Genaro nuzzled at one of her bare breasts, as they both lay still for a moment to let rapid heartbeats slow, ragged breathing stabilize, and chuckled. “As much fun as boys are, I could never give up sleeping with girls. Everyone's fun, different ways.”
“Absolutely.” She ran her fingers affectionately through his hair. “For a long time I stayed away from women because I didn't want to talk about my past, and for the most part, women are more likely to want to trade confidences. Men were easier to distract or deflect or just didn't ask or offer. With exceptions, which meant getting away from them quickly. I don't know that I would want a primary relationship with a woman, even without Matt, but sex with women is fun.” She kissed his forehead. “And sex with sirens is fun, even if I do have that weakness for alasir.”
“Well, I don't know that I'd want a primary relationship with an alasir, but they're fun sometimes.” He wriggled upwards far enough to kiss her, then rolled out of bed. Puzzled, Kisea watched him pull on his drawers and pine-green wool trousers and then open the armoire.
“Why are you changing?”
“Because I'm going with you to talk to these thick-skulled sorcerers, of course.”
“What? No you aren't!”
“Of course I am.” He produced a clean shirt that had black and green and blue embroidery on either side of the yoke, and inspected it for stains. “You said I could help. So I'm helping.”
“I didn't mean today!” She sat up and swung her feet around to the bare floor, reaching down to untangle her own drawers and trousers. “I meant after we have a chance to sit down and talk about it.”
“And only on the new students, which you said was easier.” He pulled the shirt over his head, and adjusted it absently while he regarded her, not quite smiling. “Not the ones that are nasty to you and make you all stressed.”
“Well...”
“Think about it. I'm presumably half siren, I was abandoned by my mother at birth, my primary relationship is with another man, and I'm a controller. Do you honestly think there is anything I haven't heard by now, usually to my face? Seriously?”
“Probably not,” she admitted.
“Right. And having been through different experiences, I never had to learn to hide at all costs in order to survive. If anything, I started facing people, because it confuses them so much if they insult you and you just agree and wait for them to get to the point. So, I'm going with you.” He picked up his vest and shrugged it back on, then tracked down a comb on the table. “I mean, how do you intend to stop me?”
“I suppose reason won't work.” She began to lace her bodice back into place, adjusting her breasts so they were supported properly.
“On me?”
“What could I possibly have been thinking?” Kisea said drily.
“So. General plan for these talks?”
“A history of what the Assembly was doing and how that was brought to light and changed.”
“What you and Matt did, you mean.”
“What Matt and I and a number of other people including Fala and Jori and Nitarai and Olisai and Rob and all the relay telepaths and lifewitches and your classmates did. Hush.”
Genaro rolled his eyes, while he drew on and laced his boots.
“Yes I do cover, at least briefly, how I went from student to renegade to marrying Matt and challenging the assumptions and what came of it, since that's rather essential. Then what used to be believed about controllers, which the Telepath Assembly and various accomplices were using as justification. Then the reality of how often we seem to be born and what we really can and cannot do. I suppose now I need to remember to say that there are four of us, not three, even if it will probably take Rioshai a while to feel like one of us.”
“Probably.”
“Make absolutely clear to them the revised definitions, that we are not renegades unless we do something deserving of the name, and that we have our own modified Oath, are entitled to equal treatment by the College and Assembly both, and that we're still working on updating books and people with accurate information, some of which will inevitably change as we learn more. Then I let them ask questions.”
“That's pretty straightforward.” He grinned at her while she re-braided her hair. “The thought of a single controller alive anywhere used to scare people into gibbering panic. Let's go show these sorcerers that they can walk into a room with two and a lifewitch and still leave intact.” He tilted his head to one side, expression turning speculative. “Unless they get excessively rude, and I give them a demonstration.”
“Gen...”
“You know I'm joking.”
She tied her shawl back in place around her waist and adjusted it on the way out the door.
On the walk to the lecture hall, Kisea did her best to fill in further details for Genaro about how she typically handled these talks.
One great stone building had several lecture halls inside; they went in, and followed the corridor to the correct door.
“You brought company?” Olisai said casually, relaxing on the deep carved bench that ran across the front of one of the smaller lecture rooms, with a single tall stool not far in front of it. Further curved benches polished by generations of use, in three stepped tiers with frequent breaks to allow passage, offered space to an audience of some fifty people at most. “Or do you need a reminder about controllers, Gen?”
