Nellie lowered her hand slowly. Her face was pink, and her chest was rising and falling, and she was smiling so widely that her cheeks hurt.
She turned to him, and the smile faltered as it met his eyes, because he was looking at her with such plain, undisguised approval that she felt it all the way down her arms.
Her fingers were still slightly damp from the water arrows.
A drop clung to the cuff of her sleeve.
She was proud of herself. She knew that. For the first time she could remember, she had done something difficult and done it well, and the proof was lying on its side in the dirt ten meters away.
But the pride was a small, quiet, private thing.
The warmth that flooded her chest at the sight of Lor clapping was not small at all. It sat heavy and bright behind her ribs.
Why was that?
Was it that she wanted him to see her succeed?
That she had wanted, all along, for him to look at her like this?
She did not know.
