language.
She teased me about my growing fame, and I told her the truth behind the stories. I told her how things had fallen out with the Maer, and she was properly outraged on my behalf.
But there was much we didn’t discuss. Neither of us mentioned how we’d parted ways in Severen. I didn’t know if she had left in anger after our argument, or if she thought I had abandoned her. Any question seemed dangerous. Such a discussion would be uncomfortable at best. At worst it might reignite our previous argument, and that was something I was desperate to avoid.
Denna carried her harp with her, as well as a large traveling trunk. I guessed her song was finished, and she must be performing it. It bothered me that she would play it in Imre, where countless singers and minstrels would hear and carry it out across the world.
Despite this, I said nothing. I knew that would be a hard conversation, and I needed to pick the time for it carefully.
Neither did I mention her patron, though what the Cthaeh had told me preyed on my mind. I thought on it endlessly. Had dreams about it.
Felurian was another matter we didn’t discuss. For all the jokes Denna made about my rescuing bandits and killing virgins, she never mentioned Felurian. She must have heard the song I’d written, as it was much more popular than the other stories she seemed to know so well. But she never mentioned it, and I was not enough of a fool to bring it up myself.
So as we rode there were many things unspoken. The tension built in the air between us as the road jounced away beneath the cart’s wheels. There were gaps and breaks in our conversation, silences that stretched too long, silences that were short but terrifyingly deep.
We were trapped in the middle of one of those silences when we finally arrived in Imre. I dropped her off at the Boar’s Head, where she planned to take rooms. I helped her carry her trunk upstairs, but the silence was even deeper there. So I skirted hastily around it, bid her a fond farewell, and fled without so much as kissing her hand.
That night I thought of ten thousand things I could have said to her. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep until the deep, late hours of night.
I woke early, feeling anxious and uneasy. I had breakfast with Simmon and Fela, then went to Adept Sympathy where Fenton beat me handily three duels in a row, setting him in the top rank for the first time since I’d returned to the University.
With no other classes, I bathed and spent long minutes looking through my clothes before deciding on a simple shirt and the green vest Fela said set off my eyes. I worked my shaed into a short cape, then decided not to wear it. I didn’t want Denna thinking of Felurian when I came to call.
Lastly, I slipped Denna’s ring into my vest pocket and set off across the river to Imre.
Once at the Boar’s Head I hardly had a chance to touch the door handle before Denna opened it and stepped out onto the street, handing me a basket lunch.
I was more than slightly surprised. “How did you know . . . ?”
She wore a pale blue dress that flattered her and smiled winsomely as she linked arms with me. “Woman’s intuition.”
“Ah,” I said, trying to sound wise. The nearness of her was almost painful. The warmth of her hand on my arm, the smell of her like green leaves and the air before a summer storm. “Do you know where we are bound as well?”
“Only that you will take me there.” When she spoke she turned to face me, and I felt her breath against the side of my neck. “I gladly leave my trust in you.”
I turned to face her, thinking to say one of the clever things I’d thought of last night. But when I met her eyes all words left me. I was lost in wonder, for how long I cannot even guess. For a long moment I was wholly hers. . . .
Denna laughed, jogging me from a reverie that might have stretched a moment or a minute. We made our way out of town, talking as easily as if there had never been a thing between us but sunlight and spring air.
I led her to a place I’d found earlier that spring, a small dell sheltered by the backs of trees. A stream meandered past a greystone that lay lengthwise on the ground, and the sun shone on a field of bright daisies stretching their faces to the sky.
Denna caught her breath when we crested the ridge and saw the carpet of daisies open out in front of her. “I’ve waited a long time to show these flowers how pretty you are,” I said.
That won me an enthusiastic embrace and a kiss burning on my cheek. Both were over before I knew they’d begun. Bemused and grinning, I led the way through the daisies to the greystone near the stream.
I removed my shoes and socks. Denna kicked off her shoes and tied up her skirts, then she ran to the center of the stream until the water rose past her knees.
“Do you know the secret of stones?” she asked as she reached into the water. The hem of her dress dipped into the stream, but she seemed unconcerned.
“What secret is that?”
She drew up a smooth, dark stone from the stream bed and held it out to me. “Come see.”
I finished cuffing up my pants and made my way into the water. She held up the dripping stone. “If you hold it in your hand and listen to it . . .” She did so, closing her eyes. She stood still for a long moment, her face turned upward, like a flower.
I was drawn to kiss her, but I resisted.
Finally she opened her dark eyes. They smiled at me. “If you listen close enough it will tell you a story.”
“What story did it tell you?” I asked.
“Once there was a boy who came to the water,” Denna said. “This is the story of a girl who came to the water with the boy. They talked and the boy threw the stones as if casting them away from himself. The girl didn’t have any stones, so the boy gave her some. Then she gave herself to the boy, and he cast her away as he would a stone, unmindful of any falling she might feel.”
I was quiet for a moment, not sure if she was done. “It’s a sad stone then?”
She kissed the stone and dropped it, watching as it settled to the sand. “No, not sad. But it was thrown once. It knows the feel of motion. It has trouble staying the way most stones do. It takes the offer that the water makes and moves sometimes.” She looked up at me and gave a guileless smile. “When it moves it thinks about the boy.”
I didn’t know what to make of the story, so I tried to change the subject. “How did you learn to listen to stones?”
“You’d be amazed the things you hear if only you take time to listen.” She gestured to the streambed strewn with stones. “Try it. You never know what you might hear.”
Not sure what game she was playing at, I looked around for a stone, then cuffed up my shirt sleeve and reached into the water.
“Listen,” she prompted earnestly.
Thanks to my studies with Elodin, I had a high tolerance for the ridiculous. I held the stone to my ear and closed my eyes. I wondered if I should pretend to hear a story.
Then I was in the water, wet to the skin and spitting it. I spluttered and struggled to my feet while Denna laughed so hard she doubled over at the waist, barely able to stand.
I moved toward her, but she skipped away with a little shriek that left her laughing even harder. So I held off chasing and made a show of wiping water from my face and arms.
“Give up so easily?” she taunted. “Are you so sudden doused?”
I lowered my hand into the water. “I was hoping to find my stone again,” I said, pretending to look around for it.
Denna laughed, shaking her head. “You’ll not lure me in that easily.”
“I’m serious,” I said. “I wanted to hear the end of its story.”
“What story was that?” she asked teasingly, not coming any closer.
“It was the story of a girl who trifled with a powerful arcanist,” I said. “She mocked him and she scoffed at him. She laughed at him full scornfully. He caught her one day in a brook, and rhyming he did quell her fears. And
