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Though perhaps it didn’t matter. Because just when she’d begun to feel a glimmer of possibility toward opening herself to more, Bannin had cooled toward her. Oh, he was still kind. Yet not once this morning had he mentioned courtship again. And when he’d spoken of leaving Galoth, this time he’d said nothing about her going with him.
Bannin was not a subtle man. He was big and loud and took up space and did not leave his thoughts unspoken. If he’d still wanted her to go, he would have said so.
Though perhaps she shouldn’t have expected any different. After all, she’d slammed a door in his face. That had not seemed to deter him last night, when he’d kissed her. Or later, when he’d asked whether she’d reconsidered accepting his courtship.
Had she? Perhaps. But it didn’t matter if he had reconsidered, too.
It seemed as though he had. And why would he not? Only last eve, he’d found out that not only had Crase replaced her quickly enough, her own parents had replaced her, too. Sure, he’d criticized them. But that was the instant emotional response. Maybe the slower rational response was to wonder whether there was a reason. Learning how she’d been shunted aside by everyone she’d ever loved might have opened his eyes to every reason he should also shunt her aside.
Or perhaps she was tormenting herself over nothing.
She was glad when they neared Helana’s farm, where she could put away these thoughts for later, though the heavy ache in her chest didn’t recede. They had just turned up the lane when Ouin bolted out of the cottage toward them. Though only eight years old instead of thirteen, the boy was already tall and all elbows and knees, the shock of his red hair not at all dimmed by his father’s brown.
“Uncle Bannin!”
“A brave warrior comes!” Bannin boomed out. “All is well?”
“I protected them all night, just like you told me to!”
“Even your sister?”
“I slept right beside her!”
His nephew came to a skidding halt in front of them, and it struck Sarya that only three years past, when she’d first met Bannin and Ouin, the boy would have launched himself into his uncle’s arms. It seemed in those days, Ouin was always being tossed squealing and giggling up into the air, or riding upon Bannin’s broad shoulders and using fistfuls of his hair as reins. She suspected the boy would be mortified to do so now—would consider himself too grown up to be held—but she wondered if Bannin missed those days.
He would make a wonderful father, she thought with a pang. He hadn’t needed to tell her stories for her to know that. She’d seen it with her own eyes.
Eagerly Ouin stood on his toes and tried to see past Foggy’s bulk. “Did you kill the demon? Is its head in the cart?”
“There are eight heads in the cart, all still attached to their necks—just as a head ought to be. Now, where are your manners?”
The boy quickly greeted Sarya before investigating further. “Two baby goats! Are they for me? I want this one!”
“Ouin!” scolded Helana, who’d left the cottage at a more sedate pace than her son. “You cannot simply claim a goat for your own.”
“But there’s one for Ulana, too!”
“A baby doesn’t need a goat. Good morn, Brother. Sarya. What is all this?”
“A visitor came to Sarya’s cottage last eve,” said Bannin after a quick look at Ouin, whose attention on the kids would likely be distracted by any mention of the demon.
His sister was not slow to understand. Helana’s brows rose. “But all else there is well?”
“It left a…rather unwelcome gift,” Sarya told her, conscious of the boy’s nearness.
“Perhaps you’ll tell me of it.” Raising her voice, she said, “Ouin, help your uncle herd these animals to the barn. Aven! Show Ouin which pen to use for the goats?”
Her husband had come around from behind the cottage, a pitchfork in his left hand and carrying their infant daughter in a sling against his chest. The empty sleeve on his right was pinned to the side of his tunic. Though likely uncertain why Sarya had descended upon them so early with her farmyard in tow, Aven merely called a greeting to her before gesturing for Bannin to follow.
Aven was a sweet and amiable man, and Sarya liked him very well—yet Bannin hadn’t been wrong when he’d said Sarya wasn’t comfortable around his sister’s husband. He’d simply mistaken the cause.
Sarya hadn’t been pining for what she didn’t have, seeing how Helana had waited for Aven. Instead, meeting Aven had forced Sarya to confront whether she’d deserved to lose everything.
Because when Sarya had been struck by the stone curse, she had not even thought about trying what Aven had, in his desperate attempt to stay with those he’d loved. When his arm turned to stone, when he’d realized Helana and Ouin would soon be left alone, sweet and amiable Aven had chopped off the limb, praying it would stop the curse’s progression. It hadn’t—and five years into the curse, after many other people in Galoth had attempted the same, Aven had likely known it wouldn’t halt the transformation. Yet he’d done so anyway, on the merest hope it would.
