We found Ajan sitting in a chair facing the door, honing a dagger on a sharpening steel with an air of concentration that fooled no one; no doubt if anyone else had come through the door he would have been on his feet and barring them before they'd taken their first step over the threshold. As it was, he ignored us politely so we could focus on the climax of the room: the fathrikedi, who was perched on the bench beneath a window, framed by its arch above her and by a spray of white flowers from a vase alongside. It was a perfect piece of artistry, that placement. She had posed herself for greatest dramatic impact, and knowing that all fathriked were so trained did not make me resent it the less.

"So," she said, very bold. "You have caught me."

Shame set the painting aside and then folded his arms and rested against the back of Ajan's chair. The sharp sing-sing of the blade being aligned filled the silence as they studied one another, the woman with lifted chin and half-flattened ears, daring much with her lack of abasement on top of the outrageous act of fleeing her House.

Kor, of course, was inscrutable. As always.

I wondered if they would ever break their war of wills and ignored them to put my paints away in my trunk. When I straightened, the fathrikedi had risen and stalked to Shame, close, closer, so close now that too deep a breath would have broken a thousand rules of courtesy and dragged the entire front of her naked body against his.

"I," she said, "no less than you have sacred work to do here."

"And what is that? Winning back a master who has chosen the company of aliens over yours at every opportunity?" Ajan said unexpectedly, lifting his dagger to examine it.

Shocked, she whipped her gaze from Kor's to the back of Ajan's head, her lips drawn back from her perfect teeth. It was a magnificent expression; rage suited her, made her beauty incandescent and perilous. I would have painted it, if I had thought anyone would believe it possible for a Decoration to be prey to such normal Ai-Naidari emotions.

"Enough," Shame said. He guided her face back with one finger against her chin, and I saw the hair on her shoulders lift at the touch. "You knew he'd fled the house, rather than been transported away early. And you came across the Gate. Without a permit."

"The lord had arranged for me to come to him before," she said, haughty. "I told the Guardians that he had sent for me again. They don't know he was supposed to be somewhere else... the scandal in Qenain has not been bruited about for others to know he was supposedly lying tsekil in his bed." Again she lifted her chin. "Will you punish me now, Shame? Would you dare?"

"You go too far," I said, frightened by her defiance.

"I go where the path leads me," she said, but without looking at me. Her eyes were only for Shame. "I go where my lord has forced me. I am fathrikedi; that is my duty!"

"Your duty is not to summon yourself into your lord's presence without his permission!" I exclaimed.

"I go to save him," she said, voice a low growl. "Because I love him."

"You might," Shame said mildly, "have trusted Kherishdar to save him."

"Kherishdar!" she exclaimed. "Kherishdar dithered and whined over everyone else's reaction to my lord's choices, and then brought you to judge and send him away forever!"

"You misunderstand Correction," Shame said, though his words were beginning to grow cold.

"I understand whipping an elder until he bleeds!" she hissed. "I understand the bit and the gag, and the pedestal! I understand punishment!" She bared her teeth at him. "As you and your precious osulkedi-peer will punish me for daring to redeem a lord I love!"

"Fathriked are not supposed to love so passionately," Shame said. "It is a cruelty."

"Fathriked are not supposed to love so passionately!" she exclaimed. "Fathriked are not to have passions? What do you know of fathriked and what is cruel for us, and what is wonted? You do not even react to me, Kherishdar's Shame! Are you even functional?" Her body moved against his in a ripple, but even before she rubbed against him she had made a mistake and I didn't know what it was, only that it was bad, very bad. Ajan knew, for his ears flattened as he turned, rising from the chair.

But even he did not move as fast as his master. Kor caught her by the jaw, thumb and middle fingers digging into the muscle there so sharply that she froze, eyes watering.

"Enough," he said again, the word like a blow. She flinched.

"Enough," he said, more quietly. "I am Kherishdar's Shame, fathrikedi. I know."

She closed her eyes, wilting. And whispered. "Very well, then. Correct me of my many errors. But I do not repent."

He sighed and released her. She did not kneel... she should have, after the insult she'd given him. But though her knees shook, she remained standing.

"I did not leave the penokedi at the Gate to entrap you," he said, "but because I wanted your aid."

A shocked silence, like that after a thunderclap.

