“You know he wasn’t going to let you go. Or me. You know that, don’t you?”
“I do.” She looked at him again, and he saw that she was crying. “What I don’t know is how I’m going to live with what I did. I killed him. I don’t want to be someone who kills people. I know it was necessary and that he was going to kill us and I didn’t have a choice. I know all that. Rationally. But in my heart I also know that none of that matters.” She caught her breath. “I am breaking apart, Pan. I am all in pieces about this, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
He watched her silently, unable to think of what else to say. “You didn’t have a choice,” he repeated finally. “You had to kill him.”
“Stop saying that!” She ran her fingers through her red hair as if to pull it all out.
“Just stop!”
“What else am I supposed to say? You did the best you could. You can get past this.
Give it a little time, Prue. Stop torturing yourself.”
She was on her feet then, standing over him as if she might crush him with the weight of her rage. “You stop patronizing me, then! Stop treating me like a child! You want to know what you can do? I don’t know! I don’t know what I can do, so how am I supposed to know what to tell you? Figure it out for yourself. Be my big brother and tell me something that matters. Tell me whatever I need to hear, no matter how unpleasant.
Just be honest with me!”
She wheeled away and stalked to the edge of the clearing, hands on her hips, head bent, shoulders shaking. She was crying hard now, but seemed enraged that she was doing so. Or that she was in the place she had found herself. Or that the world had mistreated her so. Or all of the above. In truth, he couldn’t say.
“I know one thing I can tell you!” he shouted over to her. “I can tell you that no matter how bad you feel about yourself or me, no matter what happens next or how things turn out, I will be right there with you all the way! I can tell you that!”
She didn’t say anything, and she didn’t stop crying. He stood up, but he didn’t try to go to her. He stayed where he was, waiting her out. If there was anything more to say, she would have to say it. He was all out of words that mattered.
It took a long time, but eventually her body stilled and her head lifted. She stood where she was, looking out across the valley. Then she wiped her eyes, turned around, and came back over to him. Instead of stopping she walked right past him.
“That’s more like it,” she said. “Let’s get our packs and start walking. We don’t want to waste any more time reaching Tasha and Tenerife.”
He followed her progress as she disappeared into the trees, heading back to their camp. He wanted to tell himself or maybe even her that he would never understand
women, but he had a feeling he wasn’t the first man to formulate this opinion and very likely wouldn’t be the last and that it really didn’t matter anyway. So dismissing this useless assessment, he took a deep breath, exhaled loudly, put the entire matter behind him, and tramped after her.
WITHIN THIRTY MINUTES, they were hiking through what remained of the foothills heading up into the mountains toward Aphalion Pass.
For the first two hours of their trek, they barely spoke at all, concentrating on the climb, hiding within a shroud of silence where they could think things through. The day remained cloudy and gray, the sun little more than a hazy glow behind the cloud layers, the temperature dropping and the winds growing stronger as they continued their ascent. Once or twice, they saw goats and sheep higher up on the rocky precipices and in patches of meadow only a short distance below the snow line, but nothing of Men or Elves or anything else that walked on two legs. They would have stopped to eat, but there was no food left save for a little bread and water, which they shared as they walked.
More than a few times, Panterra thought to say something further about the events of the previous night, but each time he felt the temptation he resisted it. He knew that nothing he said at this point would help the situation. Prue would talk about it again when she was ready and he had to leave it at that.
So when he finally began talking again, he chose the matter of what they were going to do now that Bonnasaint was no longer with them.
“You said last night we needed a new plan,” he opened the conversation, trying to sound relaxed and casual. “I guess the first thing we have to do is pretty much the same as before. We have to find Phryne.”
She shrugged. “Except that if Tasha and Tenerife don’t know where she is or have some idea of how to find her, we might need to start worrying about that demon. He won’t be waiting around for us to finish helping Phryne. He’ll already be looking for us.”“First, he has to find his way into the valley.”
“He will have already done that.”