“I already told you what I knew with perfect candor,” Smooth Guy replied coolly, but now Havec knew him better, he could see the anger smoldering behind his eyes.
“I meant your new plan,” he corrected, making no attempt to soften his tone. “I assume the idea was that the girl would just have to fall in love with you after you were so helpful, you wouldn’t ever have to tell her the truth. Now the situation’s changed…”
Smooth Guy huffed irritably. “I never reckoned on having to win your approval, no.”
“Never going to happen.”
“Clearly,” the man snapped. “It must drive you mad that there’s a man in this country who doesn’t want you. I’ve heard the innkeeper call you beautiful, but when I look at you, what I see is your sense of entitlement. It renders you hideous.”
This was far from welcome news, and he felt a chill. The innkeeper was old enough to be his father and had treated him accordingly, a mixture of respect and familiarity that had made him feel welcome. There was nothing sinister in what Smooth Guy had related; it didn’t follow automatically that a man who judged him attractive also desired him, let alone had any intention of acting on it. Particularly whether he wanted them to or not.
He had opened his mouth to shout, but at the last moment he realized he might not want to arm this man with the truth. Making his upper lip curl, he settled back in his armchair as if he were at ease. “Think about that for a second. Think about what it would be like, to be a prince and an Avatethura Master, born to greatness, wedded to a creature older than mortal life. Think about what it would be like to be desired by everyone who ever laid eyes on you. Then ask yourself: how much of a shit would I give about the opinion of one bitter jerk?”
Smooth Guy gave him a haughty look, but Havec saw his nostrils flare. “If you had anyone else in the world, you wouldn’t be so jealous with Siva Qanath.”
It was a startling insight, coming from a man who had seemed to write him off from the moment they met, on the basis of a string of assumptions that revealed a good deal more about his own insecurities than they did about Havec. It was the first time he had looked at Smooth Guy and felt as if the man was looking back. Wrong-footed, he said honestly, before he had really decided he wanted to be frank, “I’m not concerned about losing her, she isn’t really mine. But I can’t stand the thought of watching her lose herself.”
They stared at one another, both of them nonplussed, probably both of them wondering how they’d ended up having a genuine conversation about something that truly mattered to them both. Then, very cautiously, Smooth Guy prompted, “What do you mean?”
Havec sucked in a sharp breath, then let it out in a sigh. As carefully, he responded, “At times, there is only a paper-thin line between what makes us dreadful and what makes us great. Everyone tells me Kebbal is vengeance,” he patted his own belly, promising his companion he was glad it was there, “but to me, this is only partly true. Kebbal is justice. Ask yourself: what’s the difference between the two?”
Smooth Guy only looked at him, but his face was thoughtful, the habitual rancor fallen away. Hair-On-End had been hanging out on the far side of his chair in the guise of some foul animal or other and bloomed into human form, resting his chin on the arm of the chair. His eyes on Havec were wide and wondering. “Do you know there’s another person inside you?”
He couldn’t recall that the shyin had spoken to him directly before, and it was hard to know how to respond. “I do.”
“It makes you glow,” Hair-On-End told him matter-of-factly. “The way darkness does. You know.”
“I… don’t think I do.”
“That’s a shame,” the shyin replied.
Picking his words with care, he continued, “I have watched a great man let himself be destroyed by love. I know what I was looking at, don’t try to tell me it was something else. How is it that love can inspire one person but tear another down? Why did your people feel the need to imprison the Avatethura, not only Rage and Bloodlust but Glory and Righteousness?”
His adversary never spoke, so Havec went ahead and answered himself: “The truth is these things are good and evil. The difference lies in what we let them make us do. It scares the hell out of me that when I look at you, I see Qanath a few years down the line.”
Smooth Guy’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t interrupt.
Wondering again whether it was wise to be honest, he clarified, “Qanath is impatient with where she was born, convinced she could do more. So far, ambition has only made her more admirable. She’s learned because of it, grown, stepped outside herself and dared to do the incredible. I look at you, though, not so different from her, but years older, still thwarted, I look at how pissed and bitter you are, and I don’t want you to turn her into a copy of yourself.”