"W-what?" she said, as if not sure of her own ears.

"Your help," Shame repeated. "You know the aunera. I need to find them, and your lord, who is in hiding among them."

She stared at him, and then her ears slowly pinned back. "But if I tell you, you will take him away from me."

"Fathrikedi," he said, his voice gentler, "he has already left you."

Now she did sink to her knees, drooping until her face was hidden by her storm-cloud curls. I felt a piercing pity for her.

"Serapis," she whispered at last. "The female's name was Serapis. I never heard the male's."

Shame looked down at her head, then turned his back on her and vanished into the adjoining room. I shared a pained glance with Ajan—who to tend to first?—and decided that Kor would take the least harm from being left to himself. I went to one knee alongside the fathrikedi... painfully, noticing the world-weight in my joints at last when I bent.

"He's right," she whispered, her eyes covered with one hand. "He's right. I have lost him."

To touch her, even though it was my right as her caste-better and her lot as Decoration, seemed cruel in her extremis... so instead, I gently moved the curtain of curls with the side of one hand, just enough that I might see her face, and she might see mine. "It is early yet," I said after searching for words that might be of some comfort. "We have only just embarked on the solving of this problem, fathrikedi. We might save him yet."

"Even if we do," she said, defeated, "he will not love me again. Not the way he did." She looked at me from the cavernous shadow under her crown of hair, and in that gloom her eyes burned like embers. "You did not know him before the aunera came, osulkedi. He was... oh, he was a fire! He was passion. He was laughter. He was..." She trailed off and laughed, hesitant. "He was... fun! Oh, we had fun. He exercised parts of me that I had forgotten were in me at all. I loved him for that." She was silent, staring at the floor before her knees, the muscle in her jaw working. Then, low, "That love will never find an answer in him again. He has experienced something... more intense than we had. Something that makes him feel more alive. Everything else will feel pale, as if he is experiencing it through a veil... the way... the way I had been, before I met him."

I could not help drawing her into my arms, then, and she allowed it... more than allowed it, she pressed into me, hiding her face against my chest. I cupped the back of her skull, startled at the depth of the pity I felt for her, and the grief. Over her head, Ajan looked at me with a countenance too grim for his years. He framed a word with his lips, and I read it off them: rakadhas. Spirit trapped in a caste which no longer suited it. I shuddered. The taint in Qenain had already had power. To think it might have grown so strong that it might cast souls from their caste-ranks...

God of Civilization, preserve us.

"What will I do?" she asked, miserable.

"For now, I think perhaps you should rest," I said, still holding her. She was so slight in my arms... such a weight of personality for such a little frame, and all that personality dwindled, ashes from once hot fire.

"I have done wrong," she murmured, uncertain.

"You have been afflicted by the taint of Qenain," I said. "In a way far more direct than almost anyone else. You have erred, fathrikedi, but only Thirukedi has the wisdom to know what part of your error is your own, and what part of it... situational."

She smiled a little at that. Then said, "Even now you call me fathrikedi, Calligrapher. Do you still have no name for me?"

I looked down into her face and thought of my pity, of the ruin of her spirit's calm, and said, "I fear you would not like the names I would give you at this moment."

"No," she said after a pause. "No, I would guess not."

Standing above us, Ajan said, "There is a massage table in the bathing chamber. I could fetch a blanket."

"That won't be necessary," she said, rising. "I will find it myself. Thank you." Looking directly at Ajan, she said, "I won't try to escape, penokedi. You need not guard against my flight."

"You will forgive me if I stand my duty anyway," Ajan said.

Her lips quirked in a faint smile before she turned and left.

Absent both Shame and Decoration, the room felt emptied of any energy. Ajan and I looked at one another and I sighed, feeling it to the marrow. "Now, the second of the two. I don't suppose you can tell me any hint of what upset him so?"

"He is my master, osulkedi," Ajan said, looking down. "I will not betray his confidences."

And by that, I knew that this was one that cut close to the quick, and deep. I did not press Ajan, then, and straightened, approaching the closed door... where almost I bumped into my quarry, for Shame opened it as I reached for the handle. As I side-stepped clumsily, he said, "Ajan?" And once he had the youth's attention, handed him a note. "Deliver this to Qenain, and if they have an answer, follow up on it, please."