“Never hurts,” Genaro laughed. “But more useful is for Kisea to have someone else to help explain. Or whatever.”
“Although I suppose that needs your permission,” Kisea added. “Since it means that you’re taking responsibility for Gen too.”
“Hmm.” Olisai tilted her head to one side, regarding Genaro thoughtfully.
Genaro gave her his brightest, most innocent smile.
Olisai had spoken for the lifewitches collectively during Kisea's trial, offering their support, and had since become one of Kisea's most treasured friends. College rules stated that, not being technically faculty, Kisea had to have a teacher present for each of her talks on the realities of controllers, a responsibility without extra pay or other benefits and unlikely to add to one's popularity. Olisai had immediately volunteered and was so consistently at hand that she was considered by many to be Kisea's unofficial liaison.
Olisai had nearly an alasir woman's height, edging towards six feet, and if her siren curves were a bit less pronounced, they remained unmistakable. Both her alasir and siren blood showed as well in her hair, the deep berry-purple that so often resulted from combining alasir black and siren scarlet; it was currently twisted and pinned into its usual bun, secured by intricate pins delicately carved from pale horn, a style that would have been scandalously immodest in many places and for anyone but a siren. Not a single white hair showed in it, though to allow time to climb from Seventh to Third she had to be in her early fifties, two decades older than Kisea—but then, Olisai was a lifewitch, and time's grasp on her was always going to be tenuous.
The lifewitch specialist in women's reproductive issues, midwifery, and early infant development, she not only taught but worked in the infirmary and made herself available to students and staff and guests at need; like many lifewitches, her active—and sometimes unexpectedly messy—life led to a tendency towards practical clothes. Frequently she chose sturdy woven Southern cotton, rather than Northern wool, because it was easier for helpful sorcerer friends or the College laundry alike to get stains out of, in colours that would still be appealing as they faded. At the moment, that was trousers of a pleasant if muted golden-brown and a bodice that was a darker shade but similar hue. Possibly they'd originally matched. No matter what she wore, she did so with confidence and elegance.
“It’s fine,” Olisai chuckled. “I was wondering whether Gen or Elaia would do this first. Consider it official that you have my agreement.” When Kisea sat down next to her, the lifewitch wrapped an arm around her shoulders in a brief hug, and bowed her head for a fleeting kiss. “I trust your judgement and I know Gen.”
“Thanks,” Genaro said, taking Kisea’s other side on the bench. “I figure, with enough time and a few more controllers, we can actually distribute Kisea’s ridiculous list of responsibilities around between us so she can stop being spread so thin.”
“That sounds like a worthwhile goal.”
“No it isn’t,” Kisea said. “Concentrating on mindhealing is.”
“That too,” Genaro said cheerfully. “I can do both.”
Olisai laughed. “Yes, I’m sure you can. And will. Although there is a time limit on this particular responsibility, since after seven years, there shouldn’t be any sorcerers left left who need the update class.”
These moments while the room was gradually filling were probably the worst of all, but the banter helped distract her. At least briefly, until her attention wandered back to the gathering sorcerers.
“Breathe,” Olisai murmured, laying a hand over Kisea's reassuringly. “You'll be all right.” Olisai chuckled. “With a lifewitch and two controllers up here, they're more frightened than you are. The oldest of them were alive when the laws changed regarding lifewitches, so they grew up with all of us the sort of monsters mothers threaten their children with to make them obey. Now their world has changed, and instead of clawed drooling beasts under the bed, here we are.”
Kisea sighed, reversing her hand to lace her fingers into Olisai's. “Yes, here we are.”
This being early afternoon, this was the other half of the diurnal and flexible sorcerer contingent. There would be two nocturnal classes, since a high proportion of sorcerers had strong alasir blood, and then at least she’d be done this job for half a year. She couldn’t help counting down to the end of that seven-year window.
Despite that, even this audience had several, probably mostly human, but still marked with the distinctive alasir fair skin and black hair, usually tall and with that rangy build. Most of the rest had their alasir blood so far back they could pretend to be simply human, with a wider variety of heights and builds, both hair and skin typically shades of brown. She saw one man with the berry-burgundy hair that came from crossing alasir with red-haired sirens, two women with blonde hair that changed to exotic colours at jaw length betraying mer blood, one man who was the all-out blonde of a Southerner, though no true redheads. All were well-dressed: these were sorcerers who'd been able to afford the substantial fee to gain the next level of status.
