Knew talk would be pointless. Needed to make blood payment for guilt. Not a violent grief, so brought needles and made it slow.

What guilt could be so desperate to require blood payment? And what kind of man could dole it out so methodically? Every other entry had evoked in me a rich sense of color and light, as if the bare words were just waiting for calligraphy. But this... had been flat to me. Words, naked words, their meanings unadorned in my mind.

I have never needed more than the mildest of Corrections. I could not imagine a world of such violent passions. How could I possibly be of service to a man capable of addressing such things?

And yet, Thirukedi had sent me. Of all His osulked, He had chosen me.

I had to believe I could help... but I did not pick up the log again. I spent the remainder of the journey with my gazed fixed on the new green of the fields, and my distraction was so complete I did not even wonder how I would mix the color on a palette.

And now a digression, for several of you have asked about tea, and I am delighted to oblige your curiosity. For tea is emblematic of our species, indeed!—we consider it the official drink of the empire. Many are the tracts that discuss its virtues.

Like the aunerai version, our tea is made from the leaves of a plant; in our case, an epiphytic vine, the let arva (directly, “tea vine”). It is found natively on First World, growing on the branches of a shrub that lives on the sides of hills and ditches: a very humble plant that one, we even name it so: gelme sherani, the humble plant; more on this in a moment. Without the tea vine, gelme shera are overwhelmed by direct sunlight and die. Likewise, the tea plant cannot survive without a host to suspend it, nor does it grow very high. It is well-suited to its partner.

Together, tea vine and host offer a considerable bounty: the gelme sherani’s leaves can be ground as an analgesic and its small berries are delicious; they are also crushed to form the basis for the pigment that dyes the stoles of Public Servants such as myself, a color adequately translated as "mulberry." The tea vine, of course, yields the tea leaves; like you, we cure and dry the leaves in many different ways, each one creating a different flavor profile. Unlike your beverage, let is a mild relaxant. It does not induce sleep, mind... only calms a troubled thought, if such a thought you may be holding. It is a bright, quiet sort of mind it fosters.

You can imagine, then, why we so value tea. It has inspired a host of words: let aidaremethil, or tea-plant symbiosis, is the state of working in tandem with another to achieve your mutual success. That success-gained-with-others also has a word: letenemii. Letshilva means something like "complete usefulness," and describes when every last particle of utility has been wrung from something: like the tea vine and its partner, the berries, the leaves, even the way the partnership itself, the location, everything contributes, without holding back. Ashlet is the word we use to describe someone or something who works harmoniously with another, complementing their strengths and compensating for their weaknesses. And ieleten is the word we use for the failure that comes from attempting to make one's way alone in a situation or environment where one absolutely needs aid; you may remember the world iekuvren, “destructive independence,” a flaw that leads to ieleten, failure, and finally akuvrash, the destruction of the local community. It is from that word for failure that we derive the name for the tea vine, in fact, for that concept came first; as a species, we faced dar ieleten, which is to say the failure of a people, for only when we learned to pull together in the traces were we able to survive. The partner shrub also takes its name from another venerable word: gelmesh, which is to say "foundation of a positive relationship," and this root also informs the word gelme, for is not humility to source of our ability to love?

In conflict, we speak of let raikash, “tea victories.” These are reached by compromise on the part of both parties, as in two enemies sitting at tea. The victory is impossible without both their contributions, so this word is both pleasing in symbol and act (for we do often make our treaties over a tea table).

So then: a very important plant, not just for its taste or history, but for what it means to us.

In flavor Ai-Naidari tea varies from grassy and astringent to smoky and earthy, but the mouthfeel is always clear; we do not mediate it with thick liquids except for a syrup we make for children. Though it was found first on First World, it is successfully farmed as far as Third. Let arva grows on the colonies, though not as easily... our farmers are at work on a cultivar that will thrive there, so that wherever Ai-Naidar dwell, they might have their tea. I have no doubt they will succeed.

You ask, perhaps, if there are words and symbols for endeavors and successes reached alone. And there are. But I have digressed long enough, for it is here in the story that I meet Shame. Let us continue.

Our arrival at the Bleak did nothing to assuage my doubts about my suitability for my assignment. You have not seen the Bleak, I imagine... it is not a place we would take aunera. Not out of any sense of shame, but because the souls remanded to its halls deserve their privacy. They pay here for their transgressions, and they are remade; when they exit the Bleak they do so as new persons, re-dedicated to society. Consider it almost a ritual, a spiritual and psychological cleansing. To gawk at such a thing would be cruel and inappropriate.

But having never seen the Bleak, you cannot know how it imposes. Entering the front hall, I cast a very, very thin shadow against the height of the stone room... a shadow that vanished when the great doors closed behind me. There was nothing crude about the architecture, though it was devoid of ornament, and we are a people who greatly admire ornament. It had been designed to diminish one to one's proper size: which is to say, not large at all when alone. There is nothing upon which to fix one's eye, no sound to distract the ear, not even the lingering smell of incense, so common even in the poorest of households... a dearth of sensation which leaves no choice but to contemplate oneself.

It is a rare Ai-Naidari who enjoys solitude as anything more than a passing necessity, like the breath that separates words so they can be properly discerned. And here I was, mender of a broken pot of a man who could abide in such a place for long months, living on the spaces between words and the aloneness between contact with other Ai-Naidar. Again, I could not fathom it... and almost I began to fear meeting Shame.

