Chapter 11
Siniq-elb stared, unable to move, as the man who had betrayed him walked across the Garden, arm in arm with Siniq-elb’s betrothed. Incomprehension gave way to pain. Inara. Natam. He could do nothing more than stare, trying to clamp down the shout rising inside him.
Too late he thought of trying to hide; they had seen him, and they made their way across the Garden with firm, even steps. Siniq-elb stared at them, at the looks of grim resolve on their faces, as though all three were cut of the same stone. A pair of eses ran from across the clearing with a bench; it seemed Lasgh’s influence was such that he need not sit on the ground in the Garden.
Vas shifted. “I think they’re coming towards us,” he said. “Do you know them?”
Siniq-elb nodded. He couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. How could they be here together? Perhaps she did not know. How could she know? Natam would not have confessed. It was the only thing that made sense.
“I think I should go,” Vas said.
With another nod, Siniq-elb let him leave. No reason for both of them to suffer this encounter. The three arrived a few moments later. The bench was settled, and all three sat. Lasgh and Inara kept their gazes on the ground. Only Natam looked Siniq-elb in the face.
“You look well,” Natam said, his voice faltering as his eyes took in Siniq-elb’s butchered legs.
Suddenly, as sure as fire knows flame, Siniq-elb knew that Inara knew everything. That knowledge was the worst pain of the last days, slicing through the world that had been his life, letting the pieces flutter to the ground like discarded cloth. It lasted an eternity, his gaze drinking her in—the way sun and shadow ran over her hair, bringing out the lines of fiery red, the curve of her breasts that still made his heart pound, the delicate line of her profile. And then it was over, and Siniq-elb felt nothing.
He stared up at Natam. For a moment the blond man shone his familiar, white smile, but it cracked and vanished. Siniq-elb shifted his gaze to Inara.
She turned slightly on the bench, just moving her knees really, but it was as though she were a child, trying to hide behind her father. Her eyes ate up the ground as though it were the most interesting thing she had ever seen.
“How are you, Siniq-elb?” she asked.
“How do I look?” Siniq-elb said.
Her eyes darted to him for a moment, eyes the color of cut grass, ready to fade.
“Do they treat you right?” A whisper, barely audible over the murmur of the Garden.
“Bah,” Lasgh interrupted, shaking himself and glaring first at his daughter, then at Siniq-elb. “Of course they do, silly girl. Watch your mouth. This is a place for recuperation, for bringing back those who have wandered.”
“Yes, I’ve done a great deal of recuperating since I came here,” Siniq-elb said. He could not tear his eyes from her, from pale skin at the hollow of her throat, now mottled with angry red splotches—the way she always looked when embarrassed or afraid. Perhaps she was both, now.
If he had shouted like a madman, if he had shaken the severed limbs in front of their eyes, Siniq-elb did not think he could have upset them more than with his flat, emotionless tone. Natam blanched, face whiter than his linen shirt, and the speckled flush rose from Inara’s neck in patches along her cheeks. Only Lasgh seemed unperturbed, although he blew deep breaths through his beard and glanced around the Garden, as though watching for eses who might be eavesdropping.
“Thank you for coming to check on me,” Siniq-elb said. “You’re to be commended for showing such concern. My own parents have not yet come.” He tried to keep the bitterness out of the last words, but he could taste it on his tongue.
“They’ll be here soon,” Natam murmured. “No doubt about it.” He tried the smile again, but his lips closed over it again like the waning moon. It was not the season for smiling, it seemed—not even for Natam.
Siniq-elb nodded. He had seen Natam fight rebels for months now, seen the man take lives, and almost lose his own. Just days before—had it been so little?—he had seen Natam face a creature from shared nightmare. Never had Siniq-elb seen Natam so shaken.
“How are you?” Siniq-elb said.
Natam muttered something incomprehensible, nodded, and, with more haste than was seemly, strode away from the bench without looking back.
“Siniq-elb, my boy,” Lasgh said, his own cheeks flushed now under the thin beard. “We’re glad to see you’re well, that the eses are leading you back to one of the Thirteen Paths.” Siniq-elb repressed a comment; fighting with Lasgh would have appealed to Siniq-elb before his encounter with Agahm. Now Siniq-elb just felt tired.
“Glad to see you doing well,” Lasgh said, starting again, and even he faltered here, his face red as a carnation’s heart. “So glad,” he repeated. “But we’ve come on business, too, don’t you see? Things to be addressed, and not a bit of it that isn’t of your own doing, I must say.”
“Father—” Inara said, tears starting down her cheeks.
“No, my silly girl,” Lasgh said. “He knows it, the eses will have taught him to take responsibility.”
Inara’s father paused, obviously waiting for Siniq-elb’s response. Siniq-elb stared back at him. He knew what Lasgh wanted, knew why they had come together with Natam. He had suspected when he saw them at the gate; when they sat and could not face him, he had known. But tair take them, Siniq-elb was not going to make it any easier for them!
When the silence had grown pregnant with unspoken words, Lasgh blew air through his thinning beard and shook his arms. “You must know,” he said, “that there are things to be addressed. Long-standing arrangements that cannot continue, with the situation as it is. Parties treated unfairly, unfulfilled expectations. Other parties unable to meet said expectations, or obligations of said arrangements.”
Inara shook now, tears falling with a dark pitter-patter on the sage dress.
When Siniq-elb held his silence, Lasgh gave another exasperated shake of his limbs and said, his voice rising, “What we mean is, such an arrangement cannot continue. It is unfair to the principal party.” A long breath, only fanning the flames under Lasgh’s graying beard. “The engagement must be annulled.”
There. He had said the words. Siniq-elb remained still, waiting for the impact. Nothing. He had suspected it, waited for it. Now it was done. The last leaf of autumn fallen, weightless, silent.
Siniq-elb had only to give his consent. A few words would do, for those in the Garden had no legal standing, and thus there was no need for a scribe. This moment was merely a formality, something to appease the other upstanding citizens of Khi’ilan. He simply needed to assent. A nod of the head, even a fraction of an inch.
“Will you marry him?” he asked Inara. He had not meant to speak the words.
Without a word, shaking so that she seemed she might fall, Inara rose and stumbled toward the gate. The sight of her so distraught should have filled Siniq-elb with something: relief, that perhaps she still felt something for him; satisfaction, that he had hurt her; sorrow, that he had lost so much. He felt nothing though, except the vague stirring, as though a wind rushed through an empty place in his soul, sweeping before it dust and ashes.
“Is that what you intend? A marriage with Natam?” he asked Lasgh.
Lasgh nodded. “They will wed,” he said, his voice softer. “I’m sorry, my boy, I am. I would not have come to hurt you, but the old ways still hold, and you must give your consent.”
“When they release me,” Siniq-elb said, “I will leave this place and there will be nothing waiting for me.”
Lasgh shook his arms and said, “Your parents, of course, will still be there.”
“Then why do they not come?”
Siniq-elb saw the fear in Lasgh’s eyes that gave away the lie when he said, “They will come, my boy. They will come.”
They did not speak again. Siniq-elb did not know how long it took him to incline his head; from thought to movement seemed an eternity. Then Lasgh was gone, and an esis rem
oved the bench, and Siniq-elb sat alone, at the edge of a forest dark with the shadows of memory.