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My issue wasn't that she was older. It was that she'd become so amazing. I could still remember the first time I saw a Priestess of the Body. The woman had been the most elegant thing I'd ever imagined. She'd moved with so much power and sensuality, even if I hadn't really understood what that was back then. All I'd known was that she made me feel kinda stupid and awkward.
Nari still did that. I was a grown man, and that slip of a woman could wrap me around her finger with a look. When she'd kissed me that first time, I'd been overwhelmed because a pretty girl liked me. Now? It was even worse. Nari wasn't a girl. She was a woman. She was powerful, magnificent, and amazing, and she still liked me.
No, shelovedme. Somehow, I'd managed to get the woman that every man wanted - or would. Not the second best, or even the bottom of the barrel. That woman, who even a god couldn't get enough of, was in love withme.I was pretty sure it had to break some rule, but I wasn't going to complain. I just didn't know how to explain all of that to my friends.
So I tried my best. "Remember how you felt the first time you met Amerlee?" I asked Eladehl.
"Yeah," he admitted. "Sorry, Jamik, but I jerked a few out while thinking about her."
Jamik grunted, making it clear he was neither impressed nor surprised. "She was the most beautiful priestess in the temple for many years."
"Now Nari is," I said. "Ela, our woman is the most beautiful thing in Calseth. The one who could have anything and everything she's ever wanted. She has a god trying to seduce her, and she was willing to give all of that up for us."
"Fuck," Ela breathed. "When you put it like that..."
Talin dropped his hand to the table, then tapped it a few times. "That's the problem, guys. That's what's making it hard for her. She's too pretty."
"What?" Jamik asked, sounding completely confused.
Talin flashed him a smirk. "Follow me here. Nari's amazing. From the outside, she'stooamazing. Each time she touched Zeal's tears, she became more beautiful. More divine, maybe? These two say it happened when she dipped her arms in sixth year, too, but I only noticed her at Choosing and after the immersion test. Both times, she became just a little more perfect."
"Like Zeal," Jamik breathed. "Shit. Like a god?"
"She's not a god," I insisted.
"No, but she surrendered to one," Talin reminded me. "Wraythe, she breathes his tears like air. He made her 'take him in.' What does that even mean?"
All I could do was shrug. "No idea. I've never seen her do that."
"It's not a metaphor," Talin assured me. "She honestly breathed underwater when Kinen held her down. He was trying to drown her, and she was just fine. But when Zeal carried her up from there?"
"She'd become radiant," Ela finished for him.
I nodded because I'd noticed that too. It was subtle. The changes weren't anything I could pick out or list. It wasn't like her face changed - or her body - but there was a difference each time. It was always the kind of thing I assumed I'd imagined.
"So the more she takes him in, the more it changes her?" I asked.
"Only on the outside," Jamik assured us. "It makes her skin a little more flawless. It makes her hair a bit darker and more vibrant. It turns her eyes a little more golden. What it doesn't do is changeher. When Amerlee first took her in, she realized that Nari was trying so hard to be this meek and polite little girl, but she'd watched the tantrum. Amerlee saw Nari scream out her rage when her father left. She wasn't scared of us at all, but she still tried to be sweet and polite. You know why?"
"No," I admitted.
"She's not meek because shehasto be. She's not fragile or delicate." Jamik met my eyes to make the point. "She also knows that sometimes being sweet and gentle gets her more."
Talin pushed a hand across his mouth. "You know that assignment with Cal last semester? She did the same thing with him. She took control of the entire situation by making Cal think he had it, and I'm pretty sure she broke him."
"You hear anything else about him?" I asked, knowing they'd been lovers in school.
Talin shook his head. "Lurel says he's ok, but she knows I'm still pissed about it. He fucking tried to use my ward to get even with me for breaking up with him. He completely forgets the part where he cheated."
"Can't really cheat in the temple," Ela pointed out.
"Yeah," Talin told him, "you can. It's called lying. Even worse when he says he's not interested in women, and guess who I found him with?"
"A woman," Ela finished. "And if he'd told you?"
Talin blew out a breath. "Unfortunately, I wasn't as smart as you three. I thought the temple owed me for coming here, and I'd been raised that women were property. Took me a long time to get over that."
"About ten years," I teased. "Kinda the whole point of our primary education, though, isn't it?"
