Sea of Strangers

by Erica Cameron

  There’s their fascination with debt again. It’s an unsettlingly open-ended offer of aid from a culture that holds so much back, but turning away help is a terrible idea. Still, it’s strange to think something I’ve been able to do since I was twelve could have earned me this.

  I take the pendant. It’s solid, heavier than I expected, and has one large, raised symbol in the center of each side with smaller marks around the edge. Like all the other symbols in the hanaeuu we’la maninaio’s camp, this one brims with energy, pulling the desosa through the lines of the symbols and using what it needs before it lets the energy pass through again.

  “This is a symbol of the Shuikanahe’le, my family.” Lo’a runs her thumb along the symbol made of swooping curves and slashing lines. “And this one—” She flips the pendant over on my palm to display the other side. There’s a strong semblance between the two symbols, but they’re clearly distinct. “This indicates to other families that you are considered a friend.”

  I almost want to press it back into her hand, but a voice in my head that sounds a lot like Tessen’s stops me: accept the help, Khya. You don’t know what’s coming. So I close my fingers around the pendant. “Thank you.”

  “I have a feeling that you will do great things, and an alliance with a girl on the path to greatness is never a bad idea,” she says with a gentle smile.

  “I hope you’re right.” But if she is, and we’ve formed an alliance, I should know more about those I’m allied with, shouldn’t I? And there’s something that I think I noticed… “May I ask you something else?”

  She nods, and I’m not sure if it’s curiosity or wariness I see in her eyes.

  Exhaling slowly, I try to figure out how to word the question so that she’ll choose to answer it. Or at least not be angry with me for asking. “Osshi never shortens the name of your clan. And your language, too. None of your words are short.”

  “Yes.” Her eyes are avidly focused on my face.

  The interest I see is enough to spur me on. “Yet your name is Lo’a?”

  Her smile grows, delight widening her eyes. “Soanashalo’a. My full name is longer—and you have not earned that yet, Khya—but it is a start.”

  I open my mouth to say it, but… No. Her name is long, and it feels like mispronouncing it would be an insult. “Would you mind repeating it?”

  “Soanashalo’a,” she says again. Then, she repeats it slower, breaking it into sounds. “So-a-na-sha-lo-a.”

  “Soanashalo’a.” It doesn’t sound the same shaped by my tongue, but it’s recognizable.

  “You really do have a talent for languages.” She looks down at the patterns on her hand. “I must ask you not to tell your squad, or use my full name where anyone outside my family can hear. It is a sign of trust to share pieces of your full name.” Her eyes flick up to meet mine and hold. “And you honor that when you use all the pieces of the name you have been given.”

  “I understand.” It seems partly a sign of repect and partly a term of endearment. The latter feels especially true as I say, “Thank you, Soanashalo’a Shuikanahe’le.”

  Soanashalo’a watches me, her smile warm. Sometimes I feel as though she can guess at my thoughts. She and Tessen would be dangerous together. Dangerous for my peace of mind.

  “If not for your mission and the obvious bond you have with Tessen, I might try to convince you to stay for a while, Khya.”

  “If not for my mission and Tessen, I might agree.” Soanashalo’a’s help is a big part of why we’ve made it this far. If Yorri were already with me, I wouldn’t hesitate to ask if we could all stay.

  “But you are heading off to infiltrate Mushokeiji, and only the alua’sa liona’ano shilua’a know what you will face after that.” She approaches with a smile, and with invitation in her eyes. “Do you and Tessen share the way Miari and hers do?”

  “I… Yes, but it’s not the same—touch is hard to handle for Tessen, so he’s cautious choosing lovers.” I smile at the memories from the caves weeks ago even as I shrug one shoulder and try to explain. “Honestly, entirely exclusive partnerships are rare in Itagami.”

  “It is the same with us. A little. Probably not to the same degree as Itagami. Still…” She stops in front of me, watching me with the same intensity that I’m watching her. There’s a question on her face, one I’ve seen most recently from Tessen.

  When I nod permission, she presses her lips to mine.