Before I could dwell too long on these thoughts I was rescued by a woman who seemed to resolve out of the dark of a nearly imperceptible hallway. By her expression she was perplexed by my arrival; she glanced at my stole and the mark of the empire on it, then met my eyes. "Osulkedi? May I ask what brings you here?"

She had addressed me first and in speech only slightly Abased, by which I understood she was also a Public Servant... perhaps only a few ranks beneath me. So I responded to her as a caste-equal, saying, "I have been sent to find the Public Servant who serves Shame."

"Ah," she said, and in that single utterance I heard a wealth of meaning, like arabesques of paint spilling from a single letter: blue, blood-brown and muted gray. I did not like the reserve and unease the gestalt of it suggested. "This way, if you would, osulkedi."

I followed her into the narrow, tall hallway, relieved when further down its length several thin windows sliced through the unremitting dark with strips of sunlight. And the room to which she escorted me was surprisingly comfortable, with a low ceiling, a broad view onto the distant fields, and several cushioned benches. Not a room for those sentenced here, then. I confess that in my single visit to the Bleak prior to Thirukedi's assignment, I had not been any further than its front hall; I had been accompanying my liege-lord who had come to claim one of the Bleak's reformed souls for his own. I had not imagined the place capable of even this much softness. And I admit, I was glad of the pillow-lined bench. My joints were no longer quite so forgiving of abuse as they had when I was younger.

I composed myself to wait, then, and not to guess at what awaited me—awaited us both. The ways of the Emperor are often beyond ken.

My first impression of Shame, thus, was his voice... and the fact that he spoke stripped of any caste-markings, so that his speech was shocking, naked. "Is this urgent? I am in the middle of my duties."

I sat up and looked toward him, and it was as if I could not move my head and yet turning to him was inevitable. Hearing him made one want to see him, and not want to see him. I had experienced something similar only once before, when I met the Exception... but the Exception had been wistfulness and sorrow and distance, like a painting blurred and softened by water.

Kor Nai'Nerillin-osulkedi was an ink drawing, a few slashes cutting a vital, compact shape from his surroundings. And black: ancestors! So rare a color among us, black entirely save for the shock of white on his face. His pupils were black pits surrounded in more white, with a thin gray ring to mark their borders—we call it arvarnari elet, coronal eyes, after the pale halo around the sun at its eclipse, and I had never seen such distinct and uncanny examples. There was nothing comfortable about him, not even the way he entered the room, his movements brusque and strangely precise. Nothing. I was not certain whether to be intimidated by him... or fascinated.

Because, oddest of all, he had a beauty. From his voice to the way he stood across from me to the manner in which he fixed his eyes on me, all of it was of one piece. My brows furrowed as I contemplated this unexpected harmony, and I didn't even realize I was staring until one of his white brows cocked.

"Osulkedi?"

"Ah!" I said, and despite his stripped speech I could not bear to reply in kind. I addressed him as a caste-equal, courteous. "I apologize. It was a long journey."

"To the purpose of...?"

His directness was almost appealing because it made sense of the rest of him. "Thirukedi sends me, osulkedi. We are to repair to House Qenain at the Gate, there to address their need."

"The Gate—" he murmured, his eyes losing their focus. Then, with no obvious change, they were again considering me. "And you?" His gaze took in the stole, but I wore simple robes beneath them, nothing like his unrelieved black and white. "You are not another priest."

"No, osulkedi," I said. "I am a calligrapher."

"A calligrapher," Shame repeated. "And Qenain has need of the both of us?"

"I admit it must seem rather irregular," I said, my hands clasped on my knees, trying to warm them where they ached.

"A bit," Shame said. Then shook his head. "I can't leave until I'm done with my duties."

Before he could continue, I cautiously interrupted. "Forgive me, osulkedi... but your duties here could be construed as eternal. The Emperor has sent for you. There is need elsewhere, not just here."

"Still," Shame said. "I will need the rest of the day. I was in the middle of the work." He rubbed the pad of his palm, and I dared not look closer; I did not want to see blood there, or calluses my mind would attempt to explain.

And then the words penetrated, and I tried to hide my dismay. "The rest of the day?"

He smiled faintly. "We won't have to spend the night. I assume you came by coach?" When I nodded, he said, "then we can leave by sunset."

The notion of remaining in an enclosed space with such a powerful personality was daunting, but not quite as daunting as the thought of having to sleep in the Bleak. And I supposed, if we were trapped together thus, perhaps I might become more acquainted with him, maybe even find some insight into just how difficult my work would be. "Sunset, then." And then, though I had not planned on asking such an intimate and irregular question, I said, "You know to the moment when your duty will end?"

"The body can endure only so long," Shame said. "And the mind follows. I will return."

And then he was gone, leaving me with unwelcome thoughts and only myself to blame for inviting them.

That was my first experience of Shame. My second came when I realized he did not intend to ride in the carriage with me.

"Osulkedi," I said, standing alongside the open door, "it is a three day ride from the Bleak to the Gate, and it will be dark soon."

"I know," he answered.

"There's no need—"

"I'll be fine," he said. At least he hadn't saddled his own steed; a young Guardian had brought it out already tacked, a high-strung creature with a deep brown coat. As I watched, Shame pulled himself into the saddle, managing the short robe over his loose trousers with that precision that reminded me, suddenly, of some of the better-trained members of the Guardian caste. It had that same hint of violence, like the top note of a subtle perfume: subliminal but clear when noticed.