"Masuredi," Ajan said, bowing as he accepted it. "Who shall guard the fathrikedi in my absence?"

Shame narrowed his eyes, considering. "I doubt she'll leave. But bell the door."

"Yes, master," Ajan said, and left, note tucked away and a string of bells still shivering with the motion that had hooked them smoothly over the handle.

"That was...?" I said, looking after the penokedi.

Kor held the bedchamber door open for me, stepping out of my way. "A message for Qenain, asking after who they contact among the aunera to arrange meetings. We might learn from that person how to find this Serapis."

"And until then," I said, trailing off.

"We wait," he said.

I entered the room assigned us as sleeping chamber; it was smaller than Qenain's, and windowless, something I would ordinarily have found disturbing but welcomed here, where it would block the light of the unfamiliar sun. As was sometimes customary in guest-houses, there was only one bed with a mattress the length of the back wall, so that it might sleep one individual or a family. It was low to the ground and thick with cushions and blankets, making me wonder how cold the colony grew at night. There was a single lamp on a stand, shedding a dim and warm glow that soothed my jangled nerves.

"Why send Ajan?" I said as Kor shut the door behind us.

"Instead of going ourselves?" Kor said. He sat on the corner chair and drew his boot off. "There are times when people find it easier to deal with someone of less notoriety than Shame. My asking would create more questions than Ajan's."

"And me?" I asked, watching him.

"You are an anomaly as well, Calligrapher," Kor said, with a hint of stress on my title. "The arrival of an osulkedi here is not usual. You will incite much more commentary than yet another Guardian. Besides, Ajan is used to being my helpmeet, as are the others at the shrine. They have been my assistants for years and know how far to push their authority, and when something needs my attention."

"Mmm," I said, by way of agreement. When he looked up at last, I said, "So, was it the intimation of your sexual frigidity that closed you off to her, or was it something else I don't understand yet?"

He grew very still, then leaned back in his chair and sighed. And smiled, that too, though the smile was a tired one. "You will have it out of me, won't you."

"One way or the other," I agreed. "Though... you want to tell me." At his glance, I said, "Don't you."

That made him laugh. "You see quite clearly, Farren."

"Sometimes," I said. "It is something to do with fathriked, I am guessing."

"I have one," he agreed, and he looked at the wall then, as if through a window only he could see. So strange: I had similar reveries, but I was always staring at something in the world, something outside myself: colors, shapes, patterns, unbearable and enchanting. Kor saw the inside of his own head.

"You have one," I repeated when he didn't go on.

"And he is in love with me," Kor said, closing his eyes, his hands folded on his chest and head lowered.

I studied him, eyes narrowed. "In love with you. Passionately, I am guessing. Cruelly?"

"I don't love him," Kor said, quietly. "Not that way. He..." A very long pause, then softer, "he was part of my trials. You know the trials?"

"The ones that saw you inducted as a priest of Shame?" I guessed. "I have heard of them, but... I don't know much of them, save what you mentioned before." I flicked my ears back to hide their flush. "I didn't attend any of the public events."

That made him smile a little and open his eyes to look at me. "You don't have to apologize, Farren. I know spectacles make you uncomfortable." He let his eyes close again before he continued, "Thirukedi oversees the ritual, and during it, I undergo all the Corrections I am willing and able to, and those pass into my pool of acceptable techniques. These Corrections include all those listed in the Book of Corrections... as well as those in the histories of Shame's priesthood, those that are judged too perilous to be used by anyone without training."

That there were Corrections so dangerous I did not know, and doubted most Ai-Naidar did, and I found myself drawn into the revelation despite my growing sense of foreboding. "I did not know there were such things."

"Most Ai-Naidar do not," Kor agreed, shifting in his chair to sit up straighter. "Previous priests of Shame did not bear these extra Corrections, and were not permitted to use them. So it has been rare to hear of them."

"They must be old," I said, fascinated.

"You could say so," Kor said. "They date back to the first Servant of Shame in Kherishdar."

"Ancestors!" I whispered. "That was... ages ago."

"Many," Kor said, his voice growing quieter. "And Kherishdar was different then. Its first Shame reflected his empire... and his empire was more violent and more passionate than ours, Farren. A Kherishdar deeper in its own body, compared to ours, which lives far more in our mind."

