There is a vast difference between having some coin and no coin. There is a feeling of helplessness that comes from having an empty purse. It’s like seed grain. At the end of a long winter, if you have some grain left, you can use it for seed. You have control over your life. You can use that grain and make plans for the future. But if you have no grain for seed in the spring, you are helpless. No amount of hard work or good intention will make crops grow if you don’t have the seed to start with
My hands were sweating and my stomach was full of doves. Tests were fine and good. Tests were important. Tests were like rehearsal. But all that really matters is what happens when the audience is watching.
You go rummaging around in other people’s lives. You hear rumors and go digging for the painful truth beneath the lovely lies. You believe you have a right to these things. But you don’t.” He looked hard at the scribe. “When someone tells you a piece of their life, they’re giving you a gift, not granting you your due.”
“All the truth in the world is held in stories, you know.”
A fond smile came over Elodin’s boyish face and he slapped the stone parapet next to himself with the flat of his hand, offering me a seat. I looked over the edge with a hint of anxiety. “I’d rather not, Master Elodin.” He gave me a reproachful look. “Caution suits an arcanist. Assurance suits a namer. Fear does not suit either. It does not suit you.”
“Remember: there are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.”
I walked across the polished marble floor and sat on a red velvet lounging couch. I idly wondered how exactly one was supposed to lounge. I couldn’t remember ever doing it myself. After a moment’s consideration, I decided lounging was probably similar to relaxing, but with more money in your pocket.
“Rumor forces us to act before we are ready, or ruins a situation before it becomes fully ripe.”
I turned, stepped off the lift, and saw Denna standing in the front of the line. Before I had time to do anything other than stare in wonder, she turned and met my eyes. Her face lit. She cried my name, ran at me, and was nestled in my arms before I knew what was happening. I settled my arms around her and rested my cheek against her ear. We came together easily, as if we were dancers. As if we’d practiced it a thousand times. She was warm and soft.
“I am trying to make you understand the game,” he said. “The entire game, not just the fiddling about with stones. The point is not to play as tight as you can. The point is to be bold. To be dangerous. Be elegant.” He tapped the board with two fingers. “Any man that’s half awake can spot a trap that’s laid for him. But to stride in boldly with a plan to turn it on its ear, that is a marvelous thing.” He smiled without any of the grimness leaving his face. “To set a trap and know someone will come in wary, ready with a trick of their own, then beat them. That is twice marvelous.” Bredon’s expression softened, and his voice became almost like an entreaty. “Tak reflects the subtle turning of the world. It is a mirror we hold to life. No one wins a dance, boy. The point of dancing is the motion that a body makes. A well-played game of tak reveals the moving of a mind. There is a beauty to these things for those with eyes to see it.” He gestured at the brief and brutal lay of stones between us. “Look at that. Why would I ever want to win a game such as this?” I looked down at the board. “The point isn’t to win?” I asked. “The point,” Bredon said grandly, “is to play a beautiful game.” He lifted his hands and shrugged, his face breaking into a beatific smile. “Why would I want to win anything other than a beautiful game?”
Denna moved through the crowd with slow grace. Not the stiffness that passes for grace in courtly settings, but a natural leisure of movement. A cat does not think of stretching, it stretches. But a tree does not even do this. A tree simply sways without the effort of moving itself. That is how she moved.
