The Killing Moon (Dreamblood #1)(12)

“I am aware, Gatherer. I did sit pranje twice—” But those had been nothing, hours of boredom, while he sat with Sharers who’d been nearly as bored as he. Sharers faced the pranje’s test only once every four of floodseasons, as a precaution, and no one could remember the last time a Sharer had failed. He had not trained to serve Sharers.

All at once Nijiri froze, as Sonta-i swung about and peered at him with the same taut scrutiny he’d given the flower. “You did not refuse the Teacher out of propriety. You refused him out of pride.”

It was not a question, but Nijiri felt no need to deny it. They knew he had never been humble. “Yes. I wished to be a Gatherer.”

“Acolyte,” the Superior said, somewhere beyond Sonta-i. He sounded weary; Nijiri did not dare look away from Sonta-i’s gray eyes to check. He didn’t fear death, but somehow Sonta-i seemed worse than death in that moment. “You just said propriety was not your concern.”

“Just so, Superior.” He licked his lips—only so that he could speak clearly, of course, nothing more. “I felt that an acolyte who wished to become a Gatherer should do better, as illicit lovers go, than some greedy, undisciplined Teacher.”

He was deeply relieved to hear a startled laugh from Rabbaneh, and the Superior’s groan. Sonta-i, however, leaned closer to him, until Nijiri was breathing the man’s exhalations. The tiny fibers of Sonta-i’s iris, like spokes of a chariot wheel, contracted slowly as Sonta-i searched his face.

“You’re hiding something,” he said.

“Nothing I’m ashamed of, Gatherer.”

It was a mistake; he knew it the instant he spoke. A lie. Sonta-i’s eyes narrowed sharply. He knew.

“Your overly high estimation of yourself aside, Acolyte,” drawled Rabbaneh, again somewhere behind Sonta-i, “why did you not report the Teacher to us? A man who would abuse his power over others should at the least be assessed for corruption. A Gatherer,” and he said this with gentle emphasis, his voice growing serious, “would think this way.”

Sonta-i was going to kill him. Nijiri knew that now. There was a stillness in the Gatherer that he had never seen before, though he found it somehow entirely unsurprising. Sonta-i was peculiar even by Gatherer standards—distracted by odd things, uninterested in emotional matters. Yet he was a Gatherer, and that honed all his peculiarity to an arrow-focus when he chose to do the Goddess’s business.

So Nijiri spoke to Sonta-i. Not to excuse himself, because there was no excuse that any Gatherer would accept if he had already made his judgment. He spoke only to assuage his own pride. If he was to die, he would die like a Servant of Hananja.

“Because Omin did no harm,” Nijiri said. “Not after that. He tried to harm me, but failed. And in his failure, he was tamed—for, after I informed him that I had only to speak a word to the Gatherers, he made no attempt to coerce other acolytes.” Since then, in fact, Omin had been a model Teacher, save for his constant gifts and longing looks whenever Nijiri turned his back. And save for losing Nijiri his chance at the future he’d worked so hard to achieve.

Sonta-i shook his head slightly. By this, Nijiri knew his explanation had been insufficient to alter the Gatherer’s assessment of him. Aloud, Sonta-i said, “And now that you’re no longer an acolyte, this corrupt Teacher is free to press his attentions on other boys.”

“I’ve dedicated myself to the Hetawa, Gatherer. I have friends among the acolytes, who would tell me—” But here he faltered for an instant, seized by sudden doubt. What would happen to him if the Gatherers did not accept him, and if Sonta-i did not kill him? He could go to the Sentinels, if they would still allow it, but he did not want to be a Sentinel, or a Teacher, or a layman, or anything but what he’d always, since the day he’d met Ehiru, always yearned to be—

“You’ve seen sixteen floods this year,” said the Superior. “A man by law, and soon by duty as well. You cannot protect your fellows if you no longer dwell among them, never see their daily struggles. And you can’t expect boys to bring their fears to you, either, for they’ll have no cause to trust one grown man if another has abused them.” He sighed; from the corner of his eye, Nijiri saw him shake his head. “Still too much the servant-caste.”

At this, Nijiri flinched, stung enough at last to look away from Sonta-i. “I am a child of the Hetawa, Superior!”

But it was Rabbaneh who nodded, to Nijiri’s consternation. “None of us are born to the Goddess’s path, Acolyte. We come from somewhere, and the past leaves its mark. Consider yours.”

“I…” Nijiri frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“A good servant never complains, they say. A child of the servant caste expects to be in others’ power, and expects that some of his masters will be corrupt. He seeks only to mitigate the worst effects of that corruption so that he can survive. But a Gatherer destroys corruption—and the power that allows it, if he must. If that way lies peace. That is what I mean, Acolyte Nijiri. You accommodated, where you should have rebelled.”

And belatedly, guiltily, Nijiri realized Rabbaneh and the Superior were right. A Gatherer does not seek help, he had told himself at the time—and so he had not, thinking himself stronger for handling the matter on his own. Thinking of himself, when he should have held his fellow acolytes’ peace foremost in his mind. Of course Omin would do evil again; Omin was corrupt. There was no taming something like that.