Wolf's-own: Koan by Carole Cummings Page B

those little doses of here and real sometimes—but Jacin wouldn't be able to hide the cuts now, they all watched too closely, and he didn't want to see the way they'd all look at him if they knew. And he wasn't really sure if he'd stop once he'd started that first satisfying slice, so it was best he didn't have them. Anyway, he'd found other ways to confirm his reality, and Malick was nicely obliging.
    Jacin thought maybe Malick knew, probably even understood, and he wanted to take some twisted kind of comfort from that, but he didn't let himself. Every time he reached for something real, it was taken from him, destroyed, so he'd learned not to reach. He might not be perfect, but he wasn't stupid.
    He started a little when the ember of his smoke seared into his fingers. A low curse rumbled from his mouth as he jammed the butt into the saucer and swiped at the ashes he'd let fall to the bedding while he hadn't been paying attention.
    "You put another hole in that, and Malick will kick your ass,” Caidi told him cheerfully.
    Jacin wheezed a little snort, said, “No, he won't,” and he settled back in to stare at the ceiling. He thought about going over to the washstand for the liquor, but he had a little bit of a haze going now, and he didn't want to ruin it.
    Malick wouldn't kick his ass. Malick wouldn't do anything to him except for those things Jacin asked him to. Malick wouldn't even touch unless Jacin touched first, even when he knew Malick wanted to, because Jacin could see it, and Malick didn't bother to hide it. Still, Malick waited for permission, even when Jacin needed it all taken from his hands, needed someone to tell him, show him, lead him, make him.
    "Why d'you think he keeps me around?” he asked softly. He'd been wondering that for a while now. Jacin didn't think it was for the obvious reasons, or Malick would have found a way to lose Joori and Morin along the way. Malick was Temshiel , he didn't need a mortal with whom to pass his time, and certainly not one as unpleasant to be around as Jacin knew he was. And yet, here they were, living on Malick's koin, this little inn holding more luxury than Jacin knew his brothers had ever seen, and there was the promise of an actual house, a home, in the next day or so.
    Jacin kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, kept waiting for Malick to tell him what sort of trade was required of him this time, kept waiting to find out whose neck was next on the block—Joori's or Morin's—and he thought waiting for the betrayal was perhaps more painful than the betrayal he knew had to come.
    "I don't know what he wants with me,” he breathed, hoarse and through his teeth. “What am I to him?"
    "He's told you that.” Caidi sounded a little annoyed, but Jacin didn't look at her to confirm it. “Why can't you believe that he loves you?"
    Your Temshiel pretends at it, all the while hiding from you what you are, keeping perfection from your grasp, because it suits his god...
    "Because he can't,” Jacin snapped. He should've gotten that bottle after all. “Because he doesn't. Because I made him... it was part of the trade.” And Malick was still holding up his end, for some reason, and Jacin didn't think he wanted to know why. “He doesn't know what it is, he's said as much, and I don't....” Jacin trailed off. Even if Caidi was a figment of his own imagination, he didn't really want to say that part out loud. Even if he knew it was true, he didn't want to give it power by speaking it and making it true.
    "You don't deserve it?” Caidi finished.
    Jacin only shut his eyes. Figured. He couldn't even trust his own delusions to not betray him.
    "Everyone deserves it, Jacin. Even Asai deserved love once. Except he used it when he got it, because that was what he was."
    A snort he couldn't help gusted from Jacin's mouth, and he lit himself another smoke to cover it. “And Malick won't, I suppose. If I were to offer it.” He eyed the bottle again before he flopped back down