Kherishdar's Exception, Episode 30: The Oblivious Me

“You’re lucky I’m not biting you.”

He thrust his arm at me. “Please! If you do, I’ll win my money back!”

I sighed, torn between exasperation and fondness. “Ajan…”

He held up his hands. “Peace, Haraa! It was a joke!” He paused. “Between Kor and I, granted. But a joke nonetheless—”

“I really am going to bite you.”

“To be bitten by someone with a fathrikedi’s training is probably an experience worth the pain…”

I bared my teeth at him and he laughed and drew me off into the smaller family room, where we’d been playing games before I left. “All right. Let’s get you out of trouble.”

*** 

I left that day, aunera. That day. I even contrived an excuse that passed muster with Kor, and if Shame approved, the Calligrapher could hardly object: I claimed that I hadn’t realized how dangerous Lenore’s materials might be in the wrong hands, and that I needed to return them, and never again bring more such materials with me.

“This time,” Kor said, because he was the one who escorted me to the stables, “engage an office at the Gate. One of the posting houses will have a spare for traveling osulked. Plan to spend most of your time there, and cross over only when you need to… otherwise the world-weight sickness will force you home before you’re ready to return.”

“I’m running,” I said, thinking of the Exception’s accusation and hating that she’d been right. “Kor, I’m running.”

“You have cause.”

“If I have cause, why don’t you fix it? You’re Shame… tell him to stop!”

He chuckled. “Haraa, really. I am the Empire’s second to last resort for Correction. It would be like amputating a limb to remove a splinter.” He eyed me. “What is the right way to resolve this issue?”

“I don’t know,” I said, irritated. “If I thought telling Farren to stop matchmaking would stop him, I’d do it. I have told him to stop, and he’s not listening.”

“The two of you need to talk, Haraa. About the real issue.”

“If the two of us talk, there will be no peace in Qevellen, and you know it.”

“Do I?”

“Don’t you?”

He watched the Ai-Naidari leading out my mount, thanked her before taking the reins. “Check her tack. You need the practice.”

Useless to argue that when it was true. I went over the gear, pleased that I’d remembered the saddlebags this time on my own. “He’s pushing me too fast.”

“And in a direction you don’t want.”

I glanced at him, but he was wearing one of his inscrutable looks. Did he know what I felt for Farren? If he did, he wasn’t revealing it. But it was better to guess that he knew than not, because… Shame. Sees all. He really does, it’s annoying. When it doesn’t save time. I sighed. “And in a direction I don’t want. Are you sure you can’t Correct one or both of us?”

He smiled then, a genuinely amused smile. “You don’t need Correction. Either of you. You need to learn how to resolve very basic relationship issues: Farren because he’s been too long alone, and you because you’ve not had to since you were a child.”

“If it’s so basic why can’t I figure it out?” I growled.

“Because you don’t want to yet,” he said. “When you do, you’ll take care of it.” At my confused and angry stare, he said, “Trust me, Haraa. When you’re ready to be done with this, you’ll move on. You’re not the type to pine.”

“No,” I said, resigned because there was no use objecting. If I did, he’d take it as proof he was right. Probably because he would be. I pulled myself into the saddle. “I might not be back for a while this time.”

“Stay as long as you need,” Kor said. “And I’ll see you after the Trysts.”

“You are so infuriating, you know that?”

He grinned up at me. “Go well, qirini.”

So once again, I was on my way, and at the realization that I need not immediately return, I felt nothing but… relief. What did it say about me that I felt the need to escape Kherishdar? I mulled that all the way out the city, winding my way through the foot traffic. The Exception’s taunting kept at me like that splinter Kor had used as an example, until I thought amputating my head would be preferable to continuing to hear it. Was it just Farren that was driving me? Or something deeper?

I wondered, a little, if what had happened to me with the lord and his lovers was bothering me more than I was willing to admit.

I also wondered what the aunera would say about unrequited love. I would have to ask.