"I," she said, "no less than you have sacred work to do here."

"And what is that? Winning back a master who has chosen the company of aliens over yours at every opportunity?" Ajan said unexpectedly, lifting his dagger to examine it.

Shocked, she whipped her gaze from Kor's to the back of Ajan's head, her lips drawn back from her perfect teeth. It was a magnificent expression; rage suited her, made her beauty incandescent and perilous. I would have painted it, if I had thought anyone would believe it possible for a Decoration to be prey to such normal Ai-Naidari emotions.

"Enough," Shame said. He guided her face back with one finger against her chin, and I saw the hair on her shoulders lift at the touch. "You knew he'd fled the house, rather than been transported away early. And you came across the Gate. Without a permit."

"The lord had arranged for me to come to him before," she said, haughty. "I told the Guardians that he had sent for me again. They don't know he was supposed to be somewhere else... the scandal in Qenain has not been bruited about for others to know he was supposedly lying tsekil in his bed." Again she lifted her chin. "Will you punish me now, Shame? Would you dare?"

"You go too far," I said, frightened by her defiance.

"I go where the path leads me," she said, but without looking at me. Her eyes were only for Shame. "I go where my lord has forced me. I am fathrikedi; that is my duty!"

"Your duty is not to summon yourself into your lord's presence without his permission!" I exclaimed.

"I go to save him," she said, voice a low growl. "Because I love him."

"You might," Shame said mildly, "have trusted Kherishdar to save him."

"Kherishdar!" she exclaimed. "Kherishdar dithered and whined over everyone else's reaction to my lord's choices, and then brought you to judge and send him away forever!"

"You misunderstand Correction," Shame said, though his words were beginning to grow cold.

"I understand whipping an elder until he bleeds!" she hissed. "I understand the bit and the gag, and the pedestal! I understand punishment!" She bared her teeth at him. "As you and your precious osulkedi-peer will punish me for daring to redeem a lord I love!"

"Fathriked are not supposed to love so passionately," Shame said. "It is a cruelty."

"Fathriked are not supposed to love so passionately!" she exclaimed. "Fathriked are not to have passions? What do you know of fathriked and what is cruel for us, and what is wonted? You do not even react to me, Kherishdar's Shame! Are you even functional?" Her body moved against his in a ripple, but even before she rubbed against him she had made a mistake and I didn't know what it was, only that it was bad, very bad. Ajan knew, for his ears flattened as he turned, rising from the chair.

But even he did not move as fast as his master. Kor caught her by the jaw, thumb and middle fingers digging into the muscle there so sharply that she froze, eyes watering.

"Enough," he said again, the word like a blow. She flinched.

"Enough," he said, more quietly. "I am Kherishdar's Shame, fathrikedi. I know."

She closed her eyes, wilting. And whispered. "Very well, then. Correct me of my many errors. But I do not repent."

He sighed and released her. She did not kneel... she should have, after the insult she'd given him. But though her knees shook, she remained standing.

"I did not leave the penokedi at the Gate to entrap you," he said, "but because I wanted your aid."

A shocked silence, like that after a thunderclap.

"W-what?" she said, as if not sure of her own ears.

"Your help," Shame repeated. "You know the aunera. I need to find them, and your lord, who is in hiding among them."

She stared at him, and then her ears slowly pinned back. "But if I tell you, you will take him away from me."

"Fathrikedi," he said, his voice gentler, "he has already left you."

Now she did sink to her knees, drooping until her face was hidden by her storm-cloud curls. I felt a piercing pity for her.

"Serapis," she whispered at last. "The female's name was Serapis. I never heard the male's."

Shame looked down at her head, then turned his back on her and vanished into the adjoining room. I shared a pained glance with Ajan—who to tend to first?—and decided that Kor would take the least harm from being left to himself. I went to one knee alongside the fathrikedi... painfully, noticing the world-weight in my joints at last when I bent.

"He's right," she whispered, her eyes covered with one hand. "He's right. I have lost him."

To touch her, even though it was my right as her caste-better and her lot as Decoration, seemed cruel in her extremis... so instead, I gently moved the curtain of curls with the side of one hand, just enough that I might see her face, and she might see mine. "It is early yet," I said after searching for words that might be of some comfort. "We have only just embarked on the solving of this problem, fathrikedi. We might save him yet."

"Even if we do," she said, defeated, "he will not love me again. Not the way he did." She looked at me from the cavernous shadow under her crown of hair, and in that gloom her eyes burned like embers. "You did not know him before the aunera came, osulkedi. He was... oh, he was a fire! He was passion. He was laughter. He was..." She trailed off and laughed, hesitant. "He was... fun! Oh, we had fun. He exercised parts of me that I had forgotten were in me at all. I loved him for that." She was silent, staring at the floor before her knees, the muscle in her jaw working. Then, low, "That love will never find an answer in him again. He has experienced something... more intense than we had. Something that makes him feel more alive. Everything else will feel pale, as if he is experiencing it through a veil... the way... the way I had been, before I met him."

I could not help drawing her into my arms, then, and she allowed it... more than allowed it, she pressed into me, hiding her face against my chest. I cupped the back of her skull, startled at the depth of the pity I felt for her, and the grief. Over her head, Ajan looked at me with a countenance too grim for his years. He framed a word with his lips, and I read it off them: rakadhas. Spirit trapped in a caste which no longer suited it. I shuddered. The taint in Qenain had already had power. To think it might have grown so strong that it might cast souls from their caste-ranks...

God of Civilization, preserve us.

"What will I do?" she asked, miserable.

"For now, I think perhaps you should rest," I said, still holding her. She was so slight in my arms... such a weight of personality for such a little frame, and all that personality dwindled, ashes from once hot fire.

"I have done wrong," she murmured, uncertain.

"You have been afflicted by the taint of Qenain," I said. "In a way far more direct than almost anyone else. You have erred, fathrikedi, but only Thirukedi has the wisdom to know what part of your error is your own, and what part of it... situational."

She smiled a little at that. Then said, "Even now you call me fathrikedi, Calligrapher. Do you still have no name for me?"

I looked down into her face and thought of my pity, of the ruin of her spirit's calm, and said, "I fear you would not like the names I would give you at this moment."

"No," she said after a pause. "No, I would guess not."

Standing above us, Ajan said, "There is a massage table in the bathing chamber. I could fetch a blanket."

"That won't be necessary," she said, rising. "I will find it myself. Thank you." Looking directly at Ajan, she said, "I won't try to escape, penokedi. You need not guard against my flight."

"You will forgive me if I stand my duty anyway," Ajan said.

Her lips quirked in a faint smile before she turned and left.

Absent both Shame and Decoration, the room felt emptied of any energy. Ajan and I looked at one another and I sighed, feeling it to the marrow. "Now, the second of the two. I don't suppose you can tell me any hint of what upset him so?"

"He is my master, osulkedi," Ajan said, looking down. "I will not betray his confidences."

And by that, I knew that this was one that cut close to the quick, and deep. I did not press Ajan, then, and straightened, approaching the closed door... where almost I bumped into my quarry, for Shame opened it as I reached for the handle. As I side-stepped clumsily, he said, "Ajan?" And once he had the youth's attention, handed him a note. "Deliver this to Qenain, and if they have an answer, follow up on it, please."

"Masuredi," Ajan said, bowing as he accepted it. "Who shall guard the fathrikedi in my absence?"

Shame narrowed his eyes, considering. "I doubt she'll leave. But bell the door."