Chapter Ten
“ . . . Pelai’thia?” Kerric inquired when she remained silent, staring at Krais—whom he could not see—instead of him. “Is something wrong?”
“No . . . no, everything is right. Or going right, so far,” she cautioned. “I shared the prophecy my Goddess gave to me when I was struggling to control Guardian Alonnen’s Fountain . . . but it turns out to have a companion verse, similar to mine but different in several details.”
Kerric frowned softly, then blinked. “The . . . one about the three members of humanity? Is that it?”
She nodded firmly. “I have in my care the one who will save humanity. I think.”
Well, thank you very much for your confidence in me, Krais mouthed at her, before biting his way into one of his carrots with a crisp set of crunches. He rolled his eyes, too.
Ignoring his moment of sass, she returned her gaze to her fellow Guardian. “I am going to use him to try to find the ex-Mekhanan priests. Him, and his two brothers, though only he will know what he is to look for. The other two, because of the prophecies involved, will either act as dowsing rods . . . or as lightning rods.”
The Painted Warrior sitting on her floor gave her a look that told her he wasn’t entirely happy about his brothers being used like that, but he did not actively protest it. Another point of proof in just how far Puhon Krais had come. While the three sons of Dagan’thio were known to fight amongst themselves, they had always closed ranks against any outsiders. Which makes me wonder if he’ll revert to habit in a crisis, supporting them over outsiders, including me . . . or expose himself by thwarting that habit?
Mortals did have free will, after all.
“Is there anything the Tower can do to help at this time?” Kerric asked her. “And will I be receiving a copy of the latest prophecy?”
“Um . . . yes. You’ll get a copy of Puhon Krais’ version. Krais, come up here and sit by me,” she ordered, since she didn’t have any fine-tuning controls on what the tattoo-scrying could see, other than whatever sat right next to her. Obedient, Krais rose, turned, and—“Not there!” she scolded, while Purrsus slept on, oblivious in his nap at her side. “You’ll sit on my cat!
“Sorry! I forgot. He blends into the gray of the fabric, and the black of your leathers, if not the golden parts.” Shifting over to her other side, he sat down, and . . . jumped a little when she wrapped her arm around his shoulder, adjusting the magic so that he saw the hovering rectangle with the outlander Guardian, whose face at that size looked almost half again as large as it should’ve. “Who . . . the . . . ?”
“This is Guardian Kerric Vo Mos,” Pelai said, introducing him. “Guardian Kerric is in charge of the Tower, which has a way to cast scryings of mirror-recorded images around the world. I, in turn, have a way to relay those communications to my location wherever I am. Kerric, this is Puhon Krais, one of the top Painted Warriors of Mendhi.”
“I know that face,” Kerric murmured, frowning through the connection. He raised a hand, pointing it at the other male. “You were in the recordings of the Convocation we broadcasted! You . . . you were one of the prisoners, one of the trio that attacked Queen Kelly!”
Krais flinched, but nodded, admitting, “Yes, that was my brothers and I . . . and I am deeply sorry we agreed to try anything that happened on Nightfall Isle. My Goddess has opened my heart to my sins, and I have repented them . . . and I repudiate them. I wish it had never happened.”
Kerric stared for a moment, then shut his mouth with a snap. His light brown eyebrows worked for a moment, scrunching and quirking in thought. After a moment, he sighed heavily and shook his head, his curls bouncing around his skull with the quick back-and-forth toss. “No, no, don’t say that. It’s obviously it had to happen to give us a chance to fix everything that has, is, or will be going wrong. Pelai . . . thia,” he corrected quickly, “how much does this fellow know?”
“Not a lot. I myself only just realized this hour that he can ‘stand by my side’ as a part of his repentance efforts, from the Guardians prophecy,” she confessed. “But he does know a few things. In the morning—our time, afternoon in yours—I’d like to have him connect to the Tower’s archives on all the information the Guardians have collected about the demonic invasion so far. Information, speculation . . . everything.”
“The Tower has pledged its resources, and that is one of our resources, yes,” Kerric agreed. “If you vouch for him.”
“I do,” she confirmed, without hesitation. What she had sensed of his soul through her tattoos had burned away all doubt on that score. “I have judged him—formally, and with magics loaned to me by my Goddess—to be a man capable of saving humanity.”