Banter, Denna and Kvothe flirting
Excuse me, miss?” She turned. Her face brightened at the sight of me. “Yes?” “I would never normally approach a woman in this way, but I couldn’t help but notice that you have the eyes of a lady I was once desperately in love with.” “What a shame to love only once,” she said, showing her white teeth in a wicked smile. “I’ve heard some men can manage twice or even more.” I ignored her gibe. “I am only a fool once. Never will I love again.” Her expression turned soft and she laid her hand lightly on my arm. “You poor man! She must have hurt you terribly.” “’Struth, she wounded me more ways than one.” “But such things are to be expected,” she said matter-of-factly. “How could a woman help but love a man so striking as yourself?” “I know not,” I said modestly. “But I think she must not, for she caught me with an easy smile, then stole away without a word. Like dew in dawn’s pale light.” “Like a dream upon waking,” Denna added with a smile. “Like a faerie maiden slipping through the trees.” Denna was silent for a moment. “She must have been wondrous indeed, to catch you so entire,” she said, looking at me with serious eyes. “She was beyond compare.” “Oh come now.” Her manner changed to jovial. “We all know that when the lights are out all women are the same height!” She gave a rough chuckle and ribbed me knowingly with an elbow. “Not true,” I said with firm conviction. “Well,” she said slowly. “I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.” She looked back up at me. “Perhaps in time you can convince me.” I looked into the deep brown of her eyes. “That has ever been my hope.” Denna smiled and my heart stepped sideways in my chest. “Maintain it.” She slid her arm inside the curve of mine and fell into step beside me. “For without hope what do any of us have?”
“Songs choose their hour and their own season. When your tune’s tin, there is a reason. The tone of a tune is your heart’s mettle, and there’s no clear water from a muddy well. All you can do is let the silt settle, or you’ll sound sour as a broken bell.”
“I am sorry, you know,” she said softly. We’d been sitting, quietly watching the lights of the city for nearly a quarter hour. If she was continuing some previous conversation, I couldn’t remember what it was. “Beg pardon?” When Denna didn’t say anything immediately, I turned to look at her. There was no moon, and the night was dark. Her face was dimly illuminated by the thousand lights below. “Sometimes I leave,” she said at last. “Quick and quiet in the night.” Denna didn’t look at me as she spoke, keeping her dark eyes fixed on the city below. “It’s what I do,” she continued, her voice quiet. “I leave. No word or warning first. No explanation after. Sometimes it’s the only thing that I can do.” She turned to meet my eyes then, her face serious in the dim light. “I hope you know without my telling you,” she said. “I hope I don’t need to say it.…” Denna turned back to look at the glimmering lights below. “But for what it’s worth, I am sorry.” We sat for a while then, enjoying a comfortable silence. I wanted to say something. I wanted to say it didn’t bother me, but that would be a lie. I wanted to tell her all that really mattered to me was that she came back, but I was worried that might be too much truth. So rather than risk saying the wrong thing, I said nothing. I knew what happened to the men who clung to her too tightly. That was the difference between me and the others. I did not clutch at her, try to own her. I did not slip my arm around her, murmur in her ear, or kiss her unsuspecting cheek.
Think of music as being a great snarl of a city like Tarbean. In the years I spent living there, I came to know its streets. Not just the main streets. Not just the alleys. I knew shortcuts and rooftops and parts of the sewers. Because of this, I could move through the city like a rabbit in a bramble. I was quick and cunning and clever. Denna, on the other hand, had never been trained. She knew nothing of shortcuts. You’d think she’d be forced to wander the city, lost and helpless, trapped in a twisting maze of mortared stone. But instead, she simply walked through the walls. She didn’t know any better. Nobody had ever told her she couldn’t. Because of this, she moved through the city like some faerie creature. She walked roads no one else could see, and it made her music wild and strange and free.
