Jarith chewed on his lip for a minute. “You did a brave thing with that demon, and another brave thing asking me to look for that slave girl. I suppose I don’t want you to think too ill of us.”
“Why would I?” Kihrin paused. “Morea’s sister? Talea? You’ve found out something?”
“I’m very sorry.”
Kihrin ground his teeth and looked away. “She’s dead?”
“She might as well be. She was sold to a man who counts torture as one of his favorite sports. His slaves don’t meet happy ends.”
“I could buy her.”
“You don’t have enough money.”
“You don’t know that.” Kihrin crossed his arms over his chest and bit down hard on the urge to explain how he spent his evenings.
Jarith sighed. “Yes, I do. Because it doesn’t matter how much money you have. You don’t have enough. You could be a prince of a Royal House and it wouldn’t matter. Darzin D’Mon is the kind of man who would invite you over with an offer to return her to you, and then torture her to death right there just to see the look on your face. He loves breaking spirits. It’s my shame to think that the same blood flows through his veins as mine.”
“What do you mean?”
“He is my cousin.” Jarith Milligreest shook his head. “We’re a proud family, and our history—” He gestured at the same mural. “We have lived and died in service to the Empire. He is a blight on my family’s honor, but at least he doesn’t wear the Milligreest name. Unfortunately, I can’t make him free a slave he owns by law. If he wishes to kill her, the law says he may.”
“It’s not right. He can just murder her, and you’ll do nothing?”
“She’s not legally a person and thus it is not legally murder.” Jarith shook his head. “I am sorry. If there were anyone else who had bought her, I could use my father’s name to apply some pressure. However, if I ask after her, it would mean her death. My cousin loves me as much as I love him. He’d do it out of spite.”
Kihrin shut his eyes and clenched his fists, tried to force down the taste of bile and hate. He looked up at the mural, at the fallen, twisted bodies of Quuros soldiers, dying as pawns in a game they did not understand and probably had wanted no part in. That hadn’t spared them.
Jarith clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Come. We have a pleasant library, and good strong ginger brandy, and after the day you’ve had I think you could use the latter. I will leave you there to wait until my father is ready to speak with you.”
Kihrin nodded, and allowed Jarith to lead him inside.
19: DREAM OF A GODDESS
(Kihrin’s story)
I woke, alone, lying on a reed mat in a cave full of the wet sound of water dripping off rock …
* * *
Wait, no.
I’m getting ahead of myself. I should tell you about the dream. Although I suppose it wasn’t a dream. Technically speaking, I don’t dream anymore. I haven’t dreamed since I was gaeshed. My nights are black, filled with nothing from the moment I close my eyes until I open them again in the morning.
So, this couldn’t be a dream. Not really.
But in between almost drowning and waking up again, I experienced something like a dream.
It wasn’t a hallucination, that’s for certain.
* * *
My ears roared, a rhythmic sound, advancing and receding to the fury of my heartbeat. For a moment, I thought the noise was my heart. I smiled, because it meant my heart was beating. I was still alive.
Believe me, realizing you’re still alive when you should by all rights be dead is a pleasure that never grows stale.
Then I remembered the dragon. I opened my eyes, spat out sandy grit from my mouth, and looked around. I lay on a beach, facedown, with the deafening crash of waves hitting the rocks and shore behind me. The sand underneath my fingertips was an odd, fine black, glittering, as if someone had pulverized onyx. In the distance, I saw rocks offshore, thick white mist, and the bright green of jungle forest on the other side of the beach. The jungle rose in the distance, climbing the sides of a mountain, its top obscured by thick clouds.
The beach was empty, save for me. Then I reassessed my opinion: a girl waded through the white foam of the waves.
The child looked no older than six. Her gathered Marakori shift trailed into the water as she bent over and examined rocks. Her tight mass of bright silver cloud curls glinted in the sunlight.
“Hello?” I tried standing, discovering to my pleasure I could.
I didn’t remember seeing anyone like her on the ship. She looked human. Well, she mostly looked human. Her metallic hair hinted at other origins.
As I walked toward her, I noticed something. The tide water was rushing out, but where it should have stopped and came back in again, it continued its retreat. The entire ocean had decided it wanted to be as far from the island as possible. The little girl squealed as the retreating tide revealed pools, seashells, and flopping, confused fish.
“No, that’s wrong,” I muttered. What’s wrong about that?
Stories of the ocean. Tales from Surdyeh’s knee, tales of lethal waves … “Get away from there!”
“Fishies!” The little girl pointed down.
“NO! Get away from the water!” I ran toward her. We were too close to the ocean, far too close.
As I scooped her up, the water began to build into a wall. That wall grew higher and higher while I could only stare, knowing I was too late. There was nowhere I could run to safety before the tidal wave came crashing down.
The wave was gigantic and black, formed from the darkest, deepest waters of the ocean abyss. The wave’s shadow swept over the beach, as it rose so high it blocked the light. I shut my eyes and turned away.
And stood there, notably not being washed away and not dying.
Don’t think I wasn’t grateful or anything: I was just surprised.
I looked back at the wave. The water hung suspended, perfectly still and motionless. Neither growing nor shrinking, the wave hunched over the land like a doom that had changed its mind at the last minute and hadn’t quite decided who to destroy instead.
The little girl stuck her tongue out at the tidal wave and made a rude noise.
“Are you okay?” I looked at the kid, then back at the wave. “Why isn’t it falling?”
She threw her arms around me and kissed me wetly on the cheek. She smelled sweet, like vanilla cakes floating in whipped cream. “It is! Silly. Too slow for you to see it. It’s been falling for a looong time.” The little girl wiggled, the way a cat will when it wants to be put down. I let her go and she jumped back down to the wet sand to oooh and aaah over confused starfish.
“I don’t—” I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“That’s okay. It’s been a long time for you, and you don’t remember anymore. It’s hard to see something that big or old. Most people can’t see it at all, won’t see it until the final crash. And that will happen fast. Really fast. And then—” She tossed around sand. “Everything is swept away.”
“When will that happen?”
“Not too long now.” She bent down and picked up a seashell. “A sea spiral. Pretty. No two are ever the same. Chance shapes them. The waves, the sand, the sun, the wind.”
“Who are you again?”