El and Onine by K. P. Ambroziak Read Free Book Online

my little Pchi,” she’d
said, squeezing my nose lovingly. “Feel your skin.” She led my hand up to touch
my cheek and despite my submersion in the icy bath, my face felt normal, cool.
“Our skin is averse to heat because we are warm-blooded beings.”
    “Like the Venusian?”
    “No, nothing like them. They are made of fire and need
the heat to survive. We come from the soil, my little Pchi. Here, our body temperature
is stable.”
    “What’s stable?”
    “It means this is the perfect place for us, just as
we are for it.” I remember her smile was so reassuring when she said it that I
didn’t question her. Everything Minosh told me made sense.
    But feeling hot as I was now, knowing I couldn’t ask
her about it, I imagined what she’d say. “Your experience with Onine has made
you susceptible to heat and deep down in your core you feel him becoming a part
of you.” Perhaps I was merely hoping that’s what she’d say.
    The thought of Onine becoming a part of me made me unsteady.
As soon as I stirred the tubs, I exited through the cedar door. The eye burned
brilliantly in the sky and the flaming tips of the fires over the pits blurred
the air above them. Tal’s image was like a mirage amidst the vapor. He was
alone at the farthest group of pits stacking the gray rock when I went toward
him. He looked up in my direction and waved me over. I hadn’t seen him since he’d
saved me from Onine’s visit.
    “I’m sorry,” he said before I had the chance to say
hello. The little cleft between his eyebrows conveyed his sincerity.
    “For what?”
    He looked past me and ran the back of his hand
across his brow, leaving a trail of soot on his forehead. The heat from the
fires made me a little delirious and the pits seemed hotter than the steam from
the baths.
    “Tiro’s gone,” he said. “The keeper came through
earlier and took him and the other starters to the salt beds.”
    Just the mention of my keeper made my skin sweat. I hadn’t
seen him in the Temple and was relieved to know he’d made it out of the darkness
alive.
    “Are you feeling better?” Tal reached out his hand
as though he were going to touch my forehead. I recoiled and he dropped it.
    “Sure,” I said.
    “You don’t look like it. You were burning up. I
could barely keep you—”
    “No, I’m fine.”
    “It’s just the heat from the baths then?”
    I nodded. “Sometimes the smoke makes everything hotter.”
I turned away, trying to break the unsettling look he gave me. He hadn’t
stopped staring at my veil. “I heard about your—” I couldn’t bring myself
to say the words and he looked as far past me as he could.
    “Yes, well, I don’t know why they decided that,” he
said. “I mean, I was happy to stay, you know, like you.”
    “Celibate?”
    I could tell he smiled. “Assigned to you.”
    “Oh.” I felt a blush rise up on my already hot
cheeks. I was glad to be wearing the veil. “Em seems like a good match.” I tried
to hide how desperate I was to change the subject.
    He kicked the ash at his feet and looked over at a
blaze two away from the one beside him. “I don’t know,” he said. “We barely
know each other.”
    “Does that matter?”
    He shrugged again. “I know—I just—I
don’t know. Whatever.” He sounded defeated.
    “She seems excited.”
    “That’s good.” He tugged at his gloves, pulling one
of them back on. I compared his calloused hands to those of Onine without
realizing it. Tal’s were inelegant, imperfect, hard, but they were like mine
and that made me feel connected to him.
    “I guess—listen,” he said, “I need to talk to
you.”
    I didn’t know when Tiro would return but had to be
in the Temple when he did. “Meet me in the field.”
    Tal raised one eyebrow and shook his head. “I can
come to the shanty?”
    It was already improper for us to spend time
together now that he was reassigned. If we met in the field, no one would see
us. “Better not,” I said.
    “Right. Are