Denna and I walked side by side, listening to the sigh of the wind through the leaves. It was like we were the only people in the world. “I don’t know if you remember,” I said softly, not wanting to intrude upon the silence. “A conversation we had some time ago. We talked of flowers.” “I remember,” she said just as softly. “You said you thought all men had got their lessons in courting from the same worn book.” Denna laughed quietly, more a motion than a sound. She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh. I’d forgotten. I did say that, didn’t I?” I nodded. “You said they all brought you roses.” “They still do,” she said. “I wish they would find a new book.” “You made me pick a flower that would suit you better,” I said. She smiled up at me shyly. “I remember, I was testing you.” Then she frowned. “But you got the better of me by picking one I’d never heard of, let alone seen.” We turned a corner and the path led toward the dark green tunnel of an arching bower. “I don’t know if you’ve seen them yet,” I said. “But here is your selas flower.” There were only stars lighting our way. The moon so slender it was almost no moon at all. Under the trellis it was dark as Denna’s hair. > Our eyes were wide and stretching to the dark, and where the starlight slanted through the leaves, they showed hundreds of selas blossoms yawning open in the night. If the scent of selas were not so delicate, it would have been overpowering. “Oh,” Denna sighed, looking around with wide eyes. Under the bower, her skin was brighter than the moon. She reached out her hands to both sides. “They’re so soft!” We walked in silence. All around us selas vines wove themselves around the trellis, clinging to the wood and wire, hiding their faces from the nighttime sky. When eventually we came out the other side, it seemed as bright as daylight. The silence stretched until I started to grow uncomfortable. “So now you know your flower,” I said. “It seemed a shame you’d never seen one. They’re rather difficult to cultivate, from what I’ve heard.” “Perhaps they do suit me then,” Denna said softly, looking down. “I don’t take root easily.” We continued walking until the path turned and hid the bower behind us. “You treat me better than I deserve,” Denna said at last.
Men tell stories,” she said dismissively. “They like to brag a bit. I didn’t think any less of you for telling me a bit of a tall tale.” “I wouldn’t lie to you,” I said, then reconsidered. “No, that’s not the truth. I would. You’re worth lying for. But I wasn’t. You’re worth telling the truth for too.”
IN THE THEOPHANY, TECCAM writes of secrets, calling them painful treasures of the mind. He explains that what most people think of as secrets are really nothing of the sort. Mysteries, for example, are not secrets. Neither are little-known facts or forgotten truths. A secret, Teccam explains, is true knowledge actively concealed. Philosophers have quibbled over his definition for centuries. They point out the logical problems with it, the loopholes, the exceptions. But in all this time none of them has managed to come up with a better definition. That, perhaps, tells us more than all the quibbling combined. In a later chapter, less argued over and less well-known, Teccam explains that there are two types of secrets. There are secrets of the mouth and secrets of the heart. Most secrets are secrets of the mouth. Gossip shared and small scandals whispered. These secrets long to be let loose upon the world. A secret of the mouth is like a stone in your boot. At first you’re barely aware of it. Then it grows irritating, then intolerable. Secrets of the mouth grow larger the longer you keep them, swelling until they press against your lips. They fight to be let free. Secrets of the heart are different. They are private and painful, and we want nothing more than to hide them from the world. They do not swell and press against the mouth. They live in the heart, and the longer they are kept, the heavier they become. Teccam claims it is better to have a mouthful of poison than a secret of the heart. Any fool will spit out poison, he says, but we hoard these painful treasures. We swallow hard against them every day, forcing them deep inside us. There they sit, growing heavier, festering. Given enough time, they cannot help but crush the heart that holds them
Romantic Banter, You are mine, mine alone. I don't intend to share you
I said the first thing that came to mind. “So, are there any new men in your life?” Denna chuckled low in her throat. “Now you sound like Master Ash. He’s always asking after them. He doesn’t think any of my suitors are good enough for me.” I couldn’t agree more, but decided it wouldn’t be prudent to say so. “And what does he think of me?” “What?” she asked, confused. “Oh. He doesn’t know about you,” she said. “Why would he?” I tried to give a nonchalant shrug, but I couldn’t have been very convincing as she burst out laughing. “Poor Kvothe. I’m teasing you. I only tell him about the ones that come prowling around, panting and sniffing like dogs. You’re not like them. You’ve always been different.” “I’ve always prided myself on my lack of panting and sniffing.” Denna turned her shoulder and let her swinging harp bump me playfully. “You know what I mean. They come and go with little gain or loss. You are the gold behind the windblown dross. Master Ash might think he has a right to know about my personal affairs, my comings and goings.” She scowled a bit. “But he doesn’t. I’m willing to concede some of that, for now.…” She reached out and took hold of my upper arm possessively. “But you are not part of the bargain,” she said, her voice almost fierce. “You are mine. Mine alone. I don’t intend to share you.”
