“
Here I stand, regretting our missed opportunity to walk. A year ago I would have happily run up in the hills, whether it rained or not. And I was thinking that I could go out, in spite of the weather, but I wouldn’t enjoy it like I used to.”
She gestured in amicable agreement. “There’s no fault in misliking the feel of a water-soaked gown.”
“That’s part of it,” I said, seizing on the image. “Last year I wore the same clothes year round. My only hat was a castoff that Julen found me somewhere. I loved the feel of rain against my face, and never minded being soaked. I never noticed it! Now I own carriage hats, and walking hats, and riding hats, and ball headdresses--and none of them except the riding hats can get wet, and even those get ruined in a good soak. My old hat never had any shape to begin with, or any color, so it was never ruined.” I turned to face the window again. “Sometimes I feel like I didn’t lose just my hat, I lost my self that horrible night when I walked into Bran’s trap.”
Nee was silent.
I ran my thumb around the gilt rim of the cup a couple of times, then I made myself face her. “You think I’m being foolish?”
She put her palms together in Peaceful Discourse mode. “Yes I do,” she said, but her tone was not unkind. “One doesn’t lose a self, like a pair of gloves or a pin. We learn and change, or we harden into stone.”
“Maybe I’ve changed too fast. Or haven’t changed enough,” I muttered.
“Have you compromised yourself in any important way?” she asked.
I opened my mouth to say Of course, when we were forced to give up our plans to defeat Galdran, but I knew it would be an untruth as soon as it left my lips. “I think,” I said slowly, “I lost my purpose that day. Life was so easy when all I lived for was the revolt, the accomplishment of which was to bring about all these wondrous miracles. Nothing turned out to be the way we so confidently expected it to. Nothing.”
“So…” She paused to sip. “…if you hadn’t walked into that trap, what would be different?”
“Besides the handsomeness of my foot?” I forced a grin as I kicked my slippered toes out from under my hem. No one could see my scarred foot, not with all the layers of fine clothing I now wore, but the scars were there.
She smiled, but waited for me to answer her question.
I said, “I suppose the outcome in the larger sense would have been the same. In the personal sense, though, I suspect I would have been spared a lot of humiliation.”
“The humiliation of finding out that your political goals were skewed by misinformation?”
“By ignorance. But that wasn’t nearly as humiliating as---” my encounters with a specific individual. But I just shook my head, and didn’t say it.
“So you blame Vidanric,” she said neutrally.
“Yes…no…I don’t know,” I said, trying not to sound cross. “I don’t.” I looked down, saw my hand fidgeting with the curtain and dropped it to my side.
”
”