Page 34 of Drawn into Oblivion

“I’d like to know more about you, if I may,” he said after a long silence, jerking her attention back to him. “Your parents, family?”

“My family?” she echoed, her hunger placated enough for her to take a break. She took another swallow of water and thought for a moment. “Well, my father died when I was very young, so I don’t have many memories of him, but the ones I have are happy. He and my mother never fought, as far as I can recall, and he always hugged me when he came home. He had a unique laugh too. Loud and open.”

“And your mother?”

“Mama was so beautiful,” she said with a soft smile. “She’d sing me to sleep, and she fussed over me a lot, but maybe that began after my father died. I remember whenever Papa was around, she’d look at him as if he was the sunrise. All she wanted was to be happy with her family for the rest of her life.”

“They sound wonderful.” Mai looked up at him and saw a small, lonely smile.

“What of your parents?” she asked.

He shrugged, sighing heavily. “They weren’t as attentive as yours.” He paused to drink some water. “I suppose they loved me in their own way, but they hated each other.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said slowly, not sure what else to say.

“Even as a young child, I knew they were both having affairs, but I didn’t realize until I was much older that they did it to hurt each other. Theirs was an arranged joining. My father had adored my mother, but she had wanted to marry another. And when the one she loved was arranged to join with someone else, she took on lovers, sometimes more than one at a time. After half a dozen affairs, my father grew bitter and had liaisons of his own.”

“Wasn’t it possible to dissolve their union? A few couples in Toubou did so.”

“That’s the blondie ceremony. The Dark Court’s joining ceremony is permanent—barring the death of a spouse, of course. In another week’s time, identical markings will appear on Shumei and Vallen to show they are joined together. The markings will never fade so long as both of them live.”

“Markings? What sort of markings? I hadn’t heard of this,” she asked with no small amount of surprise.

“You didn’t get one of the bulletins handed out at the ceremony?” Mai shook her head. “The markings appear around the neck, but with a loveless joining, they often appear on the wrists.”

“What do they look like?”

“The pattern is different for each joined couple.”

“So your parents couldn’t join with another unless one of them died?”

He nodded. “Some people killed their spouse to be free of them.” Her jaw dropped as if a weight were attached to her chin, but Rosuke merely shrugged again. “My parents mostly ignored each other—and me. And later, my brother. When my looks matured, I…got the attention I’d craved.” Mai didn’t like something about his turn of phrase nor the way he said it while staring hard at his plate. “Vallen once told me that if he could bottle me he’d be richer than the empress.”

“There is an aura about you,” she conceded. “How did you meet the high general?”

His lips lifted in a genuine smile. “I was barely fifteen and in the middle of my first official sword lesson,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “This uppity blue-eyed boy from another Summer house was my sparring partner, and he kept telling me he was going to beat me so he could impress a girl from House Rose.”

“So you were rivals?” she asked, continuing her meal.

“At first, but it didn’t last long. We ended up so exhausted from trying to win that his father had to help us off the sparring grounds. Vallen’s mother had died not long after birthing him, but his father was always really good to him, even when we misbehaved.”

“Misbehaved?” she asked, intrigued. “Like playing pranks?” Mai was guilty of pulling a few of those. She sighed to think of how scared and contrite she’d felt whenever her parents had scolded her.

“Uh…not exactly,” he said, shifting in his seat.

Rosuke would hide the truth in this instance, if he could. He and Vallen had been dutiful house members and respectful of their seniors. But they and eventually Rosuke’s brother had ended up as unrepentant rakes. Vallen’s father had turned a blind eye to it because he’d loved his son so much. Rosuke’s parents had ignored it because they hadn’t really cared what he or Yasuke did.

All he had cared about was getting attention. He hadn’t cared about the women he’d seduced. He had only wanted more attention, more pleasure, hoping it would somehow, someday fill a hole inside him.

Then when they were both twenty-four and thus a year from the age when a joining was expected, Vallen had taken the virginity of a young woman named Miharu. A week later, she had confessed her love and he had summarily discarded her. Rosuke hadn’t seen the exchange, but Vallen had later recounted Miharu’s tearful sobs when he’d rejected her. With a wince, Rosuke remembered actually laughing when Vallen had joked of Miharu’s terrible skills in bed.

The young woman’s mother had been incensed over her daughter’s broken heart and had confronted Vallen at his father’s home one afternoon. Rosuke and Yasuke had both been there. They had acted callously toward the woman, even though she had come there to demand only an apology and no other restitution for the pain Vallen had wrought.

The woman had taken her revenge months later. By then, Miharu had joined with another, but her mother had nurtured her grudge and had planned exactly how she’d punish the three of them. Her plan had worked perfectly.

“Are you no longer hungry?” Mai asked, breaking into his thoughts. His memories faded into the recesses of his mind, and he looked at the empty dishes on her tray.

“Would you like more?”