“The gods want an offering,” Ruc replied, pouring the second barrel into the water. “This is an offering. If the Vuo Ton love blood, here is blood. Call it a gesture of good will.”
The fisher studied him warily, but held her peace. Overhead the birds had already begun to gather, a dark cloud of razor-beaks and blue throats eager for the feast.
Dem Lun had stopped paddling in order to stare at the village. “They don’t even seem to know we’re here,” he murmured.
Chua snorted, then jerked her head back the way we had come.
I turned. Immediately behind us, four canoes slid from between the reeds into the open water. The men and women in the slender boats carried short bows. They sighted down the length of arrows which were trained, as far as I could tell, directly on our throats. The arrowheads weren’t steel—they seemed to be bone or, I realized after a moment, teeth. I studied the one closest to me, then followed the shaft of that arrow back to the steady eyes behind it.
The Vuo Ton looked like just about everyone else born in Dombang: brown skin and fine black hair, high cheekbones, square jaws. Like Chua, they wore hide—crocodile or snakeskin—tight breeches, and vests that left bare their slender, muscled arms. The main difference, of course, between the people in the boats and the citizens of Dombang was the ink: dark lines slashed across faces and down arms, streaking necks and hands, as though every bit of flesh had been raked with shadow. I recognized the man aiming at me after a moment; he was the same man who had followed me through the alleys the night I’d painted my prints all over the city. He didn’t lower his bow, but to my surprise he smiled, then winked.
“I think they like us,” Ela said. The priestess had finally woken up, climbed out of the bottom of the boat, and stood between the thwarts stretching lazily, leaning to one side then the next, bending forward to touch her toes.
“People who like me tend to bring fewer bows,” Ruc replied. He was still holding the belt knife he’d used to open the casks, but after a few heartbeats wisely returned it to its sheath.
I hadn’t quite believed we would find the Vuo Ton. Especially after Hin died, it seemed possible we might return to Dombang empty-handed, defeated. Even moments earlier, as we’d shoved through the reeds, I couldn’t really imagine discovering anything on the other side of the vegetation but another channel, another leg of the watery labyrinth. It seemed it might go on forever, that the whole world had been swallowed by the delta, that we were alone in it, six people and a corpse blundering blindly forward, relying on Chua’s decades-old memories of a place and a people that might have vanished years before.
And then here they were, sliding toward us in those black canoes, smiling disconcertingly from behind their bows. The man who finally broke their silence carried a paddle rather than a bow. Unlike the others, he had remained sitting in the stern of his canoe, still as an idol as he studied us. Long lines of scar streaked his face, cross-hatching the tattoos. One of those scars had ruined an eye, leaving behind a puckered welt. The man’s other eye, however, was keen, bright with the light of the sun.
“Never them, sister,” he said finally, nodding to Chua, his voice quiet as the wind through the rushes.
She nodded to him in return. “Never them, Cam Hua.”
He smiled, shook his head, then held a finger to the empty socket. “Cam Hua died in the delta. I am the Witness of the Vuo Ton.” He spoke perfect Annurian, but an accent tugged at the edges of his words, as though the language felt strange on his tongue.
Ela raised her eyebrows speculatively at the mention of a witness. She glanced over at Kossal, who just shrugged. The title might have seemed a strange coincidence, but then, I was hardly the only creature in the world that bore watching.
Chua hadn’t taken her eyes from the seated figure. “When I left, you were barely more than a boy.”
“And you not much more than a girl.” He shrugged. “Water flows. Channels shift. In enough time, even the lost return.”
Chua shook her head. “Not to stay.”
“You should not hate the place that made you what you are.”
“What about the place that took the man I loved?” she countered. “May I hate that?”
“I saw him, this man you loved. He was not made to face the delta.”
“Of course he wasn’t. Just as you are not made to face the wide sea. And yet he braved the channels each day all the same.”
The man who called himself the Witness bowed to her then, an odd ceremonial gesture that might have been a concession or an apology. It seemed utterly out of place for someone sitting in the stern of the canoe, paddle in hand, especially given all the arrows pointed at us. When he spoke again, however, he sounded sincere.
“Each heart beats its own rhythm. You have my grief. I will plant a violet for the one you loved.”
Ruc, who had been watching silently, shifted at those words.
“Tell me about the violets,” he said quietly.
The Witness ignored him, kept his gaze on Chua. “Here are more people who do not belong in the delta.”
“They demanded to come.”
“There was a transport,” Ruc began grimly, “packed with Annurian soldiers—”
The Witness tapped a finger idly on his paddle, a bowstring hummed, then an arrow sprouted from the rail of our boat, inches from Ruc’s leg.
“Explain to him,” the older man said, “that he has not earned his voice.”
Chua’s face tightened. “He is not Vuo Ton.”
“None of them are,” the Witness replied mildly. “And yet you brought them here.”
“They were persuasive.”
“Perhaps you have forgotten our laws: the Vuo Ton allow children, and those who have earned their voice. None other. These,” he gestured with the paddle, “are hardly children.…”
“They are not here to become Vuo Ton,” Chua replied. “They want to talk to you.” She hesitated. “About the Three.”
“How will they talk with no voices?”
Chua sucked a breath between her clenched teeth. “They are made from the same stuff as my husband. They are not built to face our gods.”
“Our gods?” The Witness shook his head. “I would give the rest of my sight before offering such feeble creatures to the gods. If they want to talk, they can earn their voices.”
“How do we do that?” Ruc demanded.
“In the same way as the rest of our children,” the older man replied with a gentle smile. “There is a test.”
I found myself suddenly, massively tired of tests. The words fell out of me, tumbling through my lips before I could catch them.
“And what if we don’t?”
The Witness shrugged again. “The delta is always hungry.”
Ruc shook his head, furious but ready. “What’s the fucking test?”