There. The ominous sense was nearly fully formed now. "And these Corrections are violent."

"And of the body," Kor agreed. "But it is forbidden Thirukedi to enact them on His servant's flesh; the relationship between Shame and Civilization must be based entirely on trust, heart, spirit... and body also." He drew in a breath and smiled whimsically. "Civilization is not permitted to rape its servants."

All the hair on the back of my neck lifted. "This fathrikedi did it to you in His stead."

"There were several helpmeets who served throughout the trial," Kor said. "But yes. He was the one who volunteered to execute the most difficult tasks, to initiate me fully into my mysteries. He was masked, so that I might not know him afterwards... but the intimacy of the ritual bound him to me, and he begged to be given to the shrine to serve me afterwards. The Emperor acquiesced. He required that I know that the fathrikedi had been part of the rite, though he did not tell me which role he had served."

I huffed, shaking my head. "As if you would not learn. You of all people."

"I didn't, for a long while," Kor murmured. "But... yes. I did, eventually."

"You don't hate him...?" I asked, careful.

"Hate him!" Kor exclaimed. He shook himself then said, "No. No, Farren. I couldn't. I love him for ushering me into my power. I love him for having the heart of a Decoration—dedicated to the loving of others—and giving himself over to my needs so completely he could force himself to do violence to me. I love him like a brother, and like a servant, and like a priest. But not the way he loves me. Not with the desperate devotion, the fixation that excludes all others."

He let me sort through my feelings then, which were many and complex, and the silence was strangely comfortable despite my own unease. At last, I said, "You let a man rape you."

"Yes," he said. "Among other things." At my look, he said, quiet, "The First Servant was fond of knives."

"Gods!" I whispered. "Kor! Was it truly necessary?"

"I don't know," he answered after a moment. "I don't know, Farren. But I have met situations where I was glad, glad I was free to use Tsevet's Corrections. Because even in our Kherishdar of the mind, there are those who need to be taught through the body. And if I can teach them thus and save them for Kherishdar, then I repay, in some small part, the sacrifice the fathrikedi made to me. Because... Farren... he is ruined for anything else. Everything he had in him... he gave willingly to me. And even if I could return that gift, he would never be the same."

My hands felt cold in my lap where I held them together so tightly my skin ached. "So many ways to suffer," I murmured.

"As many as there are ways to love," Kor said, voice husky.

I looked at him then, and asked despite myself, "Did it... hurt much?"

He closed his eyes, and though his hands were relaxed I could see the tension in his neck and shoulders. "Yes."

I wanted to say something. There were words, words that needed to be said to him about this. Words to make it right... words to assure him that someone understood the significance of what he'd undergone, what he'd chosen to do. But what those words might be... I couldn't imagine. Perhaps because, horribly, painfully, I had the image of him now in my mind, bent over an altar, enduring unspeakable things. It hardly mattered that it had been at his behest, if he had not truly wanted it.

The fathrikedi's observation struck me then with a horrific sense of dread. "Was she right?"

He looked at me, sorrowful somehow. "About being frigid?" A lopsided smile. "No. I am capable. But I have learned how to stop myself from reacting."

"Capable of acting is not the same as... able to enjoy it," I said. "To... lose yourself in it." I studied him. "But you do not lose yourself in much, do you."

"It is not something I am good with," he said. "But I have been to the Trysts since the rite. Though I have not been with another male. He was my first, and so far, my only."

At last I stared at him in open shock. "You... allowed the fathrikedi to rape you... as your first experience with a man?"

"It was necessary," Kor said. "To have one's virginity shattered is one of the original Corrections, and one of the rarest experienced. I wanted to know."

"It wasn't your first experience with any kind of tryst, I hope?" I said, my voice thin.

"No!" he said. Softer, "No. I had been with others. Had even dallied, a little, with males."

Such a slow dawning in me, but it came nonetheless, wonder and horror both. "You had been planning this... so long in advance. To not only be Shame, but to be one of the few who succeeded the first Servant in every particular." With a touch of indignation, tempered by my dismay, "you accused me of your own sin. And you dared call me ambitious!"

He looked up at me with a rueful smile. "I know."

"What else?" I demanded. "What else did you undergo on our behalf? And to serve your ambition?"

"Farren..."

