He needs more polishing to keep this secret as close as he must. I would shatter his confidence to have guessed just from his silence and his choice of our priesthood and two letters that he doesn’t know I have.
He has no reason to trust me with his Highness’s name.
And if he were the least bit more politically savvy, he would realize there are a thousand reasons NOT to trust the High Priest of a rival religion with a heartfelt confession of his own misplaced guilt. Not within a thousand miles of incriminating sexual evidence about the God-Emperor’s brother’s inclinations. Especially not when that evidence illuminates his Highness’ inclinations toward both magically and physically charming Basteti men, rather than marriageable Imperial heiresses who would consolidate the power of the throne.
Then, unhappily, Shai Vishal realized,I can use this, if I need to.
I may need to use this.
Merciful Lord Upaja, I pray I never need to use this.
But if I must, I will still place feeding my people above ashahzada’sreputation. Even if theshahzadahimself is the one who has warned us of the next flood or the next famine. He can live with shame, whether or not it should have been a shame, but our people will not live without food.
Something about his face must have said enough of that, to a man as sensitive to others’ emotions as Asharan.
“I will not apologize for who I am,” Asharan said, and his fingers were fretting at a loose thread of his indigo-embroidered cuffs. “I will not apologize for who I love.”
“I would never ask you to,” Shai Vishal told him.
“Then what penance will you put to me?”
“What penance do you feel you should serve for choosing to embrace a man of a generous figure who could plausibly be mistaken for a priest of our order?”
The young man bit his lip again, head bent as though he had heard a rebuke somehow.
“That was not a trick question,” Shai Vishal murmured. “But I would have your answer.”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t have to ask,” Asharan said plaintively. “I won’t regret that we shared that night, but at theleastI should have thought to ask if your order inclines toward celibacy before I set the neighborhood abuzz with such intimate gossip.”
Shai Vishal’s brows quirked. “You have met Shai Nanda, have you not?”
“Shai Nanda is her own inimitable force of nature.”
“Well, true enough.”
“And I don’t know how to mend that I didn’t ask, that I didn’t have time to ask, that I made assumptions I oughtn’t have made, about your preferences, your priesthood… what penancecouldsuit an oversight I can’t change?”
Under other circumstances I would charge him with declaring the truth,Shai Vishal thought,and twenty years ago I might have charged him with that regardless. But that young and righteous firebrand I once was would not have understood that his instincts served him as well as they could… or that I would give away too valuable a piece of leverage if he were to proclaim that truth in the marketplace.
Instead, Shai Vishal said, “What penance would soothe your heartache?”
Asharan slumped sideways with all the expressiveness of the young, dramatic, and flexible, face buried in both hands on themashrabiya’ssitting pillows.
It would bemuch too impiousto consider the implications of that flexibility, Shai Vishal told himself firmly. And much too forward to ask him to pose for an illumination of a holy figure in the throes of despair, when the dilemma here was an ache of the penitent’s soul rather than of the artist’s.
The young man mumbled something into the palms of his hands and themashrabiya’ssitting pillow.
“Once more, and more clearly, please.”
“…I have no right to ask your forgivenessnow,when it was already done so thoughtlessly.”
“It was not done thoughtlessly,” Shai Vishal said.
Asharan looked up at him with startlement in those vivid jade-bright eyes.
“You have already told me of the patterns behind your thoughts. You thought your neighbors should see that you found your lover worthy of desire, worthy of celebration. You thought the community should consider our priesthood in a similar light. Our priests’ intimate desires are not often kindly discussed when the community wits and jesters have their say. How many of your matchmaking aunties were appalled that you were intimate with a man whose fellow priests are all so notoriously poor and fat?”
Asharan bit his lip again, averting his eyes.
