Exhaustion washed over him. If not me, then who? A thought struggled past his grief and anger, faint like a whisper. Yira. She chose to fight. You couldn’t unchoose that for her.
“If you do not wish to continue watching the rebels I will accept your decision.”
The prospect of leaving the rebels brought a flood of relief.
And what, then, of Vella? came the inevitable, unwelcome thought.
“I have devised a few methods that may restore Vella,” the Raen replied, as if the question had been directed at him. “Some show promise. It is proving an interesting challenge. My experiments have revealed some potential applications I had not expected.”
A liveliness had entered the man’s eyes. He looked like a different person and Tyen found himself wishing he could join the man in his tests and trials, or at least have the chance to watch them.
The spark faded, and the Raen’s expression became unreadable again. “You are most useful to me among the rebels.” He said nothing more, but an unspoken question hung in the air.
They’re leaderless, Tyen realised. And they don’t know it yet. “They might give up and go home now,” he said.
“They won’t,” the Raen replied, with quiet certainty. “When Keich found Yira she was contemplating the rebels’ return to Aei. He did not keep that fact to himself.”
So unless I want to abandon them all to be slaughtered, I must return to them. Tyen drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He nodded.
“Then I had better make sure nobody goes back there.”
The Raen nodded once. “I will give orders to the allies that they are not to kill the rebel leader. However, they may interpret that as a wish to have you captured instead,” he warned.
Then he disappeared.
PART THREE
RIELLE
CHAPTER 11
A great deal could be communicated with non-verbal sounds, Rielle had discovered since Baluka’s mind was no longer open to her. Appreciative ahs, questioning hums, weary sighs, and even grumbling stomachs could substitute for words. It was more complex information that forced her to fumble with and puzzle out the Traveller language.
It didn’t help that the vocabulary mixed a multitude of languages from many, many worlds, often with several meanings for a word. But the grammar was, perhaps by necessity, straightforward. The Travellers adopted words, but used them in sentences of uncomplicated structure.
The more Rielle learned, the more she was able to recognise the language when non-Travellers spoke it, and marvel at how widespread its use was. It had been adopted as a common tongue not just by those who traded with Travellers, but by people who traded with other nations and worlds. Sorcerers who travelled between worlds also learned it, and therefore those who most often dealt with them. The elites of many societies considered fluency in the Traveller tongue to be a sign of a superior class, refinement and education.
They’d be dismayed if they had heard the conversation Rielle was observing now, she mused. In all other aspects, the hide dyers Lejikh was bargaining with were rough and uncouth, some openly leering at Rielle and the Traveller women with her. That they were in a trade similar to what her family had dealt in only made her doubly uncomfortable. We dyers might have been associated with revolting smells and source materials, but that didn’t mean our behaviour had to be as unpleasant.
Yet the skins were the best she’d ever seen: soft, pliable and richly coloured, with few flaws. Her parents had dealt mainly in fabrics, but they knew how to recognise good leather, as it was often used for awning straps and ties, or they were commissioned to match fabric colours to shoes and other items. She could see why the Travellers thought it worth putting up with the tanners’ rudeness to purchase their goods.
“They’re done,” Jikari, eldest daughter of one of the Traveller families, murmured as one of the dyers made a chopping motion and Lejikh responded in kind.
“Price agreed.” Hari, the youngest of the married women, smiled at Rielle and spoke slowly. “Have you seen enough? Would you like to see the market now?”
Rielle nodded. “Yes.” She followed them out from under the canopy of hides. “When Lejikh said ‘dyers’ I thought he meant…” She plucked at the sleeve of her tunic. “… they dyed this. Like my family.”