“What’s wrong with your eyes?” I ask.

“Do they bother you?”

“Yes,” I say, because Kor has taught me the futility of lying to any of Kherishdar’s Shames. And also, “No,” because… what else? I am an artist.

This Shame settles onto the stool facing me. I’ve known two priests of Shame now—three, if you count Kef, and I suppose I must though we aren’t well-acquainted. Tsevet, the first, was a wiry ascetic with hollows under his ribs, vibrating with passions, who frightened people with his zeal: appropriate for an empire that ‘lived more in its body,’ as his successor would later describe Kherishdar at that time in history. But Tsevet had been very little like Kor, who was short and (for an Ai-Naidari), thick, and whose mastery of others began with mastery over himself, and whose self-possession was the ultimate source of his authority, and his mystique. Kef, the third to inherit the stole, had been sinuous and athletic, with a voice that lulled people into opening themselves to the whip-crack of his commands. Like a siren, singing his seduction; or a parent singing a lullaby. He’d been passion all over again.

Amath, though, is like a ghost. Delicate. Frangible. White all over, with weirdling black eyes. His hands flutter over whatever’s near him, touching everything. It’s that, I think, that makes me recall Tsevet. That and the eyes. But unlike the first servant of Shame, it’s the vacuum of passion that makes Amath compelling. He is an empty space, waiting to be filled with confessions. To see him is to long to make him react… to do anything to make the quiet stop. He’s too uncanny for comfort.

His voice does not compel, the way Kef’s did. It’s just that hearing it is a relief, after existing in that vacuum. He is an excellent Shame. “It’s a birth defect. The muscles of my iris are stunted.”

“So you touch.”

“And listen. Mostly listen. We have better ears than you do.”

“Which you know,” I murmur.

“Because we still have congress with the aunera across the Gate?” He inclines his head. “Yes.”

“Is it only the eyes?”

“There are other things. They are minor, in comparison to what many are suffering. Many are suffering.”

“Is it that they need Correction?” I ask. “Or comfort?”

“Correction is comfort,” he says. “But no, I am not ordinarily involved in counseling the grieving and the ailing. But you should know, aunerai, that grief and sickness create disorder in society. In the smaller societies of the family, and one’s social connections, as well as in the society at large. When that disorder inspires wrong behavior, and that behavior cannot be addressed in the usual fashion…”

“Guilt,” I murmur. “Survivor’s guilt.”

“A great deal of that, yes.”

“Broken emethil,” I say. “With little chance of mending. I can’t imagine what that does to your people.”

“To say ‘broken emethil’ is to say ‘broken Ai-Naidar’. There is no difference. We are in a hard time, now. But the hard times will pass.” He cants his head, and that is a gesture he could have stolen from Tsevet. I wonder if Ai-Naidar believe in reincarnation. Or possession. “Will you regret your return to Kherishdar, scribe?”

“Yes,” I say. And, because I recognize a theme, “No.”

“Will you have to know which, before you begin that paisathi?”

I shake my head. “I am already on the road, Kherishdar’s Shame. And if I
were to cleave to one choice or the other, I would no longer be walking it. Some questions have more than one answer.”

“And if you deprive the question of any of them, it is no longer the same question?” He smiles. “They told me I would like you. I’m glad that they were right.”

Who, I wondered? Did it matter? If they were all here with me, in my heart and in my head, why would I think they wouldn’t be in him? Emethil. No wonder an entire generation was suffering. And I would have to go there, to learn… whatever it is I’m supposed to learn.

“I’m glad,” I say, “that this story isn’t yours.”

“No,” he said. “This Correction is administered by a different hand. Though I will be watching.” He smiles, the light dancing on his vast pupils. “Maybe they will one day call you Aunera’s Shame.”

“God,” I say. “I hope not.”