The sun hangs right above my head and the earth swallows my shadow. Everything feels bare, stripped, open. Naked.

   I'm scared he'll be there.

   I'm scared he won't.

   What am I doing, sneaking up the hillside, keeping him secret?

   I reach the plum trees and pause, peering out from the branches. There he is, pacing like a panther. The sight of him wakes me up to what I'm doing. "Men are ruthless and greedy." I can hear my mother's voice as if she were standing right next to me, whispering in my ear. "They'll pluck you like a fruit, then toss you aside."

   As if a single male breath would besmirch her realm, tainting it forever. I always thought that was ridiculous. But now—now part of me is frightened. What if this time he grabs me and throws me into his chariot? I can take a step closer—or I can go back home and never see him again. I'd be sitting there weaving dutifully when my mother comes back.

   I step out from under the branches.

   He looks up at me. I should be smiling or something. Make this look easy. Like I do it all the time.

   Even across the meadow his eyes are deep and his hand is opening, reaching forward, and he starts to stride in my direction—

   And stops. His hand closes, pulls back, as if he were tugging on reins. All the power that was surging out of him just got reeled back in. Now he sits on the grass, smiles, and says, "I'm glad you came." As if my coming were the most natural thing in the world. I've never felt so confused in my life.

   So I sit, too, not right next to him, but an arm's length away, and start rummaging meadow daisies out of the grass so my hands will have something to do.

   He reaches his hand forward and I startle. But he just grabs a daisy, breaks it off, and lays it in front of me so I can use it to make my chain. Stem into welcoming stem.

   "Abastor knew the way today," he says. "I didn't even need to tell him where we were going."

   He must think I'm acting like a skittish horse, because he's speaking with the voice he uses for those gigantic black stallions: soft and certain and full of buried power. It's not so much that I hear his voice; I feel it.

   "I know what," I say, looking at my linked flowers. "I'll make this one for you. A daisy crown. But you have to help."

   "Me?" He smiles. "I don't think my fingers will work as nimbly as yours."

   I glance at his broad hands, then turn quickly back to my work. "I'll do the threading, but I need more flowers."

   He leans over to a thick clump of daisies and reaches down, but he stops and waves his hand across the blossoms as if he were clearing away smoke.

   "Bees," he says.

   "Don't hurt them!" I hold out a hand. Three fat, furred bumblebees stop their irritated circling and fly to my outstretched palm. I lift them to my ear so I can hear their sweet buzzing song.

   "Your friends?" he asks, one eyebrow raised.

   "Yes. Here, you can listen, too. Hold out your hand."

   He lifts up a brown palm. I whisper to the bees and they buzz in return, then fly around him once before settling on his hand.

"Raise it to your ear," I say.

   He does, and I see his face gentle as they sing of blossoms opening, of pollen and the laden flight back to the faceted walls of the hive.

   He looks at me in wonder as the bees fly away.

   I lean back on my hands, laughing, happier than I've ever been before. I look up to the sky and close my eyes, feeling the sun on my face. When I open my eyes again, he's looking at me.

   Maybe eternity won't be so bad after all.

By the time I leave, I know I'm not doing anything wrong. He's never going to touch me. Several times he got up and walked over to check on the horses. But he never came any closer to me. So I can come back again tomorrow, and no harm done.

The next day dawns cloudy, the air feels heavy, and the bees are staying safely back in their hives. On my way to the meadow I feel the first drops of soft, warm rain.

   He walks to me, takes off his travel cloak, and drapes it over me to keep me dry. Strong, finely woven fabric. I breathe in a multitude of strange new scents—crisp air from above the clouds, far-off pine trees, the dense smokiness of embers—all swirling around me in a dark, warm refuge. The rain is falling harder now.

"Come under the trees," he says. "They'll keep us dry."

   But I snuggle the cloak around me and laugh. "Let's stay here. I like the rain."

   We sit down in the grass, surrounded by clusters of those intoxicating white flowers; there are so many of them now. Drops gather on his hair, his hands. Warm rain falls harder until rivulets run down his bare shoulders, following the muscled grooves of his arms, and his chiton grows dark with damp and clings to his skin. I stretch out my feet and wiggle my toes in the wet grass and we talk. It's just one more kind of music, like the rainsong, like my hair rubbing against the enveloping cloak, like the gentle clink of the horses' harnesses as they graze nearby.

   Words? We pluck them out of the air, stringing them together like daisies in a chain. How wind feels when horses gallop through clouds, that's what he tells me; the gentle tension you need for reins; what you can tell by watching a horse's ears; the lakes beyond these cliffs, reflecting light that shifts so there's no such thing as one blue. And I tell him how flowers sing when they blossom in your hand, and where the bees hide their honey-rich hives—each word joining the last until the chain encircles us like one more sense, as strong as sight or touch.

   And then there are the important words. "I'll be here the day after tomorrow," he says, "when the sun is high."

   And I say I will, too—

   —Even though it gets harder now. Today's the third day. She's coming back.

   I'll have to be more careful, that's all. She won't notice. She hardly sees me, anyway. Not the way he sees me, his face intent and alive.

   I need to be here. It's not as if I have a choice.