. “You didn’t—Oh, dear. You didn’t have to carry me home?” I squeaked.

“No, no. You walked back by yourself.”

“Did I? I can’t remember it.”

He reached up inadvertently and pulled a ribbon out of my hair. I was still dressed from the night before. We both watched as he wound it around his fingers; green against white.

“You slept for a while, then you stood up and told me we should go back home. I followed you.”

“How strange.” I pressed my fingers to my temples, as though I could spear them through the blur and mist. “I can’t remember a thing.”

“Well, it’s nothing to worry about. And you enjoyed yourself, isn’t that all that matters?”

“I suppose it is.” I pulled at the hem of my sleeve, trying to decide what to do next. My brain was full of a thick mist and my thoughts were tangled like a ball of yarn, making serious thinking feel impossible and tiresome, so I suggested I might change and that then we would make breakfast together. Taelon agreed.

It wasn’t even two days after the Hamma festival that my first visitor arrived. It was later that afternoon, while I sat by the window, trying to embroider a handkerchief, that there was a knock at the door.

I knew at once that whoever it was, it wasn’t Taelon. This was his house, so he never knocked. It took me a moment to gather the courage to go to the door and open it, but I did, and to my almost complete shock, found a man standing on the doorstep.

“Harid!” I squeaked. “Harid, what are you doing here?”

It wasn’t a question I should have had to ask. It was obvious why he came. The absence of dirt on his skin, the lack of wrinkles in his coat, the sheen to his red-gold hair that spoke of a comb having been run through it recently. All of this, even without the late-season flower clasped in his hand, pointed toward one thing.

Courtship.

I pretended I was oblivious, of course, and when he asked me to ride with him the next day, my show of surprise was flawless.

“You do know how to ride, don’t you?” he asked after I invited him in and placed the flower in a jar of water.

“A horse, you mean?” I flitted about the room, trying to find something to put down before him, and settled with a cup of tea. “I’ve been on one before, only a few times, and quite a long time ago, but I’m sure with some guidance and a bit of time I could learn again. I don’t remember it being all that difficult.”

“I’ll guide you.” Harid seemed keen to be my teacher, and he left, promising to come back the next day.

That evening, when I told Taelon of what had transpired, he didn’t seem surprised.

“I was wondering how long it would be before one of them came after you,” he said, and his eyes weren’t as amused as his voice. Then, when I asked if I should go, he told me it was my life, and I must do as I pleased. I said I would.

I had a lovely outing with Harid and the horses, without too many humiliating moments. I fell once into the surf, off the back of an energetic white filly who decided mid-stride that it would be most delightful to kick her hind legs into the air and see if I could stay on—I could not—and then abandon me.

Thankfully, nothing was broken except my dignity, and Harid had a marvelous time being the hero who carried me, soaking wet, out of the water and onto the safety of the sand.

I was cold, soaked, and a little sandy when I returned home, but cheerful. Harid said he would return in three days and take me out again, and I didn’t quite know how to refuse without being cruel, so I agreed and trudged inside to clean myself up.

The next day, there was another knock at the door, and instead of finding Harid, I found tall, dark Anhur, another dance partner from the festival.

He invited me for an autumn morning stroll, and there being no one home to dissuade me, I accepted.

The walk was pleasant enough, even if the trees were losing some of their brilliance, and the air was brisk. The birds were singing, the squirrels were busy in the undergrowth, and the stream bubbled and tripped over the stones that paved its path.

However, talk was scarce and dull, with only a few questionable remarks made about my living situation. After three attempts to start a proper conversation that would engage both of us equally, we gave up and I made a weak excuse to cut our outing short and return home.

The next visitor was not as unexpected as he should have been.

Bri’arc hoped to take me into the village that afternoon, and once again, I agreed. Not particularly because I wanted to, but because something whispered in my ear that I should. I had been unsettled since the festival, knowing that I had done or said something; something possibly even more dangerous than kissing Taelon. I felt naked, raw, and visible. Something had happened that I should not have let happen.

The excursion into the village would provide a well-suited distraction.

By the end of the day, my feet were sore from walking, and I was worn out and ill-tempered from fending off Bri’arc’s repeated attempts to fondle my chest, and smarting from his excuses that, ‘what was he supposed to think? I was unmarried and living with a man.’

I was highly regretting not trying to discourage any of them.

As my visitors, or, as Verity called them when I came across her in the market, my ‘wooers’ attentions persisted, things began to go faster, and overwhelmingly out of control. The gifts became more lavish, the visits came more frequently, and more than a few glares were shot between them when two happened upon me at the same time.

I’d been flattered at first. Flattered I was alluring enough for three men to pursue me at the same time. But I hadn’t realized—which of course was my own failing—that their intentions weren’t to have a few light days of courtship, just for the fun, and then call it a day.

We weren’t children anymore. I wasn’t a child. It was strange how easily I tended to forget.

Taelon was growing increasingly annoyed and sour. He took to going out earlier and staying out later so that I would have to wait up in the evenings if I wanted to see him.

On one such occasion, I chided him and said that he was just jealous. Partly because I wanted to tease him, but mostly because if he liked me as much as people told me he did, why didn’t he do anything? If he were James, he would have fought them.

