He felt a tentative touch, and then a firmer hold. :Go, Gevris!:
They stayed at the settlement for nearly a week. Although the Healer assured him that the hours spent trapped in the cold and the damp had done no permanent damage, Jors wore a stitched cut along his jaw as a remembrance of the passage out of the Demon's Den.
Ari was learning to live again. She still carried the weight of the lives lost to her pride, but she'd found the strength to bear the load.
"Don't expect sweetness and light, though," she cautioned the Herald as he and Gevris prepared to leave. "I was irritating and opinionated before the accident." Her mouth crooked slightly, and she added, with just a hint of the old bitterness, "I expect that's why I was never Chosen."
Jors grinned as Gevris pushed his head into her shoulder. "He says you were chosen for something else."
"He said that?" Ari lifted her hand and lightly stroked the Companion's face. She smiled, the expression feeling strange and new. "Then I guess I'd better get on with it."
As they were riding out of the settlement to take up their interrupted circuit again, Jors turned back to wave and saw Ari sketching something wondrous in the air, prodded by the piping questions of young Robin.
:I guess she won't be alone in the dark anymore.:
Gevris tossed his head. :She never had to be.:
:Sometimes it's hard for people to realize that.: They rode in silence for a moment, then Jors sighed, watching his breath plume in the frosty air. :I'm glad they found the body of that cat — I'd hate to have to go back into the Den to look for it: Their route would take them nowhere near the Demon's Den. :That was as close to the Havens as I want to come for a while.: And then he realized.
:Gevris, you knew Ari wanted to die down there!:
:Yes.:
:Then why did you let her go into that mine?:
:Because I believed she could free you.:
:But...:
:And,: the Companion continued, :I believed you could free her.: