“My arm?” Snowfire looked surprised, then shrugged, as if it meant nothing to him. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. It’s hardly a serious injury.”
“It doesn’t look good,” he persisted. “I mean, it must hurt an awful lot, and you won’t be able to use a bow until it heals up some.”
“Oh, I have had worse insect bites,” Snowfire said nonchalantly. “Truly, it is nothing for you to concern yourself about. It does give me an excuse to laze about the camp while others go out and do my hunting for me!”
“It’s just, if I hadn’t been there, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt rescuing me - “ he began. “But I was so scared, I couldn’t think, and after Justyn - “
And then, as if those words had been a trigger, he suddenly remembered everything that had happened yesterday - the fight with Justyn, running off, returning and being sent out as punishment - coming back in time to see Justyn - see Justyn on the bridge -
- see Justyn sacrifice himself - one moment, standing there, facing down that Thing, the next moment, seeing nothing of the bridge except a sheet of flame.
Some barrier he had not even been aware of let go at that moment, and there was nothing he could do to stop what happened next. Darian felt all the blood draining from his face, leaving him cold and empty; he trembled, then simply fell apart. A thousand unformed regrets triggered the avalanche, and they tumbled together with self-recrimination, simple grief, guilt, and mourning. They held him so paralyzed that he could not even move, he could only shake and stare at Snowfire with a sea of unbearable sorrow flooding him and choking his throat -
Snowfire somehow saw it, or part of it, for he murmured, “Ah, poor fledgling! Let it go, let it out - “ and put his arm around Darian’s shoulders in a gesture completely natural and fraternal. And that was enough, just enough, to release the flood entirely.
He flung himself into Snowfire’s shoulder, and howled. And Snowfire held him, firmly and comfortingly, and let him cry himself out. There was nothing awkward and self-conscious about it; the Hawkbrother just let him cry until he had no more tears left, as if he let total strangers cry on his shoulder all the time. For the first time since his parents disappeared, Darian had someone to cry with, someone to share his grief with. It helped. It was amazing how much it helped.
Finally, after what seemed like days, the torrent of tears turned to a stream, the stream to a trickle, and the tears at last stopped altogether. It left him with an ache still in his heart, a burden of guilt pressing down his soul, and a void of loss he could never have expressed in words, but he was too tired for the moment to continue his mourning.
“So, who was Justyn?” Snowfire asked with careful gentleness. “Besides the one who held the bridge so your people could escape.”
“Justyn was - was the wizard,” Darian managed, as Snowfire let him sit up and handed him a real handkerchief. “I was - he was my Master, and he was teaching me, or he was supposed to be.” He flushed a painful crimson, even to the tip of his ears, which burned as if he had gotten frostbite. “I wasn’t a good apprentice,” he admitted with profound shame and grief. “I kept running off, and I didn’t want to practice the way he wanted me to.” But there was a tinge of resentment, too, and he couldn’t help voicing it in his own defense. “But, Snowfire, no one ever asked me if I wanted to be a wizard! They just said I had the Gift, so I had to be one! I wanted to be a hunter and a trapper, like - like my parents - “ He would have said more, but his throat closed again.
Snowfire was silent for a moment. “I do not know you well, Darian,” he said after a moment. “But I think that you must have had a reason for running off and not practicing those magics.”
Darian shook his head, still flushing, and took refuge in one of the phrases the adults of Errold’s Grove had always seemed to hate. “I dunno,” he mumbled. Every time he said that, the adult he was talking to always replied with, “What do you mean, you don’t know? How can you not know why you’ve done something? You did it, didn’t you? Then why did you do it?” The reply of “I dunno,” always seemed to trigger an angry interrogation which only got angrier as he retreated farther into himself.
Snowfire, however, did not challenge that phrase. “Perhaps someday you will know how to say what you felt, what your reasons were,” he murmured encouragingly. “I would like to know, when you can tell me. It is just hard to say with words. Sometimes, one can feel a reason without being able to say what the reason is. We all feel that.” He sighed. “So - Wizard Justyn is the one who blocked the bridge against the army. Then he set the bridge afire, and perished in the flame?”
“I think - “ Darian began, then stared at Snowfire with his mouth dropping open. “I didn’t say anything! How did you know what happened to Justyn?” For a moment, wild tales of how Hawkbrothers could read one’s thoughts swept through his mind.
“I am a mage, too,” Snowfire reminded him. “If I had been in his place, and brave enough, and desperate enough, it is something that I would have done. It is something that all those who have that Gift know that they may someday need to do, if the situation is hopeless and the need great enough. And those who have given of themselves in that way - are much honored for their bravery and nobility of spirit.”
Darian swallowed and took a deep breath, while Snowfire nodded, to reinforce his words. Someone as strong and exotic as a Hawkbrother, honoring Justyn? If only Justyn could have heard it when he was alive. “He was trying to keep those fighters back,” Darian said, grief clenching his stomach as he once again found himself holding back tears. Justyn - this Hawkbrother was saying that Justyn had been brave and noble! “I think he must’ve told everybody to run while he held them back. I think that’s why no-one was fighting. I think he told them not to fight, because he knew they couldn’t fight an army, and he was buying time for them to get away.”
“He probably was, and that was the wisest course for everyone.” Snowfire put a finger under Darian’s chin and lifted it, so that Darian was looking straight into his eyes. “I want you to listen to me and believe me, Darian. What you described to us last night was definitely a very large and organized group, and perhaps as you thought, an entire army, of well-trained fighters. If Justyn determined that the best course was for people to run, he was right. There is absolutely nothing your people could have done against them, except be killed. That is the way armies are. It is what they do, it is why they are armies. They are made so that all that can stand against them is another army. Running was not only the best option for your people, it was the only option for them. They were not being cowardly; they were accepting the gift that Justyn offered to them. And I will tell you something else; I think that if they had known in advance that the gift included his life, they would not have accepted it, and they would have insisted that he escape with them.”
“But - I’m supposed to be a mage - I should have been there, helping him - “ Darian was overwhelmed with shame and guilt, so much so that he was not certain he had spoken aloud until Snowfire shook his head.
“Darian, you will not come into the full potential of your ability for at least another two, perhaps three years,” the Hawkbrother replied. “Maybe more. And even then, you could not use that potential without several years of training, study, and practice. Even if you had begun training seriously three years ago, you would not have been ready to help Justyn now. You would have been of no more use to him than - than if you were going to be a fighter, and he was an older warrior. Your strength as a mage is something that you must grow into, as you would grow into your strength as a fighter. There is a perfectly good reason why armies do not field ranks full of younglings your age - and it is the same reason why you would have been of little help to Justyn even if you had been training to your utmost.”