I stared at him, then bared my own teeth at him. "Get up."

A moment's surprise. Then with a bowed head, he rose. I went to him and removed the robe from his shoulders, accepting his acquiescence as a tacit apology. He even helped with the shirt as I pulled it over his head. And then, finally, as he had bidden me, I touched him, turning him and looking first at the yoke of his shoulders. I did not expect him to realize what I was doing, but of course he did.

"Here," he said, voice nearly a rasp. He touched the meat of his shoulder, between its point and his neck. "He bit me when he held me down."

I ran my thumb lightly over the fur. The pelt showed no signs of trauma, but when I moved the hairs, I felt a slight drag where the fibers grew in slightly different directions. He shivered under my fingers, and I gently bent and kissed the mark before resuming my examination, which Kor abetted after a long pause by gathering his hair and pulling it in front of his shoulder.

The long, horizontal marks were easier to see; where the fur grew skewed, the light lit the stripes differently, matte against gloss. I touched those too, gentle. "Did... was it... you were whipped."

"With many different tools," he agreed, voice low.

"How many?" I demanded.

"Nine," he said. He felt behind himself and touched a point near his side, at the base of his ribcage. "Here..." There was a knot of fur there. "That one had metal spurs."

"How many times," I whispered.

"Enough," he said, and his voice was rougher then.

"And the knives?" I asked. "Where did they scar you?"

"There were," he said, voice level now, "many encounters with knives. As I said, the First Servant was fond of them."

"Lie down," I said, softly.

"And if I do," he asked, "will you touch me again?"

"Lie down," I said.

So he did, stretching out on the bed on his back while I disrobed. It seemed disrespectful to be so free with his body while obscuring mine; ajzelin is a relationship between chosen equals, and responds poorly to artificial barriers. Once I was nude, then, I sat beside him and helped him with the remainder of his clothes, until I could look at him entire. The glow of the warm light from the nearby lamp showed me what brighter, better light had so often obscured: the slight imperfections in pelt that hinted at his ordeal. I traced one along his ribs.

"The whip wrapped around," he said. "It cracked that rib, in fact."

"Were you allowed to mend?" I asked, quiet.

"The rite was halted until I had recovered enough to continue," he said.

I nodded and resumed my study, fingers gliding over him. Arm. Shoulder. Chest—"piercing there," he murmured. "The aesthetic at that time in history was... different."

I made a face and continued. I wasn't sure what affected me more... the evidence of those scars, so secret, hidden behind a dark pelt and his reserve, or the body they afflicted; the muscle woven through the ribs as I passed my fingers over them was a crosshatch of powerful fibers that made me shiver. I could not tell if I longed to draw them or pet them, and at some level, the impulse was the same.

Throughout this, Shame remained calm. So peaceful, in fact, that one could almost miss the rigidity in his shoulders and wrists. He was very aware of my touch and very affected by it; and my kisses, where I gently touched them to his hidden scars, seemed to ease him. So I turned him onto his stomach, so I could make a better survey of the marks on his back, and he hid his face in his pillowed arms. I thought nothing of it, save perhaps to be briefly mesmerized by the splash of his hair against the blanket, dark strands glistering in the glowing lamplight.

From nape to toe, I touched, spreading fur to find the discolorations beneath, the seams and slight puckers. By the time I reached the balls of his feet my entire body felt bruised from the tension of uncovering each succeeding horror.

"You," I whispered, "you were tortured...!"

"It was... a spiritual experience, Farren," Kor said, low. "I was broken so that I could be remade in the proper shape, as a vessel for the virtue." He looked at the wall, at that nothingness on the inside of his head, the light glittering on eyes that already seemed to shine with some inner fire. "They shattered my body so my spirit could be freed of it... and from that I learned that nothing of the body could chain me. Me or anyone else, if I had the skill to bring them to that place, and back safely again."

The light on his eyes made them look clear as drops of water. The sight of his composure as he spoke of the raptures of the spirit…

It is true, what Seraeda accused me of, of feeling more than thinking, so I cannot tell you why I moved. Had I been any slower, the sight of his surprise might have quelled me; as it was, he was only just lifting his head, frowning, when I grabbed a fistful of that weight of hair near the nape and pushed it back down again.

