“And when you'd finished running you'd be thousands of miles away from people who love you and your problem would still be there except you'd have nobody to help you.”

“When your're both finished trying to frighten each other away with the sordidness of your pasts, can you help me, please?”

“I remember love. It's what I have to keep on reminding myself. It's funny how you can forget everything except people loving you. Maybe that's why humans find it so hard getting over love affairs. It's not the pain they're getting over, it's the love.”

“I'd run you know. It's like when you're really busy doing something and you don't have time to think about things. Well, I'd run and run and run so I couldn't think.”

“It's funny how you can forget everything except people loving you. Maybe that's why humans find it so hard getting over love affairs. It's not the pain they're getting over, it's the love.”

“All right, silent dark bear with angry frown, tell me more about your land.”He settled back down, picturing it. “I would tend to our land from the moment the sun rose to when it set and then you ...she would tend to me.”He laughed at her expression again. The world of exile camps and the Valley felt very far away, and he wanted to lie there forever.“Let me tell you about your bride,” she said, propping herself up on her elbows.“Both of you would cultivate the land. You would hold the plow, and she would walk alongside you with the ox, coaxing and singing it forward. A stick in her hand, of course, for she would need to keep both the ox and you in line.”“What would we...that is, my bride and I, grow?”“Wheat and barley.”“And marigolds.”Her nose crinkled questioningly.“I would pick them when they bloomed,” he said. “And when she called me home for supper, I’d place them in her hair and the contrast would take my breath away.”“How would she call you? From your cottage? Would she bellow, ‘Finnikin!’?”“I’d teach her the whistle. One for day and one for night.”“Ah, the whistle, of course. I’d forgotten the whistle.”

“I can live without you,’ she said. ‘I can live without a man I’ve only known for one hundred and eighty days.’‘And how have those calculations helped?’ he demanded to know.She didn’t respond except for a look down her nose at him and a curl of her lip. So much for the angry half-spirits being responsible for the savages within them both. This was pure Quintana. ‘Then step away,’ he taunted. ‘If you can live without me, step away.’He felt her warm breath on his throat.‘Because you can’t,’ he said. ‘You think you can, but we’re bound, and not just by the gods or by a curse or even by our son. We are bound by our free will. And you can’t step away, because you are not willing.’He bent, his mouth close to hers.‘Step away,’ he whispered. ‘If you step away I’ll learn from you. I’ll find the desire in me to live without you. Much the same as you want to live without me.”