She squeezed Candle’s thin shoulders. “My mother was right. I had to be a lot older before I found out that maybe I would be like her.”
“You are like her,” Candle said quietly. “You are brave and strong. You killed that centipede.”
“That’s right. But I couldn’t have done that even a year ago. I couldn’t have fought like that, like my mother. But look at you, Candle. You already know you have a special gift. And even if it isn’t working right now, that doesn’t mean it won’t work sometime later. Maybe it’s resting. Maybe you are trying too hard. But even if it never comes back, even if it’s gone forever, your family will still love you. The Ghosts will always love you and want you to be with them.”
“Are you sure?” The little girl looked doubtful.
“They don’t love you and want you in the family because of your gift, Candle. They love you for who you are inside.”
She leaned over and kissed Candle’s forehead and cheek, smoothed the thick red hair. She could barely keep the tears from her eyes. “We would never not want you in the family,” she whispered.
“Okay,” the little girl replied, her voice so small it was barely audible.
“Your family needs you, Candle. We always will.”
She gave Candle a reassuring smile, but the little girl didn’t smile back.
SOME DISTANCE AWAY FROM THE OTHERS, concealed by the night’s darkness, Hawk was talking quietly with Tessa. They were crouched within the shadow of a grove of withered ash, their heads bent close so that they could see each other’s faces clearly in the starlight, their hands clasped together. It was their time alone, something they knew would be a rarity in the days ahead.
“It’s nice when it’s like this,” he told her, giving her hands a squeeze. “Just you and me. Just the dark and the silence.”
He could hear the others talking, their words soft and indistinct, but it was almost like silence. He was tired and more than a little worried, not only about their present situation, out here on the road, slowed to a crawl, but also about their future. He hadn’t said anything, but he was already wondering how much more he could do to fulfill the charge he had been given by the King of the Silver River. His doubts and fears mounted every time he thought about how poorly prepared and ill equipped he was to help anyone.
“You’re awfully quiet,” she told him.
“Just thinking.”
She bent forward and kissed him. Her face glowed in the starlight, and her eyes were so bright and clear and revealing that he could read the love mirrored there. It was welcome reassurance that at least one person believed in him.
“You can do this, Hawk,” she told him. “I know you’re worried. I know you think you have been given too much. But I know how you are. You’re different from other people. Not just because you have Faerie blood or magic you can use. But because you have an inner strength that makes it possible for you to do things other people couldn’t even begin to think of doing.”
He smiled despite himself. “That sounds pretty good.”
“Don’t laugh at me,” she said at once, her expression changing from soft to hard. “I’m not telling you this just to make you feel better about yourself. I’m telling you this because it’s true and you need to remember it.”
The smile faded. “Okay, I didn’t mean to make fun. I know how you feel about me. It’s the same way I feel about you. I know how you are, too. I saw how strong you were in the compound at our trial. Even when the judges didn’t want you to speak up for me. Even when your mother wouldn’t stand up for you. Even after they said they would throw us from the walls.”
He paused. “Even when they did.”
She kissed him again, harder this time, her seal of confidence. “Then you should believe me when I tell you that you can do the things you’ve been asked to do. It doesn’t matter how impossible they sound. You can do them. You can find a way.”
She leaned back from him. “There’s something else I need to say, and I need you to listen carefully and not interrupt. And not judge me.”
He gave her a look. “I don’t have the right to judge you.”
“You haven’t heard what I have to say yet.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he insisted. “You can say anything.”
“All right.” She gripped his hands again, held them tight. “When we stood before the judges at our trial in the compound and it seemed that everything was against us and we had no hope, I told the judges that I was bonded to you and carrying your child. I did so to save us, to persuade the judges not to have us thrown from the walls. But the judges didn’t care. They wouldn’t recognize the marriage or the child. They made that clear.”