"Me!" I exclaimed, shocked.

"A good choice," Thirukedi told Kor. "You could use someone else to bow your head to."

"Gods and ancestors!" I said, and Kor began laughing.

"So have we settled the matter?" Thirukedi said. "The two of you will form Qevellen, take the house I have set aside for you in the temple district and induct as many of Shame's Guardians into the family as wish to join. Farren Nai'Qevellen-osulkedi will be head of household and make arrangements for those who wish to find mates. And the two of you will consider adoption, if you do not find wives for yourselves."

The longer I listened, the more I liked the arrangement. To be Kor's ajzelin was a great joy; but to also be his head of household gave our relationship more complexity, and Thirukedi was right... I thought he would enjoy deferring to someone else after spending so many years as the only decision-maker in his life. If Thirukedi was encouraging us to take on Kor's entourage, then the house He had in mind was well and again large enough for me to paint in and for us to have all the many sleeping arrangements we would require. And... it would be good... good to have an extended family again. I had missed the laughter of children, and their grave, earnest thoughts.

"I find it agreeable, masuredi," I said. "If my ajzelin does."

"Your ajzelin cannot say no to both master and beloved," Kor said with a smile, and rested his cheek against Thirukedi's knee.

"Then I count my two pots well-mended," Thirukedi said, smiling.

Silently, I reached past His legs for Kor's hand, and felt his fingers twine in mine.

"Masuredi?" I said, tentatively. "If I may ask..."

"Yes?"

"When first I took tea in Your presence," I said, "You asked me for my favorite version of the parable of the broken pot."

"So I recall," He murmured.

"Master, what is yours?" I asked.

Another of those smiles, this one tender and somehow old, dense with too many years. He closed His clear eyes a moment, then lifted His head and said in a voice that gathered us close in that small room: "Reck this. Once there was a pot that served well, and served long. It had some cracks, as was to be expected in a pot of such age and consistent use. It knew those cracks were growing, and feared that it would burst. But that pot continued to serve despite its fears, until one day it broke.

"And then it discovered that in breaking, it was now free... for it could never be broken again."

Silence.

Shame said, very soft, "Master... we cannot possibly be that great of heart."

"That is why we have aspirations," Thirukedi said, gently brushing the hair from Shame's face.

Looking up at Civilization, Shame said, "And when we have attained all our aspirations? What is left then?"

Thirukedi cupped his face in one long hand and smiled. "The attainment of all our aspirations is another form of shattering. And we break so that all that is in us can be given away, given away eternally and completely to others."

"Oh, masuredi," I whispered, reaching for His hand.

How long we remained thus, I cannot say. But in the wake of such a revelation, how could we have moved?

When at last we rose, my knees hurt, and my neck from looking up at Him, and yet none of it mattered. He rose with us, and we bowed to him, and His smile was radiance, like sunlight in spring when new flowers are blooming. It was less dismissal and more as if He was gently parting us from His company, for neither of us wished to go.

On our way out, I stopped at the threshold and said, "Master?"

"Farren," Thirukedi said, grave.

"Seraeda... she meant no harm," I said. "She followed the demands of her ishas."

"I know," He answered, gentle.

"And Haraa—" I paused. "The lord's fathrikedi... what... what is to become of her? You have not said."

"And you wish to know," Thirukedi said. "Do not fear for her, osulkedi. Her ishas will be evaluated and she will be placed where she belongs."

I bowed then and followed Kor out, but not before I noticed the vauni haale that had been sitting across from us on a curved table facing the bench.

In a vase of impeccable Ai-Naidari design... a single black blossom.

The two of us stood together outside the gates, feeling as if we had stepped out of some other world, some more rarified place where time passed in a different manner. For several moments, neither of us spoke.

Then Kor said, "Well... let us see to this property of ours, shinje."

One of Thirukedi's Servants had seen to the paperwork and issued us keys and directions, and so armed we went forth to examine the fruits of the Emperor's beneficence. Our journey took us away from Neriethen's district, where I had lived; closer, in fact, to Athurizin's district, which we had traveled through in order to reach the Ashumel. The temple district is not a wedge of the city, as one might expect, but a ring midway between Thirukedi and the walls; in this way, each district has access to at least one temple and a variety of shrines. One may walk the entirety of the ring if one wishes to make obeisance at several temples; in fact, such walks have a name, qeneve kiranai, a seeking-journey of religions, if you will.

Our new house was in the atani of Regal Household Utraenith, which put it within walking distance of Shame's temple, and very nearly across the city from my studio. The further we went, the more I thought I would have to give up the studio entirely, and could not decide how I felt about the notion... relief? Sorrow? Both, perhaps?

All of that was set aside at the sight of the property, for it was beautiful. Well and again large enough for a respectable extended family, with an open layout more like a shrine's than a house's, riddled with gardens. There was a curious device on the gate; I set my hand on it, tracing the delicate metal. In a circle, what looked like—

"Yes," Kor said at my back. "It's a tset."

Such knives are used for rituals, blades short and narrow as tongues. But I was less interested in the fact that our new home had a knife for an emblem than I was in my ajzelin's voice. I looked over my shoulder and found him staring past me at the house, and there was... a shining in his eyes. Merriment, partially. But a glitter also that made his coronal eyes gleam like the stars they were named for.

"Kor?" I said, softly.

He laughed then and put his hand on the device. "Tset... was Tsevet's love-name."

My ears flipped back. "You mean to say..."

"That Thirukedi has deeded us the First Servant's house," Kor agreed, and I could barely meet his eyes for the emotion in his voice. "Yes."

I looked from my ajzelin back to the house and studied it anew. It would make a beautiful residence, but it was a peculiarity in that it was a residence, standing apart from any temple; there were few private residences of this size in the temple district, and the larger ones were invariably attached to one of the temples.

"The First Servant didn't live in your shrine?" I said at last.

"No," Kor said, wiping his eyes. "No, he had the shrine built so that the priests who followed him would be more easily accepted. To break in some part the association between himself and the concept of Shame as priest."

"Sensible," I said. Looking up at the gracious estate, I added, "He had fine taste."

"By all accounts," Kor said. "He was quite the aesthete."