Book 10: Chapter 26: Fearless
Sen froze. Part of him wondered if he’d just wanted to hear that so badly that he’d hallucinated it. That uncertainty was swiftly put to rest when Falling Leaf gave him a bleary-eyed glare.
“Hungry,” she repeated. “Food.”
Sen surged forward and dropped to his knees next to the bed. He didn’t know how to feel as elation, relief, and a fresh surge of guilt battled for supremacy in his soul. He was certain that he’d burst into tears while words tumbled out of his mouth in no particular order as he tried to ask several questions at once.
“How are alright pain feeling now you?” he asked in a rush.
Falling Leaf blinked at him, clearly trying to decide if he’d been acting insane or if she heard him wrong. She seemed to settle on the problem being him because she reached out and gently slapped the side of his head. The act itself proved more jarring than the blow, which had been exceptionally mild by cultivator standards, only moving his head slightly to one side. It had the intended effect, though, as Sen forced himself to do basic tasks like properly ordering words.
“Are you in any pain?” he asked in a calmer voice.
“No,” said Falling Leaf as she let her arm drop back onto the bed. “Just tired.”
Sen took a shuddering breath. She was alright. Everything else could wait. All that mattered was that she was awake, and she was alright. Even as he thought that, another thought he’d had recently resurfaced. I can never do this again. He knew that Falling Leaf was haunted by the idea that she wouldn’t be able to advance fast enough and get left behind. He also thought he knew that her real fear was being alone. After losing her people the way she had, being alone on that mountain for all those years, how could it not be a fear? He understood that fear. He’d been alone often enough as a child to understand just how deep and dark that kind of loneliness could be. It wasn’t something he’d wish on anyone.
On the other hand, he couldn’t face this kind of uncertainty a second time. He might want to do it, for her sake, but he knew he couldn’t. He didn’t know if that made him a coward or if it just made him sane. He supposed that Master Feng had steeled himself against these worries. The truth was that any time a cultivator took a cleansing pill or advanced, there was a very real chance that death would claim them. His teachers had stood by time and again while Sen faced down the risk of death. Maybe, I’ll still too close to being a mortal, thought Sen. Or, maybe they just hid their worries better than me.