by Jae Waller
“Stupid how things turn out. I split up with Ore last spring because he didn’t want to leave home. Then this spring, he came to Tamun Dael with the other Rin woodcarvers to build new canoes. Pretty sure he hooked up with a Haka trader there. I dunno. We don’t really talk.”
“You seem okay without him.”
Her grin snapped back into place. “Yeah, I’ve been tapping Taworen instead.”
I snorted. “Really? I didn’t think brawny ones were your type.”
“Not many options in a small jouyen. Taworen’s fun, he’s tall enough, and he’s really good with his—”
“Please stop talking.”
Nili burst into giggles.
Fendul met us on the way carrying a lit torch. Narrow wooden steps zigzagged down the steep cliffs. I went slowly, glad the bloodweed had worn off. A breeze carried the tang of salt and seaweed. The heat faded as we neared the bottom.
I stepped onto a floating wharf anchored to the cliff. Docks faded into darkness on either side. Boats rocked around us, each one a hollowed-out rioden log with a steep bow and stern. A few had prows carved into shark heads, the curving teeth as long and sharp as daggers. All others were plain.
There was a splash followed by Nili swearing. She clung to a canoe, the water up to her chin. “Yan taku! Can’t you do something about the temperature, antayul?”
“Yeah, I’ll get right on warming the entire ocean for you.” I dropped my belt on the dock, undid the knotted straps of my shirt, kicked off my boots, and slid into the water. “Oh, kaid. That is cold.”
“Blame Fendul. This was his idea.”
I rolled onto my back and kicked off from the dock. The stars looked brighter away from the campfires. Fendul set the torch in a bracket, stripped to his breeches, and dove in.
My body slowly got used to the cold until the water felt like a blanket. We swam further and further out, competing to see who would turn back last. In the past I usually won, and Fendul would call Nili and me idiots for not giving up sooner. This time he pushed past us, long arms making graceful strokes through the waves.
Nili and I looked at each other. “Ai, Fendul!” she yelled. I flipped water over his head and heard him curse in the distance. Nili and I erupted in laughter, spluttering as seawater rushed into our mouths.
The torch guided us back to shore, a tiny beacon in all the darkness of the world. Only the taste of salt and sound of breaking waves reminded me this wasn’t home. As I drifted toward the docks, something settled into place in my head. I trusted the water to hold me up. I knew without a doubt my friends would do the same.
We pulled ourselves onto a dock, skin dripping, teeth chattering. I dried us off and we lay side by side, gazing at constellations as familiar as each other’s names. Planks creaked, boats rubbed against lichen padding, wharves rocked back and forth on the endless tide.
I told them everything. About shoirdrygen, the war as I saw it with Iannah and Airedain, my plan with Marijka and how it went so terribly wrong. I admitted I was in love with Tiernan, yet I’d slept with Parr. I even told them that Suriel wanted to reach the void because other saidu didn’t want him here. After he broke his promise not to hurt Marijka, he didn’t deserve to have secrets.
Nili couldn’t resist commenting on it all. Fendul stayed silent, but when my shaky voice trailed off, he finally spoke. “I understand.”
“What?”
“I don’t agree with all the choices you made. But I understand why you made them.”
Nili took my hand. “I’m not gonna say I understand, because all that stuff about other worlds kinda confuses me. But I still love you, Kako.”
I let out a deep breath. My heart felt a hundred times lighter.
“It took me awhile to figure things out,” Fendul said. “If you were both giving up everything just to leave the Rin, I was doing something horribly wrong as okoreni. I left you at the wasteland because I had to choose between helping you or the jouyen. You’d go forward without me. The Rin wouldn’t.”
He sighed. “I know what regret feels like. I regretted not going with you, and all the years I spent following my father’s lead. So don’t think you’re alone with your guilt, Kako. But all that brought us back together. At least that’s one good thing.”
“You brought us together, Fendul,” Nili said. “You’re the only one Behadul listens to.”
I poked Fendul’s ribs. “That’s why I was mad at you.”
He shifted next to me, and I knew he was holding his tattoo. “I’m sorry I left without saying anything. I’m not very good at admitting I’m wrong.”
