Dreamsnake
Page 45
He touched her left shoulder. His hand was just as she remembered it, gentle and strong. She shivered, troubled by the neutrality of his voice.
Arevin knelt on the ground beside her and poured water on a cloth to clean the crossbow wound. The pain of it was beginning to return, creeping through the curtain of adrenalin she had willed around it. Snake slid her right hand under her belt.
“How did you ever find us?”
“I had to find you,” he said. “I went to the healers’ station. I wanted to make them understand what happened. My friend, I don’t think I succeeded. I told your teacher the fault was ours, but she would give me no message for you except that she wishes for you to go home.”
Snake remembered what she had said to him, that she dreamed about him and loved him. There was no time to respond to those words then, but now he acted as if she had never said them. She wondered, with a great empty feeling of loss and regret, if she had misunderstood his feelings. She did not want more gratitude and guilt.
“Is that the reason you followed me?” she asked, now copying his neutrality to keep her voice steady.
“I…dreamed about you, too.” He leaned toward her, forearms resting on his knees, hands outstretched. “I never exchanged names with another person.”
Slowly, gladly, Snake slid her dirty, scarred left hand around his clean, dark-tanned right one.
He looked up at her. “After what my clan did—”
Wishing even more now that she was not hurt, Snake released his hand and reached into her pocket. The eggling dreamsnake coiled itself around her fingers. She brought it out and showed it to Arevin. Nodding toward the wicker basket, she said, “I have more in there, and I know how to let them breed.”
He stared at it, then at her, in wonder. “Then—you did reach the city. They accepted you—”
“No,” she said. “They sent me away.” She glanced toward the broken dome. “I found dreamsnakes up there. But the city people haven’t seen the last of healers. They owe me a debt, and I expect to make them pay it in knowledge.” She let the eggling slip back into her pocket. It was growing used to her already; it would make a good healer’s serpent.
“My people owe you a debt, too,” Arevin said. “So far I’ve failed to repay it.”
“You don’t owe me anything!” Snake said. Then, more calmly, she said, “Arevin, if it hadn’t been for your clan I never would have found out about the dome. We would have gone on begging the city people for dreamsnakes, and they would have gone on refusing us. And the healers would have continued unchanging until none of us were left. Now, if Melissa wants to be a healer she won’t have to wonder if there’ll be a dreamsnake waiting for her. So maybe I’m in as much debt to your people as you are to me.”
He looked at her for a long time. “I think you make excuses for us.”
Snake clenched her fist. “Is guilt all that can exist between us?” she cried.
“No!” Arevin said sharply. More quietly, as if surprised by his own outburst, he said, “At least, I’ve hoped for something more.”
Relenting, Snake took his hand. “So have I.” She kissed his palm.
Slowly, Arevin smiled. He leaned closer, and a moment later they were embracing each other.
“If we’ve owed each other, and repaid each other, our people can be friends,” Arevin said. “And perhaps you and I have earned the time you once said we needed.”
“We have,” Snake said.
“I’ve learned new customs since I came to the mountains,” Arevin said. “I want to take care of you while your shoulder mends. When you’re well, I want to ask if there’s anything else I can do for you.”
Snake returned his smile; she knew they understood each other. “That’s a question I’ve wanted to ask you, too,” she said, and then she grinned. “Healers heal quickly, you know.”