“Hm-m-m,” Marta agreed in a tone that didn’t really agree. “You were thick all right. I remember that, but for all that, I never thought you liked her much.”
“I like her fine,” Demial snapped. Taya started nervously at the harshness in her voice, and she lowered it carefully. “I told Quinn I’d take care of her. I always do what I say I will.”
“Hm-m-m.”
Demial clenched the spoon handle tightly. If that old fox said “hm-m-m” once more. .
Marta shifted into motion, quick steps that belied her ancient, thin-looking bones. “I’d better leave you to it then.”
Before Demial could react, the old lady was out the door, saying over her shoulder, “Someone’ll be in with your supper soon.”
The door closed behind her, and Demial sat, spoon dangling, dripping broth into her lap. Why hadn’t she watched her tongue? She’d been so disconcerted to hear the truth, but now she had to stay with Taya until someone else came. She’d been sure Marta would relieve her.
Taya shifted, her fingers beginning their dance in the air. “I believe in Mishakal, goddess of light,” she said. “I believe in-”
Demial turned back to her and cut off her litany with more broth. “Yes, I know,” she said. “So did we all, at one point or another. Look where it got us.”
It was Quinn who brought her meal. He came quietly through the door with a bowl of stew in one hand and a board with bread and cheese in the other.
He startled her, and she came up quickly, fists clenching, feet spread for the best balance, before she realized who it was. She smiled at him sheepishly. “I must have dozed off.”
She had leaned her arm on the table and rested her head upon it, just to ease the muscles in her neck for a moment. Taya’s voice must have lulled her to sleep.
She could tell Quinn had slept, too, but it had done him no good. His eyes were tired, drooping, bloodshot as if he’d been out in a windstorm. She wanted him to come to her, to touch her wrist, but he only stood in the doorway, looking at her as if he didn’t know what to say, as if he were loath to come in.
His gaze slid past her to Taya, and his expression softened. His eyes blinked rapidly. “I’ve brought you something to eat,” he said, advancing into the room.
Demial looked down at Taya. She’d been asleep until he spoke. Now she moved and worked her mouth as if she was about to start talking again.
Demial would have liked to hate her, for the words that would soon pour out, for the wounded way Quinn looked at Taya, but she didn’t have the strength.
“I’ll stay with her now,” he said, coming up behind Demial, “if you want to eat. If you want to rest.”
Demial nodded and moved away. She wasn’t hungry, but she was tired, so tired. She paused in the doorway and looked back at Quinn.
He was perched on the edge of the small chair, leaning over Taya, smoothing back her hair.
“I’ll come back in the morning,” Demial said, “so you can go to the mine.”
“That’s all right,” he said. “I don’t care about going to the mine. You go.”
He didn’t even look back, but Taya’s eyes were open, and she was looking right at Demial.
Demial wrenched herself away, not even bothering to take a candle to light her way. She stumbled home and fell across her bed in darkness.
She was still tired when the sun woke her. She rolled over, confused for a moment that the curtains were open, allowing bright cheerful sunlight to cut across the corner of the bed. In an instant she remembered everything, and reality slammed into her. She blinked away the sudden tears and rolled out of bed. She dressed slowly and walked up the path to Taya’s hut. Quinn sat in almost the same position as when she’d left the night before, his big hands dangling uselessly between his knees. Taya was sleeping restlessly, moving beneath the blankets.
Demial went to the bed and folded the blankets back to her waist. “She doesn’t like the weight,” she told him.
He glanced up at her and tried to smile, but it only looked as if his mouth was too tired or too frozen as if he were too numb with grief.
“I’m going to check on the mine. Maybe work for a while.”
He nodded, lowering his head.
She knew there was no point in trying to convince him to go. Taya had robbed him of his dreams for the village. The girl had robbed Demial of her dreams, too.
The mine was even more depressing and lonely than it had been the day before. There were fewer workers, and among those who had bothered to come there was less energy, less life. Quinn was the heart, the lifeblood, of the project, and his heart was elsewhere now.
Demial stood watching the listless movements of the workers and felt something angry swell up inside her. She had worked hard. The magic had not stopped the tiredness at the end of the day, the aching muscles, or the blistered hands. She had given of herself to the mine, and she refused to have it all go to waste now.
She plastered a smile onto her face and strode up to the entrance to the mine. With energy and cheer she didn’t feel, she grabbed a sled and took her place in line. “Rory,” she called, “you’re going to have to move faster than that to keep up with me!”
The big man looked back over his shoulder, meeting her gaze with tired, dispirited eyes. After a moment, though, he grinned. “No skinny woman can best me in carrying rocks,” he laughed and set off at a cheerful pace with his sled.
When she laughed with him, the others laughed with her.
“What do you think?” one of them asked, pointing to the far side of the entrance where the end of a heavy, wooden beam lay beneath a pile of stone, then to the other side where another pile of stone loomed formidably. “Which side should we try to clear first?”
She looked back and forth, considering carefully. “I think we should work to free the beam first. If it’s still whole, we can use it to shore up the arch as we go farther in.”
She glanced around at the small group who had waited for her answer, holding her breath to see if anyone would challenge her choice. It was the kind of advice for which they would have looked to Quinn only a day ago, and she waited to see if someone would say they should ask him.
No one even mentioned him. They all nodded in agreement, then stepped up behind her to fill their sleds.
Demial had neglected, again, to enhance her strength with the staff, so her day was painful, but she was so filled with determination that the time seemed to pass quickly.
As she trudged back through the village that evening, Lyrae stopped her and said, “I told Quinn that all of us would take turns sitting with Taya, but he won’t hear of it. He said you and he would handle the responsibility. Please, Demial, you know that any of us will help. You have only to ask.”
Demial nodded and walked on, knowing that she had to change clothes quickly, force herself to eat, and take Quinn’s place at Taya’s side. So now Quinn wouldn’t allow any of the others to sit with Taya. Well, it was no comfort to her at all to know that he had such faith in her.
No comfort to her at all as she learned this new cadence of her days. . work at the mine, wash and eat quickly, go and sit at Taya’s bedside until Quinn came to relieve her. Sleep until morning sunlight and begin again.
Sometimes she thought she would go mad with the routine of it-with the numbness of lifting one foot after another, always knowing what the next step would bring. When she looked at the progress of the mine, however, and the workers who looked now to her for inspiration and motivation, the surprising pride of that washed away the pain of seeing Quinn with Taya, with his bowed back and his old man’s face.
The hours became days, and the days became weeks. The time for May Fest had come and gone with hardly a mention by anyone of celebration. Taya’s return had cast as much of a pall upon the small village as it had upon Quinn.
The only time Demial ever saw Quinn was at Taya’s side. Occasionally, they stepped into the yard together for a moment, but it was always painful, seeing him, stooped with sadness and mute with anguish.