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Cori
Rhre
“No, I don’t.”
“Hanish didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
Rhre
“Because I’ve asked you.” When this got no response, Cori
“I know what the court thinks of me,” she said, her voice weighted with apparent umbrage. “I know you all hate me because you think Hanish favors me too much. You don’t really know, though, what it’s like between us. He doesn’t feel for me the way you think he does. Please, Rhre
Something in Rhre
“Rhre
Rhre
“What?”
“Your brother Aliver. They say he’s been living in Talay. He’s just come out of hiding and he’s gathering an army to attack us. He has no chance of wi
Cori
Throughout the hours leading up to the evening meal, through the meal, and on into the early evening, the weight of the news perched on the crown of her head like an inverted pyramid, the point touching her, the vastness of it stretching up from there. Her brother was alive! That much echoed in her ears. He was trying to start another war. That part of it was spelled out as well. But she did not take her thoughts the further step toward formulating what her response to this news was. She actually moved through the evening with the erect posture and slow bearing of a person balancing an object on her head. Hanish acted normal all evening, not discussing the earlier incident or even mentioning that he’d had a council meeting.
Later, she prepared to spend the evening with Hanish in the private baths. Steam baths had never been an Acacian custom, but the Meins had managed to cha
Alone in Hanish’s bedroom, they had both taken off their clothes and slipped on their robes before Cori
Hanish spun to face her, incredulous. “What do you mean? When was I rude?”
“Today, when you slammed a door in my face. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”
“Oh,” the chieftain said, nodding in a way that indicated he recalled the incident but somehow also conveyed that Cori
“They hadn’t even noticed me.”
“Who can know what another sees? Men of the Mein don’t discuss serious matters in the company of women. This is just the way my people are. And there’s the issue of who this particular woman is.” He invited Cori
“What were you talking about, anyway? Something with Maeander…”
Hanish dismissed it with a flick of his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Unrest in Talay. It’s nothing, though. Rumors, grumblings. Honestly, Cori
As he walked away, Cori
He walked through the portal and out of view. Cori
And so despite the things unsaid by her lover she might have allowed herself not to determine her allegiances based more on desire than on blood kinship. She did not think this through in so many words. She did not say, “No matter what is to come I choose Hanish. He is the one I love, need, want most in the world. He is the one I can believe in because he’s here beside me now. I hunger for him; he feeds me. Nothing else is as real.” But had she been forced to say this, she might have. And even if she wasn’t forced to, she might have lived by such a creed without ever having uttered it.