navel [ nah VEHL ], (noun) — the unhappiness caused by disappointing one's parents, family or elders. Often considered the first moral feeling in children and the first sign of empathy.
We're rarely alone, we Ai-Naidar. We congregate in like groups, caste-peers with caste-peers, family with family... children with children. It's rare for an adult to be alone with a child; care-takers usually work in pairs or in view of other adults. It took me years to find my opportunity.
She was a lovely little thing. I had only the one time before they caught me. I expected no differently.
When the Guardians hauled me away, I assumed someone would attempt to Correct me. Instead they delivered me to a bare white operating theater. I struggled more from surprise than fear until the osulkedi entered. He wore black robes... and white surgical gloves. And in one hand, he held a syringe.
I screamed as he pricked the vein, flooding it. My vision greyed. I thought: So they've killed me.
—but then I woke. They'd done worse, much worse.
When light next spilled into my black cell, I lunged for him. "YOU CUT ME!"
The osulkedi threw me against the wall so casually I didn't realize how fast I was moving until I stopped. "You couldn't figure out where to put it so we removed it."
I crouched in the corner, clutching my groin. "You left me alive but like this? How can I ever go back?"
"You can't," he said. "You will be iqekastlan."
I gaped. Qekast... my identity destroyed... I thought such things happened only in stories. "I still have half my life left!"
A voice from the hall said, "And it belongs to me."
The emperor stepped from behind the osulkedi and I... I gaped like an aunerai. His robes gathered the light from the hall and glittered like a mandorla as he came to stand before me. "Mine was the hand on the scalpel, and so you are mine."
"You...yours?" I asked. "But... the Bleak..."
"The Bleak is for those who may eventually return to society and you... even if you could hide your body forever, we cannot afford to be wrong about you. But all Ai-Naidar are my responsibility, the evil no less than the good. So you will serve me for the balance of your life, where I can ensure you will do no more harm... and perhaps by the end of your life, we will both know something."
"What could that possibly be?" I asked, stunned.
"Me, how I have failed," the emperor said. "And you... why you were saved. Rise now."
Numb, I stood. He put his hand between my shoulder-blades and began to guide me out, then stopped; the osulkedi was blocking the door.
"Kor," said the emperor, soft, "there are one or two in every generation."
The priest met his eyes, then looked down and stepped back.
"Come," the emperor said.
That sick feeling under my breastbone... it started when I identified the note in the emperor's voice.
Not anger.
Disappointment.
And then I realized I would spend decades at his feet.
I screamed and tried to flee, but the emperor's Guardians were implacable. Over their shoulders I saw Thirukedi's face and the regret in his eyes.