Page 17 of Joy Guardian
“Why do youpreferrice to everything else?”
I shrugged. “It’s the texture, I guess. It's most agreeable with my tastes.”
“Is the texture the only thing you care about in a food?” She lifted the fork with rice to my lips.
I flicked the slice of cooked mushroom from the fork before taking the rest in my mouth.
“What’s wrong with mushrooms?” She gazed at me with amazement.
“Too slimy,” I said after swallowing. “I prefer mushrooms and vegetables ground into the rice, not cooked in pieces like that.”
She laughed, tossing back her braids.
“For someone who can’t taste any flavor, you’re a pretty picky eater, Kurai.”
I paused in appreciation of her laughter. Thankfully, Sefri had been too busy, matching other Joy Vessels to the nobles of the royal court. Otherwise, she would’ve noticed that joy had been returning to Ciana, and I would’ve probably lost the privilege of sharing meals with her by now.
Either way, Ciana was to be returned to her world in just two nights. The Watchers’ mission would soon be complete, and I’d never see her again.
Sadness gripped my heart at that thought. I should be relieved at the prospect of no longer having to fight the craving for her company or the temptation of her joy, but all I felt was loss.
“Icantaste the flavor,” I replied to her comment. “I know that your rice is salty, unlike what I usually eat. It tastes like meat, mushrooms, and many herbs and spices that humans use to flavor their food with, but I derive no pleasure from any of those flavors.”
She licked her lip that had finally healed, leaving only afaint line of a scar now. Her smile slipped away as she seemed to consider something.
“Do you want to try what it feels like to me?” she asked, flicking a glance up at me, then at theleilathaon her right arm in an offer to connect to her emotions.
Her offer should’ve repulsed me. I should’ve recoiled from a mere notion of such a blasphemy. But my skin itched under my gold armlets, with my tendrils eager to spring out. I’d spent weeks trying to identify her emotions by studying her facial expressions. Oh how I wished I could sample them all now.
“It’d be a sin,” I said, in a suddenly hoarse voice.
I had to say these words out loud. I needed to hear them as a reminder of my vow to serve the Joy.
A fae could not break a promise given or he would die a slow, torturous death. Lately, however, death didn’t seem like too high a price to pay for a taste of Ciana’s pleasure. The temptation was growing increasingly harder to fight.
It was a sin for me to connect to human joy. It’d be the gravest betrayal of my life’s work and of my current mission. Even thinking about it was sinful. I had to remember that.
“I can’t.”
“Is it because you’re a monk?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.
“A monk? That’s not what I am.”
“No? Why then do you have such severe restrictions on things that bring a little joy? What harm is there in enjoying a spoonful of rice?”
I opened my mouth to quote something from the scriptures in reply, because I couldn’t come up with anything useful on my own right now.
But she lifted a hand quickly, stopping me.
“It’s okay. I’m sorry. You don’t have to defend your beliefs to me, Kurai. Just because I don’t understand them, doesn't make them invalid, right?”
Right. It didn’t. Her understanding or the lack of it neithersupported nor invalidated the divine dogma. But something inside me itched to continue this conversation, and it came from my desire for her to understand. I couldn’t make her believe what I believed in, but I would’ve wanted for her to at least understand my values.
Except that all my values fundamentally disvalued everything about her. According to the beliefs I’d held my entire life, she wasn’t even supposed to be here right now.
I exhaled in frustration, facing this impenetrable wall between us that could never be broken.
“Do you miss home, Ciana?” I asked. “I mean, your world. Not the dwelling that…” I let my voice trail off, unsure if I wanted to bring up the torment of her not-so-distant past.
