I fell silent, holding one of the river pieces between my long palms, fingers folded to enclose it. He waited courteously for me to place it, as the river-player traditionally went first, but I did not.
"There's something on your mind," he said.
"Divined that, did you," I murmured.
He chuckled. "It wasn't particularly difficult. So, what is it?"
"You have been..." I trailed off, wondering what word I might choose that would fail to give offense. Kind? Warm? "Forthcoming. With yourself. I would not have expected it of Shame; indeed, you were not so in the first days of our acquaintance."
He studied me with his clear eyes. "You think your words hurtful."
"They are not intended that way," I said, apologetic.
"I know. Perhaps then you will not be offended when I say, likewise, that I was unaware of your talent."
I sat back, returning his regard. He bore it without hardship, as one might expect a person of his notoriety would. Only one Shame in Kherishdar, and so starkly colored; of course, he was accustomed to stares. But there was no tension in the yoke of his shoulders, and I wondered at it... as much as I wondered at myself for noticing it.
"You are not surprised at the direction the conversation is flowing," Kor said. "Perhaps, then, you have also longed to have discussion with a true peer."
He used a distinct word: kava, "peer" rather than hharane, "caste-peer." The latter is what one calls other Ai-Naidar sharing your caste with you... the former, however, is something altogether different. More intimate. More presumptuous. More implying things I was not at all prepared for.
"I have known other Public Servants," I said finally. "My studio was not far from the physician's abode. We were acquainted with one another."
"But somehow, he did not strike you as a peer," Kor observed, beginning to line up his pieces in rows, little gray and white arches. "You are perhaps aware of your own talent."
"Osulkedi," I said, and could not stop my voice from sounding quelling.
He grinned at that, easy as a youth, and looked up at me without lifting his head, the effect of the uncanny eyes mitigated by his lashes and brows. "You fear I am about to reveal that you have some pride in your talent. Why shouldn't you, Farren? I have not yet seen your equal. There may be other artists with a hand as deft, but they are rare."
"Kor," I said, trying now to bring him back from his Shame eyes.
"It makes you uncomfortable," he said, quieter. Dare I say, with more understanding. "To feel so alone in your talent."
"I am not the only one who can paint!" I exclaimed.
"But you are the only artist I have met whom the Emperor has marked, permanently, with the signs of empire."
I fought the urge to hide my hands with their betraying marks in their sleeves.
"Do you not trust His judgment, if not your own?"
I looked away.
"Farren," he said, in that quiet voice. "You are not the only one who feels discomfort at being at the pinnacle of a particular ability."
"And that is why you have warmed to me," I said with a clipped voice, looking at him. "In my talent, you have decided you have found someone who also must stand alone as a master of his craft."
"Am I wrong?" he said.
"About your genius?" I said, and could not help but laugh a little, though the laugh was bitter. It was not so good a thing among us, to be set apart, even for positive reasons. "Certainly not. About myself—"
"Not something you are comfortable with," he said. "I understand."
"You," I said, "are accusing me of arrogance."
"After a fashion," he agreed, without distress. Indeed, with what I suspected, grouchily, was a touch of merriment.
"Shame," I said.
"Kor," he corrected.
"Kor," I allowed, still cranky. "I do not believe I'm better than everyone else."
He looked up then suddenly, and there was nothing intimate in those coronal eyes. I felt pinned by them, breathless and exposed. "Tell me that again, Calligrapher."
I swallowed past a narrowed throat and could not speak until something in his face changed, some crease around his eyes, some intensity there dying to banked coals. And then I scowled at him and said, "That was entirely unfair!"
He laughed. "The pursuit of truth, osulkedi."
"Is often inimical to an easy friendship," I said, folding my arms over my chest.
"Is ours to be an easy friendship, then?" he asked.
I studied him and said, "No... I don't think you ever do things the easy way. Do you."
"It's in my nature," he murmured, and I thought I saw a tint in the skin beneath his eyes, where the white pelt was thinnest. A blush? He surely had earned it.
Mollified, I set down the first of the river pieces. And if he won that game, well... I hardly expected any less.