“There’s something I never told you, Kako.” Nili’s voice wavered. “I almost killed that third rider because I was furious. Maika’s blood is in the ground because you were trying to end a war. That’s a lot more noble than killing someone because you’re mad.”
“I never wanted to be noble. I just wanted people to stop dying.”
“That’s never been an option,” Fendul said. “We lived through a war with roots far older than us. Now we’re on the edge of another and, honestly, I’m not sure we can avoid it. But I’m determined to make things right.”
We fell silent. Then Nili’s giggling drowned out distant seagulls. “I want to see this Parr. He must be something to look at.”
I went to push her off the dock, but Fendul leaned over me and got to her first.
31.
WINGS
The next morning, Nili and I went to a stream and came back with baskets of trout. We sat on a wind-thrown log, its dirt-caked roots resting sideways on the ground like the antlers of a toppled elk. Fendul got away from his duties long enough to help Nili gut the fish. Soon they were both up to their wrists in blood, the bucket of innards reeking in the sun. I rinsed the shimmering pink-banded fish and packed them in ice to carry to Toel Ginu for the feast.
The air felt sticky. Even the breeze off the ocean was warm. My hair clung to me in tendrils, and mist washed over us from a willow. Nili and Fendul kept stealing ice chips to rub on their necks.
“I love summer,” Nili said with a dreamy sigh. She gazed across the bluff, a half-gutted fish in her hands. A group of boys crossed the rocky ground from the north, their laughter loud and carefree. Iyo had been trickling in from Caladheå since late morning. The boys were bare-chested, tanned, gleaming with humidity.
“Me, too,” I said. We dissolved into giggles.
“Someone’s coming.” She craned her neck. “Ooh, he’s lush. And tall.”
“Everyone’s taller than you,” Fendul said without looking up.
I dropped a handful of ice chips. “Nei. Nei.” I jabbed Nili’s ribs. “Hands off. He’s a sleaze.”
She burst into laughter. “That must be Airedain!”
“Ai, Rin-girl,” he called. He stopped in front of us, thumbs hanging off his belt. The scar on his ribs where he got stabbed at Skaarnaht had faded slightly, but there was still a jagged line above his dolphin tattoo from when he fought Elkhounds after Nokohin’s death. “Okoreni-Rin. Other Rin-girl. Wondered when you’d show up.”
Nili waved the bloody fish at him. “I’m Nisali. I’ve heard about you.”
“Hopefully good things.” He winked.
I thrust out my hand. “See? That’s exactly what I mean.”
Airedain rubbed the cropped hair above his neck. “Guess I can’t call you Rin-girl now, Kateiko. You ain’t the only one anymore.”
“You’ll always be Iyo-boy to me.” I flicked icy droplets at his chest.
He twisted away and laughed, but it seemed strained. “I was getting worried. Your Antler friend came by my tema’s shop looking for you yesterday.”
“She found me eventually.” Better not to mention that Iannah and I fought. I didn’t want to explain it’d been about Parr — and partly about Airedain. “Ai, is Segowa coming to the feast tonight?”
“Yeah, she just has to close up the shop.” He glanced away as Jonalin called his name. “I gotta go. Jona wants me to meet some Rin he knew way back. We’ll catch up later, okay?”
“Sure.”
Airedain leaned forward to whisper in my ear. I smelled pine resin in his hair, spiked into its usual fin shape. “Don’t worry. You’ll always be my favourite Rin-girl.”
He flashed a brilliant grin and walked off, swinging his long legs over a fallen spruce. A shark in a sea of people. He moved like nothing mattered, shoulders thrown back, ignoring everyone around him. Nili stared at me.
I pushed an ice chip against her nose. “Stop that. It doesn’t mean anything. He flirts with anyone whose name ends in a vowel.”
She held up her bloodstained hands. “You said it, not me.”
I turned to Fendul. “Isn’t this when you say you hate his hair or something?”
But Fendul, his hunting knife halfway up a trout, stared after Airedain. “He must be the one.”
“What one?”