But he’s not James, my mind said. He’s Taelon.

When had that become a good thing?

In any case, he took the accusation badly.

“Jealous? Of those bloody fools? Do you even know what they are here for?”

“They like me, I should think.”

“No, they do not. Just wait. As soon as the cold weather comes it will drive them away and you won’t see them again. All they want from you is either a swift marriage to satisfy their parents’ expectations or to get inside your skirts, and you appear foolish and willing enough to go along with about anything. You haven’t even picked one, have you? They do not like you, Ingrith. Not like I—”

“Don’t worry,” I snapped, rushing to cut him off. “It’s not as if any of it will come to anything.” I ignored the hurt on his face as I refused to let him say what he’d wanted to. “And . . . why must you be so rude about it?”

I was horrified at finding tears in my eyes, and even more so that my voice wobbled. I stood up and fled to my room before I could embarrass myself further.

I wanted to be angry. I wanted to be furious; to call him a hundred foul names and say that he knew nothing. But I couldn’t be furious. No matter how hard I tried, all I felt was hurt, and the foul taste of guilt on my tongue.

Only about half an hour later, there was a soft knock at my door, and Taelon’s voice, asking if he could come in. I sat up from where I had been laying miserably on my bed and said that he could.

He opened the door and sat down beside me, wasting no time before apologizing.

“I am sorry, Ingrith,” he said. “I did not mean to say what I did. I was upset.”

“You were right.” I swung my legs off the side of the bed and rested my feet on the floor. “I was behaving foolishly. My mother would have scolded me if she knew.”

“Maybe,” he agreed. “But I shouldn’t have said it the way that I did, and I am sorry if I hurt you.”

“You did hurt me.” I let my eyes become fixated on a twisted, brown leaf on my windowsill. “I was hurt, more than I should have been. It seems that I care about your good opinion. More than I thought I did.”

“You have it,” he insisted and stretched out his fingers to clasp my hand. I thought about tugging them away, but the instinct to do so wasn’t there, and I left it. My eyes now traveled along the curve of his knuckles, and the impressions the bones created underneath his skin.

They were big hands; bigger than mine, but smaller than James’s. Smaller and softer. Smaller and more caring.

This comparison was unnerving.

“Bri’arc—” Taelon said tentatively, “— isn’t looking for a wife, only what a wife can give. Believe me when I say I know.”

I caught the meaning behind his words and nodded.

“Anhur’s father is the blacksmith, with two more sons. Whichever one marries first shall inherit the smithy.”

“I see,” I said, feeling slightly downhearted, though strangely not all that surprised.

“I do not think—I do not think that any of them are good enough for you, Ingrith,” Taelon confessed. “But, if you do enjoy their company, I suppose Harid isn’t a terrible choice.”

“No?” I lifted my head, trying not to seem as disappointed as I felt.

“His family breeds horses. They could give you a good life and—” He stopped for a moment, his lips twisting as though he had something bitter in his mouth, “—I believe Harid’s intentions are honorable. So far as I have been able to find out. What I want to say is . . .” His grip on my hand tightened, and he brushed his thumb lightly over the small hill of my wrist bone. “If it is your wish to keep seeing him, I will not stop you.”

“You are kind,” I told him, allowing a gentle smile to lift the corners of my mouth. “You are truly kind to tell me this, but you overestimate how much they mean to me. Indeed, I don’t think I would miss any of them if they were to go away. At least I wouldn’t miss them terribly, and what loss I would feel wouldn’t stay with me long. I say this honestly.”

“Then why would you encourage them?” he asked, and I heard a low hint of aggravation in his voice, though he suppressed it admirably. Perhaps, if I hadn’t been looking for it, I wouldn’t have caught it at all.

“Because I wanted to enjoy myself. Maybe the attention I received at the festival did go to my head, more than I thought it would. I was flattered by their words and gifts and compliments. It made me feel . . . lighthearted. Like a child again, in a way.”

“Would you have let it go on?” Taelon withdrew his hand from mine and interlaced it with his other across his knees, leaving behind a sudden chill that was wanting. “If one of them asked you to marry them, what would you have done?”

“Why, refused of course!” I drew back indignantly.

Taelon’s expression relaxed.

“Would you—” he said, after a long moment of thoughtful silence shared between us, “—like to walk down to the village with me?”

“Now?” I asked, looking dubiously out of the window. “It’s almost dark.”

“Then, tomorrow, perhaps? Unless—” He cocked his head to the side and there was something new in his eyes. A look I could recognize immediately as the look of a bird when it crept closer to a hand outstretched with the promise of a prize.

It was a look that was a challenge for the bird as much as it was for the one holding out their hand. Would the bird dare? Would it dare to land on the fingers of a human and feed from its palm? And would the human dare to withdraw the hand when the bird made its way toward it? Or snap its fingers around the delicate frame?

It was caution at its most daring.

“—Unless someone is waiting on you tomorrow?” he finished, his voice tilting up at the last second to make it a question.

“There isn’t,” I told him. “There won’t be. Not tomorrow, or the day after that, or the next.”