Chapter 8
We make a quick detour on the way back to the mountain so Zan can get me some boots.
I don’t go inside with him, instead waiting around the corner in the shade and relative quiet.
I’ve had a lot of sensory input today for even a normal person, probably, let alone a person who’s been alone in an empty stone room for centuries.
Maybe I shouldn’t let him choose for me, but I don’t actually have opinions on footwear.
Zan informs me that shoes come in standard sizes these days, rather than being custom made. When he returns with a pair of boots, I’m only a little surprised that they do actually fit.
He has been paying very close attention to me.
This is especially evident because the boots he has selected are somehow colored with an intricate landscape painting, with trees and mountains in beautiful shades of purple.
It turns out I do have opinions on footwear.
They’re stunning.
They’re perfect.
Zan has once again seen deeper into me and picked out what I couldn’t have even imagined for myself.
I don’t know what to do about him.
He’s prickly to the point of brittleness; unbelievably thoughtful underneath but doing everything he can to hide that away from anyone’s view.
But my fire will always try to crack his ice.
The silence between us is quiet and tense, neither of us apparently knowing how to breech it.
Once we cross the line into the forest, though, I decide, fuck it.
I take the damn bow off and wait for him to follow suit with his own disguise.
Then I turn and punch him.
In the arm, not anywhere dangerous.
But movement apparently unlocks him, too, as he blurts, “I’m sorry I sprang that on you.”
I’ve had more time to think now, so my first question is actually, “You must have known that Teren would be panicking. Why didn’t we go there right away?”
It’s not the question he expects, clearly—or maybe he just didn’t expect me to keep walking.
A second later he catches up. “I didn’t realize it would be so bad for him so fast,” Zan says. “I thought the house—my scales—would do more for him. And I didn’t want to rush your first foray into the world in five hundred years.”
“Ever.”
Softly he agrees, “Yes.”
And I can practically see the regret in his eyes—for the past, for how overwhelmed I got, that he thinks he can’t do anything right, and it makes me angry. Not at him, but for him.
Clarity: I do not like him feeling bad about himself.
Time to clear the air. “Why didn’t you warn me?”
No hesitation now. “You’ve spent so long in stasis that I thought the surprise would make it easier for you to act without overthinking.”
“And do you get to decide that for me?”
A pause. “No. You’re right. I apologize.”
This time, I think he means it.
And he did just let me interrogate him, so I decide to leave it there.
If he does it again, I won’t be blindsided, and my wrath will be ready—then.
But surely I of all people must allow that people can make mistakes without being written off entirely.
I punch him again, but very lightly. A nice friendly punch. “Okay.”
Zan glances at me, eyes narrowed. “Okay?”
“Okay,” I confirm. He’ll realize I mean it eventually, but actions, I think, will communicate that more effectively than words.
So I say, “I do need to move, but you’ve probably realized that I haven’t really had a chance to imagine how I might live, if I had the freedom to make all my own decisions.
And I think maybe I should, but I’m not sure I can—I don’t even really know how to, you know? ”
But with Teren, I was able to provide the space for someone else to.
What about me, though?
Zan asks, “Are you unhappy with any of the decisions you’ve made today? Do you feel like you’ve betrayed yourself?”
I purse my lips, thinking about it. Now that we’ve cleared the air between us... “I wish I’d asked more about ice cream.”
But he has a point. Acting from my gut, I’m satisfied.
Maybe I can trust myself.
And maybe that was his actual goal.
Zan absorbs that for a second. “Well. Let’s talk about ice cream, then. What do you want to know?”
“What don’t I want to know,” I say fervently.
Zan huffs in amusement.
“How do you make it?” I ask. “Can it really taste like anything?”
“There’s a recipe at the cottage, I think,” he says. “And yes, pretty much—some of the popular flavors from abroad are vanilla, chocolate, and cinnamon. But there are lots of local ones, too, like the blackberries that grow everywhere—”
I perk up. “Everywhere?”
Zan points to a patch of brambles. “Everywhere. You can’t stop them. And the variety on Sanctuary Isle has changed since the Quiet. They start ripening in spring and keep growing even into the fall, so they call them Evermore Blackberries—”
I make a beeline for the thicket, crouching down and reaching in to dig for berries before Zan appears in a flurry and grabs my hand.
Touching again. That rush.
I meet his eyes.
They’re so close.
