Kared's Children - Chapter 14

Whether what he said hurt her, she couldn’t say. Not even to herself. Nor could she admit if he were right-not her. She sat before him silently while he vented, her thoughts aflutter. When at last he slowed, she ventured, "Don’t you think you’re overreacting? Just a little bit?"

It was the wrong thing to ask. He started again, of course furious, as she would have been. She would have killed him or left him if he’d done what she had, as a matter of trust. It wasn’t the magic that would have bothered her so much, but that someone had done something to her against her will. In that regard, almost anything would have made her just as angry.

And she understood magic, too, not like Damon-or, at least, better than did Damon. So she realized he had even more reason to be angry. Magic was new to him and he didn’t understand the relative mildness of what she’d done. Or that it hadn’t been magic she’d worked, anyway, but a chemical process he’d worked on himself: eating.

She didn’t think it wise to point out the last to him.

Still, her reasoning had been sound. She was sure of it. And she couldn’t have left him if she’d been in Damon’s position. She would have needed him to show her the way to his people.

So what he’d need to do was trust, trust she’d done what was best for each of them. Trust there was a reason she hadn’t left him, anyway, left him for what they’d done or what he was saying now, regardless of any promises she’d made. She consoled herself she could have outpaced him easily. He was slow, and he fought with the ground when he walked.

While he glowered, she marveled at the innocence with which he had lived his life. To be an adult, even a young one-and that by Karedian standards, not Elown-and not to have realized there were many creatures eminently more powerful than he, not even to have realized the implications the existence of such magics and levels of power could have on free will and interaction-such innocence boggled her. When she’d been his age, even as a child-which she’d been most of her life, anyway, in terms of the Elown life-span-already she’d understood the implications of such magics. That he’d lived inside his city, so sheltered from the realities of the world around him, reminded her abruptly that just a few days ago he would have been one to whom she’d have paid less attention than some of the animals whose names he was calling her now. He was naïve and knew little, and she would have ignored him.

But yesterday, yesterday she’d kissed him. Seen beauty and courage in his soft eyes, his sad face. Trusted in his strength. Any of which was evidence she was going mad, she’d been mad ever to promise the old healer she’d help Damon, she’d been mad even to approach Xeter in the first place, when first they’d met.

The thing about Xeter was this: he’d been shrewd. He knew people’s natures. And that worried her. Because for some reason he’d seen she’d want to help this child, this Karedian. And he hadn’t told her why.

When they’d met, she’d been so much younger. She’d adjusted well enough to life on her own, but she hadn’t adjusted well to the loneliness her exile had caused her. She’d been able to feed herself off the land from when she was small, as could all the Elown, but like all Elown, she also had craved companionship, which she hadn’t been able to find.