"Farren!" he hissed and then lost the next words as I thrust him into the bed. Before he could get the breath to speak, I threw a leg over his hips and straddled him, grinding him into the sheets. There was nothing of sex in it, for all the hard curve of his buttocks against my groin and the startled flexure of his tail. None of it enticed me. I chased a different quarry, lowering my face along his neck, kissing the back of his neck where his fathrikedi had marked him so that he drew in a sharp breath.

And then at the peak of that in-breath, I bit him, hand wound in his hair and body close over his, forcing him down... and he cried out against the pillow.

Silence. I could hear my pulse beating the insides of my ears, to go with a heart that pounded so hard my chest shook where I held myself above him. I began to tremble.

And then he whispered, "Thank you... thank you, for the grace of my Correction."

I collapsed on him, choking my wretched cry against the back of his neck. I was intimately aware of his accelerated breathing as his ribcage lifted mine; with my nose against his fur I could smell the sweat and sex on his skin. I prayed the ease I felt in his body meant I had not ruined everything in pursuit of a feeling... that he had bound up his body's use and its expressions of intimacy in rite, and removed them from any possible place in his day-to-day life.

"Kor," I said, my voice hoarse.

"Sssh, ajzelin," he answered shakily, still gathering his breath. "Peace."

I wept then, a small spill from my eyes. "I was afraid—"

He twisted out from under me and gathered my longer body against his. When I felt the evidence of his release I turned my face from his, feeling as if the world's floor had fallen out from beneath me. I had forced the issue and his body, and crossed a boundary ajzelin are not to cross, and even if he had recognized it as Correction I felt the grief and risk of it...

It was as if he could read my thoughts... or more like, recognized how far into dismay I was. He cupped my face, thumb resting on the line of my jaw, and turned me back to face him. Then, soft as a blessing, he kissed my mouth with lips that were dry from gasping. And paused there, until he was sure that I understood him before he rested his brow against mine. We shared the same air; in that way, he calmed me, until my gasping subsided and we breathed in the same rhythm, chests lifting in tandem.

"I didn't mean..."

He smiled and touched my mouth, quieting the words. "You think I would mistake that for a lover's touch? Farren. I am Shame."

"Was it truly... did it truly..."

"Yes," he said, closing his eyes and sighing. Such relief in that sigh, and in his eyes when he opened them. "Yes. You saw a wound, and intuition guided your answer." He looked at me, brows lifting just a little. "You have had experience in this."

"Yes," I said slowly. "A young Noble, who was given to me for Correction. I... I painted her pelt as she read from her caste-law book. With ink that stung."

"Ahhh," he said, closing his eyes, for all the worlds as if he had had a drink of some exquisite wine. "Beautiful. A work of art..."

"I failed her," I interrupted, before he could grow too enamored with my methods. "She sinned again."

He opened his eyes again. "In the same way?"

"N-no," I said, drawing the word out.

"Then you did very well for one unschooled, amazingly so," he said. "I have a staff, Farren, to do research and interviews with me. When someone is finally given to my attentions, their sins are so significant that there is a history there to be uncovered. Without doing that work, my own Corrections would also fail. One cannot understand an Ai-Naidari heart by assuming it is like all the rest, and working from that assumption."

I thought of all the books in my chest and flushed at the ears.

"To Shame is given permission to shatter a soul," Kor said, touching my lower lip to draw my focus back to him. "My trials have removed all the limits on my tools, and I can use them to violate a person, body and spirit, entire. I cannot wield that power without knowing that I have done everything possible to understand how much of it is needed. I have trained for this for nigh unto my entire life, Farren. Don't measure yourself against that standard."

"I will if it means I may have hurt what we have," I said.

"You haven't," he said. "If anything, you have put us more firmly in our place."

"Ajzelin—" I began.

"Are not lovers, and you are not mine," he said. He lifted his brows again. "Did you enjoy my release?"

It seemed unbearably rude to admit I'd found the situation repulsive. "I—"

"Did you even watch my face when I climaxed?" he asked.

I flushed. "That would have been impolite!"

"Even for the artist, who loves sight so?" he asked, his voice gentle but, I noted with growing irritation, amused.

"I couldn't," I said, scowling at him.

"I am so unbeautiful in bed," Kor said with a sigh of patently false dismay. I slapped his flank with my tail, an act which was ill-mannered in the extreme, and it made him laugh. "No, Farren. You like your lovers female."

