Book 2 Season's Change Spring's Revenge

Part 12 NO

Katana closed her eyes.

"Are you certain? Absolutely certain? We could just-,"

"NO!"

"BU-,"

"NO!"

"Avri--,"

"NO! Katana, I'm not willing to take that chance. I said, No!" He somewhat softened his tone but could not relax his angry gaze. Avriel could not believe what she was suggesting. He admittedly was not well versed in the capture and restraint of a human, good or bad, but he was certain there was another way to go about it. Besides, that was too great a risk. If things went wrong, he shuddered at the thought. "There has to be another way." His hands moved of their own accord as he spoke. Katana had never seen him so agitated. He was on the brink of losing control. She had her hand ready on the hilt of her dagger. He tried to lighten his tone again and to relax his face. He failed at both ventures. "I'll not take that risk. Absolutely not." He turned, squinted green eyes her way, "I can't lose you." Suddenly, his eyes grew wide in disbelief. Did he just say that to Katana? Those were not words he was supposed to give to her. They were not the words of just a friend. The words simply fell out of his mouth in the middle of their heated debate about how they would capture the brigand. "I can't." Defeated, he was finally able to speak quietly. He gracefully took his seat by the fire. "Katana, please," he reached for her hand and gently pulled her down until she was sitting in front of him. He did not let her hand go. He was filled with emotions he didn't understand and racked with remorse and guilt. He could not get past the words he had said. The guilt and the shame were already eating at him. But he had to get past them. "There has to be another way. There has to be."

His young heart simply broke again as salty tears ran down his cheeks while he pleaded with Katana. What she wanted to do put her at great risk; much greater risk than his heart could permit. The thought of losing her was more than he could bear and the thought of what that man could do to her if he got his hands on her again nearly crippled him. He would not take that chance.

He knew he should not be so emotionally attached to her or so invested in everything about her. She wasn't supposed to mean to him what she did, and he certainly was not supposed to ever let anyone, especially her, know. He wasn't supposed to be aloof either. She was his friend. There was supposed to be a balance, a friendship and a sense of kinship like he shared with Elion back home, but there wasn't. There was so much more to the way he felt about Katana. What he felt was something else entirely. Shame briefly filled his heart. He forced it away. He could not help what his heart felt when it came down to love. She had become his everything, the very center of his world. He could not keep lying to himself about it.

Katana watched his reaction to her proposed battle plan with a mix of fear, anger, and hurt in her heart. She was very confused, and until the moment he reached for her hand, very angry with him. He had never behaved in such a manner or reacted so poorly to anything she had suggested they do. She wondered why and how she could help relieve his fear and anger, he was clearly very afraid of something. Her eyes softened as he pleaded with her. She did not understand him or how he made her feel. She only understood that she did not care for the way he seemed to be feeling. She did not know exactly what he meant by "I cannot lose you", but she knew by the way he reacted immediately after he had said them that his words were not words he thought he should have said to her. She did not understand the look in his eyes or why they were wet all of a sudden, but they were. "Avriel? Kotas?" She touched his tears. "Why?"

"Because."

"That is no answer Kotas."

"It is an answer." He found her eyes and refused to look away until he felt that pull that was no longer a tiny thing for him. He turned his eyes to the fire and let her hand slip from his. "There has to be another way. Just say we'll search for it."

"We will, Kotas."

They sat quietly for a while then Avriel got up, politely excusing himself and went in search of food. His mind was a mess. He was confused and caught between honor and duty and his desires and needs. It was clear to him how he felt about Katana and just as clear that it was wrong for him to feel it. But he could neither dismiss it nor deny it. So long as he kept his honor and did not break his vow to his people then he wasn't entirely remiss. He returned with an armload of food, sat his bounty down near the fire, and gathered the supplies he needed to prepare a meal for them. He wasn't necessarily hungry, but he wasn't not. As he prepared the food his mind wandered to places it need not go. He tried to fathom life without Katana by his side and found it a very painful thought, so he cautiously pushed it aside. He tried to imagine life married to some princess that he had never seen but was positive that she looked more like him than Katana did. That was not a pleasant thought either. He pushed it away.

After a while, Katana joined him in preparing the meal. She just slipped quietly into the rhythm that had become theirs. While he cut the meat he brought back into thin strips, she shredded the bark and cut the roots and bulb into little squares. She went to the back of the cave to fill the cooking pot with water and set it on the hook next to the fire. She added the shredded bark and chopped things to the water while he shaved a tad of salt off the salt rock into it. She moved the pot over the fire, and he added the herbs and the meat then the cover. He smiled softly into her eyes as he picked up the stone he had cut the meat on and the tools they used. Katana joined him at the pool they used to clean their dishes.

"What are we going to do with this stuff when we go on the hunt?"

"We will have to leave it here."

"Will we ever return?" His question gave Katana great pause. She had not thought about that. Why would they not return to their cave and their life together once their mission was completed and the brigand was successfully stopped? She looked at him and lost all train of thought and the ability to speak. His eyes were a blaze of green and blue and locked on hers. She did not know the answer to his question, did not understand her thoughts and feelings. Avriel was doing that thing with his eyes again that confused her so much. Just as suddenly as he had looked at her, he looked away. "I guess that depends on how long it takes us to capture him and how long it takes to get him to the city so that justice can find him." He returned to his pallet near the fire and sat.

"What do you mean, Kotas?" Katana sat by his side.

"I cannot remain here forever. I have to return home. My family is counting on me."

"Oh." Katana's shoulders slumped as she cast her eyes to the feet that were tucked under her legs. She did not know the feeling that swept over her; it was cold, heavy and unfamiliar. She felt as if the weight of every stone above her had fallen upon her chest. As her mind raced to find the words that she had lost, she struggled to keep her breathing even and her shoulders up. It did not seem that she was destined to win that battle. She was unable to swallow beyond the lump she was certain was growing rapidly in her throat or give voice to her words once she found them. She looked up to find his eyes once again locked on her face.

"I'm sorry Katana. I should not have said what I said earlier. Can you forgive me?"

She knew what he meant by 'forgive'. She did not know what it was that he was requesting that she forgive him for. Her confusion filled her eyes as it pushed all other thought and emotion aside.

"Forgive you for what, Kotas?" His eyes were wet again. If she listened beyond the crackle of the fire, she could hear his heart pounding in his chest. It was beating fast and strong. "Why are your eyes wet again and why must I forgive you?" She reached for his face to dry his tears and he subtly pulled away shaking his head.

"No, Please." His voice broke on the words he was struggling to form. "I should not have told you that. It is not fair. Not fair of me at all. You do not need to hear those words from me, and I should not say them to you." He hung his head then he looked up into her eyes again. "Yet every one of them is true." She felt the honesty and power in his words. "I cannot live without you, would not be alive and do not want to know what the world has to offer me if it is not you." He shook his head. "And that. That, Katana is very wrong of me." He moved faster than she could have anticipated gaining his feet in an instant and letting them carry him out of the room. It was one thing to tell her that he loved her when the words were words that she needed to hear. It was another entirely to admit it openly and unprovoked.