18. Turren

I’d said something wrong, and I wasn’t sure how to fix things between us. Again, I counseled patience. We had tonight and tomorrow morning, and I wasn’t wasting one second.

I turned away while she left the water, walked up to where she’d left her things, and dressed. Then I did the same, joining her by the dying fire after I’d donned my loincloth.

“Are you ready to scale a tree?” I asked, my voice croaking. Emotions were a tough thing. They kept tangling with my sense of duty, and I wasn’t sure how to unscramble them.

“Yes.” We walked into the woods, and I studied the trees, finally selecting one. At her nod, I lifted her into my arms and quickly made my way up into the canopy, where I settled on the wide branch.

She climbed into my lap, facing me, looking up at me while her fingertips stroked my arms. If she kept doing that, my cock was going to wake up and demand attention. I doubted that was where she wanted to take things tonight.

I lifted my pendant and asked a thin branch to descend to hold my whisp lantern. Once I’d hung it, it swayed softly, making light dance around us.

“It still feels magical,” she whispered. “We had whisp lanterns back in the village, but somehow, out here in the wild, they feel different.”

“What do you enjoy doing most in the world?” I asked, craving to hear her voice and whatever she might wish to tell me.

She smiled up at me. “I enjoyed reading, but I think my favorite thing was working in the soil, growing things.”

“Flowers?” I asked.

“And vegetables. There’s something satisfying about placing a seed in the moist soil and watching it sprout. Then carefully feeding the new growth until it’s big enough to produce something you can eat. And when you eat it, you can separate the seeds and start the process all over again. It’s a never-ending circle that soothes me.”

“Some of my clan grow grains and vegetables near the oasis where we spend our winter months. While it’s often hot in the desert, the water chills the air enough we can sleep at night.”

“You mentioned hide houses?”

“We tan the skins and maintain them when we’re there, but many times, it’s nice to sleep out under the stars.”

“I didn’t do that in the village. I saw the stars but only in passing at night. Most of the time, it was good to be inside before it got dark. It wasn’t always safe going out at night. Inside, with whisp lanterns lit, it was cozy. Welcoming. A home.”

“You’ll have the same feeling of security in the new village. I’ve met the caedos and her mate, and they’re both strong and honest. Everyone there has worked hard to build homes and the fortress walls.”

“Even there, they need walls?”

“Walls protected you from the shaydes and ashenclaws when you lived in your village, as did the walls of your home.”

“That’s true. I guess I thought that there, they wouldn’t need them. That they could leave their homes and wander about in safety.”

“They have guards. No one has been killed by a shayde or ashenclaw.”

Yet. No place was completely safe. Our world could too easily be shaken, broken.

“Tell me more about the desert.”

“You wish to hear about it?”

“I want to try to see why you love it, why you enjoy that life so much you can’t imagine living any other way.”

How could I find the right words to impress her?

“You”d think that with all the openness and with the vast sky above, there wouldn”t be much to look at, but the way the sun cuts across the sky in the early morning is stunning.” There were my words again, slipping easily from my tongue. When my emotions were involved, my body could sing. “Soft pinks, golds, and oranges paint the very air. And in the evening, when the sun sets, the sky is ablaze with reds and oranges so vivid, your heart feels ready to soar up there and grab onto the beams.”

I looked down at her, smiling because she listened raptly. “If I could, I’d bunch them up and gift them to you. A sun bouquet whose beauty would only be surpassed by yours.”

Her breath caught. “It sounds pretty, much prettier than me.”

“When I first saw you, I felt as if everything shifted inside me, like I had been walking a path that was good enough for then but nowhere near as wonderful as it could be with you beside me.”

“You say the sweetest things.”

“I mean them.”

“Your desert sounds beautiful.”

“As I said, there are dangers there, but we’re not held back by walls. We’ve found ways to lessen the danger, so many walk at night, lay on the ground to look at the stars, and even sleep out in the open.”

“It does sound freeing.”

Did I hear longing in her voice?

“I’d love to show it to you one day. Share it with you. Our mountain home, too, that’s so different.”

“Maybe someday.” Her face scrunched. “Why else do you love the desert?”

“It’s beautiful in a fierce, raw way. The sand is always shifting, forming new peaks or being smoothed by the wind. Every time you look, it’s a new painting, and each is prettier than the last. There are no pretenses out there. I’ve never felt as alive as I do when I’m walking in the sand. There’s peace, a solitude that sinks into your bones. It renews you each time you take a step.”

I could tell she was trying to understand.

I’d told her I couldn’t leave my clan, my duties. It was more that I didn’t want to.

Did she realize that if she asked, if she offered a place with her anywhere, I’d choose her every time? I’d mourn the loss of my desert and mountain homes, of my friends and the people I’d loved since I found them.

Without her, nothing else mattered.

I couldn’t tell her that, couldn’t put my feelings into words that would make her understand. If she wanted to be with me, she’d tell me.

“What about the mountains?” she asked. “I’ve never been higher than this tree. Why do you like living there?”

“There, we’ve built homes into the side of the mountains. We can walk from the back of our homes into vast caverns with pools. The voxes breed and lay their seeds there.”

“What else?” Her voice sounded sleepy.

“I’m boring you.”

She tapped my chest. “Not one bit. Tell me.”

“When you’re up in the hills, you can see for many cliks. The rich valleys, the other mountain peaks. And so many trees. We have a forest like this one, but it’s different.”

“Maybe I could see it one day.”

I’d wait forever for that moment.

My longing for her was so sharp, I felt the cut all the way to my bones. She was the light calling me home and the cusp of a new day full of wonder. Every bit of her roared through me.

I couldn’t imagine not being with her, seeing her, touching her. And soon, the time might come when I’d need to accept that no matter what I did, no matter what I said, she’d turn away.

What I offered wouldn’t be enough.

Pain stabbed through me.

It was all I could do to suck in a breath.

It was all my heart could do to keep beating.