Wizard Rescue Pavoni 15

[setenaya]

Between them, they had finished the pile when Sogetai returned. He was carrying a wad of fabric, which he set down on Anat’s bed with a flourish before peeling off a layer and shaking it out to reveal that it was a bag.

“The other two are for later. For sorting.” Sogetai grinned, proud of his foresight.

Temechi smiled back at him and rose, clapping Sogetai on the shoulder as they switched places. Then Temechi was gone, and Sogetai dropped his bags on the bed in favor of picking up the necklaces. Anat tensed.

Carefully, Sogetai draped the necklaces one by one around his hand, keeping them aligned. Then he took—was that a spare hair tie?—and looped it through the pile of necklaces before putting the lot in one of his bags.

“You didn’t want to sort them tonight, right?” he asked.

Anat shook his head, as he thought he was supposed to.

There was an awkward silence. Sogetai was the one to break it. “So, what do you think of White Horse’s Ride?”

It took Anat a moment to realize that that was the name of the White Scar game on the tablet—its label was in Korchin. It was hard know what to say, especially since it was clear Sogetai liked it better than he did. “I’m not any good at it,” he said at last.

“I guess no one is to begin with,” Sogetai said, and shrugged.

Anat wondered if he wanted to gain skill with that game. He’d prefer a book, but—it had been better than nothing. He suspected the game would be better without Sogetai staring over his shoulder, but he didn’t know if he’d really like it even then.

Obviously he couldn’t say that. Temechi’s return saved him from having to figure out what to say instead.

Dinner was a thin gruel, notable only for not being entirely liquid. It seemed Temechi wanted to reintroduce Anat to solid food gradually. (Well, it was true that he must have been badly dehydrated.)

He made himself smile at Temechi between spoonfuls—he must not let them think he was ungrateful.

And he was grateful. But—

They had fed him, they had sheltered him from their brothers, Temechi had bandaged his wounds, they had even given him books—a ridiculous amount of effort to go to for a traitor slave.

So what did they want from him in return?

Obedience, certainly. (Compliance.) But that alone did not explain the books.

They might just have been a convenient distraction. But Temechi had asked what he thought of them. Asked and listened to his replies.

He kept turning the evidence over in his mind, through the rest of his meal and after. Temechi wanted him to sleep longer periods than the Scars, so he closed his eyes and tried. But he lay awake a while, still thinking.

Perhaps they wanted him to be something like the hetaerae of Olympia, more than what the Wolves had made of him—an entertainment for mind as well as body.

That should have been a hopeful thought—that they wanted him to think, to be more than the remnant of his body. But the idea of giving up his thoughts to them, in addition to everything else…

Did they truly want the one thing the wolves hadn’t required of him?