Varian has tried to hold on to the memory of those two precious days with Gwenith, meeting her, getting to know her, marrying her, and their one night together, but as he and the others continue their journey across the island, to his regret, he finds those memories are already starting to fade, small details slipping away from him.

So much has happened in the three months since they left the zone where Gwenith’s people had settled. The carnival where they almost lost Jonathan, Coriel, where they’d been poisoned, more than a dozen zones since then, each with their own difficulties… Even a mind such as his own can’t hope to keep everything straight. No matter how much he wants to remember, he doesn’t have perfect recall. It makes him wonder if Gwenith’s people do.

He'd been meant to die that day, a living sacrifice to their volcano god, leaving Gwenith with only the memory of him to carry with her for the rest of her life. He couldn’t save her, and now it seems he can’t even hold on to her memory, not the way he wants to. It feels almost like he’s betraying her, because the image of her that’s clearest in his mind is the sight of her plunging into the flames, perhaps the worst moment of his life.

The good memories, the happy ones… He closes his eyes, tries to recall her smile when they met, the sound of her voice, her laughter, but the images he can recall are somehow lacking, even if he can’t be sure exactly why it feels that way.

“I don’t want to forget her,” he tells Jonathan, late one night when the others are sleeping.

“Maybe the memories that matter most are the ones in your heart, not your mind.”


The End