Tarashana Rachel Neumeier (top 10 motivational books TXT) 📖

decide the inGara have failed in their duty to teach you how to behave. Then I will do it myself. Go into the house and sit down.”

I nearly threw his command, and every kind of proper courtesy, in his face and walked away after all. It was not the threat that stopped me. I would not have cared for any threat. But I knew Hokino was right to expect much better manners than I had shown. Also, he so clearly expected me to obey him. Finally I reluctantly went into the house, turned to face the doorway, and sat down on one of the straw mats that covered the floor.

Hokino came in after me. He looked around, then sat down as well, on the floor as I had, facing me. Then he said, speaking directly and plainly, “Ryo, your bitterness against Aras is bad for you and bad for everyone else. It is poisoning our whole camp. Everyone disagrees about what should be done. Everyone is angry and upset. People take offense at anything, and no one can settle any dispute. The fault for all this is yours. Do not answer me. Take forty breaths to consider what I have said.”

I came very close to jumping to my feet and walking out. But there was something in his manner that held me where I was. A kind of patience, perhaps, that was hard, yet not unsympathetic. Still, I did not consider anything. I counted my breaths, twenty and twenty again, and then I said forcefully, “You know what he did! And you say I am too angry and the fault is mine!”

“I do know,” Hokino agreed. “Aras confessed everything to Garoyo. Your brother might have killed him, but Geras put himself between them and argued that this was not a matter the warleader of the inGara should judge. Iro said Geras was right—”

“Iro!”

“As I say. Iro said that only one man has the right to judge this matter, and that man is not Garoyo inGara. I agreed. Eventually, the warleader of the inGara came to agree as well.”

I could imagine several ways that might have happened. All of them were difficult.

Hokino went on. “I do not say you are too angry, Ryo. I am the last person who would say such a thing.” He paused so that I would remember that he had also once known the tight leash of a sorcerer. Except that for him, that sorcerer had been a deadly enemy. That was different. I was not sure whether that was better or worse.

He went on. “So, no, I do not say you are too angry. I say you have held your anger too close, until it has become something more bitter than anger. You have permitted your bitterness against Aras to spill out against everyone else, until now everyone is afraid to speak to you. This is not proper behavior, as you well know. The young men are unhappy on your behalf and do not know how to approach you. You ordered Tano not to approach you again. That was not well done. He thinks he is at fault.”

I said in a low voice, “Nothing is his fault. Tell him I am sorry I spoke to him that way.”

“How is it my duty to put right your mistake with this young man? Be quiet and listen. Garoyo ordered Aras to withdraw to a distance. The Lau now live in a place some way from us. Because they are divided from us, because they know with what bitterness Ugaro regard Lau sorcery, they are afraid of what any Ugaro might do. They are right to be afraid. Garoyo ordered all inGara people to leave the Lau alone, but if you will recall, we also have an inVotaro warrior among us.”

I had entirely forgotten that. I remembered it now. Seroyo inVotaro, as Hokino himself, had stayed to watch the pass, and so been taken by the black tide at the same time. I frowned. An inVotaro warrior would not take orders from the warleader of a different tribe.

“So,” Hokino said, seeing I understood this. “Your brother earnestly asked this man to step back, but who knows how long that request will hold him? The inVotaro never said they considered Aras a friend, only that they would not press a quarrel. This is a difficult situation. Everyone is afraid and angry and upset with everyone else. Anything could happen. Aras is very unhappy—”

“He should be unhappy,” I snapped, focusing on this at once.

“—even though he would surely do the same again, given the same choice,” finished Hokino. “Be quiet, Ryo. Sit down. Take forty breaths. Twice forty. I will count. You will be quiet and consider whether any other actions would have been better.”

I had come to my feet, though without clearly deciding to get up. Hokino laced his fingers around his knee and leaned back against the couch to show he did not intend to fight me. I wanted very badly to fight him. Ordinarily I could not possibly win a fight with the inKera warleader, but I thought today I could win, and I was so furiously angry I did not care if I lost. But he stayed where he was, not guarding himself against me, so, as he would not fight, I snapped, “He used his sorcery to make me his slave! He made me leave my brother to die—and your son as well, Hokino, though you seem to take that lightly—”

“Amend your manner, young warrior. If you have something different to say, I will hear you.”

I had already stopped. Hokino’s tone on that order had been different; not forceful, but deadly serious. But I had checked myself even before he spoke, startled by and ashamed of the venom with which I had spoken. I said, much more quietly, “I was wrong to speak in that way, warleader, and