"And you," I said, with sudden, piercing insight, "like them younger!"

He grinned then. "I fear so. Though Ajan is very near the border of too young."

"But not over it," I said, hiding my glee.

"But not over it," he admitted, charming in his defeat.

I drew in a breath again. He really was completely at ease with me, so I had not destroyed what we had. But one thing remained to be spoken, though I feared it would undo all that I had gained. "You thanked me for my Correction, Kor... but I thought... only the Emperor could Correct Shame."

His eyes flicked up to mine, abrupt. "Who gave you my journals, Farren?"

I froze against him, and he slowly lifted his brows again, waiting.

"I... how..."

"You left one on the bedstand when I was sick," he said. "I was not entirely insensate with you and Ajan waking me enough to dose me."

I rolled my lip between my teeth and fretted at it as he spoke, then slicked my ears back. "I swear to you, Qenain really did ask for you."

"But only me," Kor said, quietly.

I drew in a deep breath. "Thirukedi sent me to you. To heal you."

"And you have," he said, voice gentle. "And you are. Farren... you are His hand on me. Do you think He didn't know what I would need?"

"No," I said softly. "He knows all our hearts."

"And He knew mine," Kor agreed. "Yours was the body, Farren. His was the Correction. So we are all made His instruments, if we are willing, and our hearts can stand the glory."

"Which," I said slowly, "is what this was about for you, wasn't it. You wanted to be Shame to be His instrument. And it wouldn't do but for you to be the strongest and most versatile instrument possible."

"Because He needs all that we can give Him, and because His people deserve no less than everything that can be given to them," Kor agreed, his voice gentle. "Do you understand, then? The trials?"

"And your ambition?" I said, daring to tease him a little in return on a subject that was, frankly, so vast and so intimate that I could barely look at it.

"And my ambition," he agreed.

"A little more," I said. "But I think I shall still call you a masochist."

He mmmed. "Only if doing so involves you petting me all over again."

"Without the Correction," I said, rueful.

"Without the Correction," he agreed.

He looked so contented there, with his hand resting on my upper arm and his head pillowed next to mine. I could hardly imagine the emotional resilience needed to return from what I'd done to him so quickly. "Kor?"

"Mm?"

"You are sure you're not offended?"

"Offended!" Kor said, opening his eyes. "Why would I be?"

"That I hid this from you. That I am... proof of a sorts that you were in need. That you were weak."

He blew out a breath and shook me lightly by the shoulder. "We're all weak, Farren. That's why we need one another." Resting a hand on my chest, he said, "I'm not offended at all. I'm grateful. My master, the god of Civilization, has extended me a gift. I will cherish it as He intended."

"I do think I love you," I said, my voice hoarse.

"I know that I love you," Kor said, smiling, and pulled me closer, and this time I did not feel the tackiness at his hips as a brand.

It was a fine moment for Ajan to knock—that is not sarcasm, aunera, for I shudder to think of him opening the door on me forcing a sexual release out of his beloved master—so I felt relief when Kor said, "Come."

To his credit, Ajan's pause at the sight of us entwined was so infinitesimal I would have needed one of Seraeda's instruments to measure it. He came smartly to the bed's edge and said, "Qenain's master scheduler has set up an interview for us with the Serapis aunerai in the morning, an hour after breakfast."

"Well done," Kor said, sitting up to stretch.

"Tomorrow?" I said, stifling my dismay. "I was hoping to put paid to this errand as quickly as possible, and now we will have to tarry here for an entire night?"

"I think I can find something to do with an entire night," Kor said, and touched his fingertips to Ajan's chin, startling the youth. "What do you think, menuredi?"

Now this pause made the first one look positively leisurely. The eagerness and hope that energized the youth was palpable, though his bearing and speech were punctiliously correct. "I might have some notions, masuredi, if you are so inclined."

"I think it is past time for me to be so inclined," Kor said, and to my delight allowed me to witness his first lover's kiss with his penokedi. It was a sweet, brief thing that looked, on the surface, much like the chaste kisses he gave me... and left all of us with our fur on end.

