The recriminations come later, in the darkness. Why is there no place so lonely as the sweaty slot beside a sleeping man?

And at the same time, no place so safe?

Bundling a blanket about her nakedness, she crawls to the dim bed of coals, where she sits, rocking herself between clutched arms and rough folds, trying to squeeze away the memory of skidding skin, the wheezing of old man exertions. The dark is complete, so much so the forest and the stoved-in tower seem painted in pitch. The warmth of the gutted fire only sharpens the chill.

The tears do not come until he touches her—a gentle hand across her back, falling like a leaf. Kindness. This is the one thing she cannot bear. Kindness.

“We have made our first mistake together,” he says, as though it were something significant. “We will not make it again.”

No forest slumbers in silence, even in the dead of a windless night. The touch of twigs and leaves, the press of forking branches, the sweep of limbs endlessly interlocking, incorporating more and more skirted trunks, creating a labyrinth of hollows, with only sudden scarps to interrupt them. Somehow it all conspired to create a whispering dark.

The coals tinkle like faraway glass.

“Am I broken?” she sobs. “Is that why I run?”

“We all bear unseen burdens,” he replies, sitting more behind her than beside. “We are all bent somehow.”

“You mean you,” she says, hating herself for the accusation. “The way you are bent!”

But the hand does not retreat from her back.

“The way I must be … I must discover the truth, Mimara. More than my spite turns upon what I do.”

Her snort is convulsive, phlegmatic. “What difference will it make? Golgotterath will be destroyed within the year. Your Second Apocalypse will be over before it even begins!”

His fingertips draw away.

“What do you mean?” he says, his tone both light and brittle.

“I mean that Sakarpus will have already fallen.” Why does she suddenly hate him? Was it because she seduced him, or because he failed to resist? Or was it because laying with him made no difference? She gazes at him, unable or unwilling to hide the triumph her eyes. “The plans were afoot ere I fled the cursed Heights. The Great Ordeal marches, old man.”

Silence. Remorse comes crashing in.

Can’t you see? something shrieks within her. Can’t you see the poison I bring? Strike me! Strangle me! Pare me to the core with your questions!

But she laughs instead. “You have shut yourself away for too long. You have found your revelation too late.”

CHAPTER FIVE - Momemn

CHAPTER FIVE

Momemn

Where luck is the twist of events relative to mortal hope, White- Luck is the twist of events relative to divine desire. To worship it is to simply will what happens as it happens

—ARS SIBBUL, SIX ONTONOMIES

Early Spring, 19 New Imperial Year (4132 Year-of-the-Tusk), Iothiah