Poor Xoe Voe. I like the following chapters because we begin to see
,
and
begin to chip away Xoe Voe's frost. Really chip it away, not only with intellectual challenges to consider emmotions in other people but to connect to his own. I hate how cut off he is from his own heart but I trust them including the Soracic Gods, to complete the task BUT it is really hard to watch.
“Which gods have you sensed around me?”
Not to his surprise, because Remin wasn’t surprised when this sort of thing happened to him; but in an unexpected development, Remin said the names of eleven Soracic gods. Each word fell from his tongue like water from a faucet, easily and without hesitation.
Xio Voe simply looked at him.
“They attend you constantly.” Kudorin’s voice was quiet as he looked up at Xio Voe from the floor. “You are their favored child, their blessed one.”
and
“Look at you,” Kudorin said softly, his tone exasperated but affectionate. “How do you expect them to reach you? You let nothing touch you, you let nothing in. The only way they’ve ever been able to reach you is when you’re working, when you’re open to them, when you’re seeking knowledge and inspiration. But you’re so stubbornly distant concerning anything else, they had to set water on fire and send a dove from your mouth just to get your attention.”
It had been Xio Voe’s gods? Not Anorian ones? Kudorin had refused to explain what was behind Bade’s miracle before, leaving Remin to wonder and hypothesize. Xio Voe must have wondered as much as Remin had, if not more, and Kudorin’s words got a reaction; The Heir’s eyes narrowed, fingers curling slightly. “Then you claim that Soracic gods were involved?”
“Those were your gods, Heir Voe, trying to speak to you,” Kudorin said. “It should tell you how distant you’ve been, that you did not recognize them.”
“And you, Anorian gods, were not involved?” Xio Voe asked.
Kudorin smiled. “No. They took one of my doves, but they sent her back. I had no involvement.”
and
“There are small miracles that occur every day,” Kudorin said. “I think that it’s a miracle when two people share of themselves and connect with each other and create a common bond of love and humanity and genuine understanding. And that only comes when you open yourself to another person.”
“How very Anorian of you.”
“How very Jacacean of you,” Remin said, “to place more importance on matters of the mind than matters of the heart. Perhaps the two of you can find some common ground. But that would mean learning to speak each other’s languages. Not Anorian and Jacacean, but the language of the heart and the language of the mind. The pharaoh is able to speak your language, Heir Voe, but it would behoove you to learn his.”
“And we come around again to what we agreed upon earlier,” Kudorin said. “I will teach you what I can of my view of the world, of people, of how they relate to each other, of how you can best relate to them. Your education is the best in the world, Heir Voe, but your tutors failed to teach you about the one subject everyone needs to understand: people.”