Denna spread her fingers to the strings, and my worries faded to the background. I’ve always found something powerfully erotic about the way a woman puts her hands to a harp. She began a rolling gliss down the strings from high to low. The sound of it was like hammers on bells, like water over stones, like birdsong through the air. She stopped and tuned a string. Plucked, tuned. She struck a sharp chord, a hard chord, a lingering chord, then turned to look at me, flexing her fingers nervously. “Are you ready?” “You’re incredible,” I said. I saw her flush a little, then brush her hair back to hide her reaction. “Fool. I haven’t played you anything yet.” “You’re incredible all the same.” “Hush.” She struck a hard chord and let it fade into a quiet melody. As it rose and fell, she spoke the introduction to her song. I was surprised at such a traditional opening. Surprised but pleased. Old ways are best. “Gather round and listen well, For I’ve a tale of tragedy to tell. I sing of subtle shadow spread Across a land, and of the man Who turned his hand toward a purpose few could bear. Fair Lanre: stripped of wife, of life, of pride Still never from his purpose swayed. Who fought the tide, and fell, and was betrayed.”
nothing in the world is harder than convincing someone of an unfamiliar truth.
It quickly became clear that a poorly concealed sign was often more obvious than one simply left alone.
He held up his right hand and made a fist. “This hand is strong.” He held up his left. “This hand is clever.”
My understanding of the Adem hand-language was growing, and as a result, Tempi was becoming something other than a frustrating blank page of a man. As I learned to read his body language, he was slowly being colored in around the edges.
“It’s the questions we can’t answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he’ll look for his own answers.” I spread my blanket on the ground and folded over the threadbare tinker’s cloak to wrap myself in. “That way, when he finds the answers, they’ll be precious to him. The harder the question, the harder we hunt. The harder we hunt, the more we learn.
Maps don’t just have outside edges. They have inside edges. Holes. Folk like to pretend they know everything about the world. Rich folk especially. Maps are great for that. On this side of the line is Baron Taxtwice’s field, on that side is Count Uptemuny’s land.” Marten spat. “You can’t have blanks on your maps, so the folks who draw them shade in a piece and write, ‘The Eld.’” He shook his head. “You might as well burn a hole right through the map for what good that does. This forest is big as Vintas. Nobody owns it. You head off in the wrong direction in here, you’ll walk a hundred miles and never see a road, let alone a house or plowed field. There are places around here that have never felt the press of a man’s foot or heard the sound of his voice.” I looked around. “It looks the same as most other forests I’ve seen.” “A wolf looks like a dog,” Marten said simply. “But it’s not. A dog is …” He paused. “What’s that word for animals that are around people all the time? Cows and sheep and such.” “Domesticated?” “That’s it,” he said, looking around. “A farm is domesticated. A garden. A park. Most forests too. Folks hunt mushrooms, or cut firewood, or take their sweethearts for a little rub and cuddle.” He shook his head and reached out to touch the rough bark of a nearby tree. The gesture was oddly gentle, almost loving. “Not this place. This place is old and wild. It doesn’t care one thin sliver of a damn about us. If these folk we’re hunting get the jump on us, they won’t even have to bury our bodies. We’ll lie on the ground for a hundred years and no one will come close to stumbling on our bones.” I turned where I stood, looking at the rise and fall of the land. The worn rocks, the endless ranks of trees. I tried not to think about how the Maer had sent me here, like moving a stone on a tak board. He had sent me to a hole in the map. A place where no one would ever find my bones.
The poorer you are, the more your pride is worth. I know the feeling. I never could have asked a friend for money. I would have starved first.”
Stories don’t need to be new to bring you joy. Some stories are like familiar friends. Some are dependable as bread.
