“That’s one thing I can’t do for you, little one,” he said. The baby sucked at his fingertip and gummed it contentedly, without crying when no milk came. The baby’s eyes were blue, like Snake’s. Many babies’ eyes are blue, Arevin thought. But a child’s blue eyes were enough to make him drift off into dreams.
He dreamed about Snake almost every night, or at least every night he was able to sleep. He had never felt this way about anyone before. He clung to memories of the few times they had touched: leaning against each other in the desert; the touch of her strong fingers on his bruised cheek; in Stavin’s tent, where he had comforted her. It was absurd that the happiest time in his life seemed to him the moment just before he knew she must leave, when he embraced her and hoped she might decide to stay. And she would have stayed, he thought. Because we do need a healer, and maybe partly because of me. She would have stayed longer if she could.
That was the only time he had cried in as long as he could remember. Yet he understood her not being willing to stay with her abilities crippled, for right now he felt crippled too. He was no good for anything. He knew it but could do nothing about it. Every day he hoped Snake might return, though he knew she would not. He had no idea how far beyond the desert her destination lay. She might have traveled from the healers’ station for a week or a month or half a year before reaching the desert and deciding to cross it in search of new people and new places.
He should have gone with her. He was certain of that now. In her grief she could not accept him, but he should have seen immediately that she would never be able to explain to her teachers what had happened here. Even Snake’s insight would not help her comprehend the terror Arevin’s people felt toward vipers. Arevin understood it from experience, from the nightmare he still had about his little sister’s death, from the cold sweat sliding down his body when Snake had asked him to help hold Mist. And he knew it from his own deathly fear when the sand viper bit Snake’s hand, for already he loved her, and he knew she would die.
Snake was associated with the only two miracles in Arevin’s experience. She had not died, that was the first, and the second was that she had saved Stavin’s life.
The baby blinked and sucked harder on Arevin’s finger. Arevin slid down from the boulder and held out one hand. The tremendous musk ox laid her chin on his palm and he scratched her beneath the jaw.
“Will you give some dinner to this child?” Arevin said. He patted her back and her side and her stomach and knelt down beside her. She did not have a great deal of milk this late in the year, but the calf was nearly weaned. With his sleeve Arevin briefly rubbed her teat, then held his cousin’s baby in reach of it. No more afraid of the immense beast than Arevin was, the child suckled hungrily.
When the baby’s hunger was satisfied, Arevin scratched the musk ox under the jaw again and climbed back up on the boulder. After a while the child fell asleep, tiny fingers wrapped around Arevin’s hand.
“Cousin!”
He glanced around. The leader of the clan climbed the side of the boulder and sat beside him, her long hair unbound and moving in the faint wind. She leaned over and smiled at the baby.
“How has this child been behaving?”
“Perfectly.”
She shook her hair back from her face. “They’re so much easier to carry when you can put them on your back. And even put them down once in a while.” She grinned. She was not always as reserved and dignified as when she received the clan’s guests.
Arevin managed a smile.
She put her hand over his, the one the baby was holding. “My dear, do I have to ask what’s the matter?”
Arevin shrugged, embarrassed. “I’ll try to do better,” he said. “I’ve been of little use lately.”
“Do you think I’m here to criticize?”
“Criticism would be proper.” Arevin did not look at the leader of his clan, his cousin, but instead stared at her peaceful child. His cousin let go of his hand and put her arm around his shoulders.
“Arevin,” she said, speaking to him directly by name