Protected by Ranyhyn and the Humbled, Covenant rode toward his future as if he were absent from himself; as if he were conscious only of other people, other places, other times. But he had not slipped into one of the flaws that riddled his memories. Nor was he distracted by the imponderable prospect of confronting Joan and turiya Raver and the skest. Instead he traveled among the hills like an abandoned icon of himself because he was too full of grief and dread to regard the landscape or his companions or his own purpose.

Some distant part of him felt grateful for the Harrow’s saddle and stirrups, the Harrow’s reins. They steadied him: he was a poor rider. In addition, he was vaguely glad that Kevin’s Dirt did not cover the Lower Land. He was already too numb, too inattentive; and Kastenessen’s dire brume would aggravate his leprosy. But such details did not deflect his sorrow.

He was galled by the way that he had left Linden; by the manner in which he had refused her.

He knew how Clyme and Branl felt about her. He understood why they distrusted her. But he also understood why she distrusted them. And he was not convinced that she had misjudged the Masters, or that her risks and concealments were mistakes, or that her determination to resurrect him had been misguided. Both in death and in life, he had watched her refusal to forgive harden toward despair—and still he believed in her. In spite of everything, he loved her exactly as she was. Every pain, every extravagance, every compromised line of her beauty: he loved them all. Without them, she would have been less than herself. Less than the mother Jeremiah needed. Less than the woman Covenant himself wanted. Less than the savior the Land required.

Nevertheless he had told her the exact truth when he had pushed her away. He had lost too much of himself. He feared what he was becoming—or what he might have to become.

That was why he had distanced himself from her, why he had kept himself apart from her clear yearning, why he had ridden away without so much as a kind farewell. He could not profess his love—or accept hers—without making it sound like a promise; and he had no reason to believe that he would be able to keep that troth. If Joan did not succeed at killing him, he might return from facing her in a condition which he had not anticipated, and which Linden would no longer recognize. He might find that he had become abhorrent to her; or to himself.

There was indeed a storm brewing in him, and it was dread. Resurrected, his dilemma represented that of the Land, and of the whole Earth; the plight of Linden and everyone he cared about. He was afraid because he had too much to lose.