It was, I thought idly, the most polite punch I’d ever seen. It was the careful blow of a skilled carpenter pounding a nail: hard enough to drive it fully home, but not so hard as to bruise the wood around it.
When you love something, you have to make sure it loves you back, or you’ll bring about no end of trouble chasing it.”
He poured out a sweet song into the clear night sky. No simple bird trill, this was a song that came from his broken heart. It was strong and sad. It fluttered like a bird with a broken wing.
Only a fool fights the tide.
The sound of her voice was strange. It was soft and gentle, far too quiet for us to hear across the entire length of the clearing. Far too faint for us to hear over the sound of moving water and stirring leaves. Despite this, I could hear it. Her words were clear and sweet as the rising and falling notes of a distant flute. It reminded me of something I could not press my finger to. The tune was the same Dedan had sung in his story. I did not understand a word of it save her name in the final line. Nevertheless I felt the draw of it, inexplicable and insistent. As if an unseen hand had reached into my chest and tried to pull me into the clearing by my heart.
Then Felurian began to sing again. It felt like the promise of a warm hearth on a cold night.
Felurian tilted her head to one side. Her eyes were as intent and expressionless as a bird’s. “why are you so quiet, flame lover? have I quenched you?” Her voice was odd to my ear. It had no rough edges to it at all. It was all quiet smoothness, like a piece of perfectly polished glass. Despite its odd softness, Felurian’s voice ran down my spine, making me feel like a cat that’s just been stroked down to the tip of its tail.
Felurian’s voice was not resonant. It did not fill the forest glade. Hers was the hush before a sudden summer storm. It was soft as a brushing feather. It made my heart step sideways in my chest.
Her eyes were like four lines of music, clearly penned. My mind was filled with the sudden song of her. I drew a breath and sang it out in four hard notes. Felurian sat upright. She passed her hand before her eyes and spoke a word as sharp as shattered glass. There was a pain like thunder in my head. Darkness flickered at the edges of my sight. I tasted blood and bitter rue.
Her smile was like the moon through the clouds
I have heard people say that men and the Fae are as different as dogs and wolves. While this is an easy analogy, it is far from true. Wolves and dogs are only separated by a minor shade of blood. Both howl at night. If beaten, both will bite. No. Our people and theirs are as different as water and alcohol. In equal glasses they look the same. Both liquid. Both clear. Both wet, after a fashion. But one will burn, the other will not. This has nothing to do with temperament or timing. These two things behave differently because they are profoundly, fundamentally not the same.
Only a fool worries over what he can’t control.
Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times.
Felurian had worked her way up from starlight and was wefting moonlight into the shaed. She didn’t look up from her work when she replied, “so many thoughts, my kvothe. you know too much to be happy”
Pride and folly, they go together like two tightly grasping hands.
I stood, stunned and silent. “Surprised? Why should you be? Goodness boy, you’re like a clear pool. I can see ten feet through you, and you’re barely three feet deep.” There was another blur of motion and two pairs of wings went spinning to the ground, one blue, one purple.
“Has your teacher told you why they wear the red?” “I did not think to ask,” I said, not wanting to imply Tempi had neglected my training. “I ask you then.” I thought a moment. “So their enemies will not see them bleed?” Approval. “Why then do I wear white?” The only answer I could think of chilled me. “Because you do not bleed.” She gave a partial nod. “Also because if an enemy draws my blood, she should see it as her fair reward.”
…This is the reason we have laws. To ignore a law is to erase it.” “To blindly follow law is to be a slave,”
“I’m sorry,” I said. Regret. “I didn’t mean to offend you.” “Don’t show me humility unless you mean it,” she said, still looking me over with narrow eyes. “Even when you make your face a mask, your eyes are like glittering windows.”
Aturan is very explicit. It is very precise and direct. Our language is rich with implication, so it is easier for us to accept the existence of things that cannot be explained. The Lethani is the greatest of these.”
