He swirls his cup until the liquid climbs the sides and sniffs. “Ah, I distilled this saersoot myself, and I must say, there is no better.” He takes a sip.
I bring the glass to my lips and the smell hits me. I scrunch my nose. “You serve me your harshest blend?”
“Strong it is, warming the belly when it is cold, killing a fever when needed.”
“Does Orvell know you are now a cleric?”
He chuckles.
I take a small sip, forcing it down.
“I used to brew back on Tempest. The fledglings were always excited for their first sip, thinking themselves more a man than they were.”
“Please tell me you gave them your paeroot mead and not this.” I hold up the cup.
“Oh, I gave them the worst, and it made more than one belly ache.”
“I did not take you for cruel.”
“It was a good lesson, and it served them well.”
“How so?”
“How many young men lose themselves the first night they partake? Sometimes the loss of honor is so great, they are sent to the front lines, where the insolent go to die.”
“And how does torture help?”
“It made them slow to drink, becoming familiar with the intoxicant’s effects, and, as time went on, when they partook during celebrations, they knew their limits well, and drank more lightly for it.”
I see the wisdom in his words and feel shame for the low thought I had of him.
“What is on your mind?”
“I thought my honor was lost long ago, and that the path to redemption was clouded in haze. Now, I am not so sure.” I do not tell him that my honor was never lost because then I would have to explain things I feel I cannot.
And now that I have coupled with Asha, I cannot say my honor is still intact.
“If I may be so bold, sometimes redemption is not what we think it is.”
“Redemption is bringing glory to Tempest,” I assert.
“Is it?”
“Of course it is.”
“If you say.”
His careless words spark anger in my chest, but I cannot help but want to hear more.
“If that is not redemption, what is?”
“Letting go of ego and doing what needs to be done.”
Surely he cannot mean this. His injury has warped his mind, putting silly notions into it.
Yet I remember what weak Asha had said. That honor was found in duty. Which is remarkably similar to Krek’s words.
“Do you have nothing to say to that?” Krek asks, smoothing the shaft of a new arrow. “I can see where you might think I say that only because my accident leaves me duty bound to making these arrows and distilling intoxicants, but let me ask you this: if I had died and was not here, day in and day out, working as I do, who would make these arrows? Or brew intoxicants, many of which find their way into the cleric’s hut?”
