by Jae Waller
“Wotelem went to . . . but none of the Iyo ever mentioned it!”
He shrugged. “Tokoda probably kept it quiet. Not all Iyo are happy about us being here, but we told Behadul it’d only get worse with time.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Nili and her family, a few elders, anyone with relatives in the Iyo.”
“How did you get here? The eastern mountains aren’t safe—”
“I know. Wotelem told us about Suriel. We came by sea. I asked the Tamu-jouyen to help us carve canoes that could make the trip.” Fendul rubbed the black lines around his arm. “That’s why it took so long. We had to build an entire new fleet.”
I choked with laughter through my tears. “Fen, have I ever told you you’re amazing?”
He frowned as if giving that serious consideration. “No. In eighteen years, I don’t think you’ve ever said that.”
“Don’t get used to it.” I took a shuddering breath. “How did you find me?”
“Luck, to be honest. We’re just scouting. Dunehein said you were living with an itheran man and then left.” There was an odd strain to his voice. “Nili wanted to look for you as soon as we landed, but—”
“Nei!” My voice rose. “She can’t go back there. Tiernan—” A fresh wave of sobs overcame me. I flung my arms around Fendul again.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Everything. Everything’s gone wrong. I did something awful, and he’ll never forgive me, and — and I don’t have anyone else left—”
“You know I love you no matter what, Kako,” Fendul said quietly.
“Fennel . . .” I hadn’t called him that in years. “Not this time. This is too much.”
“It’s all right. Tell me when you’re ready.” He kissed my cropped hair, sending a tremor down my spine. “Come back for a few days. You still have a home with the Rin.”
I tilted my face up to him. “Nothing’s like it used to be, Fen. I’m not the same person I was when I left.”
“Neither are we.” He looked at me steadily. It reminded me of his crow form, although I no longer felt the urge to throw sharp things at him. “I wouldn’t ask you to come back if nothing had changed.”
The thought of being somewhere I belonged was like a gentle thread pulling me forward. I glanced at Anwea, who eyed Fendul with her ears back. “I’d have to bring my horse.”
“You can bring as many horses as you want if it’ll get you to come home.”
I laughed and wiped my eyes. “Fine. Just for a few days.”
•
I pried Fendul for news on the way, but he kept to simple things. Good hunts, bad storms. One birth in the Rin, two deaths, three attunings. Someone had married a Tamu canoe carver and stayed in their settlement at Tamun Dael. Fendul’s attention seemed to be everywhere at once — the sky, the sea, the dark smudge that was South Iyun Bel in the distance.
We stopped along the cliffs so I could gather my things and change clothes. I was relieved the rash on my arms had faded. As I stuffed the empty brånnvin flask into my carryframe, hoping Fendul didn’t notice, a thought occurred to me. “When did you land?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
The boats must’ve passed while I slept off my hangover. If I’d gone swimming a few hours earlier, found the Rin sooner — I pushed that out of my head. That kind of thinking would take me down the same path as wondering about shoirdrygen.
The jouyen was camped two hours north of Toel Ginu where mountains smoothed into a plateau. I saw people before I could hear them, gathered between stands of blue-green salt spruce and twisted shore pine. A heavy storm hit the area some months ago, leaving the bluff criss-crossed with rotting logs. I tethered Anwea in the shade of a thicket and promised I’d be back.
My eyes watered as we approached, maybe from the smell of cooking fish as much as the smoke. No matter where the Rin went, the campsite always looked the same. Canvas tents roped to branches, woven bark mats, carryframes stowed in neat rows. I never wanted that to change.
But walking through Caladheå was nothing compared to the campsite. People looked up to greet Fendul and did double takes when they saw me. Some welcomed me back and some just stared. I remembered Airedain’s words like a thorn in my ribs. It’s easier to deal with strangers thinking you’re a freak than your own family.
The upside was only about half the people were Rin, and the others ignored me. I peered at their tattoos as we passed. Mostly Iyo dolphins, some Tamu sharks, a few Kae herons. “Why are so many jouyen here?”
