debt pain

Lara gave me a direct, intense, silent look for a long moment. I could feel the soulgaze forming and averted my eyes before things got any more intimate.
“I want you to introduce me,” she said.
“I’m happy to advise you,” I said. “I’m not sure that it would be helpful to you for me t—”
Her voice hardened. “I am owed favors. You are obliged to repay them.”
And, deep down inside of me, something twisted with acute discomfort, as if Lara’s words had just reached into my guts and started kicking them, then waterboarded my conscience for good measure. Welling up from the Winter mantle was the sure and certain knowledge that Lara was owed, and that it was an injustice too deep to tolerate that she should not be repaid. No matter how inconvenient or personally humiliating it might be.
Wow.
So that’s what it felt like from the faerie side of things.
No wonder so many of them didn’t like me much.
“Fine,” I growled. My voice came out tense, under pressure. I rose and offered her my arm, invisibly shattering the little illusion spell around us. “Come on.”


Peace Talks Chapter 20, Page 194