Her thoughts circled back to the conversation she’d overheard between Kem, Ipis, and Luviara. Why had Kem never told her he dreamed of being a warden? Because she’d have told him not to hope for something he couldn’t have? Was she just a douse of icy water on his dreams?

As if drawn by her thoughts, Kem came up beside her. “I saw you listening last night at supper,” he said, like a challenge.

“I thought you were on rearguard today,” she said, a little angry he’d glided up on her without her noticing.

“Don’t get distracted,” he said nastily, as if he would rather have pinched her in the hopes of getting a rise out of her.

How she wanted to tell him she loved him. That she was sorry, or should have done something differently. But platitudes, even keenly felt ones, would just anger him. So, she kept her mouth shut.

They walked for a while in silence. As she expected, he gave in to whatever impulse had driven him to walk with her. “I got permission to walk vanguard today. Simo liked the way I handled myself at the rope bridge.”

A safe subject! “You handled yourself well.”

“Yeah.”

Again, she held her tongue. The crunch of their feet made a nice counterpoint to the silence between them. They were about the same height and had always been able to match their strides, whereas Ao was always hurrying or dawdling. Elen had never minded; Ao was who she was. But as Kem got older and came more into himself, and argued more with his mother, Ao’s quirks had started to annoy him. He wasn’t wrong that Elen had shut down any conversation that upset his mother. She’d thought she was being compassionate toward them both, but maybe she was just tired.

This time they walked for quite some distance before she decided he wasn’t going to bite, so she’d have to.

“I never heard that story about you and Joef before, about being brothers.”

“Yeah, well, you never asked, did you?” This was the opening he’d been waiting for. “You never asked, and you never told. Why didn’t you tell me the truth about my father and where I came from?”

“I told you—”

“Even if I get why you never talked about it while Mama was alive—I’m not saying it was okay!—but even if I get why you might have made that choice to protect her or to protect yourself, then why not after she died?”

“I didn’t know how. I wasn’t sure when.”

“What garbage! And from you. You! I expect more from you! You weren’t the one who—” He broke off and glanced back.