All the Hidden Paths (The Tithenai Chronicles Book 2)

by Foz Meadows

For anyone who’s ever come out and wondered what comes next.

“Asrien bo Erat,”

Velasin vin Aaro?”

As if admitting he found me repulsive would’ve meant showing weakness.

Or what if, my insecurities whispered, he’s already tiring of you, and this is his way of slowing things down?

He pushed into the touch and looked up at me, contriving to nod just slightly

He hadn’t knelt for me before—nor I for him, in truth;

alternately laughing and shushing each other like errant children out after curfew.

The lack of contact left me feeling strangely bereft,

Having someone be rough with me like that, when I’m thinking too hard or feeling too much, it … I don’t know how to explain, but it calms me down. Makes everything simpler.”

and hearing myself compared to him at such a moment, in such a way, was like being doused with ice water.

it’s what I’d always done in the past, when a lovers’ spat became too overwhelming to continue—but only made it halfway to the door

“You’ve wed a feral thing, I’m afraid.

I’ve never—I’ve argued with lovers before, but I’ve never had to share space with them while it was happening. Either it blew over in an instant, or we stayed apart for a while until things cooled down. I’ve never had to talk things out before.”

“Being with other men in Ralia is like building sandcastles: no matter what you do, you can’t withstand the sea.

My gawd ;-;

What’s the point in finessing something you’re not allowed to keep? It hurts so much more to try when you know it can’t go anywhere. So here I am, starting fights out of nothing with no idea what to do next.”

picking at the slightest bit of contentment like a schoolboy with a scab, compelled to reopen the wound beneath for the sake of something to do.

I’d evidently taken complete leave of my senses

lol

predeceased

We both froze, our horrified gazes locked across the fire in a mutual parody of Ralian embarrassment

until we ended up cuddled together, Cae’s arm wrapped around my waist, his chest against my back.

FINALLY FUCKING HELL 😤

Something about the way ice expands underground?

“Hm.” His lips burred against my bare skin.

I’m going to catch an earthquake in a jar for you, so you don’t have to be scared.

I lay awake for a long time afterwards, staring up at distant stars that gleamed like broken glass.

our current détente was cousin to it still.

barely knew how to argue with a lover, let alone negotiate the thornier, more subtle intricacies of sharing a life with someone,

with Markel and Telitha present, I could once more pretend that our inability to have a real conversation was due to a lack of privacy, and not our mutual ineptitude.

Social creature that I was, a desire for solitude seldom boded well for my state of mind.

tightness at the corners of his eyes

I seriously need them to go fix the relationship so they can lean on each other please

prompting him aloud to stop being a lump and contribute some conversation;

Too late, I realised I’d felt drawn to Qarrah because, on some level, I’d recognised her as being like me—a person who preferred their own sex to the opposite—though as I’d rarely met women who fell into that category, let alone so openly, I hadn’t understood it right away.

Gaydar!!!

Why was I so undone by Qarrah’s openness? Because it is open, a part of me whispered. Because it’s what we’ve never had.

But you never had this: the freedom to try a brazen approach where anyone might see.

I cared deeply for Cae—wanted very much, in fact, for our marriage to be a successful one—and yet the loss of something I’d never known to want, so certain it was impossible, was like looking down and finding I was suddenly missing a finger.

:(

Of all the things to have upset me in the past week, this was surely the most ridiculous;

I feel this in my soul

Vel—” I shuddered and passed out.

FOZ WHAT DO YOU MEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN?!?!??!??

What sort of man are you?

YO. They seriously seriously need to talk.

“It’s what he fears most,” Markel signed. “That all of what he is will prove too much; that you’ll tire of him.”

“You dumb besotted lug,

For Cae, doing something was always better than doing nothing.

As such, the project of doing right by Vel—of wooing him, watching him, trying to anticipate his needs—had fast become the cornerstone of Cae’s personal equilibrium.

Left unchecked, Cae’s wanting would drown them both, and so he contained and channelled those wants like a river diverted through dams and locks—

“I’m sorry—”

I want to smack them both

But would it have happened without him?

“What,” he whispered, touching two fingertips to his bottom lip. “What.”

WHAT

I’m afraid to do the wrong thing, but I don’t know what that is, and I’m not sure he knows what he wants from me, either.”

he’d tweaked his invented system to account for

And this the birth of a different language of signs

The basis of the thing was an expanded alphabet, including unique signs for common syllable sounds and letter pairings, as well as a way to pair vowels and consonants within the same sign,

Talk to him,

Pls do