“Or possibly the one who might walk away . . . but not, I hope, betray?” Kerric mused. He held up his hand, looking over at Krais. “No offense meant, young man. A Netherhell invasion is a serious matter. If we are to strengthen our defenses, we must examine them to be aware of every possible weak spot.”
“I do not take offense, Guardian Kerric,” Krais returned calmly. “A year ago, it might have been a different matter, but half a year ago, I changed.”
“A year ago is when my source material showed me the invasions gaining ground, winning battle after battle across our unprepared world,” Kerric retorted. “Unfortunately, I had a hand in both starting and preventing them. Secondhand, but still, a hand.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Krais murmured.
Guardian Kerric shrugged. “I’m the one that created the special mirror that made me aware of images of an invasion in the future, because my specialty, when I’m not busy with Tower business, lies in mirrorcrafting and mirror magics. I chose to exile the Aian mage Torven Shel Von close enough to wind up in Mekhana, and did so in time for him to fall into company with the priests of Mekha, just as their False God got dissolved at the Convocation, leaving them stranded in a hostile nation with no backup from their False God to help them bully others into obeying them.”
Krais eyed the other mage and quipped dryly, “I suddenly wonder if this is Godly retribution for stupidly accepting a contract to kill that queen of theirs. It sounds like you want me to find this Torven fellow and eliminate him . . . but for a much more just and righteous cause than that first one.”
“Actually, we do not want Torven Shel Von killed,” Kerric countered, shaking his head again in that quick way that sent his curls bouncing. “We determined six months ago that Torven is the one who gave the others the idea of conjuring a demon under controlled circumstances,” Kerric continued. “Remember, I saw the initial invasion before choosing to exile him anywhere. Without his influence, when Mekha was dissolved and the leadership of Mekhana collapsed, that means someone in Mekhana would’ve thought about conjuring a demon anyway, in the need to try draining it of its magic to restore their power base. But they would have done so without the right attitudes, precautions, and training.
“Without Torven’s exacting teachings, emphasizing care and control, that sloppily conjured demon would’ve slipped the priesthood’s control, opened a Netherhell Portal to invite its many friends across, and their armies would’ve destroyed five or six kingdoms on your continent by now,” Guardian Kerric concluded grimly. “So it’s a mixed blessing that I made the choices I did. It all would’ve happened anyway, and I know it, but we would not have known in advance and been able to prepare if I hadn’t made the mirror that spotted the start of it all.”
“So you’re feeling a mix of guilt and relief?” Krais summarized.
“Exactly. An unpleasant mix that I don’t want to think too strongly about,” Kerric said. He frowned a little, closed his eyes, and rubbed at their inner corners. “Anyway, I digress. I apologize. I’m still trying to wake up. . . . Right. The demonic activities have picked up again, Pelai’thia, and it does seem centered on Mendhi as the starting point. With this new prophecy revelation, do you have any leads on what to do, or where to look for the ex-priests?”
Pelai glanced at Krais, her arm still around his shoulders, sharing her view of Guardian Kerric. “I don’t think Krais’ variation in the prophecy is something that requires much analysis. It talks about accepting his circumstances, and of silence leading him to the right place. Mine speaks of the writ—formal information—being different from the sound, and spoken words aren’t what scrolls show. . . . Oh.” She almost smacked her forehead with her free hand. “Right. . . . Something he needs to investigate will lead us to the right steps that will save humanity.”
Kerric didn’t say anything, but he did raise his brows in an encouraging Keep going . . . expression.
Once again, Pelai eyed Krais. “How much do you know about the secrets the librarians keep?”
“Quite a bit, for someone who isn’t a librarian,” he replied, eyeing her back. “My mother is one, remember? Karei has actually hired the three of us several times for Library-related quests. I don’t have access to everything, but I know more about where things are found than most other non-Librarians. Including some of the restricted subjects.”
“The three of you?” Kerric queried. He corrected himself in the next breath. “Right, you have two more brothers. The Three Brothers Prophecy. Speaking of which, where are they and what are they up to right now? If they’re part of the prophecies, we need to know.”