"I believe I shall see to the fathrikedi, and perhaps arrange our dinner," I said, sliding off the bed. I accepted with concealed amusement the robe Ajan found for me with such alacrity it seemed magical. "I'll knock if anything significant needs your attention, my peer."

"Thank you, ajzelin," Kor said, and there was a depth in his voice that made it clear what he was thanking me for.

I left them to one another, then. And when I had closed the door, I am not at all ashamed to admit, aunera... that I perhaps did a little dance-in-place for sheer glee.

"You seem happy," the fathrikedi said from the door to the bathing chamber.

"Tell me, fathrikedi," I said, moving carefully to a seat in one of the chairs by the window. "What is your favorite version of the parable of the broken pot?"

She snorted. "I hate them all. So much fuss over a stupid pot! Fix it, get a new one, do without, but for the sake of love, move on already and stop talking so much about it." She joined me, dropping to her knees at my foot. "So, they finally decided to consummate their unrequited body-love."

I glanced down at her. She was shrouded in the blanket from the massage table and looked somewhat more together than she had earlier. "You noticed?"

She sighed at my apparent naiveté. "Osulkedi, anyone who glanced at them even once would notice."

I laughed. "I am a sad specimen, it seems."

"You are an artist," she said. "It is a characteristic of artists."

"To be daft?" I said, too pleased to be much distressed over her critique.

"To be consumed in their own worlds," she said. "There is an inevitable travel time required for an artist to move from his world into ours sufficiently to communicate with us."

I eyed the top of her head. "You are teasing me, fathrikedi."

She met my eyes and grinned; this close I could see the hints of her distress, though she had done admirable work minimizing the swollen skin around her eyes. Their rims remained raw, though, like a hint of cosmetics gone wrong. I felt it like a color I could mix on a palette, a broken-open flesh color, like a fruit bruised to spilling...

"You see," she said. "You're doing it now."

"I am observing that your eyes have cried, though you have hidden it well!" I objected.

"Shame observes that my eyes have cried, and I have hidden it well," she said with a laugh. "You observe how they look, and you will be busy with that for long enough that the reason they look that way will only occur to you... later. As I said. You must travel into this world from your own."

I hmphed, but I was not truly upset. I had helped my ajzelin—had Corrected him in the Emperor's stead—had in fact served as his poor, bound-up fathrikedi at the shrine had served!—and we had both come out the other side well... better than well, even.

"It's good," she said after a moment. "They suit one another. And gods know Kherishdar's sole Shame needed a good—"

This word she used, aunera, was rude in the extreme. I'm told you have several equivalents, but I would not use them, lest I give offense in two languages.

I cleared my throat and said, "This not being my area of expertise, I will bow to your superior knowledge."

She laughed. "I won't tease you about what you need, then, osulkedi—"

"I should hope not!" I interrupted.

"But I don't think it's heavy petting and hot sweating between the sheets," she finished.

Surprised, I said, "Really?"

"Really," she said, resettling her blanket around her narrow shoulders. "Not to say you wouldn't benefit from a little physical relief. I just think you need help of a different sort."

"Pray, don't leave me in suspense, fathrikedi," I said, looking down at her.

"You need... a massage," she said, with a sly grin. "You have been moving like someone three times your age since before you crossed the Gate."

"People three times my age are dead," I said, ears flattened.

"Exactly," she said.

"I'm not that stiff!" I said, and then flexed my toes experimentally. Wincing, I finished, "Much."

She laughed. "A deal, then, osulkedi. You give me a name. I'll give you a massage that will make you feel a third your age."

"One third my age would be too young by far to be giving fathriked names of the kind you're imagining," I said. "I am not that old..." She waited, and I said, at last—because when can I turn down a challenge these days? Apparently never—"Very well. A name for a massage. But you must allow me to use the time under your hands to consider it."

"If I do my job well, you won't be able to think of anything!" she said, rising.

"Then you will have to make do with your name being 'ahhh'," I said.

"The out-breath of a contented, cared-for universe?" she said. "I could be happy with that. Come, Calligrapher. The sooner we repair to the bathroom... the sooner the happy lovers can make free with their noises without concerning themselves over our delicate ears."

"Do you really think..." I began, and then stopped myself. I could only too well imagine Kor devoting some part of his thoughts to protecting my sensibilities, and being quite aware of where in the suite I was. "Lead on, fathrikedi."