“Love is a subtle concept,” I admitted. “It’s elusive, like justice, but it can be defined.” Her eyes sparkled. “Do so then, my clever student. Tell me of love.” I thought for a quick moment, then for a long moment. Vashet grinned. “You see how easy it will be for me to pick holes in any definition you give.” “Love is the willingness to do anything for someone,” I said. “Even at detriment to yourself.” “In that case,” she said, “how is love different from duty or loyalty?” “It is also combined with a physical attraction,” I said. “Even a mother’s love?” Vashet asked. “Combined with an extreme fondness then,” I amended. “And what exactly do you mean by ‘fondness’?” she asked with a maddening calm. “It is …” I trailed off, racking my brain to think how I could describe love without resorting to other, equally abstract terms. “This is the nature of love,” Vashet said. “To attempt to describe it will drive a woman mad. That is what keeps poets scribbling endlessly away. If one could pin it to the paper all complete, the others would lay down their pens. But it cannot be done.” She held up a finger. “But only a fool claims there is no such thing as love. When you see two young ones staring at each other with dewy eyes, there it is. So thick you can spread it on your bread and eat it. When you see a mother with her child, you see love. When you feel it roil in your belly, you know what it is. Even if you cannot give voice to it in words.”
“Come now,” I said, embarrassed. “I’m not that bad.” “You are close,” Vashet said seriously as she sat back down on the bench. “If you were my son, I would not let you leave the house. As my student, it is only tolerable because you are a barbarian. It’s as if Tempi brought home a dog that can whistle. The fact that you are out of tune stands quite beside the point.”
Aturan was like a wide, shallow pool; it had many words, all very specific and precise. Ademic was like a deep well. There were fewer words, but they each had many meanings. A well-spoken sentence in Aturan is a straight line pointing. A well-spoken sentence in Adem is like a spiderweb, each strand with a meaning of its own, a piece of something greater, more complex.
When we arrived for our meeting, Shehyn was midway through performing the Ketan. I watched silently as she moved at the speed of honey spreading on a tabletop. The Ketan grows more difficult the slower it is done, but she performed it flawlessly.
It became well known that if you gave Aethe’s students three arrows and three coins, your three worst enemies would never bother you again.
Half the world is made of tiny communities that have grown up around nothing more than a crossroads market, or a good clay pit, or a bend of river strong enough to turn a mill wheel. Sometimes these towns are prosperous. Some have rich soil and generous weather. Some thrive on the trade moving through them. The wealth of these places is obvious. The houses are large and well-mended. People are friendly and generous. The children are fat and happy. There are luxuries for sale: pepper and cinnamon and chocolate. There is coffee and good wine and music at the local inn. Then there are the other sort of towns. Towns where the soil is thin and tired. Towns where the mill burned down, or the clay was mined out years ago. In these places the houses are small and badly patched. The people are lean and suspicious, and wealth is measured in small, practical ways. Cords of firewood. A second pig. Five jars of blackberry preserve.
“A story is like a nut,” Vashet said. “A fool will swallow it whole and choke. A fool will throw it away, thinking it of little worth.” She smiled. “But a wise woman finds a way to crack the shell and eat the meat inside.”
They are young, and boys. They are full of anger and impatience. Women have less trouble with these things. It’s part of what makes us better fighters.” I was more than slightly surprised to hear her say that. “Women are better fighters?” I asked carefully, not wanting to contradict her. “Generally speaking,” she said matter-of-factly. “There are exceptions, of course, but as a whole women are better.” “But men are stronger,” I said. “Taller. They have better reach.” She turned to look at me, slightly amused. “Are you stronger and taller than me then?” I smiled. “Obviously not. But as a whole, you have to admit, men are bigger and stronger.” Vashet shrugged. “And that would matter if fighting were the same as splitting wood or hauling hay. That is like saying a sword is better the longer and heavier it is. Foolishness. Perhaps for thugs this is true. But after taking the red, the key is knowing when to fight. Men are full of anger, so they have trouble with this. Women less so.”
