Falls

Strange though it might be, the white-striped woman didn’t share Zevulun’s fierce anger or his fiercer hopes for her freedom. Where it came to Rafe, she only felt hollow, resigned. Her grief was a prison, too, after all— and for all her attempts at escaping it, Sabriel remained shackled to its leaden weight. She could not commit herself to the hope that breaking the bay overo’s chains would prove any less impossible. As for enlisting the help of the pale stallion— that was a possibility she had never considered; that she would never consider. Partly because he’d already done more than was fair to expect from any stranger, but also because— because— Because being condemned to a caged and comfortless existence felt like the price of her penance. Because the pain she’d felt in learning the truth could only be a fraction of what Solomon had suffered. Or what Bondurant had suffered.

And Uriah— Uriah— who’d paid with his life for her indiscretions.

If not for the gentle reminder of the spotted male’s touch, Sabriel might have suffered each one of those losses a second time. Instead she felt curiously empty, the sharp twists of her heart muted to a dull ache— though that relief lasted only as long as the silence. From the first words that her companion spoke, she felt his pain as if it were her own. And then, when he began to speak of its source, that pain took on a newer and more personal note. Hearing him describe the desolation of losing the woman he’d loved, of losing himself in the darkness that followed— It painted a grim mural of what she’d forced her own lovers to endure, and confirmed what she’d long suspected. She hadn’t spared Bondurant or Solomon pain in refusing to choose one or the other; she’d only left them to linger in uncertainty and grief. Wondering whether she might ever return to them. Clinging to hope and memories while the world moved on without them. Perhaps even blaming themselves, as the ivory stranger did, for the moments that they’d faltered and failed those around them.

Sabriel could neither change the course of her past nor make amends with its ghosts, but here… here beside her was someone she could help. Someone she could try to heal in atonement for her crimes. So when the cremello faltered, his remorseful voice lapsing into abrupt silence, she reached for him. The gift that she offered him wasn’t much— a brush of her lips across the pale skin of his neck, a glance brimming with compassion and kindness— but it was all that she had.

It was all that she had, and more than she’d thought herself capable of giving.

But the stallion— she didn’t even know his name— had given her so much more. And continued to give her more still. You deserve to love again. Blinking away tears, the silver-haired mare trembled at this offer of absolution, crumbling to pieces with the desperate desire to accept its truth. But she couldn’t; she couldn’t. As dangerous as solitude had proven to be, Sabriel felt that her love posed a far greater threat. It was better to keep her heart locked away. Better that those around her should feel nothing than sorrow. Better to reject the offer that chased her companion’s forgiveness— not out of fear for her own peace, but out of fear for his. Though Rafe could only leave marks on his body, entangling his fate with hers could leave marks on his heart. And he didn’t deserve that. He deserved love and happiness with someone who was whole; with someone who could make him whole.

“I— no. Please,” she answered, her throat dry and aching after talking so much. The water was only a few steps away, but it was a few steps too many— steps that would require her to part from the stranger’s warm embrace. “You’ve done enough. Focus instead on your own peace, on your own freedom. And believe me when I tell you that it isn’t selfish to do so. No more than it was selfish to lose yourself in grief those years ago.” Exhaling her breath in a shuddering sigh, Sabriel touched her muzzle to the curve of his cheek this time, and whispered. “I don’t even know your name, but I know that you don’t deserve to live with this burden. Promise me that you’ll forgive yourself, and I’ll promise you anything in return.”

Her sea-blue eyes found his, held them. And then she repeated into the creamy warmth of his skin.

“Promise me.”