Ysabet looked down at the awl in her left hand and the crooked, scarred fingers of her right.
It would have been very easy to say Never. Every bone in her body wanted to reach across the four feet of gray stone, wrap both arms around the creature’s warm, muddy neck, and promise that nothing Pip ever did could make her take a step back.
Instead, she remembered how Rethi’s mind had felt yesterday when the edge of Pip’s shared-will net brushed across her own bond—that cold, suffocating lock that turned a frightened child’s knees into someone else’s tools. And she remembered Oru seven years ago in the dusty ring behind the summer fair, when her own fear had made her yank the iron restraint tight until the glassback lion’s throat shattered under her fist. Lying about what fear did to people had never kept anyone safe.
She set the leather strap and the awl aside on the rock and turned to face Pip squarely, resting both hands open on her knees.
“No, I am not leaving you here,” Ysabet said clearly. “And I’m not walking down the road without you because you made a mistake in that pool.”
In the bond, the tight knot behind Pip’s breastbone loosened a fraction, though its two amber eyes did not leave her face.