“Right now, hopefully they’re settling down to sleep,” Pelai told him. “All three have been assigned to punishment for failing to secure the ability to host the Convocation here in Mendhi. Originally, I was going to handle all of the Disciplining, but Pelai’thia’s fading strength required me to pass the other two along to a pair of reasonably trustworthy Disciplinarians—there’s a bit of politics happening here in Mendhi, nothing that the Guardians need be involved in. I think.”
“Unlike the rhythms of the sea, the tides of fortune can change to misfortune without warning or visible cause,” Kerric retorted dryly. “But in this case, the tides of fortune changing on us might simply be prophecy playing out its course. After all, if one of them is to betray and the other to turn away, then they must have reasons to do so. Some sort of impetus. What do you think could make them do that, Krais?”
He frowned a little, thinking about his brothers. Pelai’s arm around his shoulder both supported and distracted. Shaking his head, he shrugged slightly. “None of us have ever seen our father so upset, so adamant that we should be punished for something the Gods Themselves predicted we could not do. At least, not without descending into such evil acts that hundreds of innocent lives would’ve been lost. But . . . as I have changed, my brothers have changed a little bit, too. Foren has actually started to question the demands of our father, as I have—but he questions what has been happening in a different way that I have done.
“He might end up lashing out in anger if he’s rejected. Or he might not. Gayn . . . has been the one most closely aligned with our father. He may continue in his blind stubbornness to cling to our father out of sheer loyalty, though he has also spoken in annoyance to our father, which is unusual. If it comes to a fight . . . I don’t know if my middle brother is angry enough yet to outright betray humanity, but it’s quite possible Gayn would distance himself from having to choose a side for or against our father, if our father continues to betray Gayn’s faith in him.”
“This punishment thing, would it be awkward for you to be in contact with them while you’re being punished?” Kerric asked. “I’m not sure how your justice system works. Some kingdoms separate their criminals and punish them by refusing contact with loved ones.”
“It’s not that awful,” Krais told him. “We’re not dangerous criminals; we pose no threat to the people of Mendhi, because all we did was fail to complete a task. That means we’re legally allowed to visit our kin each week on Family Day. It might be awkward to contrive a believable reason to visit more often, but not impossible. Ah . . . Family Day is the one day a week—“
The Guardian cut him off with a raised hand. “I’m betrothed to a Mendhite. Myal explained the custom to me. We just had no reason to discuss the punishments of her birthland, since she lives here under my jurisdiction, and not Mendhi’s.”
“Congratulations on the betrothal,” Krais offered. “I take it you want me to keep an eye on my brothers, to see what they actually do?”
“If you can. They’d expect some brotherly scrutiny, I’d imagine,” Kerric said. “Inquiries into their health, their activities, commiseration on their suffering. . . . Things they’ll accept without question from you, going through a similar punishment situation, that they wouldn’t necessarily accept from anyone else. Or at least would find any inquiry that much more suspicious.”
“So . . . what should I listen for, when asking them how they’re doing?” Krais asked the mage floating in that translucent rectangle.
“Signs of anger, resentment, disinterest, disgust . . . and any signs that they’re helping the ex-Mekhanan priests to look up information on demon-summoning,” Kerric recited, lifting a hand into view and raising a finger for each point. He curled them down one at a time, too, as he continued. “Signs of anyone making inquiries into how to open Portals to other universes, how to conjure gods, and anything to do with quelling the current disturbances in the aether so that mirror-Gates and Portals will work properly again, and do so in a hurry.”
At that quip, Krais narrowed his gaze, studying the pale-skinned male. “You make that sound like the shortening of mirror-Gating distances was somehow done deliberately.”
“It was,” Pelai confessed for her fellow Guardian. It earned her a sharp look from Krais. She shrugged, carefully keeping her arm around his bare shoulders. “We had to stop them in Mekhana from conjuring and binding a powerful demon. All across the world, the ability to create Portals to other realms has been deliberately disrupted, to prevent them from acting too soon.”
“It works up to a point,” Kerric added “but then circumstances could change enough that they can find a way around the protections. Those protections are supposed to be good for two years, which means we’d still have a year and a half to go. However, my special mirror can scry into the future exactly one year, and it’s starting to show demonic invasions again. Which means somewhere—most likely in the Great Library—is some text or scroll, or perhaps a tome, detailing how one can circumvent the, ah, dimensional scrambling we did to the aether six months back.”
