Page 248 of Of Empires and Dust

“Well—”

“You wouldn’t,” she said, cutting him off. “I know you wouldn’t because you never have. So why do you do it to yourself? Should you be held to a higher standard than I am? Am I not capable?”

“No, that’s not it at all.”

Neera wiped the rain from her eyes with her shoulder. “Rist, Brother Tuk is a self-righteous prick who thinks he is anointed by The Saviour himself. You are a better man than him by a distance that cannot be measured. You understand that there are things you do not know, and you are always willing to learn. I love you, both because of who you areandwho you are not. I love how you lose yourself in the tiniest of details and how you seem to develop a new obsession every other day, or every other hour – like that goat in Al’Nasla.”

“I actually discovered the answer to that not long after Ilnaen,” Rist said with a touch of pride.

“The answer to what?”

“How the goat had gotten to the top of the crates in Al’Nasla. Did you know that goats are incredible climbers? In Maru Katir’s book,Wardens of the Mountain,there are drawings of whole herds of goats pressed to the sides of sheer cliffs, seemingly standing on thin air. It was truly fascinating. I actually asked Marien, the librarian, to keep the book safe for me so I could show you when we’re back. She’s not as thorough as Gault but... Wait, did you say you love me?”

Neera pressed her forehead against Rist’s sodden shirt and moved her hands down to grasp his cloak.

What had he said wrong?

After a moment, she laughed. “Only you, Rist Havel.”

“Only me what?”

“Only you would have an entire monologue on the climbing ability of goats before realising what I said.” She pulled her forehead from his chest and looked up. “Yes, I do love you.” Her expression grew stern. “But if you tell anyone, I’ll kill you.”

Rist smiled, brushing his hand against her cheek.

“No, seriously. If you tell anyone, I’ll push you off a cliff.”

A brief moment passed where Rist couldn’t quite tell if she was serious or not. Neera had never been one to openly display affection – unlike Rist’s mam, who was the exact opposite – but Rist quite liked that. He was much the same as Neera. At night, her comfort warmed his heart, but in general, just her presence was enough for him. Just knowing that she cared for him and that he cared for her.

“I’m joking, Rist. Kind of.”

“I think I love you too.”

As often happened, Rist realised he’d chosen the wrong words just after they’d left his mouth. Though he wasn’t quite sure why those were the wrong words, he could just tell by theopened-mouthed and narrow-eyed expression on Neera’s face. “Youthink?”

“Well, I?—”

“You better have a damn good explanation for this one.”

Rist searched his head for the right words, trying to run through the scenarios in his mind as to how many different ways he could say the same thing wrong. “I don’t know how it feels to love someone. I do know that my dad is a man of few words, not quite as few as me, but still few. He could go through the day without speaking barely more than three sentences, just keeping the bees, checking the mead, baking bread. I always found him harder to read than most, and I never found anyone easy. He doesn’t smile a lot, doesn’t frown a lot either, so that didn’t help. Smiles and frowns are the easiest. Smile, happy. Frown, sad – or angry. Sighs are really difficult. There are so many reasons to sigh.”

“Rist, this better have a point.”

“It does, sorry. No matter how long the day was or how quiet he’d been, my dad would always smile when he saw my mam. She’s everything he isn’t. Excitable – almost too excitable – bubbly, enthusiastic even in the mornings, and she never stops talking. But when he sees her, it’s like everything melts away and all the words he hadn’t said throughout the day come pouring from his mouth. He laughs and smiles and becomes almost a different person. It’s like he only becomes himself around her. And I think that’s love, because if that’s not love, I’m really not sure what is. And that’s what you do to me. So I think I love you, but that’s all dependent on the definition of the word. So if my dad loves my mam, then I love you.”

Neera stared back up at Rist, her eyes glistening, lips pressed softly together. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her silent for so long.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No.” She shook her head, just slightly, her lips curling at the corners of her mouth. She leaned up and kissed him, pressing her fingers through the hair at the back of his head. “That was… that was a very good explanation.”

“Are they tears or rain?” he asked, brushing droplets from just below her eyes.

“Tears, you idiot.”

“I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“I’m not sad,” she said with a laugh. “Fuck, Rist.” She rested her hands on his cheeks once more. “You’re the furthest thing from a monster this world has ever had.”

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