“No offense. It’s just I, uh – already tried that. A few times, when I was still new, when I wasn’t even starting to get used to all this shit. I just about shouted my gods-damned name from the rooftops, hopin’ somebody’d believe me. Recognize me or help me or – clock it, I don’t know – somethin’.” Tom’s smile walked a line between sardonic and wistful. “Didn’t work. Scared the shit out of a man I thought was unflappable – and most of the time, nobody’ll believe you anyway. It’s like you said, hey? Nobody knows. Hell, I’m the only Anaxi raen I know. Even I thought I was just some—”
Couldn’t finish. He felt sleepy, suddenly, like he’d drift off and freeze solid if he sat there a second longer. So he moved: he kicked himself into motion, scuffed his boots against the worn stones, got slowly to his feet and paced a few steps away from the bench. He was still listening to the lad, listening to him go on, hanging onto every word. There was so much coming at him, though, that it was hard to focus on any one thing. So much new.
Tom had had his back to Ezre – he was idly studying the frostbitten bark of a tree – so the lad couldn’t see the surprise that widened his eyes when he said he was his ma’s only child, when he described the woman who might’ve been his ma if not for the raen. It made him shift from foot to foot, bite his lip. He thought about Cerise, guilt bubbling up inside him.
Do you ever wonder? The question sprang unbidden to his mind. Do you ever wonder what she would’ve been like? He wouldn’t ask that. He had no right, no more than the lad would’ve had a right to ask him about his father.
Now, he turned, trying to look nonchalant. Poking at a loose stone with the toe of his boot. “That’s not a bad life. For one of – us, I mean.” Us. A raen. Us. It felt odd in his mouth, owning this thing. “I’m no stranger to death, but you Hexxos are somethin’ else. Can’t say I understand it, but I sure as hell respect it.”
Shrugging, he tottered back toward the bench, sitting down with another irritated wince. Again, he gave the Hoxian his undivided attention, and again, he found himself overwhelmed – not just with the boy’s words, but also with the keen interest in his dark eyes, the way his smile lingered, still warmer than Tom expected. But the lad’s sardonic retort – and that roll of his eyes – made Tom’s expression falter.
Have I ever been to Hox? Tom’s lip twitched. For a moment, he forgot who and where he was. For a moment, he was a thirty-year-old human sitting across from a teenage galdor who’d just taken a tone with him. He wasn’t thinking about Hox or Anaxas, wasn’t thinking about how the boy had a point. Wasn’t even thinking about how he ought to take a joke.
He saw that eyeroll, and suddenly he was thinking a galdor had just talked to him like he was a mung, worthless human.
“Aye, lad. It’s only fair.” But the last dregs of that warm smile had dropped off his face, leaving it slack and sour. He studied Ezre’s face through narrowed eyes; something new, unfamiliar, and dangerous had come into them, something of the Bad Brother weighing his options, thinking about how best to deal with a mark. He gazed fixedly at Ezre as he spoke. “I was human. And to answer your question” – he bit off the word – “no, I ain’t been to Hox. Up until Yaris, I hadn’t been anywhere except the Rose. Twenty-nine years and I never left. Born there and died there, ’cause I reckon some of us don’t get to fly off to places like Frecksat and study voo and poetry, or whatever the fuck. Some of us’ve got mouths to feed however we can, and nobody to help us.”
The moment it was out of his mouth, he knew he’d gone too far. Damn. He covered his face with his hands for a moment, pressing his fingertips against his eyelids. Despite the cold, he could feel his face getting hot; he knew he was flushed, and he knew by now that there was nothing much he could do about it. It was something Anatole’d been known for in politics and in the courtroom; once or twice, he’d gotten so flustered during a speech that he’d nearly passed out. It was both to his advantage and to his detriment: he’d certainly looked like a passionate speaker. When he got fired up, got to talking on and on, he got red as a beet no matter where he was.
Tom wasn’t used to it, and it embarrassed the hell out of him. Especially here and now, with the calm, collected Hoxian. “Never mind,” he muttered between his hands, letting them drop. “Forget it. You’re just – never mind. And us lower races—” He grimaced. “It’s a hard life. That’s all I’ll say. I had to fend for myself. It’s different now, being this. I don’t know how to feel. Everything’s different now. That answer your question?”
And he leaned back in his seat, crossing his legs and knitting his fingers over one knee. He looked every bit the part of the distinguished statesman, despite what was coming out of his mouth. He still wasn’t comfortable looking Ezre Vks in the face, so he looked around the phasmonia, at the overgrown bushes and the tangling brown vines, the waterfalls of mottled moss.
“So why?” he asked suddenly, frown deepening. “If the gods hate us, if the mona can’t stand the way we are – then why’d they make us this way? I’ve been trying to ask the mona myself, but the whole thing’s a shut door to me.” He glanced back at Ezre, met his dark eyes. “I’m just trying to understand. I’m stuck outside the Cycle, stuck with this body, stuck with this field. I don’t want to be what I am any more than they do. But whenever I try to talk, whenever I try to show them respect, get on my knees and ask for help, I get nothing.”