“The one who suggested the Iyo contact us. Tokoda said Segowa’s son came to her after the spring equinox. Apparently he threatened to go north himself if Tokoda didn’t send someone.”
“Wait. What? That was Airedain’s idea?”
I ran through the last four months in my head. All the time I spent with him in Caladheå, the night I confessed over a bottle of brånnvin how much I missed everyone but was too scared to go home, he’d kept it a secret. Probably so I wasn’t disappointed if they didn’t come.
Fendul’s knife slid the rest of the way through the fish. “I do hate his hair, though.”
•
“I can’t believe you kept that archer’s horse,” Nili said later that afternoon, hesitantly stroking Anwea’s smooth brown neck.
Most Iyo had gone to Toel Ginu to prepare for the feast. Rikuja had taken Sihaja home to rest. Dunehein, Airedain, and a few other Iyo remained, still catching up with family or friends in the Rin. Heat hung over the bluff like a blanket. I was about to saddle Anwea when I heard distant footsteps. Through the edge of the thicket, I saw people approach, one figure holding the arm of another, a third carrying a longbow and leading a black horse.
“Scouts must’ve caught an itheran,” I said. Several Rin strode across the bluff toward them. Nili and I met both groups by a cluster of boulders spotted with lichen. Anwea’s lead rope slid from my hands. “Rhonos?”
He didn’t seem surprised to see me. His wrists were bound behind his back, forehead beaded with sweat. There was a purplish bruise on his cheek, stubble on his jaw, dark half-moons under his eyes. He looked smaller without his longbow on his back.
“Found him riding in from the plain,” said a Rin scout with an ugly scar on her shoulder. Her grip was tight around Rhonos’s elbow. “Said he needs to talk to the Okorebai-Rin.”
Behadul stepped forward, his grey braid plunging down his spine, the wrinkles etched on his face like bark. He looked Rhonos over before turning to me. “You know this man?”
“Yes. He — I trust him.” I hoped Tokoda had followed through on her promise to defend me to Behadul.
Behadul’s hand stayed on his sword pommel. “Release him. Speak, itheran.”
The scout undid the rope. Rhonos rubbed his wrists. “My name is Rhonos Arquiere. I am a ranger in service of Eremur. I captured a Corvittai scout three leagues northeast who said a hundred soldiers ride to battle. Thirty archers and seventy spearmen. They will be here before the afternoon is out.”
Behadul and Fendul exchanged a look, only for a second, but it was enough. Fear gripped my insides with icy fingers.
“We have no part in this war,” Behadul said. “Suriel should not even know we are here. He cannot see so far from the eastern mountains. Our boats are unmarked, we fly no flag, and we have not seen a Corvittai scout within a day’s walk.”
“Then I found the one you missed. He mentioned the Rin nation by name, sounding furious over some past conflict. He died before explaining.”
“Something’s not right.” I glanced at the vivid blue sky, at rotting logs covered in moss, undisturbed for months. “There’s no warning storm. There hasn’t been wind from the east in days. Where’s Suriel?”
“We should take the boats and go,” said the second Rin scout, a middle-aged man holding Rhonos’s horse.
Fendul shook his head. “They attacked Rutnaast by sea. They’ll find us eventually.”
“Suriel spared the Iyo,” the female scout said. “Maybe we can negotiate.”
“That was different,” I said. “Suriel came to Toel Ginu to raze the shrine, not to butcher people. This . . . I don’t know what this is.”
“I warned you,” a voice rasped. “You girls called the wrath of the saidu on us.”
I turned to see Ohijo pointing her cane at me. More people had gathered. Isu and Dunehein were nearby, but everywhere else I looked, angry eyes fixed on Nili and me. Anwea snorted and drew her ears back.
Isu moved to stand beside us. “Suriel does not live by the same laws as other saidu.”
“Itheran,” Behadul said. “You are sure these are Suriel’s soldiers?”
Rhonos pulled a square of black cloth from his jerkin pocket. The edges were frayed as if it’d been ripped, and the white outline of Suriel’s sigil was stained with blood. “The scout wore this under his armour. Do the Corvittai still take orders from Suriel? I could not say.”
“Meaning?”
