The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle, #2)

by Ursula K. Le Guin

“Now,” he said, “now we’re away, now we’re clear, we’re clean gone, Tenar. Do you feel it?” She did feel it. A dark hand had let go its lifelong hold upon her heart. But she did not feel joy, as she had in the mountains. She put her head down in her arms and cried, and her cheeks were salt and wet. She cried for the waste of her years in bondage to a useless evil. She wept in pain, because she was free. What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward toward the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it. Ged let her cry, and said no word of comfort; nor when she was done with tears and sat looking back toward the low blue land of Atuan, did he speak. His face was stern and alert, as if he were alone; he saw to the sail and the steering, quick and silent, looking always ahead.