They left behind them in the wood, growing in the strange place, that one blue-green flower with red at its center like blood.
He was still restless, very much on edge. In the afternoon he went walking again, this time toward the lake. The grey waters chopped frigidly against the flat stone where he always stood. They were cold, the waters of the lake, but not frozen. All the other lakes, he knew, were frozen. This was a protected place. He liked to think the story he told Dari was true: that Dari’s mother was guarding them. She had been, he remembered, like a queen, even with her pain. And after Dari was born and they came to carry her away, she had made them put her down beside Finn. He would never forget. She had stroked Finn’s hair with her long fingers; then, pulling his head close, had whispered, so no one else would hear, “Take care of him for me. As long as you can.”
As long as you can. And on the thought, as if she had been waiting, annoyingly, for her cue, Leila was in his mind.
What do you want? he sent, letting her see he was irritated. In the beginning, after the last ta’kiena, when they discovered that she could do this, it had been a secret pleasure to communicate in silence and across the distances. But lately, Leila had changed. It had to do, Finn knew, with her passage from girl to woman; but knowing this didn’t make him any more comfortable with the images she sent him from the Temple. They kept him awake at night; it was almost as if Leila enjoyed doing so. She was younger than he by more than a year, but never, ever, had he felt older than Leila.
All he could do was let her know when he was displeased, and not answer back when she began to send thoughts of greater intimacy than he could deal with. After a while, if he did this, she would always go away. He’d feel sorry, then.
He was in a bad mood today, though, and so, when he became aware of her, the question he sent was sharp and unaccommodating.
Do you feel it? Leila asked, and his heart skipped a beat, because for the first time ever he sensed a fear in her.
Fear in others made him strong, so as to reassure. He sent, I’m uneasy, a little. What is it?
And then his life began to end. For Leila sent, Oh, Finn, Finn, Finn, and with it an image.
Of the ta’kiena on the green, when she had chosen him.
So that was it. For a moment he quailed and could not hide it from her, but the moment passed. Looking out at the lake, he drew a deep breath and realized that his uneasiness had gone. He was deeply calm. He had had a long time to accept this thing and had been a long time waiting.
It’s all right, he sent to Leila, a little surprised to realize that she was crying. We knew this was going to come.
I’m not ready, Leila said in his mind.
That was a bit funny: she wasn’t being asked to do anything. But she went on, I’m not ready to say good-bye, Finn. I’m going to be all alone when you go.
You’ll have everyone in the sanctuary.
She sent nothing back. He supposed he’d missed something, or not understood. No help for it now. And there was someone else who was going to miss him more.
Leila, he sent. Take care of Darien.
How? she whispered in his mind.
I don’t know. But he’s going to be frightened when I go, and . . . he hears voices in the storms, Leila.
She was silent, in a different way. The sun slipped behind a cloud and he felt the wind. It was time to move. He didn’t know how he knew that, or even where he was to go, but it was the day, and coming on toward the hour.
Good-bye, he sent.
The Weaver grant you Light, he heard her say in his mind.
And she was gone. Walking back to the cottage, he already had enough of a sense of where he was about to go to know that her last wish was unlikely to be granted.