Zack ;)’s Reviews > The Everlasting > Status Update

“I became aware, distantly, that you had dropped the reins. You bent yourself around me, your arms hard across my chest and ribs, your chin notched over my shoulder, your touch firm but careful, as if I were a cracked glass in danger of shattering. I could feel your heart against my spine. It beat steadily, sanely, a simple lesson mine couldn’t seem to learn.”

“But I didn’t think it was the reason you never slept. “You don’t want to dream, do you.”
Another tectonic shrug, as if the earth itself rested on the bend of your shoulders.”

“When Yvanne rose, Una said again, ‘Tell me what else I may win you, my lady.’
And the queen answered, ‘A kingdom worthy of this crown.’
The following morning, Sir Una rode out with Valiance in her hand and an army at her back, and made war on the world.”

“For her.”

Una the devoted knight!!!

“I looked at your hands instead. Broad and veined, scarred so thickly in some places the skin tugged the fingers at odd angles. I watched the play of firelight over the knots of your knuckles, and all the questions I’d been trying not to ask myself—where was I, when was I, had I gone finally, fantastically mad, et cetera—fell away. I have always liked your hands.”

“I wasn’t here to translate or transcribe your story; I was here to make sure there was a story to tell.
She needs you, Vivian had said.
You had lost your way. And I—who knew every turn and twist in your journey, every step you must and would take—was your compass”

“I looked at your hands instead. Broad and veined, scarred so thickly in some places the skin tugged the fingers at odd angles. I watched the play of firelight over the knots of your knuckles, and all the questions I’d been trying not to ask myself—where was I, when was I, had I gone finally, fantastically mad, et cetera—fell away. I have always liked your hands.”

“And, above everything: A face that I knew better than my own.
A face I had seen in penny papers and fine oil paintings, in terrible street theater and political cartoons and every night in my dreams. A face I had feared and coveted and envied since I was nine years old.
Later, I would wonder how I was so sure, because none of those artists had done you justice”

“come back to me.”
Then you said, “Please,” and that cool voice caught and hung on the word, and I thought I would do anything at all—live or die or burn in hell—if you asked it of me.
In the dream, I answered you. The medics told me later it was the first word I’d spoken since the dunes, the first time any of them thought I might live.
I said, “Always.”

“I lingered, wanting him to ask where I’d gone and why I’d come back. If he had, I would have answered, somewhat theatrically: For Dominion.
But I would have meant: For you.”