Page 85 of Winter's Echo
I didn't push. With Larana, I was learning, you got what she gave you, and you were grateful for it.
We walked in silence for a while. It wasn't the earlier silence, not the heavy, unresolved silence of the group processing something difficult. This was quieter than that. Quieter and more settled.
“The woman,” Larana said.
I didn't answer.
“You saw her?”
“No.” I swallowed back the taste of bile. “But I knew she was there.”
She’s fed, and she’s warm.
“And you said nothing.” It wasn’t an accusation. It was just a statement, the way she stated most things, observationally and without judgment attached.
“That’s right,” I said, my voice sounded weary even to my ears. “I said nothing.”
Another silence. This one wasn’t as long.
“Neither did I,” Larana told me quietly.
I looked at her then, properly. She was still watching the tundra, her posture unchanged, her expression — what I could see of it beneath the wrappings — giving nothing away. But she'd said it deliberately. I was certain of that. She'dwantedme to hear it.
Wanted me to know it.
It wasn’t absolution, or even justification. But itwascompany. Companionship in the way of someone who understood that some decisions sat badly, no matter how logical they were, and that the only honest thing you could do was admit it.
I looked back at the trail ahead.
“Baxley was right,” I said finally. I knew it, but saying it out loud was admitting thatI’dbeen wrong.
“Baxley is frequently right,” Larana said, with something in her voice that might have been fondness if she'd ever allowedanyone to think she was capable of it. “It's one of his more irritating qualities.”
I almost smiled.
“Does he know that it’s probably gone wrong?” I asked. “That she’s probably?—”
“He knows.” Her voice was quiet as she cut me off. “He knew it when he made the call.”
“And he made it anyway.”
“He always does.” She glanced at me sideways. “That's also irritating.”
This time I did smile, small and private, directed at the snow rather than at her.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
“The thing you might have forgotten,” she said, her voice as quiet as mine. “Shealsomade the choice, Trailfinder.”
I looked up at her, and she was watching me now. “You made your choice to save your companions, you weighed the odds as you knew them, and you knew they weren’t in our favor.” She looked past me to where a small band of the others had fanned out, keeping watch as we traveled.
I swallowed. “And so did she,” I whispered.
Larana nodded solemnly. “You did the right thing.”
“Did I?” I stopped walking, and she did too.
“Last night, in their camp, if you had protested or roused the others, we’d all be mostly dead, and you and I would be tied to a pole in a tent. So yes. You made the right call then.” Her blue eyes were unwavering. “And Baxley made his when the time was right.”
