Page 48 of A Tale of Mirth & Magic

Barra wanted to catch my eye, but I avoided him. I rolled a plum in my palms and tracked a hawk swooping over the lake. We sat in silence.

“If you want me to just go, I can,” he finally said. “I can head out now and ride Pebble so you have the road to yourself. Or hang back here for a while and give you a head start. It’s fine.”

He waited again, the long moment stretching out into minutes. My tongue felt numb. For once, I had no idea what to say. I was frozen on the blanket, staring down at the dark plum in my hands like it held an answer for this stupid, ridiculous problem I’d somehow stumbled into. There was no right answer. What do I do?

He should go. I should let him go. Everything would be easier.

Everything would go back to the way it had been. The past days wouldn’t matter anymore. I could have the road to myself, like he said. Complete freedom, beholden to no one, the whole world open to me. That’s what I wanted.

Is it all I wanted though? Barra wasn’t trying to take any of that away. Maybe there was a way I could have all that—everything I cared about—and still have someone like him in my life. Someone to share laughter, dancing, music, silliness, amazing sex, and long conversations over tasty meals. All of it.

Or him, specifically.

And this ache that I felt when I pictured it—us together, never parting—it was so good. Like when I jumped off the cliffs of Morfya into the sapphire-blue ocean for the first time after I’d finally left home. Exhilarating. Terrifying. And more powerfully satiating to my soul than anything I had let myself imagine before. I just needed the courage to jump.

But Barra was clambering to his feet. I caught a glimpse of his shuttered face, and something stabbed sharply in my chest. He walked away from me, clicking to Pebble as he swung her around. Dropping my pack on the ground, he led the horse back toward the road.

He couldn’t just go. He wouldn’t.

“Wait!”

Barra turned.

“You—you forgot your blanket,” I said.

His face fell even further somehow.

“Keep it,” he said as he turned away.

I watched as his large form became smaller and smaller, until he disappeared in the tree line. He didn’t look back.

I was alone again.

16

BARRA

Well, that was it then. I’d left. Elikki will go her way. I’ll go mine. It was the right thing to do.

Wasn’t it?

Yes, absolutely, I told myself bitterly. She wouldn’t talk to you. Didn’t even look at you.

Whether she refused to communicate or just plain wanted you gone—that silence was pretty damn clear. I swung up into Pebble’s saddle.

This wasn’t doing me any good. She’d made her decision, and I’d made mine. I’d done what I’d always told myself I would, for the past two years. I needed to stand up for myself, make my feelings and thoughts known. Letting someone walk all over me—no matter how magnificent they were—wasn’t healthy for either of us.

If she didn’t want me, I had to move on. I shook myself and tried to focus on what I was doing. Not think about Elikki alone, all by herself, sitting by the lake looking like she’d always known I would leave.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I wiped away the wetness that threatened to spill over my cheeks. Pebble kept moving down the road back west. We moved closer and closer to my family—my normal life—with every minute. And farther and farther away from her. I settled in my seat and tried to relax. Distract my thoughts from where they naturally wanted to go.

Time trudged along in a gray fog. I attempted to focus on the trees and the birdsong, with little luck. My mind kept drifting back to her.

Her heart-shaped face, so sad as she avoided my gaze. Distance in her eyes. She looked out at the lake, world-weary, as if she was calmly waiting for the next inevitable disappointment.

“Is that him?”

A low, hissed voice pulled me out of my reverie. Two grimy-looking men were approaching me on the road. They rode bony plodding horses whose flanks were caked with even more dirt than the humans were.