Stop #2
She lifted her chin. “Absolutely. It was a very serious question.”
It wasn’t. He could feel her amusement, even now, but also a stubborn obstinacy and refusal to give ground. The question itself wasn’t serious and didn’t matter; the fact that he refused to answer it? That part mattered.
“It’s probably cultural,” Math finally said. “I’ve never given it any thought. Personally, I just find it more comfortable.”
She made a noncommittal noise. Neither of them said anything else for a period as they walked.
His only warning was the sudden spike of Kai’s amusement just before she said, “No, I apologize, but I can’t think of anything else. It’s the size of your testicles, isn’t it?”
Math choked on air so hard he stopped walking until he wrangled his coughing fit back under control.
“I take it back.” Math glanced around, but none of the passengers had wandered close enough. “There are two things I don’t want to talk about.”
“Don’t you mean three?” She was almost smiling.
He raised his face to heaven. “Tri-Mother help me. Stop.”
“Very well.” She glanced at him sideways. Her annoyance was slipping, but her amusement still felt sharp and dangerous. “In the spirit of friendship and generosity, I shall refrain from a discussion of seating customs in the future.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it—”
“You said earlier that the Idallik Order demands chastity of its members, but why is this left to chance? Why would they not use certain potions or drugs or…” She made a snipping motion with two fingers. “Hmm?”
“You’re doing this on purpose.”
“Yes, as it happens, I am indeed responsible for which words leave my mouth. Now I would appreciate an answer. I promise I am not asking purely to make you blush, no matter how fetchingly you do so.”
Math took a deep breath. She wasn’t lying. Or at least, wasn’t completely lying. He could sense her curiosity; she wanted to know.
As it happened, he had a ready answer—this question usually landed somewhere between number eight and fifteen on the list most commonly asked by novitiates, once they discovered that, for an order demanding celibacy, the cenobium libraries held an astonishingly robust collection of books on sex and sexuality.
(When it came to a conflict between the Order’s rules and preserving knowledge, knowledge always won.)
“We—” Math sighed. “They used to do that. At various points in the Order’s history, they’ve used anything from drugs to mutilation. It just doesn’t work.”
She swung around, walking backward for several steps. “Doesn’t work? Whatever do you mean, it doesn’t work? Generally speaking, if one removes a body part, it stays removed.”
“You’d think that—” Math eyed her uneasily until she flipped back around to walking the right way.
“You’d be right to think that, but don’t forget: the Idallik Knights are a military order.
Healing spells are a priority—and those spells can be indiscriminate.
So, no, if one removes a body part, it doesn’t always stay removed. ”
“Oh. Oh, I see.” She chuckled. He didn’t need to look sideways to see her smile. He could feel it, warm and glittering in the back of his mind, prettier than the day.
“Right. So current doctrine is that it’s better to train members to understand temptation and its consequences than think ourselves immune.” He shifted his grip on the Kaliri long arm. “Some have an easier time of it than others.”
“I would imagine.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Just as I imagine the Order practices a great deal of nonprocreative sex that everyone can pretend doesn’t happen as long as no one ever speaks of it.”
Math cleared his throat but didn’t answer. He didn’t think he needed to.
Kaiataris tilted her head. “This does, however, bring me back to what I was saying about testicles.”
“Tri-Mother,” Math muttered. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about that?”
“I never promised any such thing.” She blithely continued on. “It’s a question of fertility, you see. As we approach the Chaos solstice, I would expect a commensurate increase in fertility levels. Which, for human males, would logically manifest in the form of larger male…”
“Just stop.” He really needed her to stop, because he was going to start laughing pretty soon, and that would absolutely wreck all his efforts to pretend he didn’t like her.
Wait.
Not pretend. He wasn’t pretending. If she was likable, it was only a sign of how dangerous she was, never mind the whole “under an enchantment” aspect to their relationship. She had him under a spell. It was as simple as that.
“If you truly want me to stop, I will,” she said.
“But I don’t get the sense that you actually do.
” Kaiataris paused and Math felt a spike of chagrin and self-rebuke.
“Let the record show: that is not a sentence I ever imagined saying aloud, and I hate myself a little for having done so.” She stopped walking, her gaze fixed on his back until he turned.
