I cursed my drunkenness, stumbled ahead. “Any god. They could have killed us with their bows the moment we paddled into the lake. They could have killed us right after we fought the crocs. They could have poisoned your arm instead of healing it. They could have poisoned all of us at any point in the meal.” I shook my head, drawing him close. “Instead,” I went on, “they’ve fed us, given us a hut for the night.”
Hut wasn’t quite the right word. The three homes that the Witness had commandeered for us were tidier than huts—cozy domed structures of tight woven rushes, each floating on its own raft. Kossal had already claimed one, Chua the other. Ela seemed never to need to sleep, which left the third for me and Ruc. A warm wind gusted up out of the east. For just a moment, the ocean’s salt tang swept aside the quieter scents of mud and human bodies. Then the rain hit, so heavy it obliterated the sight of everything but Ruc, his face lit by the smeared light of the lanterns swaying with the wind.
“Come on,” I said, dragging him by the shoulder.
“Come where?” he demanded, his voice barely louder than the rain splattering the rafts, stippling the water with a million tiny splashes.
“Inside,” I said, gesturing toward the dim shadowed shape of our hut. “If they’ve decided to kill us, we might as well be dry.”
He shook himself free of my grip. I thought he intended to resist, but after a moment he nodded, then waved me ahead.
The thick rush roof muted the rain, dulled the sound of the drums that the Vuo Ton were still playing out on the largest rafts. The small space was dark, warm, redolent of smoke, sweat, some spice I didn’t recognize. At first I couldn’t see anything beyond Ruc’s vague form and the rain draped like a silver curtain over the outline of the low door. A single lantern whirled just outside that door, flame dancing in the wind but resolute behind the shield of scales; the red light drained into the hut, and after a few moments I could make out shapes: a line of clay jars arranged neatly by the door, fishing spears racked against the wall, half a dozen baskets hung from the rushes overhead, a mattress of reeds all the way toward the back.
The two of us stood just inside. I could hear his breathing, feel the heat pouring off of him. I lifted the clay jug I was holding.
“Drink?”
He shook his head curtly, staring out into the rain.
I draped an arm around his shoulder, drawing him close. “Maybe, just once, it’s all right to trust someone.”
Ruc stiffened inside my arm. “They murdered Dem Lun.”
“That guy,” I said, knowing the words were wrong, but lost in the haze of whatever it was I’d been smoking, “was never going to make it out of the delta anyway.”
“He didn’t have to die in the jaws of a fucking croc.”
“He didn’t have to run screaming into the water like croc food.” I dangled the jug in front of his face once more. “Try this.”
He tried to pull away, but I felt it coming and held him close.
“Let go of me,” he growled.
“Nope.”
I could see glimpses of the Vuo Ton, shadows dancing through the rain’s soft needles. The storm slackened for half a heartbeat, and I saw Ela, whirling through the crowd. Love isn’t something you experience alone, I reminded myself. It’s not something in your head. It’s in the space between two people.
“Listen,” I said, dragging Ruc around to face me. “You want me to say I’m sorry about Dem Lun.” I shook my head. “I’m not.”
“Because you ‘saw the goddess’?” he asked quietly. “Because you suddenly understand the truth? Because now you understand the need to sacrifice to the Given Land?”
I tucked a foot behind his ankle, slammed him down onto the rushes, my face inches from his own. “I was sacrificed to the delta. I spent three days out there thinking I was going to die before a boat of baffled Dombang fishers found me.”
“So now it’s time for everyone to have a turn? Your father hit you, hated you, your mother gave you up, and so it’s fine to feed someone else, someone who had nothing to do with that, straight into a croc’s mouth?”
There was a fire where my heart should have been. I half expected to see Ruc’s face burst into flame when I spoke. I could feel the coiled strength of his body beneath me, but for some reason he made no effort to break free.
“How did you want him to die?” I growled.
“Not like this.”
“It is all like this,” I said. “The stuff that comes before—the teeth or disease, the knife, the sword, the snake bite—none of that matters. None of that is death.” My breath burned in my throat. I could smell his sweat. I could feel the memory of his bloody lips on my lips as I breathed into his mouth. “Death is what stops the suffering. Death is the blessing.”
“Then why have you spent your life avoiding it?”
“You don’t know the first thing,” I growled, “about how I’ve spent my life.”
Ruc met my glare. “No. I don’t. I don’t know if you’re Kettral or Skullsworn or some fucking mercenary in league with the bastards trying to destroy Dombang.”
“If I’m trying to destroy Dombang, then what am I doing here? Why am I helping you?”
“Are you? You’ve certainly been near me, but what have you actually done?”
“Aside from cutting you out of that croc’s jaws? Aside from breathing my own breath into your mouth?”
His jaw tightened. I took his chin in my hand, pressed myself against him.
“If I wanted you dead,” I went on quietly, “all I needed to do was wait.” I slipped a knife out of its sheath. “I could kill you now.”
Ruc caught my wrist, shook his head, flipped me over onto my back. “No,” he growled. “You couldn’t.”
He twisted my wrist, and I let the knife go. It wasn’t time for the knife, not yet.
I needed to love him first.
“I came back to Dombang,” I said, “because there were things here I could not forget. Things I needed to see again.”
His breath was hot on my face. “Your goddess. The fucking myth I’ve spent the past five years trying to stamp out.”
“She is not my goddess.”
“But you believe she’s real, that she’s out there.”
“You’re real,” I said, sliding a hand behind his head, drawing his face down toward mine, so close I was breathing his breath. “You’re right here. That does not make you a god.”
His eyes were holes in his head. “What the fuck do you want, Pyrre?”
I want you.
I couldn’t say it.
Not that it wasn’t true. I wanted him in that moment, wanted to feel his weight on top of mine, his skin naked against my own. I wanted him to love me and I wanted to fall in love, but that wasn’t all. The things I wanted were legion—my mother’s throat in my hands all over again, Ananshael’s blessing, the cool air of Rassambur on my face, to see again that perfect creature that had saved me from the jaguar all those years ago—they pressed around me, beggars with hands outstretched demanding more, more.
“I want to be lighter,” I said finally.