The Lethani is like water,” I responded without thinking. “It is itself unchanging, but it shapes itself to fit all places. It is both the river and the rain.” She glared at me. It was not a furious glare, but coming from one of the Adem, it had the same effect. “Who are you to say the Lethani is like one thing and not another?” “Who are you to do the same?” Celean looked at me for a moment, the hint of a serious line between her pale eyebrows. Then she laughed brightly and brought up her hands. “I am Celean,” she proclaimed. “My mother is of the third stone. I am Adem born, and I am the one who will throw you to the ground.” She was as good as her word.
“I have thought a long time. How could I have saved my hand? I have thought about my contract, protecting a baron whose lands were in rebellion. I think: What if I had not taken that contract? I think: What if I had lost my left hand? I could not talk, but I could hold a sword.” He let his hand drop to his side. “But holding a sword is not enough. A proper mercenary requires two hands. I could never make Lover out the Window or Sleeping Bear with only one.…” He shrugged. “It is the luxury of looking backward. You can do it forever, and it is useless. I took the red proudly. I brought over two hundred and thirty talents to the school. I was of the second stone, and I would have made the third in time.” Naden held up his ruined hand again. “I could have gained none of these things if I had lived in fear of losing my hand. If I flinched and cringed, I would never have been accepted into the Latantha. Never made the second stone. I would be whole, but I would be less than I am now.”
Vashet let go of my face, then caught my wrist, jerking my hand up in front of my face. “Why do you have hands at all and not knives at the ends of your arms?” Then she let go of my wrist and struck me hard across the face with the flat of her hand. If I say she slapped me, you will take the wrong impression. This wasn’t the dramatic slap of the sort you see on a stage. Neither was it the offended, stinging slap a lady-in-waiting makes against the smooth skin of a too-familiar nobleman. It wasn’t even the more professional slap of a serving girl defending herself from the unwelcome attention of a grabby drunk. No. This was hardly any sort of slap at all. A slap is made with the fingers or the palm. It stings or startles. Vashet struck me with her open hand, but behind that was the strength of her arm. Behind that was her shoulder. Behind that was the complex machinery of her pivoting hips, her strong legs braced against the ground, and the ground itself beneath her. It was like the whole of creation striking me through the flat of her hand, and the only reason it didn’t cripple me is that even in the middle of her fury, Vashet was always perfectly in control.
I thought of the words I knew, the sounds of them. I felt the absence of my lute sharply here. This is why we have music, after all. Words cannot always do the work we need them to. Music is there for when words fail us.
Then I played the song that hides in the center of me. That wordless music that moves through the secret places in my heart. I played it carefully, strumming it slow and low into the dark stillness of the night. I would like to say it is a happy song, that it is sweet and bright, but it is not.
I cannot describe how she looked. And even if I could, it would not impress upon you the truth of things, as her face was still almost entirely impassive. Instead let me say this. I have never seen anyone so furious in my entire life. Not Ambrose. Not Hemme. Not Denna when I criticized her song or the Maer when I defied him. Those angers were pale candles compared to the forge fire burning in Carceret’s eyes.
It must be hard to be a man,” she said softly. “A woman knows she is part of the world. We are full of life. A woman is the flower and the fruit. We move through time as part of our children. But a man …” She turned her head and looked up at me with gentle pity in her eyes. “You are an empty branch. You know when you die, you will leave nothing of any import behind.” Penthe stroked my chest fondly. “I think that is why you are so full of anger. Maybe you do not have more than women. Maybe the anger in you simply has no place to go. Maybe it is desperate to leave some mark. It hammers at the world. It drives you to rash action. To bickering. To rage. You paint and build and fight and tell stories that are bigger than the truth.” She gave a contented sigh and rested her head on my shoulder, snugging herself firmly into the circle of my arm. “I am sorry to tell you this thing. You are a good man, and a pretty thing. But still, you are only a man. All you have to offer the world is your anger.”
