Free 0425277054 (F) by Sharon Shinn

perceived as better than the other?”
    “Certainly, but not by the same people,” Jiramondi said. “There are families who have lived in the southern city for generations who would never move to the north—they won’t even let their sons and daughters marry across the dividing line.”
    “So then do people align themselves with the towers as well? Do they identify themselves that way—as smoke or fire? Dark or light?”
    “Broadly speaking, yes,” he answered. “Folk of flame think of themselves as people of action, and those of shadow consider themselves more thoughtful. If you claim fire as your symbol, you are likely to talk a great deal and be open about what you’re feeling. If you prefer smoke, you are more likely to listen and to keep your own counsel.”
    “It seems very limiting,” Corene commented. “And somewhat extreme.”
    “Ah, but part of our philosophy is the understanding that people are neither all one thing or all the other—no matter what their general tendencies, they are almost always leavened by the other. An outspoken man might have a very good reason to keep a secret, whereas a quiet woman might someday wail with grief or sing with joy. No matter what you are, you are also the opposite. No one is ever wholly one thing or the other.”
    “So what are you?” Corene asked casually. “Flame or smoke?”
    He spread his hands as if to indicate his whole body as well as the soul inside. “Flame, of course! In fifteen minutes of conversation, you couldn’t tell?”
    “I would think anyone who lived in a royal palace and was competing for a throne would have to be part shadow as well.”
    He raised his eyebrows and leaned back against his chair, regarding her for a moment. “That was a dagger thrust from a hand in a silken glove,” he said, but he didn’t sound offended. “You are not the innocent you appear to be.”
    She was smiling. “I have spent my life at court, learning how to pick the truth from the lie,” she said. “Or—no. Learning that it’s sometimes impossible to tell the truth from the lie, but that someone is always lying.”
    “If you were willing to be truthful about it,” he said, smiling in return, “would you consider yourself flame or shadow?”
    Her hand went to the necklace at her throat, strung with three delicate rings stamped with the glyphs for courage, clarity, and travel. “In Welce, we’re not so restricted,” she said. “We affiliate ourselves with one of five elements—fire, water, air, earth, and wood. My element is fire.”
    “I would have guessed that, I think.”
    “But there’s more to it than that. Each element corresponds to a physical component. Fire and mind. Water and blood. Air and spirit. And so on. So the sweela folk—the people of fire—are thinkers as well as lovers. They’re creative and passionate and full of imagination. But we’re never just one element or another. In fact, we go to temple to meditate ourselves back into a sense of balance. We realize that we need all of our elements, all of our physical selves, to function in harmony.”
    Jiramondi smiled again. “I think our philosophies are not so different, if you look at them closely,” he said. “It is merely a matter of discovering where you stand on a spectrum of choices and deciding how honest you want to be about those choices. In the end, it is not the color of your house or the element you select that defines who you are. That color, that element, reflects what you have chosen to be.”
    Corene listened closely. “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” she said. “But I agree with you.”
    “But I like your elemental affiliations very much,” he added. “What would I be, if I were in Welce?”
    She surveyed him a moment. A slim, handsome, charming man whose quest for power had forced him to hide a side of his personality that was strongly condemned in his corner of the world. “At first glance, someone would think you sweela,” she said