I would like to say I slept well, that Kor’s presence and the newness of being ajzelin were sufficient to soothe any troubles I might entertain. But while I hesitate to use the word ‘torture,’ my dreams wrenched me from sleep several times that night, and they were not deep-dreams, what we call yulun, the voice of the spirit as it makes sense of the world, the day and one’s place in it… but rather jiliqil, the restless almost-dreams of a mind that cannot settle, the hateful ones that make one feel as if one has not slept at all.
And all my jiliqil were of the aunera… of the female’s haunted eyes, and the stern mask of the male’s face.
I was not the only one disturbed, for when I sat up at last in the morning, even more exhausted than I had been before lying down, Kor remained lying on his back, one hand on his chest and his eyes on the ceiling.
“I’ll run you a bath when I’m done,” he said at last.
“Thank you,” I said.
We broke our fast in silence, and again he checked on the others. When he returned it was to take his stole off and carefully fold it before setting it on the table. “I think,” he said, “I will go for a walk.”
“All right,” I said. “The others…?”
“As well as can be expected,” he said. “You might check, if you wish.”
“I think I will,” I said.
“I’ll be back for the dareleni,” he said, and left. I looked at the stole for quite some time before rising myself. I did not begrudge him the setting aside of his mantle, not at all. But it concerned me that he felt the need, for it was very much not like him. We were all sorely afflicted, I thought, by these matters. I prayed Thirukedi’s message would arrive soon.
The lord of Qenain was down the hall. I tapped lightly on the door, which Ajan opened for me, and if Kor had unsettled me with his abrupt departure, it was nothing to what the sight of Ajan did to me… for the youth was grim and stern and it did nothing to hide the distress in his eyes. He let me in and I joined him in the antechamber.
“He is in the bedchamber,” Ajan murmured. “And has not moved from the chair beside the bed since he arrived. Haraa came and knelt at his feet, and she has not moved save to fall asleep against his leg.”
“May I…?” I asked, and to this day I am not sure what moved me to make the request. It is easy to blame the artistic spirit of voyeurism, but I sincerely, deeply, did not want to look. And as much as I worried over Haraa, I knew that her welfare was not the sole reason either. I wonder, sometimes, if I knew that I had to see in order to make sense of the unsense in my head… if, like a painting lacking cohesion, there was some single line I was seeking by instinct, one I knew would give form to the shape of it and release me from the effort of seeking.
“Go, if you wish,” Ajan answered, resigned. “I know I have tired of looking.”
I went slowly to the edge of the door, keeping myself out of sight… to no purpose, I saw the moment I glanced in the room. The lord of Qenain had no eyes for anything outside his own memories; he stared listlessly at the wall across from the chair, drawn and wearied and old, and this I said of a man who had claimed kevej for his esar, who had lived kevej, the passion, the zest for living, for experimentation, for daring much. And he had dared much, too much, and the shadow-side of his esar had cut him down. Completely. If there was life left in the lord of Qenain, it had been arrested. Sitting in the chair this body breathed, but it did not live.
At his feet, Haraa had wilted like a parched flower, her storm-gray curls scattered over his insteps and her face hidden. At some point she had gone from kneeling to lying down, her body tightly curled and only the spine visible from the door, a hard chain of shadowed dimples.
I stared at this tableau and something in me found the line that made sense of the painting, and though the painting it formed in my mind hurt me and stretched me in ways I did not think I had the elasticity to bear, still, I could not help but complete it.
I stopped at the door on my way out. “I don’t think he’ll move, Ajan. Surely you can rest.”
“Surely I could,” he said. “But I will not.” At my look, he said, soft, “It is the only gift I can make him, osulkedi. I treat him like an Ai-Naidari in his situation would be treated, and so assure him that he is still one of us, and due all that an Ai-Naidari is due.”
His generosity moved me… as did his subtlety. I would have thought that by then Ajan would no longer surprise me with his subtleties, but I continued not to expect them of one so young. I should have known better—anyone Kor would take as a lover would have to be capable of appreciating such nuances, since he is a man who lives by them.
So instead, I touched him lightly on the shoulder, as I was allowed as one higher-ranked, and more importantly, as one he had called family and given himself to in life-debt. And the touch spoke all that was needful. He bowed his head briefly, accepting it, and then I left him to his duty, and I went to mine.
For I had identified my duty at last, and as shocked as I was to find myself executing it, I still went… without pause. Without delay. And without—strangely—second thoughts. Out of the tea house, under the too-bright sun, into the street… and across it, into the aunerai part of town.
As before, the aunera did not stop me nor question my errand, even when it took me back to the beautifully appointed building at the far end of the street. I entered through the side door and hurried down the corridor to the grand room where we'd found the lord of Qenain, and there stared a moment at the door before reminding myself that no Servants would appear to introduce me formally. So I pushed it open, and found within the aunerai male, sitting behind the desk.
How I startled him! He rose from his chair with a hitch of his gait, very nearly a stumble, and I had the impression that such clumsiness was unwonted in him. He looked very much a lord in his own right, now that I had him alone and could form such impressions separate from the circumstances in which I'd first seen him: the clothing he wore was obviously some kind of uniform, tailored and well-fitted to a frame I imagined must be elegant in the aunera, given their relative lack of height. The rich, dark red fabric went well with his... hair, I suppose I must call it, though there was so little of it and in odd places, what I have since learned is a beard. But it was a good color, a dark gold, threaded here and there with white. And his face was stern, the kind of stern I associated with those above the Wall of Birth. Strange to think I could read it despite our being different species.
But at the sight of him alone, my errand foundered, for I had expected the female also, with her facility for our tongue. I glanced around the office, not seeing her behind him or at the low table, and inclined my head, as an osulkedi would to one of unknown caste. Then said, hesitant, "...Serapis?"
"She... is not here," he began. "She... is not work."
"She is not working today?" I asked, trying not to be frustrated.
Apparently I was not the only one, for he held up a hand with a frown and picked up one of the devices on his desk—truly, the aunera never seemed to be without exposed devices—and dragged his fingers over it several times until he perhaps found what he was looking for. Which he showed me as he said, "This."
I looked at the screen and saw it divided. On one half, what I assumed to be aunerai writing. And on the other... letters I understood, for it was our tongue. And the word he had chosen was tsekil.
It was as if I had been struck, hard enough to be felled.
"This," he said again, pointing. And then looking at it, sounded it out. "Tseh-keel."
"You are saying she's soul-sick? Maybe you mean body-sick?"
He frowned a little, then tapped the device and waved a hand, as if to encourage me to speak. So I asked again, and when I had done, he looked at its surface and shook his head. This time, he said, "She... is not... body-sick. Sick here." He touched his breast. "Heart. Heart-sick. Tsekil, yes?"
"Yes," I whispered.
He nodded.
"You are not?" I asked, and watched in uneasy fascination as alien words sprang onto the screen a few moments after my speech.
He looked away, jaw hard. Then said, "Must work."
"Will you fetch her?" I asked, quieter. "Please? There is something I must say—ask—of you both."
He read the translation, then looked at me with a faint frown. Then said, "Wait, please." And as he turned to go, stopped and then offered me the device. I took it only because it seemed rude not to, and sat on one of the chairs to wait.
