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As he passed by, he noted that none of the as glassed in, and he is or aniuessed And what the lack of panes meant, of course, was that there were no barriers between him and the Chosen who stared back at him from their quarters

There was one fes

Oh, Jesus

"Here we are" The Directrix stopped in front of a one-story structure and unlocked a pair of double doors As she opened them wide, his heart fell

Cribs Rows and rows of e, the Directrix&039;s voice greistful "This used to be such a place of joy, filled with life, tee with the future If you would only take another¡ª Are you unwell, your grace?"

Phury backed away He couldn&039;t breathe He couldn&039;t breathe

"Your grace?" She reached out

He jerked away from her "I&039;m fine"

Breathe, dareed to Man up

In his mind, the wizard served up exa in the present with Z and Wrath and that shit about the lessers, then going all the way back into the past to his failures with his parents

He was deficient everywhere in his life, trapped everywhere, too

At least Cormia could be free of this Free of hiht with alarht have a lie-down¡ª"

"I&039;ll take another"

"You&039;ll¡ª"

"I&039;ll take another First Mate"

The Directrix seerace, thank you thank youVerily you are the strength of the race and leader to us all"

He let her go on and on singing empty praises while his head spun and he felt like a load of dry ice had been duut

The Directrix clasped her race, what do you favor in a ed the Amalya with hard eyes "They have to want this No coercion No binds They have to want it Cormia didn&039;t, and that wasn&039;t fair to her I volunteered for this, she didn&039;t have a choice"

The Directrix put her hand on his arree Cormia was never suited for her role, had in fact been anointed as First Mate specifically for that cause by the previous Directrix I shall never be so cruel"

"And Cormia will be okay I mean, she&039;s not kicked out of here, correct?"

"She shall be welcomed back herein She is a fine female Just not as well suited to this life as some of us are"

In the quiet heartbeats that followed, he had an iuileless, innocent green eyes looking up at him as she fumbled with his belt and his leathers

She only wanted to do as right Back when this whole h she&039;d been terri fied, she would have done the right thing by her tradition and taken hier than hi He was the one with the track shoes on

"You tell the others I was not worthy of her" As the Directrix&039;s er at her "That&039;s a goddaood for me I want her elevated to a special rank I want her fucking enshrined, do you understand ht by her or I&039;ll bust this place into ruins"

While the Directrix&039;s mind clearly scra her, "This is th of the goddamn race, so you do what I tell you Now nod"

When she did, his chest eased up "Good Glad we agree Now, do we need to do another ceremony?"

"Ah ah, when you said the words t-to Cormia, you bound yourself to all of us" She put her hand on herit wasn&039;t with joy More like she needed a little reassurance "When will you be coht of Bella&039;s pregnancy He couldn&039;t s stood between hiht not even be told "Not for a while Could be up to a year"

"Then I shall send the first of them to you on the far side, shall I?"

"Yeah" He turned away fro like he still neededto walk around a bit"

"I&039;ll tell the others to leave you to your privacy"

"Thanks, and I&039; I want to talk to Cor to tell her"

"As you wish" The Directrix bowed low "I shall need a couple of days to ritually prepare¡ª"

"Just letone of therace"

When she left, he stared out over the white landscape, and after ainto another view entirely Gone were the well-ordered, colorless trees and the grass that looked as if it were covered in fine snow Instead, he saw the choked gardens of his family&039;s home back in the Old Country

Out behind the vast stone house he&039;d grown up in, there had been a walled-off garden about two acres in size Split into quadrants by pebbled ays, it had been intended to showcase specis and offer a place of natural beauty to calm the mind The masonry wall that corralled the landscape had beenthe stages of life, froin his own arrown son standing behind hiarden had first been constructed, it ant, a real showplace, and Phury could iine the joy of his parents as they had looked over its splendor as newly mateds

He had known none of the perfections promised in the fine bones of the layout What he had seen of the garden had been only the chaos of neglect By the tis, the beds were overgroeeds, the reflection benches ading in algae water, and grass had overtaken the ays Saddest to hi the more and more of what the sculptor&039;s hand had wanted to show

The garden was the visual representation of his family&039;s ruination

And he had wanted to fix it All of it

After his transition, which had nearly killed him, he had walked away from the sha as clearly as he saw in his ht of his departure had been marked by an October full moon, and he had packed soht

Phury had had only a loose plan: to pick up on the trail his father had let grow cold On the night of Zsadist&039;s abduction, it had been clear which nursery ony, as any father would, had gone after her with a vengeance She had been s concrete until about two years thereafter Following tips and leads and the raossips, the Brother had scoured the Old Country and eventually located Zsadist&039;s baby blanket in the things of the female¡ª who had died only a week prior

The near edy

It was at that point that Ahgony had been inforhbor and sold into the slavery h Ahgony had gone to the nearest slave dealer, there were too ht and traded to track Zsadist down

Ahgony had given up and gone home and started to drink

As Phury prepared to take up his father&039;s search, it seemed appropriate to wear the suits and silks of his elder Ientlereat houses, which here slaves were held In his father&039;s old wardrobe, Phury could be just another well- to pay for his keep with his wit and his charm

Dressed in twenty-five-year-old fashion, and with a battered leather clothing case in his hand, he&039;d gone to both of his parents to tell the

He knew his mother was in her bed in the basement of the house, because that here she lived He also knew she wouldn&039;t look at him as he entered She never did, and he hadn&039;t blamed her for that He was the exact replica of the one that had been stolen, the walking, talking, breathing reedy That he was an individual and separate from Zsadist, that hehalf of himself ever since his twin had been taken, that he needed nurturing and caring, was beyond her because of her own pain

His mother had never touched hi

After knocking on her door, Phury had been careful to tell her who it was before he entered so she could brace herself accordingly When she didn&039;t answer, he opened the door and stood in her doorway, filling the jamb with his newly transitioned body As he&039;d told her about what he was going to do, he wasn&039;t sure what exactly he expected frole word She didn&039;t even lift her head from her tattered pillow

He&039;d closed the door and gone across the way to his father &039;s quarters

Thethe bottles of cheap ale that kept hih not to think tooto rouse him, Phury had scribbled a note, left it on his father&039;s chest, then gone upstairs and out of the house

Standing on the pitted, leaf-strewn terrace of the faht He knew there was a good possibility he would never see his parents again, and he orried that the one doggen who reet injured And then ould they do?

Staring out over the majesty that had once been, he sensed his tas so to be found

As a streak of milky clouds drifted free of the moon&039;s face, Phury had searched deep in hith

Verily, a low voice had said inside of his skull, you could search until a thousandbody of your twin, yet it is certain you shall not save what cannot be rescued You are not up to this task, and moreover, your destiny decrees that you shall fail nowith you the curse of the exhile dhoble

It was the wizard speaking for the first time

And as the words sunk into hi far too weak for the journey ahead, he took his vow of celibacy Looking up to the great shining disk in the blue-black sky, he&039;d sworn to the Scribe Virgin that he would keep himself apart from all distractions He would be the clean and focused savior He would be the hero who brought his twin back He would be the healer who resurrected the sad, tangled mess of his family and returned them to their forardener

Phury caht, was I not? Your parents both died early and in misery, your tas used like a whore, and you&039;re a head case

I was right, wasn&039;t I, mate

Phury refocused on the eerie white expanse of the Other Side It was so perfect, everything in order, nothing out of bounds The white tulips with their white stes The trees didn&039;t breach the forest&039;s edge There wasn&039;t a weed to be seen

He wondered who rass, like all the rest of it, just grew that way

Must be nice