Page 166 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

“They?”

“Patros. Your mother. All the people who have ever looked at you as a thing to be used. Everyone.”

She glared at him. It wasn’t his fault that it was the truth, but she hated him for saying it aloud. “You don’t know me like you think you do.”

“I think no one has ever loved you before.”

“And you do?”

“Yes.”

She stared at him. He didn’t so much as blink.

“It scares you, doesn’t it?” he said.

She looked away.

“You’re afraid to trust someone who tells you that. I once told you that, and then I betrayed you by leaving you. You have every reason not to trust me.”

She got up and walked to the window, suddenly feeling strangely faint. He followed her, pulling off one glove, then held out his hand.

“I’m… not good at these things,” he said. “Let me show you. Please.”

She looked down at it. His palm was pale blue-gray, and surprisingly youthful and smooth, except for the scars here and there. The stump of his last finger was long healed over, as if it had always been that way. It made those memories seem so near and so far away at the same time.

She reached out and placed her hand in his.

The first thing she felt was his apprehension and longing. He had been anticipating this meeting for so long. He had not thought it would go well, but he had hoped.

She’d laughed when he’d asked if she’d found someone else, but she had secretly wondered the same about him. She had thought he would go back to his people and remember all the things he’d been missing out on—such as companionship from people who understood him. She had expected him to stay there.

Wordlessly, she conveyed her curiosity about his time in Kuda Varai. He obliged. Memories played out around her.

She saw him arriving at Kuda Varai, seeing it for the first time since he’d left.

She saw him greeting friends and distant relatives, embracing and shaking hands with more people than she could count. She felt his joy, his relief. He was brought to tears of happiness more than once.

She saw him visiting the home of a woman he knew. A woman whom he had once felt very strongly for. She was tall and severe and beautiful and had very little in common with Crow except for the proud set of her mouth. She was married to someone else now, with children on the way. Vaara was surprised, but not upset. He was happy for her. He said goodbye to her and left, and the night outside seemed very cold and quiet compared to the warmth and light inside the house.

Crow saw him going through his brother’s things—his house had been left untouched since his death. He didn’t spend much time on it, nor did he shed tears. He felt disappointment, frustration, but not true sorrow.

And as time passed, Crow saw how he spent gradually more time alone, because those people he had embraced and shaken hands with were all merely people he knew, not people he loved. And after his time away, there was a distance between them that could not be bridged. He had changed, and he no longer fit in his home village as neatly as before. She saw the way people looked at him with pity or wariness or even disgust—like he was merely an unsightly reminder that something terrible had happened. She felt him wonder whether he had outgrown the forest. It seemed smaller now, somehow. Emptier.

And she saw him going back to an empty house. Lying in a bed, awake, much like she had done. She felt him thinking of her, night after night. She saw an image of herself reflected in his memory—of her turning on her heel and walking down the road in Valtos, then turning around a corner to walk out of sight. She felt his guilt. His loneliness. His regret.

So you came back,she thought to him.

No,he thought back.Not because of any of that. None of that would have been enough to make me leave.

He opened up a deeper, bigger part of himself, where something important and powerful was sheltered.

It was a feeling she didn’t know how to put into words, because it was like nothing she’d ever felt in another person’s mind. It was as strong as it had been the last time she’d felt it. Stronger, even. It was the same thing she felt for him. It was bright and warm and expansive. It was love.

“I thought that in time, I would realize we were better off apart. I didn’t,” he said. “I left Kuda Varai because I needed to see you again. I came knowing you might not forgive me, but I needed to come either way.”

Trying to control the slow welling of tears in her eyes, Crow reached up and put her arms around him. “I really didn’t think I would see you again.”

There was sorrow in his face—a different sort of emotion than she’d seen in him before. He looked hesitant. “I don’t know if I could make you happy, but I would try, if you let me.”

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