The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter - Brent Hayward [38]
“That’s very enlightening. Reassures me a great deal about our future.” Name of the Sun had folded her arms long ago. “But I don’t see all kholics fighting. Only you.”
Nahid took a long, slow mouthful. The reaction from the hemo was not what he had wanted. Even his own words, to his own ears, had not come out as he’d planned. He had meant his list to have an ironic edge but knew there was vitriol in his voice. He certainly did not believe that the entire sources of potential fulfillment—even for those such as himself, with the blackest of melancholy in his heart, and tattoos over his face—were limited to the three acts he had mentioned.
He put the glass down. He was tired.
Did he want to provoke Name of the Sun? He considered this possibility and decided that he did. But what was the point? She was already angry and could only get angrier . . .
Well, the point was that Name of the Sun—maybe even since the second she first touched the cherub, back in the chatelaine’s bedchamber—no longer wanted to be with him.
Her glare radiated, like heat. He did not react well in such situations. She claimed to know what his problems were? She claimed to know what the problems of all kholics were. It seemed to Nahid sometimes that Name of the Sun claimed to know what everyone’s problems were, kholic or not. How could she possibly understand what his life was like?
He drank deeply. Beer ran down his stubbled chin.
Fuck her for these doubts. Fuck all of them.
His own solution, for now, was to get messed up.
Holding warm, cloudy ale in his mouth, Nahid looked away from the table, at other people in Hangman’s Alley, where they had stopped for a drink. During the night, by crawling into Jesthe and successfully liberating the chatelaine’s cherub, he and Name of the Sun had contributed to the first of his three criteria. And, by draining four pints and swallowing a bud (when Name of the Sun had gotten up, to walk down to the nearest outhouses, at the end of Sandripper Row), he was well on his way to achieving his second. Unfortunately, Nahid knew for certain that he was moving swiftly away from the last item on his list. Which was too bad: in his buzzed and tired state, Name of the Sun looked incredible. He had imagined—if they pulled off the cherub plan—that they would go back to her room for a victory fuck, a celebratory tryst, but she was so remote to him now, so cold. He could virtually see the wall that had descended, altering her face, hardening it like crystal. At times, over the past fortnight, he had learned to feel sorry for people exposed to this disdain: he knew the withering they must have felt inside. Now, for the first time, he felt the sensation himself. He wanted to kiss her on the mouth, to get up and walk away, to lie with her and sleep for ages, pressed up against her. He wanted to throw his beer down and smash his glass.
Hard to imagine (he remembered to swallow the beer) the acts they had done together, even as recently as yesterday, or follow in his mind the trail of mundane events that could lead to such explosive and decadent abandon. He tried to avoid memories of specific details but a barrage of raunchy images made him grimace.
(He recalled, for a moment, the chatelaine’s drunken romp, the procession of positions, the shouted commands. Did his own couplings look as absurd?)
He tried to regulate his breathing.
What was Octavia doing in the palace anyhow? Sleeping with the chatelaine? Living the high life? She had not been among those deviants in the bedchambers last night—
In the flow of Nahid’s veins, mixed with traces of adrenaline, still waxing and waning, and the thick pitch of his humours, the bud raged full force. He had almost reached the point of no return. Images stuttered in the periphery of his mind. His hands left traces of motion. He heard the tide of melancholy in his veins. He ground his teeth together and tried to stay in control. The drug was trying to convince him that he didn’t need anyone, ever, not even his damned sister.
When he attempted to speak, his tongue