“Well, of course I am! Who would not be, in these circumstances?” Again she made that quiet space before suggesting in a reasonable voice,

“Perhaps you should direct that anger against your real enemy, to add greater strength to your will to change yourself.”

“My will?” My anger surged again. “Mother, it has nothing to do with my will. My discipline has not failed. I work from dawn to dusk. I eat less than I did as a child. And still, I continue to grow heavier. Did not Father speak to you about Dr. Amicas’s letter? The doctor thinks that this unnatural weight gain is a result of the plague. If it is, what can I do about it? If I had survived a pox, no one would fault me for a scarred face. If the Speck plague had left me trembling and thin, people would offer me sympathy.

This is exactly the same, yet I am despised for it.” It was horribly depressing to know that not even my mother understood what I was going through. I had hoped that my father would have explained my fat as a medical condition to my family and to Carsina’s parents. But he had told no one. No wonder Yaril had no sympathy for me. If my mother, my oldest and staunchest ally, deserted me, I would be completely alone in facing my fate.

She pulled out the last block of support, speaking to me as if I were seven and caught in an obvious falsehood.

“Nevare. I watched you eat at Rosse’s wedding. How can you say that you eat less than you did as a child? You devoured enough food to sustain a man for a week.”

“But—” I felt as if she had knocked the breath from my lungs. Her calm eyes so gently pierced me as she met my gaze.

“I don’t know what happened to you at the academy, my son. But you cannot hide from it behind a wall of fat. I know nothing of the doctor’s letter to your father. But I do know that what I have seen of how you eat now would cause this change in any man.”

“You can’t believe I eat like that at every meal!”

She kept her calm. “Do not shout at me, Nevare. I am still your mother.

And why else would you hide from your family at every meal if not because your gluttony shamed you? As it should. That shame is a positive sign. But instead of concealing your weakness, you must control it, my dear.” I rose abruptly. I towered over her, and for the first time in my life, I saw alarm cross my mother’s face as she looked up at me. She knew that I could have crushed her.

I spoke carefully, biting off each word. “I am not a glutton, Mother. I did nothing to deserve this fate. It’s a medical condition. You wrong me to think so poorly of me. I am insulted.”