Chapter 51
The unconsecrated wing of the Cenobium is empty, though the lanterns are lit and Hela can hear the hum of the water heater in the bathroom.
The wing is made up of four bedrooms, a communal bathroom, and a small library packed with old works translated into Talusar.
That’s where Hela waits for either Forint or Elegy—-preferably both—-to tell her what the hell is going on.
The augur attendants bring food, at least—-on huge wooden trays that overestimate Hela’s appetite. They also bring bottles of alcohol that, one of the attendants informed her, is made here in the Cenobium from the lemon trees that grow in its greenhouse.
She’s sipping lemon liquor from a small stone cup when the door to the library opens and Forint walks in, looking a little disheveled.
“Thank God, I’ve been so bored,” Hela says. “I was even starting to consider reading a book that isn’t a romance novel.”
Forint smiles a little in response, which she thinks is probably the best reaction she’s going to get from him.
He moves toward one of the shelves, and Hela reads the spines.
They’re religious texts, some from before the Empty Time, when Earth’s religions were plentiful and varied, and some from after, when the Talusar united behind one single faith wrapped around the Fever.
“While you guys were in with the augurs, I traded messages with Arias. Everyone will be here in the morning with all our supplies.” She’s come to like Arias, with his even temper and his willingness to throw protocol out the window. “Where’s Elegy?”
“At a meeting with a general.”
“Ah.”
Forint moves on to another shelf, which Hela notes is full of poetry. Volyn and Alinus are among the most famous, but also Zhao, Boadu, and Fox, all names she recognizes from her childhood, like remembering something from a dream.
She doesn’t like to think about her parents.
They were well--off, which is how they were able to afford to hire Keen Ahn to get her out of Vidara territory to begin with.
Their house was full of books, though as a child Hela had trouble sitting still, and preferred to run through the fields that surrounded their estate, pretending to hunt for large game.
Her childhood was full of frustration, having to stay clean when she hated to pay attention to the state of her clothes, having to keep her elbows off the table at breakfast even though it was easier to eat with them on it, having to scrub her face every night even though she was tired and wanted to sleep.
But she recognizes, now, that it was also warm and comfortable—-and that her parents loved her enough to spare her from the Fever, which for two Talusar seems like the deepest love of all.
She picks up a piece of bread and smears it with some kind of beige paste—-it tastes like beans, but she’s not sure—-and watches as Forint’s fingers flutter over the spines of the books until she feels like she’s about to explode.
“Oh my God, Forint, you’re killing me,” she says. “What happened with the augurs?”
He sits down across from her. On the table is an assortment of food: cheese and bread and fruit, a vegetable spread made from something green, steamed dumplings. She’s tried it all, and it’s all delicious—-the problem with the Talusar was never their food.
“The augurs want us to rescue one of their number. Rava is holding her captive in the monastery,” he says. “Apparently an augur is necessary for the journey on the Sundial.”
“Hmm,” Hela says, humming around her mouthful of bread. She swallows. “Seems like combining an epocha and an augur accomplishes a lot, doesn’t it?”
He nods, and she can tell there’s something he’s not saying—-possibly half a dozen somethings, since Forint seems to have trouble saying much of anything.
“Another impossible errand,” she remarks. “Add it to the list, I guess.”
Forint picks up one of the dumplings and eats it. It’s one of the ones stuffed with fermented cabbage.
“Why did you get summoned?” she asks, since she’s pretty sure he’s not going to volunteer the information on his own.
He looks at her, as if weighing and measuring her, and she wonders if he knows. She sits back, her arms crossed.
“How much has Elegy told you?” he says.
“All of it,” Hela replies.
He reaches for the bottle in the middle of the table, and pours a splash of the lemon liquor into a cup.
“A fulcrum of three people, one of whom is a man she’ll fall in love with,” she adds. “And the man is you. Obviously.”
His next breath is unsteady, though his expression stays neutral. He sips from his cup.
“How long have you known?” he says.
“Since she started talking about you too much,” Hela says. “I think she knew, too, before she even felt it. Four years of nothing and then suddenly . . . there you were. She couldn’t admit it to herself without feeling like she was doing something wrong.”
She watches as he drains the cup. He’s handsome—-she knows that, even though she experiences it as a fact rather than anything of particular interest to her.
But there are a lot of handsome men in Elegy’s life.
Shir was one of them, and he was lively and opinionated and eager to drink from the world and have it fill him up.
He was a good match for the Elegy who was, the Elegy who needed to see how good things could be.
But she’s not that person anymore. Now she’s the Elegy who lost everything, and she needs someone who understands what that means.
“I’m sure it’s a lot to take in,” Hela says. “Probably not the way you imagined hearing a profession of love, either.”
Forint shrugs. “I didn’t actually hear one.”
“She didn’t say it?”
He shakes his head.
“You didn’t ask?” Hela demands, incredulous.
Forint props his elbows on the table and looks at her. She feels something creeping down her spine. She’s pretty sure he’s reading her, the way he reads everyone, and she has no idea what he sees. Feels. However it works.
“No,” he says, finally. “Regardless of how she feels, I think she might only ever say those words to Shir Alexios.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“Why should it? I know what’s between us. Isn’t that enough?”
She picks up her cup and drinks from it, contemplating him.
She’s been thinking about the conversation she had with Elegy about Forint—-the one where Elegy burst into tears—-often.
She thinks of things she didn’t say, but should have.
Namely, that the human heart isn’t a drinking glass, with only so much room for love at any given time.
That it’s more like the void of space, infinitely expanding and endlessly strange.
Forint may be a little too perceptive and so reserved it’s hard to talk to him. But he seems to understand how hearts work.
“I think I like you,” she says to him, and she touches her cup to his.