Inheritance

Part 2. Chapter 71: Drifting Gaze

The man she fell in love with back in her village... She tried looking into his heart. She tried gauging his feelings, but she never could pick them apart. Not even with her magic.

"What's wrong?" Laurence asked when Kori had stopped petting him.

"I..." Kori gulped. It had been only been three weeks since she had met him, but somehow, it was easy telling him the truth. "I was exiled from Trella because I was caught with a man that I liked. I am no longer pure."

"Pure?" Laurence repeated.

"I made love to a man before I turned eighteen. There is an eternal smudge on me. No good men will ever love me, and I will have no children." Kori whispered.

Laurence grinned—it looked like he was about to laugh—but then he realized just how much this smudge on her soul meant to Kori by her pained face. Being the kind and compassionate man that he was, he wiped the condescending grin from his face. He put himself in her shoes--something nobody else had ever done for her--and soothed her with his words. "I see. I won't pretend I understand anything about your religion or your culture, but I can see the pain your actions have caused you. I know I have no right to judge your culture based on my own, but... I just know that human women are expected to get married and bear children when they turn fifteen. I see nothing wrong with what you did. I see a beautiful young girl who most likely got swept up in her feelings and then acted on them. Personally, I don't think there is a smudge on you."

Kori's cheeks were red—her head felt overwhelmed with embarrassment and shame—but somehow, Laurence's understanding words made her feel like her fate wasn't decided just yet.

Perhaps her soul wasn't eternally smudged.

Perhaps she might have children, after all.

__

"What are you thinking about, waif?" The fairy, Casamir, asked—leaning against the thigh of the sleeping Anyananta.

Kori was so absorbed in the memory that she didn't hear him.

"Are you thinking about the elf? Are you worried he won't last the night?" Casamir queried.

Kori, who was staring sightlessly forward, now turned her attention to Casamir. "I'm thinking of many things, including Francis."

"You should go back to sleep," Casamir suggested. "I'm watching over you."

Kori snorted. "You talk as if that should comfort me. You are in love with a beast, and I assume you are not far from being a beast, yourself. It wouldn't surprise me if you tried to eat us while we slept."

Casamir shook his head with an amused smile. "I am a dragon, not a beast."

There's no difference between a dragon and a beast Kori thought to herself.

Kori tuned into the world around her because she found herself constantly slipping away from it and into past memories. She listened to the crackling fire, the noisy crickets, the hooting of owls, the whistling wind, and the soft breathing of Francis.

Her concentration was broken when Casamir conjured a black ball of magic and began tossing it from palm-to-palm out of boredom.

Kori gazed at the fairy unblinkingly for a moment.

Suddenly, he seemed very familiar.

And it hit her all at once.

Eory's dark, vicious eyes the night he was taken to the Crater flashed in her mind, making her flinch.

Only one family on Yharos had such distinct, poisonous magic, and it was the Arrozan family. Kori's heart was stricken with terror.

"You're an Arrozan, aren't you?" She whispered.