Work crew brought down some more heart-seizes from the Wall today, saw her sitting there in his fine tent, drinking his wine.”
Harran’s heart turned over in him. Not jealousy-of course not-but concern.
Through the bond among them she could feel, too often, a clear cool regard turned on Molin Torchholder, a sense of vast amusement, vast satisfaction. And
Siveni held a grudge better than anyone else alive. “Eh,” Grian said, nudging him again. “You be careful, huh? Life’s hard enough.”
“Grian,” Harran said, surprising himself-perhaps it was the wine-“have you ever been in a situation where you got everything you wanted, everything-and then you found out it’s no good?”
Grian looked in mild perplexity at Harran and scratched his head. “Been so long since I got anything I wanted,” he said softly, “I couldn’t say, I’m sure. You got trouble at home?”
“Sort of,” said Harran, and held himself quiet by main force for several minutes, letting Grian drink. He had started this whole thing. The thought of bringing an Ilsig goddess back into the world to set things to rights, that had been his idea. And the later, crazier idea of serving that goddess personally the stuff of fantasies-had been his idea, too. His idea it had been to bring a little knife-whetting idiot-stray home from the Bazaar as servant and casual bedwarmer. Now the idiot was sane, and not very happy; and the goddess was here, and mortal, and even less happy; and his dog was in hell, and though she was fairly happy, she missed him-and he missed her fiercely. And Harran himself was not completely mortal any more, and was also the cause of all of them having the promise of heaven snatched out from under their noses. His fault, all his fault.