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He swipes the hand he still has across his mouth. “I suppose there are worse reasons.”
“So glad you think so,” I can’t stop myself from muttering and then snap my mouth shut.
I peer up at him tentatively through the darkness of the room. He’s looking at me with the little twitch of his head that tells me he’s refocusing his vision. Studying me rather than accusing me with his gaze. His red hair and his eyes with their blue-and-brown-ringed irises both look nearly black in the dimness.
“You still don’t have any idea what Kosmel wants with you?” he asks.
I shake my head. “He hasn’t spoken to me since that night in the All-Giver’s tower.”
“Perhaps you should try to speak to him. He’s got a shrine right in that temple.”
My body balks instinctively. It was unsettling enough entering the Temple of the Crown, the largest building of worship in the country, when I knew the entire city was on the line.
To simply go in to try to chat with one of the godlen who should theoretically hate what I am, even if this particular godlen doesn’t seem to mind at the moment…
“Maybe,” I say. “I’ll see. He didn’t tell me anything all that useful the two times he did talk to me anyway.”
“Sounds like typical theology to me.”
Stavros straightens up again, presumably planning to finish the sleep I interrupted. The tentative peace between us feels as if it might shatter the second he walks out of this room.
I open my mouth, and the other topic I’ve been afraid to bring up leaps onto my tongue.
“I’m sorry about your friend too. I—I never wanted to remind you of any horrible part of your past. Was it the riven sorcerer you tracked down two years ago who was responsible?”
The first day I stayed in this room, the former general told me one of the riven had “butchered” his best friend. He has a more personal reason than most to hate me for what I am beyond all the atrocities the riven have inflicted on broader society.
Stavros stiffens. “No,” he says shortly. “It was—we were teenagers when it happened.”
Anywhere from ten to fifteen years ago, then, if he’s in his late twenties like he looks. A grief he’s being carrying about as long as I’ve mourned my sister.
“What happened?” I venture.
He takes a step back from me, his expression hardening. “I was living with my mother as I told you I usually did. He was one of her supporting officers’ sons. We had the idea we’d make an adventure of having a ramble through various towns in the area. And we ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. We were stupid and careless, and I didn’t realize until it was too late—”
Stavros cuts himself off. His voice goes totally flat. “We were stupid, and we crossed paths with a monster. That’s all there is to it. You don’t need to know the details to ensure you don’t end up doing the same.”
He prowls off into his bedroom without another word.
It’ll be okay,Julita says, her voice a little too quavery to be totally convincing.He’ll come around. He’s got to see you’re not like the other riven.
Does he? I don’t know about that.
I thought we’d made a little progress, but I might have dashed it to bits with my curiosity.
Exhaustion from my own interrupted sleep drags at my eyelids. I force myself to lie back down on the sofa and tug the blanket up to my chin, trying not to think about the conversations I’ve had with Stavros in this room that ended on much better terms.
Trying not to ache with the knowledge that he may never speak with me like an equal again, and I’m not sure that’s even unfair.
Ten
Ivy
Ididn’t realize how much I appreciated having a friend to sit with in the dining hall until that friend was gone.
Granted, Esmae was only pretending her friendliness. She murdered Julita and tried to do the same to me.
But she was good company before all that came to light.