  Her hands cup my face; mine fall to her waist. She’s soft in ways almost no one in Itagami is, not unfit, but far from carved in stone, and her skin is noticeably warmer than mine. And noticeably softer, too. It’s been a long time since I’ve been with a girl. Soanashalo’a is compelling, and I’ve wondered more than once what it would be like to kiss her, so I run my tongue along the seam of her lips and slide my hands under her coat to the bare skin of her back.

  And then I ease away.

  Soanashalo’a is lovely and skilled and kind, but I think Etaro and Rai were right weeks ago. They said I needed someone who fought with me, who challenged me, and whose edges fit with mine. Tessen is all those things, and when I’m kissing him, there usually isn’t room in my mind for much else.

  Soanashalo’a’s smile is rueful. “See? I would try to convince you, but it would be a wasted effort.” She brushes her hand along my short hair—which is getting longer than I like it—and then kisses me again, only a faint brush of our lips. “When this war of yours is over, you are welcome back any time. Tessen, too. The two of you are quite something to behold.”

  “He’s been…” How do I even explain Tessen? “I misunderstood him for a long time, but he’s persistent. And probably more forgiving than he should be. At least with me.”

  “Love makes that easy,” Soanashalo’a says with a smile.

  I blink, my chest warming. Love. I trust few people. I love even fewer. It’s not a word I’ve connected to Tessen even inside my own head, but I can’t say she’s wrong. Somehow, Tessen snuck up on me in plain sight.

  “I’ve never been as good at forgiving mistakes and disagreements, but I’m learning. And I’m incredibly glad to have him here.” But we’re leaving in the morning, and we have someone vulnerable to worry about. “You’re sure you don’t mind watching Ahta while we’re gone?”

  “Your little one has made friends with our own. I think they will be doing most of the watching for us.”

  The words are a relief. The hanaeuu we’la maninaio don’t seem to be as strict with their secrecy around Ahta, and I’m glad. Maybe because ey’s been cast out from Ryogo and orphaned—ey doesn’t really belong anywhere, and ey definitely isn’t loyal to Ryogo.

  “Do not worry about any of us. Focus on coming back alive.” She squeezes my hand and then steps back.

  “I’ll certainly try.” We say goodbye, and then I leave the wagon, the pendant hidden under my clothing. It’s likely no one but Tessen will even notice the thin chain visible at the back of my neck, something he proves less than five minutes after he finds me.

  “A gift?” He murmurs the question in my ear, his finger trailing the bare skin on my neck, less than an inch above the chain.

  “A promise of help from the rest of her clan if we need it.”

  “And not the only thing she gave you, either.” He runs his thumb along my bottom lip.

  “She’s good, but you’re better.” I kiss the pad of his thumb and grin as his expression shifts from amusement to arousal. “She’d be more than happy to give you the same thing if I brought you along.”

  He smirks. “Is that so?”

  “She’s more than a little interested in you, too. Or maybe us.” I lightly bite the tip of his thumb. “But somehow I don’t think that’ll happen anytime soon.”

  “I don’t know. I mean, where would we find the time?” Tessen jokes, but then his expression turns rueful. “It’s not an unappealing offer, but I told you—touch can be overpowering. And that’s with one. Two would be…”

  “You could ju
st watch,” I say with a shrug. And then start chuckling when his eyes go wide and he stops breathing for a beat. It doesn’t seem like he’ll be able to respond to that particular image anytime soon, so I take pity on him and look for something else to talk about. Everyone else is gathered nearby, so I nod toward their tight circle. “What’s this about?”

  “Tyrroh is testing Wehli,” he says quietly. With a smile, surprisingly. “Our nyshin-ma is going to be astonished when he sees the progress Wehli’s made already.”

  “What are you—” I stop short on the edge of the circle.

  Wehli is sparring with Tyrroh. He’s losing, and won’t last much longer, but he’s fighting our nyshin-ma and keeping his feet. There are bursts of his old speed, beautiful blurs of motion that slow again too soon for him to press his advantages.

  “Maybe the Miriseh were wrong about this, too. Can you think of anyone who suffered this kind of injury who was even given a chance to relearn their skills?” I ask.