“So help me help her succeed,” the man said flippantly.
Furious that Smooth Guy would make light of his sincerity, he threw himself to his feet. The man grasped his wrist, and he twisted his arm free. He made to grab him back, break his wrist, teach him better than to go grabbing at people. Then he made himself pull back. The girl had made it clear that Smooth Guy was her problem. The only thing he could do at this point was report this conversation to her and hope she understood he was beyond hope.
He made to turn away but hesitated when the man said, “Please.”
“Sounds like that hurt,” he growled over his shoulder.
“It did. Yet I will say it again: please. Don’t go. I didn’t intend for that to sound like a joke.”
He turned around.
“I… appreciate your concern,” the man continued, and the way he spoke, you would have thought the words were made of broken glass. “I understand what you’re saying about how dreams can go awry. I’m also grateful you shared that insight into the Avatethura: your peers are rarely so forthcoming, it was a true honor to hear you speak about your experiences.”
That sounded like it hurt, too, and Havec wondered why. Maybe it was true, though, and maybe that was exactly what chafed at him. Maybe it had been an honor to listen to him talk about himself. He could imagine Smooth Guy consoling himself that Havec was nothing more than a lacquered veneer covering emptiness. Now he had been forced to confront the unpleasant reality that Havec was a real person who occasionally exerted himself to think and feel. Come to think of it, what he had said had been pretty wise. The thought made him grin and he knew it wasn’t nice.
Smooth Guy had almost destroyed this tentative détente once already and had no choice but to accept the smile with gritted teeth. Forcing himself to speak like a man rolling a boulder up a cliff, he continued, “Siva Qanath is lucky to have a friend who cares about her so deeply. As for your concerns, I haven’t answered your questions about my intentions in more detail because I didn’t have plans.”
Havec frowned at him.
The man made a helpless gesture, turning out both hands. “There wasn’t time to decide how I would present this to her. No, I didn’t think she would,” he waved his hands around, “fall into my arms. From what little I knew of her, she wasn’t represented to me as the kind of woman given to flights of emotion.” Shooting Havec a sour look, he added, “I know I’m not the sort of man to inspire them.”
Privately, he considered that Smooth Guy had read them both perfectly, yet gotten it all wrong. It was true Qanath wasn’t the kind of girl to lose her head; love to her was tame and rational, arising from respect. It was also true that Smooth Guy wasn’t the kind of man to arouse giddy passion; he did not, for example, have the lithe musculature of a wrestler or wear a sexy uniform or have a spooky goddess looking out through his eyes. That wasn’t what Qanath wanted. He was pretty sure she already had a moderate to severe crush.
Smooth Guy would have to figure that out for himself, preferably only when Qanath was ready for him to, so Havec grunted.
“The fact that I sold myself to her mother wasn’t something I was ever going to be able to keep secret,” the man went on, “but I was still trying to figure out how I might tell her in a manner that made it sound slightly less despicable. You want to know what my plan was, but there just wasn’t time to come up with one.”
Unsure he was buying this, he pointed out, “Her mother has had eighteen years at the least. I would have thought she would send you off to meet her daughter carrying an encyclopedia. She seems the type to have your first sexual encounter choreographed.”
Smooth Guy sighed. “Perhaps she had other intentions, but we’d scarcely concluded our negotiations when she decided to fly me north.”
“Wait, you flew. She commissioned a dragon to get you to the school?”
“Siva Nembe has connections, as I’ve intimated. She has a sponsor already in the Hakam ready to put in a good word. Provided we lay the groundwork.”
This wasn’t what had intrigued him, but rather the fact that she had felt it necessary to call in so mighty a favor. Qanath’s mother wasn’t Mhurange yet: it had to have cost her considerable political currency. It suggested she had felt an overriding sense of urgency. Based on what Smooth Guy had revealed about The Plan, he was a bit player. A more experienced sorcerer with connections in the Scolate whose role was to make sure the pawn didn’t stumble or wander off as she walked her mother’s path. What had made it so terribly urgent to get him to her side?
Only the fact that she almost died, which to Havec and Qanath, had come as a huge surprise.