Crossbreeds, many of them, whose gifts had enabled them to transcend their mixed blood and gain recognition and acknowledgement in conventional society. How many, Kisea wondered, had abandoned friends and families as being incompatible with their new lives, reminders of their origins?
“This is ridiculous,” complained one sorceress as she made her way to an upper seat. There was no purpose Kisea could think of for wearing that much rich crimson fabric in a highly elaborate and fitted style and that much gold jewellery, other than flaunting in the faces of her classmates how well she'd done since they'd graduated. Her pentagon-shaped silver and opal medallion was nearly lost among it all, her hair all but invisible under a crimson net winking with gilt thread and gold ornamentation, her skin obviously little acquainted with sun. “Why should we have to waste time on this nonsense?”
“Humour them,” sighed the man with her, one who was nearly as expensively dressed for presumably the same reason, though in a strong deep blue that Kisea knew was hard to achieve and tended to fade quickly. Brocade was entirely too heavy to be sensible in the Southern heat; since Kisea saw no sign of sweating, he must have been using his gifts to keep himself cooler. Probably, like the woman, he was at least legally human. “They can demand that we waste time and be here, but they can't force us to waste energy on listening to foolishness.”
Neither was making any effort at moderating the volume of their speech; Kisea traded glances with Olisai and sighed again.
*Well, isn't Ramona the great lady these days?* Olisai's sardonic thought was strong and focused enough that the two telepaths close to her had clearly been intended to hear it. *Certainly a change from her childhood herding her family's sheep. Not necessarily an improvement, mind you. With Franklin once again dancing attendance on her. I've never been able to tell whether he does that because he's trying to get under her skirts or in hopes she'll help him get a job with a more easily-influenced patron. His employer built a small family business into one of the wealthiest merchant empires around, by all reports he's unforgiving of disrespect or failure or personal ambition, but he pays well. Ramona charmed her way into Lord Guarin's employ as a companion for his wife, but I'm not sure she knew what she was getting into. Lady Guarin endures pregnancy poorly, and swears during the final months she will never do it again. She dotes on the new infant for a month or two, then gets bored and hands it off to a wet nurse. Before long she starts moping about her lack of attachment to her children and tries again, still ignoring all the advice her husband pays me for. Insufferable woman. Ramona certainly doesn't dress like that while she's working, Lady Guarin would throw fits over being upstaged. It isn't impossible that it's one of Her Ladyship's castoffs, actually. I'm rather inclined to pity them both, although either would be horrified that anyone sees anything pitiable. They're both quite good and could get jobs where they'd be happier, but it would pay less well and that would make them another sort of miserable.*
The subtext was unmistakable: you have nothing to fear from them, no matter what they pretend, they are not better than you. For all their airs, they're just people, with the same sorts of flaws and stresses and goals and ways to cope with all that.
Genaro closed a hand over Kisea’s and squeezed.
A slender young man with copper-red hair ducked in the doorway, waved to catch Olisai's eye, and tapped the clipboard in his hand. Olisai nodded and rose as he closed the door.
“I'm told that everyone scheduled to be here is present, so let's waste as little of your valuable time as possible, shall we?” Though her tone was mild, Kisea saw both Ramona and Franklin scowl. As though Olisai didn't have ample demands on her own time, between teaching and her duties in the infirmary.
“This is, obviously, one of the ongoing education classes required by the Assembly in order to make sure that you have accurate and current information before you progress to your next level. Specifically, three years ago our understanding of the telepathic gift generally called 'controlling' was radically changed. It would be hard for anyone to be unaware of the disruption that caused for a few days and the ripples afterwards, but a lot of the stories circulating are distorted at best. As some of Caalden's most highly-educated individuals, you should have the correct information. To that end, Kisea Jordan, who is very actively involved in her husband's role as High Warden of the Peace in Jordan and in her own right an extraordinary mindhealer and a mentor to our younger controllers, is volunteering her time to give you a first-hand account and answer questions. Genaro is her first student and a very promising mindhealer, and he’ll be assisting her.” She looked behind her at Kisea, half expectant, half inviting.
Kisea rose and came forward, took a deep breath, and started her usual speech.
But having Genaro at her side and Olisai behind her on the bench helped. It wasn’t having Matt there, or Kian—they were busy with Matt’s own responsibilities in Jordan—but she wasn’t alone, and she could do this. To help build a future for Genaro and Elaia and Rioshai, she could do this.