  Rai shakes her head. “As soon as they’re healed, they’re placed ahdo and assigned to supervise a yonin squad. Why would anyone bother training in something no one is going to let them use?”

  Yet Wehli is proving everything we’ve been taught wrong. There’s little of his old grace and confidence in the way he wields the tudo now, but it’s been less than three weeks and he’s already come this far. At the end of the bout, Tyrroh announces that Wehli will come with us.

  Every new bobasu lie we uncover is an echo of the first blow, the moment Sanii proved to me that they’d lied about Yorri’s death. Few of their deceptions carry the same weight as the first did, but none of the others have been painless.

  This is another offense against the core of what I thought it meant to be Itagamin.

  What they told us, even when the story was a lie, is as revealing as what they erased or forced themselves to forget. At least, that’s what I tell myself every time my chest aches with the discovery of a new lie. And anger churns my stomach when I think of the hundreds or thousands of people their lies have destroyed.

  I tell myself these lies teach us what Varan and the bobasu are afraid of. I tell myself these lies are the threads that will help us unravel the control they have over Itagami and Shiara. I tell myself a lot of things.

  I only hope I’m right.

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  I thought I’d seen barren. I thought I knew what a wasteland looked liked. I was wrong.

  Neither the sun-baked rocks of Shiara nor the icy wilds of Nentoado felt nearly as desolate as Suakizu. It feels empty.

  Even in Shiara’s deserts, I could feel the desosa in the sun’s burning rays, the rocks worn by sand and storms, and the hidden seeds of growing things that would explode with life as soon as they found water. Here, the sun feels weak and impotent. The rocks feel parched and dead. There are no plants and no hidden seeds with life left in them that I can sense. No cover from the force of the icy winds. No birds or animals calling in the distance. Nothing.

  And yet, clinging to the side of one peak is a stone building, one built to practically blend in with the surroundings. The pale-gray stone is the same as the mountain, and the stepped rise of the floors mimics its natural slope. It’s the evenness of the levels that first catches my attention, making me take a second look at the peak, then the periodic gleam of light through a narrow window convinces me there’s something there beyond what I see at first glance.

  Mushokeiji. A prison for those whose crimes involve magic, and a fortress hidden from even Ryogans.

  Tsua’s eyes fill with sorrow as she gazes at the pale, bare rocks. “This place used to be so beautiful.”

  “It feels— It’s like there’s no desosa here.” Etaro looks down at eir hands, rubbing eir thumbs along the pads of eir fingers, like ey’s trying to feel the air. “I’ve never felt anything like this. It’s like my skin is too dry, and I feel like I have to work too hard to breathe.”

  “I know what you mean, but it’s not the air. The air is fine. It… I think it has something to do with the katsujo.” Tessen says it slowly. His hands are pressed flat against the pale gray rock, and his eyes are closed. “There’s desosa here, but it’s exceptionally deep, almost beyond what I can sense. I think there used to be more. The ground reminds me of the desert in the dry season. It’s soaking the energy up like rain.”

  “Osshi, when did the blight hit Suakizu?” Chio asks.

  “Fifty years or more after Varan’s exile.” He shakes his head. “How could that have anything to do with what Varan did in the mountains?”

  “No, it makes sense,” Tessen says. “Zonna described the katsujo as veins of power. Veins connect. If you cut one, you kill off the area it feeds.”

  “And if it’s not dead, just obstructed…” Sanii nods toward the expanse of rocky wilderness. “A valley fed by a trickle of water will find a way to survive for a long time, even in the middle of a desert. Life must have held on here as long as it could.”

  “And the Ryogans took advantage of what was left behind when life finally gave up.” Zonna looks out over the valley, expression grim.

  “I don’t know if we’ll be able to sneak in there,” Etaro admits a few minutes later.

  Rai nods. “We might have to storm the gates.”

  “And no way can we avoid killing some of the guards if we do that.” Rai seems mostly unbothered by the realization. “Have we stopped caring about that yet?”