“Not that way,” he says gruffly. “There are thorns. Here.”
Gently, he guides my hand to pick my first blackberry.
“I wouldn’t have expected someone covered in hard scales to need to take such care with thorns,” I tease, trying not to make this weird for him even though my entire focus is on the point where our hands touch.
“I learned to model safety for Tasa and Kovan’s children,” Zan says dryly.
Imagining Zan taking care of children fills me with feelings and I shove the blackberry into my mouth to distract myself.
My eyes widen.
Oooh, that’s good.
And imagining what it would taste like with cream and sugar...
I turn back to the bush with renewed and very keen interest.
In moments I have picked my first berry all by myself and shoved it in my mouth. Then another, and another, and another—
“Yora, you don’t have to eat them all right now—”
I turn to Zan wide-eyed with my cheeks puffed out because my mouth is so full of berries.
And finally, finally the sound I have been waiting for—
Zan laughs, and laughs, and laughs.
It’s a full, rich sound, breathtaking for its vibrancy and honesty and I ache for him to be able to feel and express delight like this always.
Finally, Zan manages to get a hold of himself and says, “Hang on, there will be something in our packs we can use to carry them. And the blackberries really are everywhere on Sanctuary Isle, I promise that you will have more opportunities.”
Wonder of wonders.
“Then you’d better hurry,” I say with a gleam in my eye, “before I get to them all first.”
And I dart up the mountain.
Zan mutters something I don’t catch, but by the time my hands are full of blackberries he’s caught up to me with a basket. He’s fast, even in human form.
Our eyes meet for a breathless moment.
Then I pick one of my perfect berries and hold it up to his mouth.
Playing with fire, Yora.
Because this time, I know how intimate feeding a person from your own hand can feel.
Holding my gaze, Zan closes his mouth around the berry.
I feel a tingle as my fingers barely brush his lips; see the flash of desire in his eyes.
He swallows; steps back, his feelings neatly packed away, and holds out the basket to me.
Something is definitely happening here, something that fills my heart with bubbles and light.
But Zan also feels like he has to hide himself from me, and that I’m going to have to do something about.
More clarity.
I could do something about that now.
But as Zan said: I have more opportunities.
I have time.
We’ve already had a lot of feelings today.
And when Zan challenges me with a small smile to see who can pick the most berries before we get to the top, I don’t want to do anything to ruin this moment.
I’m about to playfully reply that he needs to play fair and not use his super speed when I realize abruptly that that’s tantamount to asking him to hide from me.
Zan’s smile fades as my expression shuts down.
Nope nope nope.
I am rising to meet him.
Quickly I spin into a kata, the familiar movements flowing through me as I work my own magic.
I grin at Zan and say, “You’re on.”
His eyes widen.
Then his lips twitch back into a smile.
And together, we race off up the mountain.
When we finally get back to the cottage, we are covered in blackberry juice.
(And some minor scratches—with speed I lost a little of my caution. Okay, most of it.)
“I win,” Zan says smugly.
“This round,” I agree equably. It was close, though, and I’m still a little giddy about playing with him, and on even footing. “Now that I have more practice, I’ll get you next time.”
Assuming we have a next time.
Zan just looks at me with amusement, and then back at the basket, which is pretty well to overflowing. “How quickly do you think you can eat all of these?”
“Is that a challenge, too?”
He snorts. “Let’s clean up before we make the whole cottage sticky. It’s harder to get stains off of furniture than off of us.”
I blink, brought up short.
For all the limitations of my upbringing with the Order, cleaning was not something I was ever tasked with. There were always lower-ranked acolytes for that.
Though arguably this is also a limitation—that I don’t even know how to clean my house.
And it wouldn’t have occurred to me that furniture was any different to clean than skin.
How much of that labor was invisible to me?
Zan sets the basket down on the table and crosses to a cupboard. “This is where we keep the linens. Spare blankets and towels.”
He tosses me one of the latter and I catch it reflexively, following him to the sink.
We stand next to each other quietly, easily, washing the juice off our hands.
There’s an intimacy in this, in performing a domestic task together so casually.
When we’re done, Zan takes his pack off, and I follow his lead again. But rather than beginning to unpack, he motions me to sit at the table. I raise my eyebrows but do so, as he goes to another cupboard.
“This one is where we keep basic medical supplies,” he says.
“Medical supplies? Are you hurt?”