“They are mercenaries, desperate and run ragged, fed up with serving an erratic spirit. If you have no reason to believe Suriel would attack your nation, consider the possibility that they have mutinied. They are led by a man called Nonil. The scout spoke of him with great respect.”
I sucked in a breath. “Nonil — that was written on the note you found pointing to a Corvittai camp. He must be the captain they’ve been following all this time.”
Rhonos nodded. “My advice is to press your advantage in combat. They will ride through the forest to avoid Caladheå, but they do not know the terrain and their horses will be hindered.”
“We don’t have the numbers,” said the Rin scout with Rhonos’s horse. “We never should’ve left Anwen Bel.” Muttered agreement rippled around us.
“It was the okoreni’s idea to leave,” someone else said. “Let him answer for it.”
Behadul’s voice rumbled like a flood. “This has been many years coming. It is the fault of me and every okorebai since my grandfather’s grandmother who led the Rin into the First Elken War. Do not blame our youth for old mistakes.”
Fendul was right. Things had changed.
Behadul surveyed the crowd. “Dunehein, you are not Rin for me to command anymore, but I bid you ask Tokoda to send her warriors. We must hope the Iyo will reforge our alliance.”
“My place is in battle.” Dunehein folded a hand over his scarred kinaru tattoo. “Put a weapon in my hands, Okorebai. I owe that to the Rin.”
“We should send two people, anyway,” Fendul said. “The Corvittai might be watching Toel Ginu. We need the message to get through.”
“I’ll go.” Airedain slipped forward. “I’m no warrior, but I’m fast.”
Jonalin followed. “I’ll go, too.”
Behadul pointed his sword at them. “Why should I entrust my jouyen’s diplomacy to those who live among itherans?”
Airedain’s hands clenched. “We live in Caladheå ’cause it’s Iyo land. I know too many people killed by itherans. I’ll make Tokoda listen.”
“It’s all right. Send them.” Fendul laid a hand on his father’s shoulder.
Behadul cast him a brief look. “Very well. Ask any Tamu you see on the way to join us. Everyone else, back to camp.”
I stood still with Anwea as people dispersed. Nili went straight to find her family. I hadn’t even been back a day and eve
rything was getting ripped away, as if the cliffs themselves were eroding, sending me plummeting toward the ocean.
“Ai, Rin-girl.” Airedain ran a hand over his hair, took a step toward me, and stopped.
I gave him a bleak smile. “Don’t get stabbed this time, Iyo-boy.”
His expression broke. “I’m sorry. This wasn’t supposed to — I never told you—”
“Fendul told me what you did.” I drew him into a tight hug. “The Rin came knowing this might happen. I’m just glad I got to see them first.”
For the first time ever, he pressed his hands to my hair. I traced the arrowhead leaves tattooed on his arm, remembering the morning after Skaarnaht. Lucky. The aeldu weren’t looking out for us then, and I wasn’t sure our luck would hold out much longer.
Airedain pulled away. “See you on the other side.”
A second later, a lean coyote stood in front of me, its greyish fur flecked with cinnamon. It twitched its long ears and bounded south. Coyotes rarely crossed the mountains. I wondered if he’d attuned far from home. Jonalin shifted into an osprey, rose into the sky, and soared after him.
Rhonos watched them with his mouth half-open, then shook it off, seeming to recall where he was. The Rin scouts returned his longbow and horse, and allowed me to lead him aside to speak privately, but kept watch with their weapons ready.
“Where’s Tiernan?” I demanded. “You told me off for leaving him.”
“Nhys is with him at the cabin. I had business in Caladheå. Do not complain — it led me here.”
I folded my arms. “You didn’t learn anything else about Nonil?”
“No. I do not even think that is his real name.” Rhonos slid his bow into a sling on the saddle. “He may not be who you expect, given how long he has managed to hide his identity, but look for him in battle. Killing him will be the worst blow you can deal the Corvittai.”
“Wait — won’t you be here?”
“This is not my fight.”
“You came all this way and—” I stuttered to a stop. “You lecture everyone about duty, but always leave when people need you. Aren’t you a soldier, too?”
