The Admonishments of Kherishdar
M.C.A. Hogarth

ADDICTION

evrul [ EH vrool ], (verb) — to assign blame and innocence to the proper parties; to correctly place people in the roles of victim, perpetrator, bystander and abettor. A legal term referring to a duty of priests, Guardians and those serving as judges.

      I was the last to receive the summons... I could see that the moment I stepped into the atrium. As the Head of Household years of experience had taught me to estimate the size of a gathering at a glance.
      The entire family was here.
      I was puzzled, not having called a conclave. Family affairs this size simply did not occur without my permission... and yet, here we were. I strode into the room, fully expecting an explanation.
      I had no idea how a single individual could hold a crowd without speaking a word, by the power of presence alone. But the Ai-Naidari in the middle of the atrium was doing just that. He was a stranger. By his stole he was a priest. And by his eyes, too cutting, too knowing, he could only be Kherishdar's Shame.
      Marshaling myself, I said, "Why have you come?"
      His eyes narrowed. "Do you deceive yourself, then?"
      I had not realized how rude speech sounded stripped of every caste-marker. He had the right, but it stung. "I have no idea what you could mean."
      His eyes did not drop from mine. "Who is missing from this hall, Head of Household?"
      "No one," I said.
      "Look again."
      Irritated, I scanned the crowd. "Everything is as it should be."
      "Then where is your eldest niece?"
      The family shifted, uncomfortable.
      "We don't discuss my eldest niece," I said at last.
      "So you hide your own failure."
      "She is not our failure!" I exclaimed. "She brought her ruin on herself!"
      "On herself," he repeated.
      "Her lack of discipline," I snapped. "Her intemperance. Her weakness—"
      "—her despair. Her pain, which you ignored."
      The silence this time was ugly and profound. I flipped my ears back and bared my teeth. "We are not responsible for her choices."
      "No," Shame agreed. "You are responsible for your own... which made it possible for her to go to her ruin certain that no one would miss her. Do you even know why she courted dissolution?"
      Another silence. I tasted bile.
      "I thought not."
      My sister conquered her timidity long enough to ask, "Have you Corrected her? Is she coming home?"
      "Corrected her?" Shame asked. His tone was scathing... incredulous. "She has not earned it. I am here to Correct you."
      "Pardon me," I said, stepping forward. "I can't have heard that rightly."
      "You were her family," Shame said. "Her first refuge, and you abandoned her. That she returned to her addiction is immaterial compared to the significance of your sin. I have come in her name... which is yours no longer. She will be severed from you. No honor she earns will return to you, nor any money. Her children will not enrich you. And to ensure that you understand the magnitude of your loss, you will finance her stay among the temple healers and every intervention she will ever require to remain productive."
      "But... that will be..."
      "Your duty," he said, "the duty you shirked."
      My ears flushed, but I could not look away.
     When he left the room, I didn't stop him. No one did.


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© 2007, M. C. A. Hogarth