Jim Butcher - Academ's Fury

"I'm too tired to sleep," Tavi said.

Kitai stared at him for a moment, then sighed. "Mad. Every one of you."

Tavi tried to smile. "Even me?"

"Especially you, Aleran." She smiled back a little, luminous eyes bright and close.

Tavi felt himself relaxing a little, leaning more toward her, enjoying the simple warmth of her presence. "Kitai," he asked. "Why are you here?"

She was quiet for a moment, before she said, "I came here to warn you."

"Warn me?"

She nodded. "The creature from the Valley of Silence. The one we awoke during the Trial. Do you remember?"

Tavi shivered. "Yes."

"It survived," she said. "The croach died. The Keepers died. But it left the Valley. It had your pack. It had your scent."

Tavi shivered.

"It came here," Kitai said quietly. "I lost its trail in a storm two days before I came here. But it had run straight for you the entire way. I have been looking for it for months, but it has not appeared."

Tavi thought about it for a moment. Then he said, "Well something like that could hardly have gone unnoticed in the capital," he said. "A giant, hideous bug would tend to stand out."

"Perhaps it also died," Kitai said. "Like the Keepers."

Tavi scratched at his chin. "But the Black Cat has been stealing for months," he said. "You've been here for months. If you'd only come to warn me, you could have done it and been gone. Which means there must be another reason you stayed."

Something flickered in her deep green eyes. "I told you. I am here to watch." Something in her voice lent the word quiet emphasis. "To learn of you and your kind."

"Why?" Tavi asked.

"It is the way of our people," Kitai said. "After it is known that…" Her voice trailed off, and she looked away.

Tavi frowned. Something told him that she would not take well to him pressing the question, and he did not want to say anything to make her move away. Just for a moment, he wanted nothing more than to sit there with her, close, talking.

"What have you learned?" he asked her instead.

Her eyes came back to his, and when they met, Tavi shivered. "Many things," she said quietly. "That this is a place of learning where very few learn anything of value. That you, who have courage and intelligence, are held in contempt by most of your kind here because you have no sorcery."

"It isn't really sorcery," Tavi began.

Kitai, never changing expression, put her fingertips lightly over Tavi's lips, and continued as if he hadn't spoken. "I have seen you protect others, though they consider you to be weaker than they. I have seen a very few decent people, like the boy we took from the tower." She paused for a moment in consideration. "I have seen women trade pleasure for coin to feed their children, and others do the same so that they could ignore their children while making themselves foolish with wines and powders. I have seen men who labor as long as the sun is up go home to wives who hold them in contempt for never being there. I have seen men beat and use those whom they should protect, even their own children. I have seen your kind place others of their own in slavery. I have seen them fighting to be free of the same. I have seen men of the law betray it, men who hate the law be kind. I have seen gentle defenders, sadistic healers, creators of beauty scorned while craftsmen of destruction are worshiped."

Kitai shook her head slowly. "Your kind, Aleran, are the most vicious and gentle, most savage and noble, most treacherous and loyal, most terrifying and fascinating creatures I have ever seen." Her fingers brushed over his cheek again. "And you are unique among them."

Tavi was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "No wonder you think us mad."

"I think your kind could be great," she said quietly. "Something of true worth. Something The One would be proud to look down upon. It is within you to be so. But there is so much hunger for power. Treachery. False masks. And intentional mistakes."

Tavi frowned faintly. "Intentional mistakes?"

Kitai nodded. "When one says something, but it is not. The speaker is mistaken, but it is as though he intends to be incorrect."

Tavi thought about it for a second and then understood. "You mean lies."

Kitai blinked at him in faint confusion. "What lies? Where does it lie?"

"No, no," Tavi said. "It is a word. Lies. When you say what is not true, intentionally, to make another think it is true."

"Lies means to… recline. For sleep. Sometimes implies mating."

"It also means to speak what is not so," Tavi said.

Kitai blinked slowly. "Why would you use the same word for these things? That is ridiculous."

"We have a lot of words like that," Tavi said. "They can mean more than one thing."

"That is stupid," Kitai said. "It is difficult enough to communicate without making it more complicated with words that mean more than one thing."

"That's true," Tavi said quietly. "Call it a falsehood instead. I think any Aleran would understand that."

"You mean all Alerans do this?" Kitai asked. "Speak that which is not correct? Speak falsehood."

"Most of us."

Kitai let out a faintly disgusted little breath. "Tears of The One, why ? Is the world not dangerous enough?"

"Your people do not tell li-uh, falsehoods?" Tavi asked.

"Why would we?"

"Well," Tavi said, "sometimes Alerans tell a falsehood to protect someone else's feelings."

Kitai shook her head. "Saying something is not so does not cause it to be not so," she said.

Tavi smiled faintly. "True. I suppose we hope that it won't happen like that."

Kitai's eyes narrowed. "So your people tell falsehoods even to themselves." She shook her head. "Madness." She traced light, warm fingers over the curve of his ear.

"Kitai," Tavi asked, very quietly. "Do you remember when we were coming up the rope in the Valley of Silence?"

She shivered, her eyes steady on his, and nodded.

"Something happened between us. Didn't it." Tavi didn't realize he had lifted a hand to Kitai's face until he felt the warm, smooth skin of her cheek under his fingertips. "Your eyes changed. That means something to you."

She was silent for a long moment, and, to his astonishment, tears welled up in her eyes. Her mouth trembled, but she did not speak, settling instead for a slow, barely perceptible nod.

"What happened?" he asked gently.

She swallowed and shook her head.

Tavi felt a sudden intuition and followed it. "That's what you mean when you say that you came to Watch," he said. "If it had been a gargant, you'd be Watching gargants. If it had been a horse, you'd be Watching horses."

Tears fell from her green eyes, but her breathing stayed steady, and she did not look away.

Tavi ran his fingers lightly over her pale hair. It was almost impossibly fine and soft. "Your people's clans. Herdbane, Wolf, Horse, Gargant. They… join with them somehow."

"Yes, Aleran," she said quietly. "Our chala . Our totems."

"Then… that means that I am your chala ."

She shuddered, hard, and a small sound escaped her throat. And then she sagged against him, her head falling against one side of his chest.

Tavi put his arm around her shoulders without thinking about it, and held her. He felt faintly surprised by the sensation. He'd never had a girl pressed up against him like this. She was warm, and soft, and the scent of her hair and skin was dizzying. He felt his heart and breath speed, his body reacting to her nearness. But beneath that was another level of sensation entirely. It felt profoundly and inexplicably right , to feel her against him, beneath his arm. His arm tightened a little and at the same time Kitai moved a little closer, leaned against him a little harder. She shook with silent tears.