“We landed at the Tamu docks just down the coast,” Fendul said. “The Kae traders were already in Toel Ginu. I don’t think they believed we still existed.” He looked slightly annoyed.
I didn’t need to ask where we were going. Nili’s brother, Yironem, was stacking kindling near a firepit. He didn’t have his tattoos yet, but he’d grown a palm-height and was clearly still getting used to it. He tripped over a log when he saw me and went sprawling. His best friend, Umeril, smirked.
Yironem scrambled up, wiping dirt off his breeches. “Kateiko! You came back!”
“Ai, Yiro. Good to see you.” I grinned and hugged him. “Do you know where Nili is?”
He chewed his lip. “Our tema sent her to hunt dinner, so she’s probably still here. I mean—” He glanced at Fendul and his eyes widened. “I’ll go find her.”
“Nei, you don’t have to—” I began, but he’d already scampered off, vaulting a mossy log.
“You should not be here,” said a rasping voice.
I turned to see the eldest elder, Ohijo, leaning on a cane, more hunched than ever. I was surprised she wasn’t one of the Rin who died.
“Nisali told us what you did.” She pointed a gnarled finger at me. “Calling water in that accursed wasteland. Defying the anta-saidu. You disgrace antayul and the Rin.”
Suddenly everyone around us was staring, regardless of jouyen. My hands tightened into fists. “We would’ve died if I hadn’t.”
Ohijo’s lips pulled back. Her mouth was a dark gash in her wrinkled face. “Then you would have got what you deserve.”
Fendul put his hand on my shoulder. “Kateiko has every right to be here.”
“Just you wait, Okoreni.” Ohijo’s shaking hand moved to point at him. “Those girls will bring the wrath of the saidu on us.”
“If the saidu come, we will meet them with courage,” Fendul said, raising his voice for everyone to hear. “Kateiko and Nisali crossed the wasteland to reach out to the Iyo-jouyen while we allowed history to keep us apart. Let them be an example to us all. Anyone who has an issue with them will have to deal with me.”
I was too stunned to speak. A ball of warmth coalesced in my stomach and spread through my body.
Ohijo glared at me. “Just you wait.” She stumped away.
“She did the same thing when Nili came back,” Fendul said under his breath. “I think Nili was just excited one of the elders remembered her name.”
Yironem appeared at my side panting. “I found her, Kateiko!” He grabbed my hand and dragged me around firepits, under gnarled pine branches, over low dirt shelves and crushed rock.
Nili stood amid a group of boys, twirling an arrow and chattering like a wren. They could probably only understand half her words, but none seemed to care. Taworen, a Rin drummer and her admirer from last year, was among them. I stopped for a moment just to grin and watch Nili. The droplet necklace I’d given her at the autumn equinox glittered above her shirt. Her dark brown tail of hair swung as she talked.
The moment didn’t last long. “KAKO!” Nili dropped the arrow and shoved past the boys. She hit me with the force of a boulder hurtling down a mountain. We spun, laughing and stumbling on the uneven ground. “I’m so glad you’re okay! Did the Iyo find you? Dunehein said you wouldn’t be at Tiernan’s—”
“Later
,” I interrupted.
Nili switched tack mid-sentence. “Isu and Behadul are at Toel Ginu. They’ll be back this evening. Are you staying that long? Of course you are—” She hooked her arm around Yironem’s neck and rumpled his hair. He tried to duck out of her grasp, but his protests waned at the same time Nili cut off talking.
I followed their gazes. Falwen, Officer of the Viirelei, strode toward us alongside two men with shark tattoos.
“Okoreni-Rin, a moment please,” Falwen called. He glanced past Fendul at me. “The vagrant returned. How nice.”
I wasn’t surprised when he showed up anymore. What surprised me was that when he and Fendul started speaking the Tamu dialect with the others, I realized he’d spoken Fendul’s title with a perfect Rin accent.
“You know him?” Nili whispered to me.
“Not really. He just knows everything about everyone. It’s creepy.”
She shrugged. “I admire a man who can talk faster than me.” I smacked her arm.
