Long ago he had decided he would not tell his mother when the time came. It would smash her as a hammer smashes a lock, and there was no need for any of them to live through that. He went back in and kissed her lightly on the cheek where she sat weaving by the fire.
She smiled up at him. “Another vest for you, my growing son. And brown to match your hair this time.”
“Thank you,” he said. There was a catch in his throat. She was small and would be alone, with his father away at war. What could he do, though; what was in him to deny what had been laid down? These were dark times, maybe the very darkest times of all. He had been marked. His legs would walk even if his heart and courage stayed behind. It was better, he knew, to have the heart and soul go too, to make the offering run deeper and be true. He was beginning to know a number of unexpected things. He was already traveling.
“Where’s Dari?” he asked. A silly question. “Can I wake him?”
Vae smiled indulgently. “You want to play? All right, he’s slept enough, I suppose.”
“I’m not asleep,” Dari said drowsily, from behind his curtain. “I heard you come in.”
This, Finn knew, was going to be the hardest thing. He could not weep. He had to leave Dari an image of strength, clean and unblurred. It was the last guarding he could do.
He drew the curtains, saw his little brother’s sleepy eyes. “Come,” he said. “Let’s dress you quick and go weave a pattern in the snow.”
“A flower?” Dari said. “Like the one we saw?”
“Like the one we saw.”
They hadn’t been outside for very long. A part of him cried inwardly that it wasn’t enough, he needed more time. Dari needed more. But the horsemen were there, eight of them, and the part of him that was traveling knew that this was the beginning, and even that the number was right.
Even as he looked, Dari holding him tightly by the hand, one of the riders lifted an arm and waved to him. Slowly Finn raised his free hand and signaled an acceptance. Dari was looking up at him, an uncertainty in his face. Finn knelt down beside him.
“Wave, little one. Those are men of the High King, and they’re saying hello to us.”
Still shy, Dari lifted a small mittened hand in a tentative wave. Finn had to look away for a moment.
Then, to the brother who was all his joy, he said calmly, “I want to run and catch up with them a moment, little one. I have a thing to ask. You wait and see if you can start the flower by yourself.”
He rose then and began to walk away so his brother wouldn’t see his face because the tears were falling now. He couldn’t even say “I love you” at the end, because Dari was old enough to sense something wrong. He had said it so often, though, had meant it so much. Surely it had been enough in the little time he’d had. Surely it would be enough?
When Vae looked out a while later she saw that her older son was gone. Dari had done a thing of wonder, though: he had traced a perfect flower in the snow, all alone.
She had her own courage, and she knew what had come. She tried to do all her weeping first before going out in the yard to tell her little one how beautiful his newest flower was, and that it was time to come in and eat.
What broke her in the end was to see that Dari, moving quietly in the snow, was tracing his flower neatly with a thin branch in the growing dark while tears were pouring down his face without surcease.
In the twilight he followed them, and then by moonlight and their torches. He even got a little ahead, at first, cutting through the valley, while they took the higher ridges. Even when they passed him, torches, and a red flame on his right, they did not hurry; he was not far behind. Somehow he knew he could have kept up, even if they had been making speed. He was traveling. It was the day, the night, and nearly, now, the hour.