“I would never force you into anything against your will. You know that, don’t you?
This bond can’t make you do anything you don’t choose. ”
“I don’t … I don’t think that. I was just surprised, that’s all.
” Math set down his luggage and the wooden Kaliri weapon.
“I’ve enjoyed the flirting. I have. It’s been flattering, and if you were a member of the Order—” He huffed out something between a laugh and a scoff.
“If you were a member of the Order, I’d be in a lot of trouble. But you’re not. You’re a grim—”
“Please do not call me a grim lord. I’d rather you just called me Kai. I like that.”
“You do? Oh. Well, I … okay. I’ll remember that. Call me Math.”
“Thank you. I shall.”
Math wrestled his feelings back under control.
That entire exchange had basically been the opposite of what he’d meant to accomplish.
“Just … you’re not someone I can be involved with.
You understand that, right? I’m going to go back to the Idallik Order to warn them about the Kaliri and the Parnathi, and if you’re smart—which you clearly are—you’ll do what you need to do and then stay as far away from the Order as possible. ”
She looked up into his eyes, and her own would’ve been unreadable if he hadn’t been able to feel her resentment, her irritation, her regret.
“In truth, I am not overly fond of sexual encounters divorced from any emotion or romance, and that seems to be the only kind your order tolerates. So you’re right: nothing between us can ever happen. ”
“Exactly. I’m glad we agree.” Math picked up the luggage, the weapon, and began walking again. A quicker pace this time, to catch up to the others.
Kaiataris didn’t follow right away. He could feel her standing still behind him, emotions knotting together in a quiet storm: pride, regret, frustration … and something she was trying very hard not to let him name.
By the time her footsteps started up again, she’d smoothed herself into something composed and distant.
They walked in silence after that.
The sun was still shining. The sky was still impossibly blue. And somewhere between the spring wildflowers and the sound of their boots on the gravel, Math tried very hard not to imagine what it would’ve been like to walk beside her without a thousand years of mangled history between them.
As predicted, it took most of the day to reach Cherkiss. Everyone was short-tempered about it, but they all had to admit that there’d been no sign anyone had successfully cleared the tracks.
At no point did any trains pass them.
At last, the station came into view—easily recognizable, as it looked much like the one they’d left behind.
Their fellow travelers, who had spent most of the day strung out in a loose, uneven line, regrouped as they neared Cherkiss.
They’d agreed they’d have a better chance negotiating the next steps—like getting the train company to honor their original tickets—if they stuck together.
Ahead, trains waited, including one that looked like it only needed the all-clear before it would race as fast as it could back toward Sounalla to make up for lost time.
The rest unfolded as expected. They bargained for tickets, and everyone boarded the new train bound for Bashan.
It was much easier to find seats this time.
A quiet camaraderie had settled over the group—still strangers, but strangers who’d shared a small ordeal.
They laughed, joked, and teased one another, and for a moment, it all felt oddly normal.
Math almost forgot who he was, or what he was running from.
He was just a young soldier headed back to the capital with his beautiful new wife.
That idea was far more appealing than it had any right to be. He wondered what the children would think of Kai, now that she was awake. Jaiik would want to know if he’d kissed her.
Kai gave him a funny look. Math internally winced, reminded himself not to think about such things, and went back to watching the crowd on the train platform.
That’s likely the only reason he saw the flash of white surcoat, the red hexagon symbol of the Idallik Order, on the station platform.
Math grabbed Kai’s coat and pulled her away from the window. “There’s an Idallik Knight out there.”
She didn’t look. “Could it be a coincidence?”
“I don’t think so, no.” Math slowly reached under the bench and pulled out his stolen coat, the Kaliri long arm. “Start walking toward the back.”
People were still settling in, still stowing their luggage, still dealing with the exhaustion of walking such a distance just to put themselves on another cramped, uncomfortable train.
That was the only reason Alik Nuhzar wasn’t able to immediately close with Math the moment the knight stepped into the first carriage, scanned the aisle, and spotted them.
“Mathaiik Kaven! You are commanded to turn yourself over to the Idallik Order. Hold up your hands and surrender now!” shouted the newly appointed Captain of Swords for Isofal Cenobium.
“Definitely not a coincidence,” Kai murmured.