Rereading this, looking back, I am amazed at how brilliant this chapter is. Xio Voe's mental journey from "I have to leave" to "I'm in love with him" is one of the best, most well written things Matth has ever done.
This chapter is also one of the most pivotal in all of the Rainbow Book. Everything that happened between Kudorin and Xio Vo was leading up to this moment and everything that happens after wouldn't have been possible without it. My heart was pounding almost the entire chapter, but this is where I almost lost it, even having read it several times before:
He had to make a choice. Now. He had to choose which risk to take. Did he go to Jacacea, and hope that he could follow through on his plan and convince the Emperor and find a way, and take a risk on being with Anosukinom? Or did he stay here, with Anosukinom, and hope that they could find a way to keep the Jacacean Empire?
Which one did he need right now? Which one could he not do without? Which one could he risk losing?
He’d assumed the truth of it when Anosukinom had told him that the Jacacean Empire was the love of his life. But there was something else in his heart. Something wild and pounding, something terrifying, something new that felt very, very old. When he turned to it, everything else in his life, everything else in his mind, fell into place.
