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February 5 - February 11, 2024
Outside Edonomee, Setheris seemed smaller, less dreadful, and it occurred to Maia that if Setheris ever struck him again, it would mean a death sentence. The idea was dizzying, and Maia found his hands clutching the arms of the seat, as if the Radiance herself were whirling about, instead of merely his own mind. He forced himself to relax his grip before anyone else noticed; it would be unkind in the extreme to make anyone think him fearful.
Maia reminded himself that glee was unbefitting an emperor, and thought soberly as the crewwoman opened the narrow door at the front of the cabin, I must not acquire a taste for this pleasure. It was heady, but he knew it was also poison.
Thou hast resources, if thou wilt stretch out thy hand to use them.
Better to build new bridges, he thought, than to pine after what’s been washed away.
“This is Oshet, Serenity,” said Csevet, as triumphant as a retriever presenting his master with a dead duck.
His mother had taught him a prayer that could be used as a mantra: Cstheio Caireizhasan, hear me. Cstheio Caireizhasan, see me. Cstheio Caireizhasan, know me. One did not ask for more than awareness from the Lady of the Stars; hers was the gift of clear sight, not of mercy or protection.
Compassion was all that he could hope for. He could not pray for love or forgiveness; both were out of reach. He could not forgive his father, and he could not love his brothers whom he had never met. But he could feel compassion for them, as he did for the other victims, and it was that he sought more than anything else: to mourn their deaths rather than holding on to his anger at their lives.
“Varenechibel was like a killing frost.”
“Veklevezhek,” Min Vechin said. “It is a goblin word, and it means to decide what to do about a prisoner by staking him below the tideline while you argue.”
If I must make at least one of them unhappy, and if it cannot be determined that any one disputant deserves to be made unhappy more than the other two, then the only answer is to make all of them unhappy. And if he was not trying to juggle three sets of competing and conflicting demands, the solution was easy.
Ulis, he prayed, abandoning the set words, let my anger die with him. Let both of us be freed from the burden of his actions. Even if I cannot forgive him, help me not to hate him.
