The Riddle - Alison Croggon [88]
“It was just a mistake!” Maerad stood up in her agitation, unaware that tears were gathering in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to, Cadvan. I didn’t mean to. She was just so horrible, and then she hit me with that blast —”
“I know what happened.” Cadvan cut her off. “Maerad, I don’t want to talk about that incident, not now. What I am trying to talk about is much more difficult. I think you need to understand what is moving within you.”
“If you hadn’t been punishing me these past few days, treating me like I was beneath your notice, then maybe I wouldn’t feel so dark.” All Maerad’s resentment welled up inside her; she wanted to hit him. “You’ve made me feel like a piece of offal or something. Well, I’m sorry for what I did. But that doesn’t mean that you can treat me like —”
“Maerad, Maerad . . .” Cadvan stood up and took both her hands in his. She withdrew them roughly and turned away. “Maerad, I was not punishing you. I did not know what to say. I needed to think.”
“About how evil I am,” said Maerad bitterly.
“No.” Cadvan took a deep breath. “Maerad, you have more innate power than any Bard I have ever met. Those powers are dangerous, and you have to know how to use them, so you don’t hurt yourself, so you don’t hurt the Light. You need to —”
“I know how to use them.” Maerad glared at Cadvan. “What I don’t need is you standing there telling me that I’m some kind of, I don’t know, some kind of Hull.”
“We all have darknesses within us,” said Cadvan. “And we all have to learn how to deal with them. You more than anyone. But we have to recognize what they are first.”
“I know what they are!” Maerad turned fiercely, trembling with anger. “I need to know I have friends who trust me. I need to know I have a family who loves me. And I don’t have either of these things.” Tears of self-pity rose in her throat, choking her, but she swallowed them down with a massive effort of will. “I’m just a tool of the Light. Those Bards don’t care about me. You don’t; nobody does. You all just want to use me, so the Nameless One is destroyed. Well, I can’t go up to his big black tower and cast him down by myself, can I? So I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. There’s all this gibberish about finding the Treesong, when we don’t know what it is, and being nice even when people want to kill us, and I’m just supposed to nod my head and do what I’m told and be what I’m supposed to be. Well, I’m just me, and that’s that.”
Cadvan had listened to her without interrupting, his face downcast, his expression unreadable. “I’m sorry I’ve made you feel more lonely,” he said.
“I don’t need your understanding,” she answered harshly. “I’ve learned how to get along without that.”
There was a long silence while Maerad, her back turned to Cadvan, tried to master herself. She wanted to fling herself on the floor and weep until she was completely emptied of tears. But she would not cry in front of Cadvan.
“Maerad, this is more important for you than anyone else,” said Cadvan at last. “And I am saying it because I care for you. If you do not understand this, my heart forebodes disaster.”
“I understand enough,” said Maerad in a muffled voice. “I understand that I’m on my own. Well, that’s no different from how it’s always been.”
“You’re not alone,” said Cadvan, but this time, she did not answer him.
After that night, Cadvan was gentler with Maerad, but once she had let out her resentment, she couldn’t put it back. She rebuffed his attempts at conversation, and they rode through the mountains for the next two days in silence. The horses were also glum and unspeaking, catching their riders’ moods. They didn’t like the cold, and they missed their nightly cropping of grass. Oats are all very well, said Darsor impatiently, but give me a sweet mouthful of grass from the Rilnik Plains any day.
The bright weather held; Maerad’s eyes