Fendul turned back to us. “I’m sorry, Kako. I have to go meet the scouts.” He squeezed my hand. “We’ll talk later, I promise.”
“Oh!” Nili said as the men left. “I’m supposed to be hunting. D’ya want to come, Kako? Yiro, go find Tema and tell her Kako’s back, ai?”
Yironem lifted his chin. “You can’t boss me around. I’m bigger than you now. I want to come hunting.”
“Yes I can, and nei you can’t.” She nudged him. “Go on. We’ll be back soon.”
South Iyun was quiet after the bustle of camp. The trees muffled the wind and the cries of seagulls. I could pick out the hum of rainforest life — rustling leaves, running water, croaking frogs, moss squishing under our boots. The air was hazy with moisture. Nili kept up a steady stream of whispers as we crept to a pond half-hidden by bulrushes. Their tall stems bent under the weight of their fuzzy brown heads. Tealhead ducks drifted across the cloudy green water, swirling through tangles of floating weeds.
“Are we allowed to hunt here?” I asked.
“The Iyo said it was okay. Haven’t seen itherans down this way.”
I watched Nili pull an arrow from her quiver. She moved with a fluidity that was missing last time I saw her use a bow, not long after killing the Corvittai archer in North Iyun. Her eyes followed the path of the ducks, an easy smile on her face, fingers tapping the bow.
“I was worried you’d never get it back,” I said.
Her gaze flicked to me. “I didn’t for a long time. I couldn’t hunt all winter.”
“What changed?”
“I dunno. That’s like asking how seasons change.” She lowered her bow. “Fendul helped a lot. He was . . . really good after I got home.”
“You should’ve heard him defend us to Ohijo. Never thought I’d see the day.” I held up Nurivel and gauged my sightline to the pond. “Last year I thought he permanently had itchbine stuck somewhere unpleasant.”
Instead of laughing, she frowned. “Y’okay? Your hands are shaking.”
I bit my lip. “Bloodweed poisoning.”
“Ooooooh!” Her face split into a grin. “Who was it? I want to know everything!”
“Shh! Not now, for aeldu’s sake. It’s no one you know, anyway.”
“Fine, but let me do it. You’ll screw up and lose your dagger.” Nili nocked the arrow and took aim. Her bowstring twanged. All but one duck rose screeching into the air. She fired again, and another duck tumbled into the rushes with a splash.
“So is this ongoing?” she asked as we waded in, slimy water lapping at our boots.
“Nei. Last night was the first time.” I paused. “My first time. Look, I’ll tell you about it later. I can’t think straight yet.”
“At least tell me this. Was it an itheran?”
“Yeah.”
She thrust her fist into the air. “Yes! You owe me ten pann!”
“Aeldu save you, Nili.” I pulled aside handfuls of bulrushes until I found a floating duck with an arrow in its chest. “Don’t tell anyone, ai? People already hate me enough.”
“They don’t hate you. Everyone’s just on edge. No one knows how to deal with being here.” She shook water off the other bird. “You should talk to Fendul though. I mean it.”
I kicked at the pond mud. “He has other things to worry about.”
Nili rolled her eyes. “Kako, he’s Okoreni-Rin. Looking after the jouyen is his job.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said, and she let it rest at that.
We didn’t get a chance to talk alone in camp, but I was happy having dinner with Nili’s family. Her mother, Hiyua, hugged me as tight as a knotted rope and plied me with halibut drenched in smelt oil. Fendul walked among the crowd seeming to talk to everyone but us. Aliko, a twenty-year-old Rin weaver, saw him coming and tugged down her shirt to show off the curves of her chest. Fendul’s cheeks flushed, and he veered off in another direction. I clamped a hand to my mouth as I giggled.
In the evening, Yironem and Umeril pulled Nili and me into a game of leatherball — Rin and Tamu against Iyo and Kae. It was a nice change to run without weapons at my side. I and a few other antayul pelted people with flecks of ice until we got kicked out. I was watching from behind the logs that marked the sidelines when someone called my name.
