LITMIR.BIZ

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      Thymara said nothing. It was getting dangerously close to a prickly topic. Instead, she walked a bit faster, and chose the steepest trail up the ridge. ‘This is the shortest path,’ she said, although he hadn’t voiced an objection. ‘I like to get as high as I can, and then hunt looking down on the deer. They don’t seem as aware of me when I’m above them.’

      ‘It’s a plan,’ Tats agreed, and for a time the climb took all their breath.

      She was glad not to talk. The morning air was fresh, and the day would have been cold if she had not been putting so much effort into the climb. The rain remained light, and the budding branches of the willows caught some of it before it touched them. They reached the crest of the ridge, and she led them upriver. When she struck a game trail she had not followed before, she took it. She had decided, without consulting Tats, that they needed to range farther than usual if they were to find any sizeable game. She intended to follow the ridge line, scouting new hunting territory as well as, she hoped, bringing home a large kill today.

      Silence had enveloped them since the climb. Part of it was the quiet of the hunter, part of it was that she didn’t wish to talk about difficult things. Once, she recalled, her silences with Tats had been comfortable, the shared silences of friends who did not always need words to communicate. She missed that. Without thinking, she spoke aloud. ‘Sometimes I wish we could go back to how things were between us before.’

      ‘Before what?’ he asked her quietly.

      She shrugged one shoulder and glanced back at him as they walked in single file along the game trail. ‘Before we left Trehaug. Before we became dragon keepers.’ Before he had mated with Jerd. Back when romance and sexuality had been forbidden to her by the customs of the Rain Wilds. Before Tats had made it clear that he wanted her and stirred her feelings for him. Before life had become so stupidly complicated.

      Tats made no response and for a short time she lost herself in the beauty of the day. Light streamed down through breaks in the overcast. The wet black branches of the willows formed a net against the grey sky. Here and there, isolated yellow leaves clung to the branches. Under their feet, the fallen leaves were a deep sodden carpet, muffling their footfalls. The wind had quieted; it would not carry their scent. It was a hunter’s perfect day.

      ‘I wanted you even then. Back in Trehaug. I was just, well, scared of your father. Terrified of your mother. And I didn’t know how to talk to you about it. It was all forbidden then.’

      She cleared her throat. ‘See how the trail forks there, and the big tree above it? If we climb it, we can have a clear view in all directions, and a good shot at anything that comes that way. Plenty of room for both of us to have a clear shot if we get one.’

      ‘I see it. Good plan,’ he said shortly.

      Her claws helped her to make the ascent easily. The trees of this area were so small compared to those of her youth that she’d had to learn a whole new set of climbing skills. She had one knee locked around a branch and was leaning down to offer Tats a hand when he asked, ‘Are you ever going to talk to me about it?’

      He had hold of her hand and his face was inches from hers, looking up at her. She was mostly upside down, and could not avoid his gaze. ‘Do we have to?’ she asked plaintively.

      He gave her some of his weight and then came up the tree so easily that she suspected he could have done it by himself all along. He settled himself on a branch slightly higher than hers, his back to the trunk, facing in the opposite direction so he could watch a different section of trail. For a short space of time, both of them were quiet as they arranged arrows to be handy and readied their bows. They settled. The day was quiet, the river’s roar a distant murmur. She listened to bird calls. ‘I want to,’ Tats said as if no time had passed at all. ‘I need to,’ he added a moment later.

      ‘Why?’ she asked, but she knew.

      ‘Because it makes me crazy to wonder about it. So I just want you to tell me, just so I know, even if you think it will hurt me. I won’t be angry … well, I’ll try not to be angry and I’ll try not to show I’m angry if I am … but I have to know, Thymara. Why did you choose Rapskal and not me?’

      ‘I didn’t,’ she said, and then spoke quickly before he could ask anything. ‘This probably won’t make sense to you. It doesn’t make sense to me, and so I can’t explain it to you. I like Rapskal. Well, I love Rapskal, just as I love you. How could we have been through all we’ve been through together and not love one another? But it wasn’t about what I felt for Rapskal that night. I didn’t stop and think, “Would I rather be doing this with Tats?” It was all about how I felt about me. About being me, and that suddenly it was something I could do if I wanted to. And I did want to.’

      He was quiet for a time and then said gruffly, ‘You’re right. That makes no sense to me at all.’

      She hoped he was going to leave it at that, but then he asked, ‘So. Does that mean that when you were with me, you didn’t want to do it with me?’

      ‘You know I’ve wanted you,’ she said in a low voice. ‘You should know how hard it’s been to say no to you, and no to myself.’

      ‘But then you decided to say yes to Rapskal.’ He was relentless.

      She tried to think of an answer that would make him understand. There wasn’t one.

      ‘I think I said yes to myself, and Rapskal happened to be the person who was there when I said it. That doesn’t sound very nice, does it? But there it is and it’s the truth.’

      ‘I just wish …’ His voice tapered off. Then he cleared his throat and made himself go on, ‘I just wish it could have been me. That you’d waited for me, that I’d been your first.’

      She didn’t want to know why yet she had to ask. ‘Why?’

      ‘Because it would have been something special, something we could have remembered together for the rest of our lives.’

      His voice had gone husky and sentimental but instead of moving her, it made her angry. Her voice went low and bitter as venom. ‘Like you waited for your first time to be with me?’

      He leaned forward and turned his head to look at her. She felt him move, but would not turn her head to meet his gaze. ‘I can’t believe that still bothers you, Thymara. After all the time we’ve known each other, you should know that you’ve always meant more to me than Jerd ever could. Yes, that happened between us, and I’m not proud of it. It was a mistake. There. I admit it, it was a huge mistake, but I was stupid and, well, she was right there, offering it to me, and you know, I just think that it’s different for a man. Is that why you went to Rapskal? Because you were jealous? That makes no sense at all, you know. Because he was with Jerd, too.’

      ‘I’m not jealous,’ she said. And it was true. The jealousy had burned away, but she had to acknowledge the hurt that remained. ‘I’ll admit that there was a time when it really bothered me. Because I had thought there was something special between us. And because, in all honesty, Jerd rubbed my face in it. She made it seem like if I had you, then I was picking up her leavings.’

      ‘Her leavings.’ His voice went very flat. ‘That’s how you think of me? Something she discarded, so I can’t be good enough for you.’

      Anger was building in his voice. Well, she was getting angry, too. He’d wanted her to tell him the truth, promised he wouldn’t get angry, but obviously he was now looking for any excuse to show her the anger he’d felt all along. Making it impossible to admit that, yes, she had since then rather wished it had been him rather than Rapskal. Tats was solid and real in her life, someone she had always felt she could count on as a partner. Rapskal was flighty and weird, exotic and compelling and sometimes dangerously strange. ‘Like the difference between bread and mushrooms,’ she said.

      ‘What?’ The tree branches creaked as he shifted his weight. A distant scream sounded.

      ‘Quiet! Listen!’

      The

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