Such small things. It wasn’t Seivarden’s fault if she had reacted badly in a situation that few (if any) seventeen-year-olds could have handled with aplomb. It was hardly surprising that she was precisely as snobby as she had been brought up to be. Not her fault that over my (at the time) thousand years of existence I had come to have a higher opinion of ability than of breeding, and had seen more than one “very provincial” house rise far enough to lose that label, and turn out its own versions of Seivarden.
All the years between young Lieutenant Seivarden and Captain Seivarden, they were made up of tiny moments. Minor things. I never hated Seivarden. I had just never particularly liked her. But I couldn’t see her, now, without thinking of someone else.
The next week at Strigan’s house was unpleasant. Seivarden needed constant looking after, and frequent cleaning up. She ate very little (which in some respects was fortunate), and I had to work to make sure she didn’t get dehydrated. But by the end of the week she was keeping her food down, and sleeping at least intermittently. Even so she slept lightly, twitching and turning, often trembling, breathing hard, and waking suddenly. When she was awake, and not weeping, she complained that everything was too harsh, too rough, too loud, too bright.
Another few days after that, when she thought I was asleep, she went to the outer door and stared out over the snow, and then put on her clothes and a coat and trudged to the outbuilding, and then the flier. She tried to start it, but I had removed an essential part and kept it close. When she returned to the house she had at least the presence of mind to close both doors before she tracked snow into the main room, where I sat on a bench holding Strigan’s stringed instrument. She stared, unable to conceal her surprise, still shrugging slightly, uncomfortable in the heavy coat, itchy.
“I want to leave,” she said, in a voice oddly half cowed and half arrogant, commanding Radchaai.
“We’ll leave when I’m ready,” I said, and fingered a few notes on the instrument. Her feelings were too raw for her to be able to conceal them just now, and her anger and despair showed plainly on her face. “You are where you are,” I said, in an even tone, “as a result of decisions you made yourself.”
Her spine straightened, her shoulders went back. “You don’t know anything about me, or what decisions I have or haven’t made.”
It was enough to make me angry again. I knew something about making decisions, and not making them. “Ah, I forget. Everything happens as Amaat wills, nothing is your fault.”
Her eyes went wide. She opened her mouth to speak, drew breath, but then blew it out, sharp and shaky. She turned her back, ostensibly to remove her outer coat and drop it on a nearby bench. “You don’t understand,” she said, contemptuous, but her voice trembled with suppressed tears. “You’re not Radchaai.”
Not civilized. “Did you start taking kef before or after you left the Radch?” It shouldn’t have been available in Radchaai territory, but there was always some minor smuggling station authorities might turn a blind eye toward.
She slumped down onto the bench beside where she’d sloppily left her coat. “I want tea.”
“There’s no tea here.” I set the instrument aside. “There’s milk.” More specifically, there was fermented bov milk, which the people here thinned with water and drank warm. The smell—and taste—was reminiscent of sweaty boots. And too much of it would likely make Seivarden slightly sick.
“What sort of place doesn’t have tea?” she demanded, but leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and put her forehead on her wrists, her bare hands palm-up, fingers outstretched.
“This sort of place,” I answered. “Why were you taking kef?”
“You wouldn’t understand.” Tears dropped into her lap.
“Try me.” I picked up the instrument again, picked out a tune.
After six seconds of silent weeping, Seivarden said, “She said it would make everything clearer.”
“The kef would?” No answer. “What would be clearer?”
“I know that song,” she said, her face still resting on her wrists. I realized it was very likely the only way she would recognize me, and changed to a different tune. In one region of Valskaay, singing was a refined pastime, local choral associations the center of social activity. That annexation had brought me a great deal of the sort of music I had liked best, when I had had more than one voice. I chose one of those. Seivarden wouldn’t know it. Valskaay had been both before and after her time.
“She said,” Seivarden said finally, lifting her face from her hands, “that emotions clouded perception. That the clearest sight was pure reason, undistorted by feeling.”