Chapter Text
It began heroically, like something out of a poem. Kamet looked up and saw the Attolian striding towards him like Miras himself. Costis was so tall, he had to duck his head to get through the low, ancient doorway that led to the innermost room of the sky god’s archive. Reyatimus, Kamet still sometimes had to remind himself, not Anet.
They had locked eyes. Well, almost—Kamet’s eyesight wasn’t that good. He had known, from the way Costis moved, who it was, so he had stared and stared until the blurry face resolved into the familiar features of his friend.
“Now?” Kamet had asked.
Costis had nodded. He was unshaven, and his cloak was stained with travel.
“Quickly. There’s no time to go back to the cottage.”
Silently, Kamet mourned the travel bag he had left packed in the front room of their little house. He hadn’t wanted to risk attention by bringing it with him to the temple each morning.
He put down his pen, and left everything behind, again.
*
But now? Kamet is many things, but he isn’t a fool. He knows how to travel rough. His expectations for the hidden safehouse had been low.
Low, but reasonable. For example, he had expected a roof.
“There is a roof,” the Attolian protests, gesturing dramatically.
Sure, there is a roof. It sags, badly, and looks so thin in places that Kamet imagines a thousand birds must have carried off parts of it to make their nests.
The floor, though—the floor is nonexistent. The floor is packed dirt, or worse.
Maybe there is something he is missing. Maybe, by daylight, there could be something to like about this dank, windowless hut, which stinks of wet wool and sheep shit.
But it’s the middle of the night, and he just can’t see it.
Kamet tries, far too late, to hide his feelings. He fails utterly. They can’t even go to bed angry, because there isn’t a bed. That’s a nice play on words, he thinks. It works just as well in Attolian as it does in Mede.
But he shouldn’t have said so. The joke comes out sarcastic, twists into an accusation. The accusations turn into insults, tumbling out of his treacherous mouth.
“I didn’t come all this way to die in a stinking, dirty hovel. We had a life at Reyatimi. People respected me. If he found me there, at least he would have known—"
The Attolian finally runs out of patience. He starts shouting, too. Kamet bursts into tears.
Frustrated, the Attolian hefts his duffle onto his shoulder.
“I’ll sleep outside.”
It’s a long night.