silverchain.
chapter seven: anger is best bred by jumping conclusions
"Do you think we made the right choice?"
Her voice was soft, and he looked at her in slight surprise. The morning had not yet broken, and her quietly familiar voice was a shock in the still silence. Auburn hair curled in tendrils across her face, although the breeze was so light it might as well not exist, and her eyes were dark and serious. He covered her tanned hand with his own, with as much tenderness as he could muster.
"About what?" he asked, in an equally soft tone.
She sighed, freed her hand from beneath his, and turned to fully face him. Below them, the city was starting to show signs of life, but she paid this no heed. "Everything. Matthew...and Karis, and Tyrell...the quest...Ivan..."
"That's more than one choice," he said gently, and she frowned.
"I know that, Isaac. But don't you ever feel like we messed it all up?" she asked, clasping her hands.
He nodded. "Of course I have," the warrior confessed. "Thousands of times, Jenna. But now is not one of those times."
"What makes it different?"
"I'm here with you, aren't I?"
Husband and wife regarded one another for a moment, and she grudgingly sighed, tilting her head slightly. "I just wish we could have managed it all on our own. I don't want Matthew to be forced to have this sort of life...or Karis, for that matter."
"Did she say something?" Isaac asked, a hint of worry in his eyes. Again, Jenna sighed.
"Does she need to? If not for all of our problems, she and Amiti could be perfectly happy—"
"If not for our problems, they never would have met," he reminded her firmly.
"Maybe, maybe not! Who's to say what anything would be like?" she demanded.
He looked at her deeply. "I still believe that what we did was right. Of course it had consequences, but Weyard's alive again. Can't you feel that, Jenna? Would it really have been better to let it slowly sink into death?"
Her head drooped. "You're right," she agreed softly, "but sometimes it's hard to feel like we're the heroes. We made so many enemies along the way, and people still hold the Golden Sun against us." With defiance, she added, "What do they know? We were just teenagers, but at least we were trying to do something. All they want to do is criticize us...I don't want Matthew to have to feel that."
"He already has."
After another long moment of contemplation, Isaac reached forward and put his arm around her. She leaned into his hold, and together they watched as Kalay began to bustle itself into life.
Unbeknownst to the mending couple, Karis too was awake, and had been for hours. Something about the way Matthew and Amiti had left seemed to be lighting up a warning signal in her mind. She wasn't stupid—she knew they'd left to speak in private, and she also knew that shouldn't bother her. In the next room, they were sleeping soundly, but she was bothered, and a creeping temptation was seizing her mind.
With an expression of determination, the young Jupiter Adept assumed a meditative position. Focusing all of her Psynergetic energies, she reached forth through the air common to both rooms and felt the presence of the sleeping Adepts. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to determine their expressions and breathing through the air before she gave out and had to retire, breathing heavily.
"That means nothing," she said under her breath. Karis had been honing the gift of sensing others' presence for a few weeks, but hadn't breathed a word of it to anybody save Sveta. In their close comradeship, the beastman had explained in much fuller detail than Ivan the way that she used her psychic powers, and Karis had become determined to learn the technique herself.
She realized, of course, that Mind Read had many adverse effects; she'd seen them in her father's weary countenance, and had listened when he told her it was a blessing that she didn't have the gift, but when she met Sveta, a strange desire awoke in her. Karis had wanted to be like her, not only because she admired Sveta, but because of some unknown force. It seemed to her, in fact, that it was somehow her destiny to learn the mixture of art and science that comprised legitimate mind reading, although she scarcely acknowledged this fact in her conscious thinking. All that was evident to her was that it was absolutely imperative that she train herself, and train she had.
However...she had not yet actually attempted to use Mind Read on another person. She had communicated, although it tired her greatly, with birds coming to her window in the morning, and she felt that had been a success, but Mind Reading a person—that was another matter entirely. Still, her intense feeling of...of wrongness about Amiti and Matthew's private conversation could not be quelled, and in a moment of spontanaeity, she completely made up her mind to read theirs.
But whose? Well, although the idea of reading Amiti's mind seemed extremely appealing to her (she blushed unconsciously at this thought), sometimes she found him hard to understand even in speech. Matthew, on the other hand, was like an extension of herself; she could almost always predict his reactions, and could more easily wade through his tangled thoughts. If that was how it worked. The minds of birds were, of course, a lot simpler than a human's, and especially one who happened to be an Adept; so she scarcely was sure how to go about it.
Still, with a sneaky tread, go she did into the room where both young men slept. Glancing at the nearer bed, where Amiti lay, turquoise hair messy and dying to be combed with fingers, eyes closed, serene smile on his face...she sighed, shook herself from her momentary reverie, and cast Sleep on him. His light doze became a deep slumber, and she walked more confidently to the bed across the room, where Matthew sprawled, blonde hair hiding his face.
Karis looked behind her at Amiti again before kneeling next to Matthew. She was afraid that if she charmed him the same way his thoughts would become completely unreadable, and she felt suddenly grateful that he was at least a fairly deep sleeper. If he felt there was any sign of danger, of course, he would leap into action; but merely holding his hand (as her father did before he became more experienced at Mind Read) shouldn't disturb him.
She hoped.
Pulling his hand out from underneath the sheet, she took it firmly in her own, braced herself, and began to focus her energies. Her breathing slowed, and, except for the immense toll that the Psynergy was taking on her mind, she almost felt like she too was falling into a deep sleep.
A minute later, her eyes snapped open, and her breathing quickened once more. Backing away from the still resting Matthew, and giving a horrified look to the calm countenance of the charmed Amiti, she abandoned their room for her own.
Covering her trembling legs with a blanket, Karis tried to recover her composure and focus her thoughts. While she had only caught a few snatches of thought from Matthew's tumultous mind, they seemed to be enough for her.
"Good for Amiti that he wants to propose...mm...propose to Sveta...it's a good idea...hope it'll work...of course it will, for him, but..."
She ran the lines through in her head again and again, trying to find some other meaning in them besides that which was evident, but, failing to do so, she slammed her body down on her bed, covered her head with the blanket, and blocked out the world.
Angry thoughts she certainly didn't mean about Sveta swam through her mind, and she cursed very quietly, mindful of Matthew's incomplete slumber. It wouldn't do for him to find her in this state. Certainly that was why they kept it a secret from her, wasn't it? It all made sense. She was so terribly obvious with her affection for Amiti, but all this time he loved Sveta! With him as sweet as he was, of course he wouldn't mention it to her, for fear of hurting her. He was too sweet...she cursed again, oh, why was it that even when she felt like she ought to be mad at him he made it impossible? Instead, she found herself mad at Sveta, and mad at Matthew. He should have told her, he knew...she'd told him, oh every kind of deity she'd told him how she felt about Amiti! Even for fear of hurting her he shouldn't have kept his mouth shut, should have known she'd find out, especially since he thought that it would work out. And all this time she'd thought that Sveta had feelings for Matthew! Two-faced little monster, she'd liked Amiti all along but hadn't mentioned it to Karis, and now they were going to get married and oh by the Lighthouses their children would be ugly completely uncompatible looks, she thought bitterly, mind becoming more and more jumbled, and she'd grow up to be some old spinster who'd have the ugly little half-Ayuthayan half-Morgal children call her aunt and bitterly wish she was their mother, even if they did have to be so terribly ugly...
She muffled a scream in a pillow, completely aware that she was being irrational but ceasing to care, and, finding herself quite exhausted, fell back into a deep slumber.