“So anyone looking into those sections will have to be eyed with suspicion,” Krais concluded.
Kerric nodded firmly, his light brown curls bouncing around his face and ears. “Very much so, but covertly. If we scare away the game in this hunt, we may never see them again, let alone catch them when the time is right . . . and conditions are still favorable for our success.”
“I do know how prophecies work,” the eldest Puhon brother retorted. “My siblings and I used to scare each other with the tale of the man who ran away to a different town to avoid a prophecied appointment with Death in the first location, only to have Death meet him on the street in the other town and happily thank him for sparing the spectre a long and uncomfortable ride.”
“Huh. I hadn’t heard that one,” Kerric murmured. “Anyway . . . keep an eye out for those lines of inquiry. I’d imagine such information is either rare, restricted, or both.”
“I’ll see if I can convince the Elder Librarian to give him full access to the Library,” Pelai offered. “Should I ask the Disciplinarians handling his brothers to lend them to me for that search? I still have to figure out what’s written soundlessly in scrolls, or whatever.”
Kerric eyed her askance. “We don’t want them to succeed, Pelai. Pelai’thia. Sorry. Consider carefully the possible consequences before offering that kind of help. We just want to guide what’s happening onto a seemingly successful but actually ineffectual trail.”
“It isn’t helping if I’m sabotaging their efforts to find what they’re looking for,” Krais pointed out. “From what it sounds like, my brothers may be tapped to help these ex-priests find what they’re looking for once they get to Mendham. I’ll do my best to get them to share what they’re up to, and I won’t tell them what I’m really doing, of course. I don’t want to betray humanity. At all. But I cannot guarantee my success.”
“Try your best, and if you fail, try to survive to the next Convocation, so you can kick the various Gods and Goddesses in the shins,” the other male suggested dryly.
“Will that really help?” Pelai asked, skeptical.
“No, but at least it’ll be entertaining to watch, because I’ll get it recorded on the scrying crystals,” Kerric told her.
Pelai huffed, rolling her eyes briefly. “Anything else you can suggest? Something useful?”
“Not until everyone gets a copy of the latest prophecy and has given it some thought,” the Tower Guardian replied with another -shake of his head. “Even if we end up with twenty opinions from twelve participants, at least then we’ll have ideas to chase down.”
A bell chimed, startling Pelai. She twisted her head to look behind her, but of course she could not see the front door from the family room. “ . . . Someone is here. I have to go.”
“Someone is at your Fountain? It cannot be that open to the public, can it?” Kerric queried, dubious.
Krais, seeing she hadn’t moved yet, patted her arm and rose to go answer the door for her.
“I’m not at my Fountain. I’m at home. The way my Fountain is set up, I can control it from almost anywhere in Mendhi.” Almost control it, since technically she didn’t have all of the controlling spells fused just yet.
“Oh, that would’ve been useful half a year ago,” Kerric muttered running a hand over his curls. “But then I wouldn’t have fallen for Myal, so . . . Still, any chance I could learn to do it?”
The bell rang again. Pelai rolled her eyes and shifted to stand up. “You’d have to be a Painted Warrior.”
“I’m not particularly fond of what Myal described as a lengthy, painful enchanted inking process, but I think I could handle a tattoo or two,” he quipped.
“And you’d have to set up your Fountain the way mine is set up,” she told him. “Both are needed to function.”
“Uh . . . no. Thank you for the offer,” Kerric told her politely, “but I rather like the way how mine works.”
“After dealing with Guardian Alonnen’s version, I am very grateful for my own system,” Pelai agreed. “I’ll talk to you later, Guardian Kerric.”
“I’ll wish you a goodnight, Guardian Pelai . . . thia. Pelai’thia. I’ll get used to the new name thing, I promise,” he added, before ending the scrying link.
Passing through to the front half of her residence, she found herself facing a familiar-looking fellow clad in a soft purple taga. He had a small double-headed axe stuck into the cords belting his garment to his hips. “I know you . . . Jodo Belak, right? But you’re a soldier, not a Librarian.”
