I needed to be careful. There were things I could tell her, things that would be true and would cover my tracks, but those things were the most dangerous. Rin's face was never far from my thoughts. That private smile piercing my heart. Those brown eyes seeing straight through me, to my innermost truth. A reckoning, even in their absence.

Even in her delirium, my lover smells the offering meal cooking and sees my half-full pack. She begs me not to go. It’s a journey lovers and pilgrims take—to exchange vows or to petition Mother. The paths to the mountain shift with their travelers’ intentions, and we were much younger when we traveled there to be wed.