  “No.” Osshi keeps his eyes on the mountain stronghold, his expression tight.

  “Fine, then what’s the plan?” Rai places her elbow on the rock, resting her chin on her hand. “I could burn something in the valley and distract the guards.”

  “We’ll keep that as a last resort.” Tsua’s voice is dry, and I can’t tell if she’s serious or not. “I’d rather save the explosive distractions for when we’re on our way out, not in.”

  “Exactly. With no way of knowing what the inside of this place looks like, we can’t begin to guess where to look for the Imaku rock.” Chio pauses. “Or what they may have done with it in the last five hundred years. We don’t want to be in a rush when we go in.”

  Wishing for half Yorri’s skill with finding solutions to complex puzzles, I stare at the mountain. Only one thing is obvious. “We need to watch, for at least a few days, specifically looking for when people leave and how they approach. And, if we can…” I turn toward Tessen. “If Tsua got you closer, could you overhear the guards?”

  “You know how stone walls can twist sound,” he begins, “but probably. It depends on where we find a hiding spot to listen from.”

  “I think that should be step one then, right nyshin-ma?” I look to Tyrroh only to find him watching me with a small smile. It softens the dark planes of his oval face, and the pride in it makes my chest warm. I’m even more pleased when he nods and moves closer to Tsua, the two of them talking quietly about logistics. As though it’s already a given they’ll follow my advice.

  “Don’t look so surprised.” Tessen is so close his shoulder brushes mine as he shifts. “Tyrroh’s trusted your judgement for a long time. Back home, I think he would’ve promoted you over Ryzo if he could’ve done it without getting in trouble for breach of precedence.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” I knew Ryzo would be the squad’s next nyshin-pa. Although I never admitted it, that was one reason I stopped seeing him, to avoid complicating his promotion.

  Tessen looks at me, fondly exasperated. “I don’t know how you can be so absolutely confident in your abilities and yet utterly ignorant of how other people see you. It’s a talent, Khya.” He brushes a kiss across my lips and pulls away before I can kiss him back. “Now excuse me. I was just volunteered for a mission I don’t know how I’m going to finish.”

  “You haven’t failed me yet, Nyshin-ten.” I tap the end of his nose and narrow my eyes. “Don’t start now.”

  “Never by choice, oh deadly one.” Smile deepening, he brushes his fingers agains
t mine as he walks away.

  Rai is watching us with a knowing smile. Instead of the tease I expect, she asks, “So what will we be doing while your favorite is off with Tsua?”

  “He’s going to be focusing on the details, so we need to find the overview. We need to know the patterns of this place, and we need to know how to infiltrate or disrupt them.”

  Rai sighs and turns back to Mushokeiji. “It’s like being back on the wall in Itagami. I’d hoped leaving home would at least mean no more boring wall shifts.” But even as she complains, Rai settles herself to watch the prison with the same careful attention she always gave the plains surrounding Itagami. In that moment, I love her more than ever for both her sharp tongue and the unflinching loyalty she hides behind it.

  “Have I said thank you yet?” I sit next to her.

  “Probably not.” She smiles without looking at me. “And even if you had, I could probably stand to hear it again.”

  “Well then, thank you.” Nothing is moving in the valley below, so I watch Rai instead. “I never wanted to pull you into this, but I am so glad you’re here.”

  “Good.” She shifts, glancing at me out the corner of her eyes. “I refuse to say you’re welcome until this is over and we’re back in Itagami.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’m trying to be nice here.”

  “Stop.” She flicks a chip of stone at me. “You being nice sounds like we’re about to die.”

  “No one is dying.” I can’t let that happen, and with the wardstones I refilled from the katsujo, I almost feel as though I have the power to follow through on that promise.

  “Guess that’ll have to be good enough,” Rai says, lifting one shoulder. “You’ve gotten us this far.”

  “Thanks. I think.”

  Smirking, she settles into the stone, making herself still the way I’ve only ever seen her on watch, all her energy and force pulled in tight and hidden away. We’ll be here for hours, so I try to do the same. I refuse to let impatience ruin everything after coming this far.