“Oh, no, that would be my little brother,” the young man stated, giving her a wry smile. “I am Jodo Dalek, not Jodo Belak. We look a lot alike. I’m a third-shelf librarian under Anya’thia. I work in the Restricted Sections.” He paused and gave Krais, or rather the presence of the other man, a hesitant look before returning his attention to Pelai. “ . . . May we speak in private, Elder?”
Nodding, Pelai gestured for him to follow her to her writing room. Closing the door, she activated the privacy wards and faced the librarian.
Dalek eyed the runes a moment, then nodded and spoke. “Anya’thia sent me here because when Tipa’thia passed away—may Menda write the story of her life in golden lettering—I started to update the cataloguing with your ascension, but realized I didn’t know all of your tattoos. The Elders are always marked as to what sigils are bound to their powers, if any of them are Painted Warriors.”
Pelai frowned. “That’s hardly information that would require a private meeting, Librarian Dalek.”
“No, it wouldn’t. But you are the Elder Mage. The Guardian of the Fountain. Tipa’thia passed a bit unexpectedly,” he explained. “I am to assess which of your special tattoos you have, and if any are missing . . . well, the Elder Librarian has assigned me the task of finding them in the Restricted Section. I’m very trustworthy,” the Librarian added in reassurance. “The information on how to go about recreating the missing ones is kept in the Occulted Scrolls, which are deliberately kept uncatalogued, so unfortunately it may take a week or two to find everything needed. But I am up to the task.”
Studying him, Pelai thought about that. Thought about the word occulted, as in hidden, unmeasured . . . unspoken. Turning back to the door, she opened it and poked her head through. Krais looked like he was contemplating the exact number of leaves on her carefully pruned, miniature spirit tree. “Krais, you have the translation tattoo. Does it handle archaic languages?”
“Of course. Father spared no expense,” Krais reassured her. “It was done when I was fourteen, after my teachers assured him I’d learned proper language skills.”
“Get in here, then,” she ordered, holding the door for him. The librarian blinked a few times. Guessing he was about to protest, Pelai’thia cut it down before a single syllable could be uttered. “I am going to assign my last penitent, here, to assist you.”
“That is highly irregular, Elder,” Dalek countered, not quite chiding her. “I cannot discuss these matters with someone who is not authorized to hear them.”
“Then I’ll authorize it with Anya’thia tomorrow. Krais, there are things in the Restricted Archives that I’ll need you to go looking for, since I still have a lot to do in the wake of Tipa’thia’s passing. Librarian Dalek, please go back to Anya’thia and arrange for my testing to take place at some point tomorrow, along with sufficient time to discuss the problems at hand. Since you won’t talk in front of Krais—and I will respect that—then it will simply have to wait. Tonight, I have a penitent to discipline,” she added, since that was the truth, “and I will not leave that task unfinished. Thank you for helping to remind me to consult with the Elder Librarian about keeping her records up to date.”
Krais smoothly moved over to the front door and opened it. He politely held it open for the brother of the guard who had warned her that Krais and his brothers had finally come home. Outside, evening had fallen, bringing with it a damp scent and the faint patter of rain sprinkling down from the night sky. He didn’t say anything, just held the door politely and waited.
“ . . . As you wish,” Librarian Dalek responded. He bowed his head to Pelai, then moved toward the open door. “I will find out when she can speak with you. I am not completely certain, but I believe early would be the best time. If that is compatible with your schedule, Elder Mage?”
“My schedule is not fixed yet, so I can more easily accommodate the Elder Librarian’s at this point in time,” Pelai stated. “Let her know that I will try to be available tomorrow whenever she is. Thank you for coming.”
A polite nod, and the librarian left. Krais held the door open for a few more moments, though, peering into the rain-damp night. He hesitated, making Pelai quirk her brow, then finally shook his head and shut the door.
“Someone was coming along the path,” Krais clarified, “but they headed to one of the other residences, not this one. Will you be moving into the Elder Mage’s residence at any point?”
“It’s tradition,” Pelai pointed out. “But it’ll take a few more weeks, I’d imagine. Tipa’thia’s staff will be sorting out her belongings, tending to the details of her will, packing up things for shipment to distant relatives . . . and then I’ll need to pack up my things and have them moved over to the Guardian’s quarters, figure out where everything will go, what furniture I can keep versus what is already there, and whether or not I can replace any of it . . .
