Deffona, her yellow veil fluttering behind her and threatening to fall off her head, led them around the corner. About halfway down the building, a few steps led to a wooden door. To her right, the northern wall encircling the hospital lay within arm’s reach. Dried leaves and piles of dirt lay against the outer wall, blown there by the wind.
Deffona hiked her habit as she climbed the stairs, her light-brown shoes flashing. They weren’t heeled like Avena’s. Deffona shouldered open the door. It led to a small office, a desk piled in papers. Deffona grinned as she whirled around. “The eldest’s office. She’ll be escorting Master Dualayn and will never think we’re in here.”
“Clever,” Avena said.
Deffona smiled, her round cheeks dimpling. She almost glowed despite the dark bags beneath her eyes. “I have my moments.” Her hands seized Avena’s. “So, what is it?”
“I caught Miguil with . . . someone else.” Avena spilled out the words, Deffona nodding in support. Avena reached the end, her stomach twisting as she had to tell her friend one last thing. “I didn’t love him. I mean . . .”
“You had carnal lusts of the wicked and impure kind for him,” Deffona said.
Her words brought heat to Avena’s ears and cheeks. “Yes, but you don’t have to say it like that.”
“He is a ravishing man.” Deffona fanned her face. “He sorely stresses my vows. If he swept me up in his arms, why, I would swoon.” Then she gasped. “I mean, if he wasn’t an unfaithful cad!”
“I wouldn’t expect him to do that,” Avena muttered. “I wonder if I can even love.”
Deffona’s smile fell. “Why would you say something like that?”
“Do you ever feel an emptiness?”
Deffona furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”
“Like that there’s something missing in you. Something that you need to fill and fill, but no matter what you pour into it, it’s never enough. It’s bottomless, like a well of darkness or something.”
“What do you try to fill it with?”
“Anything!” Avena whirled around, her skirts swirling, cloth rustling. Her braid swung down her back. “Healing, sparring, Miguil. When I’m alone, I just feel so broken inside. I want to fill it so desperately, but I can’t. That’s why I can’t love because that’s the part of me that’s missing. It has to be.”
Deffona burst into laughter.
Avena’s spine stiffened. “It’s not funny! I’m telling you I’m broken, and you burst into a fit of hysterics?”
“Well, it’s you. Who has a heart bigger than yours?” Deffona’s hands seized Avena’s shoulders and whirled her around. “What did you do when Chames fell ill with the spring fever?”
“I spent days pacing the entrance hall, waiting to find out if he would recover. I slept on a chair. Kaylin brought me meals.” That was back before grief had broken the cook.
“And what did you do after that?” Deffona arched an eyebrow. “Why, you become Dualayn’s assistant. You have a touch with patients, Avena. You care for them. How many times have you lost sleep keeping one alive?”
Avena shifted.
“And didn’t you step up beside Ōbhin to fight that despicable bandit to protect one?”
“I was just angry,” Avena muttered.
“See. And you think you can’t love.” Deffona shook her head. “You have a heart overflowing with love.”
“My mother had something missing in her,” Avena whispered. “Most days she was bright, but some days she was dark.”
Deffona furrowed her brow. “Dark, how?”
“She would get quiet. She would sit down and stare. She would be moody. Yell for no reason, or she would speak like Elohm talked to her.”
“He does, in sunlight and torchlight and even candlelight.” Deffona lifted the small prison dangling about her neck. “We just need our souls to break it apart and see which Colour He is sending us. Which Colour is coming to light our way. You brim with Forgiveness and Mercy. Compassion beats in your heart and pumps through your veins. That is love, Avena.”
“Then why did I . . . ?” Her mouth closed. She couldn’t tell Deffona that. Ōbhin could understand, but not innocent Deffona. “Why didn’t I love Miguil? I only had . . .”
“Carnal lusts for him of the wicked and impure kind?”
Avena nodded.
“Our desires are not something we should fear, Avena, so long as we channel them properly. If we keep them in the light. Elohm gave them to us so we could find our spouse and create a new family. We are all Elohm’s light broken apart by His prism, and children are their parents’ light combined and then split apart into their souls. Love would have come, blossoming out of the desire you had for Miguil. It’s not a bolt of lightning, but something that you grow and tend. Just like any relationship. Did our friendship just happen? Or did we talk here and there, sharing a bit more of ourselves until we had nurtured a strong and vibrant blackberry bush between us?”
“A blackberry bush? You think our friendship is a blackberry bush?”
“Well, I like blackberries,” Deffona huffed, folding her arms. “They’re sweet, like you.”
“They have thorns.”
“That’s your passion protecting us from those who’d want to eat us,” Deffona said.
“Your metaphor is slipping.”
Deffona lifted her chin. “My metaphor is a thing of beauty. It is sublime and not an idea spoke in haste.”
Avena burst into sparkling laughter. “It is a thing of beauty. We are a blackberry bush, sweet and thorny.”
Deffona nodded. “I am glad you agree.”
They both giggled that time. Avena