Dunehein, his wife Rikuja, and Isu walked across the camp. Rikuja held a bundle in a sling over her shoulder. I broke into a grin that couldn’t be darkened by all the clouds in the world.
“Kako!” Dunehein lifted me off the ground, almost crushing my ribs.
“Congratulations!” I gasped once I could breathe. “When did it happen? What name did you choose?”
“Nine days ago. Her name is Sihaja.” Rikuja pulled the fabric back. The baby had thin dark hair, flushed cheeks, and tiny hands that latched onto my finger. “She came earlier than expected, but we’re all fine.”
“You look exhausted.”
Rikuja laughed. She and Dunehein had new tattoos, a square cross on their forearms that would be repeated for every child. Their skin peeled over the black lines.
“We asked Fendul to keep it a secret until we got here.” Dunehein put his arm around my shoulders and kissed my hair. “I’m so glad you came.”
The shrine fire had left its mark. The skin on his left arm was twisted from his shoulder past his elbow, mottled reddish-purple and pitted like leather. His kinaru tattoo was faded and warped as if under clouded glass. The tiger lilies had almost disappeared.
I smiled up at him, a lump in my throat. “Your crest will live on through her.”
I stepped back to give them space as people began to recognize Dunehein. Once I was away from them, I couldn’t put it off any longer. I turned to Isu.
She was silent. I couldn’t work out her expression.
I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Isu. I shouldn’t have said those things or left the way I did. It wasn’t fair to you, and I . . . I’m just sorry.”
“Oh, Kateiko.” Isu drew me into an embrace. “I’m the one who needs to apologize.”
“You’re — not mad?”
“Not anymore.” Her chest shook. She was crying. “I’ve never seen Dunehein so happy. I’d do anything for Emehein to have had the same chance. You understood even when I didn’t. Nothing, not even protecting our home or our aeldu, was worth losing one of my children.”
I didn’t know what to say. I just hugged her back.
“I should’ve come south with you. When the aeldu took my son, they blessed me with you instead, my sister’s only child. Then I let you leave alone.” Isu stroked my hair. “There are so many things I should’ve done better. I never would’ve had a daughter but for you—”
“Isu—” I could barely get anything out because suddenly I was sobbing. “I wouldn’t have made it here without you. You taught me everything I needed — you did everything a mother
is supposed to—”
She gripped my shoulders. “I want you to have a good life, wherever and with whomever that is. If that’s home at Aeti Ginu, here with the Iyo, or somewhere else, know that I love you whether I’m with you or not.”
•
The other jouyen trickled off, the Iyo and Kae heading to Toel Ginu, Tamu to their camp down the coast. Rikuja and Sihaja fell asleep in Isu’s tent. Dunehein stayed up and gave me a rundown of events. Behadul and Tokoda had come to a tentative agreement, the Rin were invited to a feast tomorrow, and a new shrine was being built well away from the island that housed the charred one.
After Dunehein went to sleep, I slipped off with the excuse of checking on Anwea. She stuck her nose in my palm until I found some sugar. “I didn’t forget you,” I murmured.
My tent was still buried in my carryframe from when I left Tiernan. I sat with my back to a spruce and looked at the stars instead, tossing my bag of bloodweed tablets from hand to hand.
“Ai, Kako.” Nili bounded around the edge of the copse. I fumbled and tossed the bag too far. She scooped it up. “Is this—”
“Yeah.”
She dropped it into my outstretched palm. “Thinking of going to see him again?”
It took a second to realize she meant Parr. “Nei. Not tonight, anyway.”
She put her hands on her hips and beamed. “Fendul and I are going swimming at the Tamu docks. Wanna come?”
Cold water sounded appealing. The humidity had persisted past sunset, and Anwea seemed to be asleep. As Nili and I looped around the camp, I asked, “What about you? I guess you and Orelein didn’t get back together.”
“Nei.” Her smile faded. “Two years of sharing a bed and canoe, and then . . . he didn’t even look at me after I got home. He didn’t expect me to stay. I wasn’t sure I would. But then the Okoreni-Iyo came, and I knew I had to persuade Behadul to change things so no matter where you and I wound up, we could visit our families.