“Not that I have a lot of things,” she continued in a murmur, looking around her at the walls, the spirit tree in its glazed pot on its carved table centered under the skylight, the writing room behind her, the guesting salon across from it, and more. “I do know I do not have nearly as many personal items as Tipa’thia did. I don’t know where she got them all. Her quarters were flat-out cluttered.”
“I’ve been in and out of the homes of all the other Elders many times, and had the chance to ask questions about that sort of thing,” Krais told her, surprising Pelai. “I heard that a lot of the clutter was the result of gifts. Some will have come from staff who worked for her, and others from people who wanted to curry favor in some way, for some project or task that she could influence positively for them . . . or negatively, for a rival.”
“Huh. I’ve only been in and out of your father’s house five times. In and out of Tipa’thia’s scores of times . . . and in and out of Anya’thia’s twice.” A touch of humor twisted her lips into a wry smile. “I guess I’m not a very popular woman.”
“You’re a very intimidating woman,” Krais corrected her. “It’s part of being a Disciplinarian. My father hasn’t been invited into very many homes, compared to my mother, my brothers, or myself. People are afraid of how a Disciplinarian might judge them on the details of their home, how clean or dirty, how cluttered or sparse . . . It hasn’t stopped them from giving him gifts, though most of those were from subservients, I’ll admit.”
“Mm. Well, I don’t accept gifts from penitents, and since I don’t take in subservients, that’ll never happen,” Pelai decided, moving back into the house.
“But you will have staff,” Krais pointed out, following her to the family half of the residence. “Normal sorts of servants, the kind who will cook and clean for you simply because they’re paid to do so, once you move into the Elder Mage’s halls.”
“I hadn’t considered that, before now,” she admitted, wrinkling her nose. “I’ve never had normal servants, though my father does have extra workers helping out at his bakery. But that was only ever in the bakery, the kitchens. They never picked up anything upstairs, where the private rooms of the family are located. And these days, it’s mostly just my brother and sister and their families helping him. They’re family, not staff.”
“Normal servants won’t expect you to beat them for pleasure, or give them explicit details on exactly how to perform a task, overseen by you every step of the way,” he reassured her.
“I know that,” Pelai stated, giving him a sardonic look. “I mean I’m trying to get used to the idea of others picking up after me, making my bed, so on and so forth. I know why they do it, so I can be spared from having to spend physical or magical or even just mental energy on such things . . .”
“They’ll also do it for the glory of serving the Elder Mage,” he pointed out. “The most skillful, honorable, powerful mage in Mendhi. You’ll have people fighting to serve you just so they can say they have served you.”
“Oh . . . ! Splatter it,” Pelai muttered, wincing hard and rubbing at her pinched brow. “I just realized I’m going to have to start putting up with arcane duels a couple times a year. Not that they’ll have a chance of winning, because Tipa’thia made me promise I’d never limit myself to just my own powers. She said she got at least three idiots a decade who took the duels seriously, too, the kind that always thought that if they won, that would make them the Guardian. It’s always the most powerful ethical mage in the nation, not the most powerful, period.”
“All this time you’ve been training, and you didn’t realize it?” Krais asked dryly. “Years of apprenticeship under Tipa’thia?”
“I did! I just forgot about it in the last few weeks,” she retorted.
To her surprise, he moved around behind her, cupped her shoulders, and guided her back over to the couch in the family room. “Sit down, finish your tanga-designed chickpea paste, eat your crackers, and relax while you still can.”
“Are you ordering me about?” she asked, bemused and amused. As they passed from the public half of the residence to the private half, she spotted Purrsus up and about, sniffing at the corner where the wall met the floor, doing whatever it was cats thought they should do.
“You said yourself that even the Goddess Menda thinks I’m not punishable anymore and thus am not your penitent, save as a ruse to placate my father. So yes, I am ordering you around. Sit, eat, and take care of yourself, Pelai,” Krais directed her, nudging her down onto the cushions. Picking up her plate of food, he held it out, offering it until she took it. “ . . . There, see? The world hasn’t come to an end. Eat.”
