The next day, Leonidas strode into the kitchen and asked the women, “Have any of you seen Samara?  I can’t find her anywhere.”

“Didn’t she tell you?” Marrica said coldly.

“Tell me what?  She and I agreed to talk today.”

“Well, you’ll have to wait to speak to her.  She packed up and said she was going to the mountains.  She said she needed to walk the path of God and speak to Him at the top of the mountain.  What will you do, Son?”

“What do you mean, what will I do?  She’s free to come and go as she chooses.  I didn’t indenture her,” Leonidas said defensively.

His mother sighed.  “Son, I do not know why you don’t love her, why you don’t want to love her.  Is it because your first engagement fell flat?  Because your second engagement didn’t work out?”

He looked anywhere but at his mother.  “No.  I think it’s something else.”

“Are you going to go after Samara?” she asked with soft eyes.

Leonidas puffed out his breath in an angry huff.  “I guess I’ll have to, though I’d rather not.”

“What would you rather?” Marrica said, coming around the workbench and slapping the top of his head, even though she was much shorter than him.  “There are rebels and thieves all over those mountains.  What do you think will happen to her if she’s caught by one of them or worse? A group of them?”

He caught his mother’s hand as she swung it a second time.  “I’m sure she knows how to handle herself.”

She withdrew her hand.  “And I’m sure you don’t.  If you do not follow her, I will send Ciphas.  He’s feeling much better lately, and he knows how to wield a sword as well as you.”

“I suppose I’ll go then, but it’s because I don’t want Ciphas to be caught by the rebels and thieves you’re so worried about.”

His mother threw a pack at him.  “Then go.”

The look on his mother’s face haunted him as he left the mansion.  He couldn’t remember the last time his mother had been cross with him.

He crossed the road, beyond the sheep he was supposed to be watching, if he wasn’t following his mother’s unreasonable demands.  The boys taking his shift yelled jokes at him as he passed, but Leonidas didn’t exactly hear them.

He could see Samara in the distance.  He wouldn’t have known her except for the orange scarf she told him about.  She was on the plains.  The mountains were in the distance. The sky was darkening.  Clouds covered the sun.  At first, they only covered the sun while the rest of the sky remained sunny and blue, but quickly, clouds rushed together to cover the stretch of blue sky.

“Looks like rain,” someone on the road commented as they rushed in the opposite direction of Leonidas.

The road was emptying.

Leonidas wanted to turn back as well, but Samara was too far away to hear his call.  He strapped the pack tighter on his back and gave up walking.  He ran.  He needed to get her to stop, to turn around, to come back home with him.  They were going to get caught in a downpour.

He stopped for breath and wondered why she didn’t turn around even without his call.  Couldn’t she tell what was happening?  Couldn’t she see the signs?  The road was empty.  It was like they were alone in the world with too much space between them.  The sky was turning dark.  Even their shadows were gone.

When the first raindrop hit Leonidas’s cheek, he started running again, but he was not fast enough.

CRACK!

Leonidas’s heart stopped for one breathless moment.  Utterly dumbstruck, he could not believe what he saw.

In a freak storm, in the middle of nowhere, Samara was struck by lightning.  The white flash stopped Leonidas in his tracks.

She was struck down by the side of the road by the finger of God.

Leonidas ran with renewed vigor.  “Samara!” he screamed.  “Samara!”

She did not move, and there was too much ground to cover.  He had to be faster.  He tried to run faster when the unthinkable happened.

The rain came faster, harder, wetter, soaking him from head to foot, but the clouds still parted and a single beam of light landed on Samara.  It wrapped her in warmth.

“Leonidas, stop!” a voice from heaven commanded.

His body obeyed even though his mind wanted to move.  It was the same power that gave his body motion that night on the mountain range.  It gave and it took away.  He could not move a muscle.  Even his tongue was made of stone.

The light was wrapping itself around Samara like a blanket.  It was all over her, covering her face, covering her red hair, hiding her in light in the opposite way things were covered in shadow.

“Leonidas,” the voice from heaven said, the power in the tone completely uncovered.  “You have proven yourself unworthy of my daughter.  I gave her to you, but seeing your ingratitude, I will take her home.  You don’t want the gifts of God.  You want the image of a woman that you made yourself.”

Then the voice was gone.

Samara was gone.

Leonidas was in the rain, soaked through his ribcage to his heart.  It felt like the beating organ would wash away in the rain.

Had he really been so wicked that God himself had to rebuke him?  Had he really been so rebellious that Samara was taken to Heaven while he was left behind?

He knew he had been.  He had been terrible.  He had been wretched, and everyone around him could see it while he could not.

Falling into the mud, he felt his brain go to pieces.  He saw so many things he had done wrong since he met Samara.

Despair encircled him and caught every part of him in a vicious snare.  He had been rude.  He had been prideful.  He had been ignorant.  He had been the problem, not her.  He had been unwilling.  He had been… useless.

He would have stayed like that forever, except that something moved suddenly in front of him to make him raise his eyes.

On the side of the mountain was the tiger.  It was far away from him, but it was looking at him, orange against the green foliage.

He got up.

It was no ordinary tiger.  It was the tiger he knew, except now it was a messenger from God.  He had to follow it.

Instead of chasing Samara, he chased the tiger.