Terry Brooks - The Elfstones of Shannara

Without waiting for his answer, she bean to retrace her steps along the pathway. He hesitated in confusion a moment, then hurried after her. Together, they walked in silence.

«Have you decided to keep the Elfstones?» she asked after several minutes had passed.

He had told her once, when his depression had been deepest, that he intended to give them up. The Elven magic had done something to him, he knew. Just as surely as magic had aged Allanon, it had affected him as well — though as yet he could not tell how. Such power frightened him still. Yet the responsibility for that power remained his; he could not simply pass it carelessly to another.

«I’ll keep them,” he answered her. «But I’ll never use them again. Never.»

«No,” she said quietly. «A Healer would have no use for the Stones.»

They walked past the Gardens’ walls and turned down the pathway toward Arborlon. Neither spoke. Wil could sense the distance separating them, a widening gulf caused by her certainty that he would be leaving her once again. She wanted to go with him, of course. She had always wanted to go with him. But she would not ask — not this time, not again. Her pride would not let her. He mulled the matter over in his mind.

«Where will you go now?» he asked her a moment later.

She shrugged casually. «Oh, I don’t know. Callahorn, maybe. This Rover girl can go where she chooses, be what she wants.» She paused. «Maybe I’ll come to see you. You seem to require a great deal of looking after.»

There it was. She said it lightly, jokingly almost, but there was no mistaking the intent. I am for you, Wil Ohmsford, she had told him that night in the Tirfing. She was saying it again. He glanced over at her dark face, thinking fleetingly of all that she had done for him, all that she had risked for him. If he left her now, she would have no one. She had no home, no family, no people. Before, when she had wanted to go with him, there had been a reason to refuse her. What was his reason now?

«It was just a thought,” she added, brushing the matter off quickly.

«A nice thought,” he said quietly. «But I was thinking that maybe you’d like to come back with me now.

The words were spoken almost before he realized what he had decided. There was a long, long silence, and they kept walking along the pathway, neither one looking at the other, almost as if nothing at all had been said.

«Maybe I would,” she replied finally. «If you mean it.»

«I mean it.»

Then he saw her smile — that wondrous, dazzling smile. She stopped and turned toward him.

«It is reassuring to see, Wil Ohmsford, that you have come to your senses at last.»

Her hand reached for his and clasped it tightly.

Riding back along the Carolan toward he city, his mind still occupied by thoughts of the rebuilding of the Elfitch, Ander Elessedil caught sight of the Valeman and the Rover girl as they walked back from the Gardens of Life. Reining in his horse for a moment, he watched the two who had not yet gone home, saw them stop, then saw the girl take the Valeman’s hand in her own.

A slow smile creased his face as he swung his horse wide of where they stood. It looked very much as if Wil Ohmsford, too, would be going home now. But not alone.