Since the sisters’ reunion in the Cove, Iris was coming to understand more and more the power that words could hold. This lesson was reinforced in the way that the painted stallion’s smile fell from his lips—though the foundations of his hope appeared to weather her dismissal without loss. After a few heartbeats of hesitation, her young companion was already seeking an avenue around the spotted mare’s rejection and asked whether he could tell Lilika where to find her.

Iris had been prepared to leave, but at this suggestion she spun around quickly to face the tobiano stranger. Fear rimmed her dark eyes with white and turned the bones of her legs to jelly. “No!” She replied in a voice made sharp by her panic—by the thought of her kindly mother’s grief when she discovered how fate had treated her two daughters. Yet the harshness of this single syllable caused even Iris to flinch and strive to inject some softness into her voice when she continued. “Please...don’t tell her. If she truly seemed content when you met her, I could not bear to be the one who robs her of that happiness. Life has not been kind to my mother—she’s more than earned whatever peace she’s found.”

Her lips pulled downward as she contemplated the boy, knowing that this answer would not be enough to sway him from betraying her if he was truly determined. From the warmth and gentleness of his golden stare, the blanketed woman could tell that he’d never known that sort of hardship that Lilika had endured. That she had endured. And without an understanding of life’s cruelties, how could he possibly understand that sometimes it was better to let the truth remain buried? “I don’t even know your name,” she sighed heavily, shifting her weight from one side to the other. “But I will try to explain. Have you ever disappointed—or been disappointed by—the ones you love? There’s no pain that’s greater, no creature more capable of breaking a heart...because they're the ones we hold so close to it.”

The dark brown mare’s eyes trailed over her companion’s face, searching for understanding during a brief pause. But she was not yet certain that he understood—and so she continued. “That’s why it is also our greatest burden to love—because we strive to be perfect for them, to protect them from our flaws. And I—I made a mistake. More than one, actually. And the only thing worse than living with its consequences would be seeing Lilika suffer the same.” Tilting her head to one side, Iris nodded almost imperceptibly at the glimpse of doubt she had seen in the painted male’s eyes—though it could’ve just as easily been a reflection of her own. “Do you see now? It’s not about a lack of caring...it’s about caring so much that I would tear out my own heart to see hers remain unbroken.”

Twisting her neck to glance behind her, the sabino mare might have been responding to some barely-audible sound. But in truth, she was stealing precious seconds to blink away the sheen of tears that would have betrayed her own heartache; that might have made her own resolve falter. And when she looked back, her eyes were empty of that sorrow—filled instead with a silent plea for this stranger with his strange yellow eyes.