She had to get away to think, without alarming Gallan with the confusion which churned about inside her, mixing hope with dread and momentary relief with agonizing uncertainty. Over the past few days so many and so different things had happened to her – to all of them – that she just needed to spend some brief time to try and sort them out.
For one thing, her feelings towards their birthplace had changed dramatically. At first, when they had unkowingly crossed over to Feerien and were beating at the cave wall like mad beasts, and later on, while they were facing the army of the Scavengers and their odious leader, Raddia’s thoughts had many times fled to the remembered safety of Lurien, possibly forever lost to them; it wasn’t a rational longing, for to their people she and Gallan were dead, killed for the impurity of their stubbornly unmerging Substances. Even if by some unforeseen miracle they could return to their homeworld, and found it intact, they would never be accepted and allowed to contaminate the unblemished Lurienite race.
But then, as her senses got used to the novelty of a realm where touch was not a curse but what brought things and people splendidly together, and they, the outcasts of their world, were hailed and welcomed as heroes, Raddia began to warm to the prospect of never going back, even if they were successful in their quest to save Norien. And even now, despite the bleakness of their imminent fate, she was determined to stay wherever the future might take them. Anything seemed preferable to that land of frigid fools.
However, what had truly brought on this change of heart, even, to a point, from the moment she first laid eyes on his pretty face, was the way she felt about Yonfi.
She hadn’t dared to call it love, although she’d been instantly drawn to the boy, because love wasn’t the thing defining Lurien nor the relations of its dwellers. So alien were both she and Gallan to the concept of holding another person’s life as dear as your own (if not more), to a bond forged not by tradition, necessity and blind luck but by an overflow of emotion between men, women and children who might be complete strangers, that they had had to be taught the very words describing every such bond and its strength.
And the Kobolds had been an astonishing lesson in love.
First Yern, the father, and the way he rushed after his son when he sensed a potentially harmful presence; how he had placed himself in front of Yonfi, even though he had no means of knowing whether the strange riders were hostile or not. It was as if Yonfi belonged to him, yet not in the sense of a precious possession but rather as if the boy were part of Yern’s body, his own beating heart which he’d readily tear out himself before letting anyone to lay a finger on his child. Raddia had felt the strength of Yern’s devotion like a blow, an invisible, impenetrable wall of passion the likes of which she’d never even imagined possible – for even in his kindest moments, Lorn’s feelings toward his offspring had the distinct air of being the result of obligation rather than choice.
Then came the encounter with Yodren, which had stunned her even more, as much because of the way love seemed to bind all three of them in an almost separate world of affection, as for the fact that it made her own relationship with Gallan seem pitifully weak. For they were siblings as well, brother and sister, and although they had always cared for and protected each other – and always would – the aloofness of their upbringing and the strict roles they’d been born to fulfill as Mates (a quality she’d come to view as increasingly shameful when compared with the fierce adoration that flowed between Yodren and Yonfi, even though they’d never seen each other before) made of Gallan and herself sad, incomplete creatures: Faults of this warm-bloodeed world.
So, by the time of the Scavengers’ doomed attack, when she had witnessed Yern’s devastation at the sight of his slain firstborn, and the subsequent fire of his bliss when Yonfi had brought Yodren back to life, Raddia had already made up her mind as far as her own being was concerned: fate had given her a tepid heart, and the only way that she could ever hope to feel a shred of such worship lay in denouncing her old life, and trying with all her might to teach herself how to love, and be loved back.
(And then of course there had been that other most formidable absence: the dead mother, a woman Yonfi painfully missed, for her own unimaginable love had been forged even in the way she gave him life – not by immersing herself a river and waiting for her Substance to bear fruit, but by carrying a tiny version of Yonfi inside her very body, feeding him with her very flesh, and her own kind of life-giving milk. It was almost terrifying to Raddia, the thought of her flat belly swelling with a child like Yonfi, but the more she thought about it, the more she envied Yenka and the shadow she continued to cast.)
Yet even if none of these people had ever existed, Yonfi, in and by himself, was more than enough reason to learn the ways of love he was accustomed to and demanded. The aura of light surrounding him when she’d first seen him might have dissipated after a while, but its brightness persisted in his every trait: in the ardour of his hugging, the startling warmth his small body gave off as he’d nestled against her bososm and gone to sleep, in the way he sought her with sudden urgency, craving her endearments and caressses, and most of all in the spark that lit his eyes as he returned her smiles.
All of which meant that Raddia knew one thing with unwavering certainty: no matter what hardship lay ahead, she would never, not for a moment, leave Yonfi in need of her; she would strive to live as long as possible, surrounding him with what frail love she could muster, and before reaching the end of her mortal days she would somehow make sure that Yonfi would spend the eternity laid upon him in happiness. (And who knew? Perhaps Gallan shared her feelings for the boy up to some point, and might agree to replace the father he had lost upon their leaving Feerien – though even if he didn’t, it wouldn’t change Raddia’s determination a bit. She was extremely fond of her brother, and wished he’d stay by her side forever, but her passion for Yonfi was stronger).
If only the Gods, Spirits or whatever they were could give her one sign, just one, that the life she dreamed of was possible! Standing a little back from where the waves lapped the shore, Raddia fixed her gaze on the ashen horizon, waiting for the sign she so desired. It was then that she first noticed the white bird flying amidst the clouds. Yet though she knew nothing of seabirds, there was something strange in the way the white dot floated upon the wind, hurling downwards one moment and shooting up the next, as if it were no heavier than a feather. Please let it not be wounded, sick or dying! she prayed, but as it approached she became aware of another peculiar thing: the speck of white didn’t grow bigger as it should, but remained a tiny thing tossed this way and that.
And before Raddia could make out what it was, a sudden breeze grasped it and sent it flying right at her, so that she barely had time to duck or cover her face – neither of which were necessary, for as the small white thing alighted on her left cheek, and from there fell and rested on her shoulder, its fragrance gave its secret away. It was a petal, a single flower petal, and there couldn’t be a surer sign than its wonderful smell.