Vashet, you used your sword to trim the willow branch you beat me with. I saw you use it to hold your window open once. You pare your nails with it …” Vashet gave me a blank look. “Yes?” “Isn’t that improper?” I asked. She cocked her head, then laughed. “You mean I should only use it for fighting?” I gestured obvious implication. “A sword is sharp,” she said. “It is a tool. I carry it constantly; how is using it improper?” “It seems disrespectful,” I clarified. “You respect a thing by putting it to good use,” she said. “It may be years before I return to the barbarian lands and fight. How does it harm my sword if it cuts kindling and carrots in the meantime?” Vashet’s eyes grew serious. “To carry a sword your whole life, knowing it was only for killing …” She shook her head. “What would that do to a person’s mind? It would be a horrible thing.”
no man is brave that has never walked a hundred miles. If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet introspection.”
But sometimes the best help a person can find is helping someone else.”
“I believe everyone has some question that drives them. A question that keeps them awake nights. A question they worry at like a dog with an old bone. If you understand a man’s question, it brings you closer to understanding the man himself.” He looked sideways at me, half-smiling. “Or so I have always believed.”
There is something deeply satisfying in shaping something with your hands. Proper artificing is like a song made solid. It is an act of creation.
“Devi?” I asked. “Are you okay?” “You’re a …” She trailed off, still staring at me. Her voice was flat and emotionless. “You’re supposed to be dead.” “In this and many other things, I aim to disappoint,” I said.
“If you’d known how difficult it was, you never would have stood a chance of doing it.”
I loved the discovery chemistry offered. I loved the thrill of experiment, the challenge of trial and retrial. I loved the puzzle of it. I also will admit a somewhat foolish fondness toward the apparatus involved. The bottles and tubes. The acids and salts. The mercury and flame. There is something primal in chemistry, something that defies explication. Either you feel it or you don’t. Anisat didn’t feel it. For him chemistry was written journals and carefully penned rows of numbers. He would make me perform the same titration four times simply because my notation was incorrect. Why write a number down? Why should I take ten minutes to write what my hands could finish in five?
She strained and drew in only the barest rasp of a breath. Her eyes were wild and wet with fear. I moved close to her and spoke in my gentlest tones. “You will be fine. All is well,” I reassured her. “You need to look in my eyes.” Her eyes fixed on mine, then widened in recognition, in amazement. “I need you to breathe for me.” I laid one hand against her straining chest. Her skin was flushed and hot. Her heart was thrilling like a frightened bird. I laid my other hand along her face. I looked deeply into her eyes. They were like dark pools. I leaned close enough to kiss her. She smelled of selas flower, of green grass, of road dust. I felt her strain to breathe. I listened. I closed my eyes. I heard the whisper of a name. I spoke it soft, but close enough to brush against her lips. I spoke it quiet, but near enough so that the sound of it went twining through her hair. I spoke it hard and firm and dark and sweet. There was a rush of indrawn air. I opened my eyes. The room was still enough that I could hear the velvet rush of her second desperate breath. I relaxed. She laid her hand over mine, over her heart. “I need you to breathe for me,” she repeated. “That’s seven words.” “It is,” I said. “My hero,” Denna said, and drew a slow and smiling breath
“There is a great difference between a gift given freely, and one that’s meant to tie you to a man.” “There’s truth to that,” I admitted. “Gold can make a chain as easily as iron. Still, one can hardly blame a man who hopes to decorate you.” “Hardly,” she said with a smile that was both wry and weary
The tension built in the air between us as the road jounced away beneath the cart’s wheels. There were gaps and breaks in our conversation, silences that stretched too long, silences that were short but terrifyingly deep.
Denna caught her breath when we crested the ridge and saw the carpet of daisies open out in front of her. “I’ve waited a long time to show these flowers how pretty you are,” I said.