She obediently dipped a slice of carrot into the paste, nibbled, swallowed, and said, “Careful; don’t get seduced by any rush of power from my current compliance. I could still decide to punish you for daring to order me around in my own home.”
Her voice slid over his skin like sun-warmed foreigner velvet, letting him know she liked the idea. Krais shivered a little. “I thought that you’d only punish me to show me what pleasure I might find in it.”
“Anticipation sweetens the experience,” Pelai countered. “It heightens the rush of emotions, the tension that builds, awaiting the release found only when the lashes of the flogger strike, when the fingernails scrape . . . when the drops of hot wax strike and splatter and congeal. Eat your own snack, Krais, and we’ll resume your punishment training.”
He hesitated, eyeing the floor versus the couch. With Purrsus gone, Pelai felt free to pat the cushions next to her. There was room for him. Settling onto it, he picked up his own plate and idly ate a bit of paste on a cracker. After a few mouthfuls, he asked, “So . . . you really think this will work?”
“Define ‘this,’” she replied, licking a bit of chickpea paste off the edge of a finger. “This, the penitent thing? This, the faking having been punished thing? This, the pleasure one can find in pain thing?”
“All of it. Some of it. Um . . . teaching me to equate pleasure and pain,” he clarified, narrowing down his definitions.
“You already do,” Pelai said, pausing to reply before taking her next bite. “Your body knows how enjoyable it is. All I need to do is help you to accept it.”
“That, then,” he conceded. He ate a bit more. Gesturing with his free hand at himself, he asked, “Are we going to do more than just the pain bits? I mean . . . you know. Sex. Lovemaking. Actual straightforward pleasure.”
“If we feel we can trust each other, yes,” she said. “Just the exchanging of sensations will be quite intimate as it is.”
“Exchanging? Do you . . . want me to do things to you, too?” he asked.
That hadn’t been what she had meant. At least, not originally. Pelai mulled it over. “Well . . . I do like certain sensations applied to myself . . .”
“I think I’d be able to trust all of this a lot more, if I saw your reactions to it, too,” Krais murmured.
She arched her brow at him. “You think you can retain dominance by seeing me in a bottom position, subservient under your hand?”
“What? No!” He frowned at her in return. “I meant, I think I could trust it all the more if I saw someone as dominant as you receiving these actions willingly. That you do enjoy them without turning submissive.”
“Ah. My apologies for misunderstanding,” Pelai offered. He nodded, accepting them. She nibbled a bit more on her food, then drew in a breath. “I am willing to show you what to do—what I like, that is—but only after first showing it on you. You need to know what it feels like to receive these things, so that you will take better care with how you apply them to others.”
When he merely ate more of his food for several moments, Pelai nudged him.
“Is that acceptable?”
“Mm—of course,” Krais replied, clearing his mouth quickly. He, too, had to lick chickpea paste from his fingers. “That makes sense. Part of me wants to be the dom . . . the top,” he stressed, getting the vocabulary right. “Because I am so used to tops being dominants, and of thinking of myself as a dominant, which means I should be a top as well. But . . . I know you’re right. So . . . do we do this tonight?”
“If there aren’t any more interruptions, yes. Eat your food,” she told him. “When we’re done, we’ll take this upstairs. We’ll also turn off the lights downstairs, which will discourage casual visitors, and hopefully no one will interrupt us.”
“What about that scrying thing I saw, in the air in front of your eyes?” he asked her.
“It comes with a ‘not available right now’ option that diverts incoming communications, allowing the Guardian to sleep undisturbed,” she reassured him. “That was the first thing I asked about the first time Tipa’thia showed it to me. I wanted to be sure she was able to get uninterrupted sleep at night.”
“A good choice,” he murmured. “Have you activated it?”
“Not yet, but I will. While we eat,” Pelai decided, “let’s talk about what sorts of sexual activities you engaged in before discovering your body enjoys sensation play.”
Krais wrinkled his nose. “You want me to talk about that?”
“Yes. It’ll be good to incorporate what you’ve tried and what you like into what we’re about to do.”
“To help teach me that pleasure and pain are okay together.”
She smirked and nudged his elbow with her own. “To help teach you that pleasure and pain are great together . . . if you’re that sort of person. Like you and I are.”