“Cedar?” he said softly. “Is that how it was?”

“She laughed at me!” the boy cried out. “Laughed! But I swear by the Mother—I never meant to kill her!”

“But you did kill her,” Lute said, still soft.

“It was an accident!” Cedar half-raised his fists, anguish twisting his face. “She laughed and then she—she said that she was sorry, that of course she wouldn’t wear my gift, that she had never—had never considered me a life-partner—” His voice caught, as if on a sob. “She said that she saw she had been wrong, that she had tried to be kind to me, until I outgrew my—my—” He brought his hands down, still fisted, to rest tautly against his thighs.

“I hit her,” he said, and bent his head.

“One blow killed her?” Lute wondered, soft as thought. “Or were there more than one?”

“One!’ Cedar wailed. “Only one, as the Goddess knows my soul. But she fell—I heard her head hit the rock and then she didn’t get up… I knelt beside her and tried to—tried to lift her head—” He swallowed hard. “The blood…” He looked up and Lute marked the tears that dyed his cheeks silver in the moonlight.

“There is a—a spring-cave not far away. I carried her there; piled rocks around her so that the animals…” He swallowed again.

“It was early morning. After—that evening, I went to Mother Aster’s farm, asking for Tael. She wasn’t there. I waited—and I’ve been waiting. Soon, they would have given her up! Senna would have decided that Tael simply didn’t wish to be found. Aster would have mourned—and taken up more good works in the village—and forgotten. Soon, there would have been—would have been peace. But you had to come and that Mother-blasted woman—how did she know?” he screamed suddenly, lunging forward and swinging a fist, randomly, it seemed to Lute, who merely stepped aside and let the rush go past him.