“Skin to skin contact,” Selena said, hating how small and foolish her voice sounded. “I needed it. It’s what humans do to warm one another. There was nothing untoward about it.”
Ilior shook his head, speaking as if he hadn’t heard her. “I might be more pleased if he were of a different sort, but he speaks unkindly to you and shows little respect for your station.”
“You might be more pleased about what?” Selena asked.
“About how your thoughts are filled with him now.”
Selena stiffened. “That’s not true.” Then, “He saved my life.”
Ilior shrugged. “He hasn’t been paid yet.”
Selena bit back bitter words. “It doesn’t matter what happened. He is not Aluren. And even if he were, I have the wound. No man will ever want me, not while I have it. And I wouldn’t want any man to see it. Not ever.”
Ilior leaned back in his chair, his hands folded on his chest.
Selena felt another stab of irritation knife through her. “That is satisfying to you, is it?”
He stared at her, incredulous. “There is nothing about the wound, nor the pain it has caused you that is satisfying to me.”
“I know that. I’m sorry. I just…”
“I believe he is dangerous,” Ilior declared. “He saved your life and for that I am glad but I also don’t know why, given the way he sometimes looks at you.”
Selena glared at him, ignoring the voice that told her she’d said almost the exact thing to Julian herself.
Ilior weathered her stare with a shrug and said, “I sometimes doubt his motivations for helping you.”
There was a silence. The only sounds for a moment were the creaks and groans of a ship at sea. The lantern swayed above them, back and forth.
Selena regarded her friend who had been by her side, as he was now, for the last ten years. He was the rock she set her back to, unmovable and unyielding in his devotion as a mountain is unyielding to the elements. He was there when she needed him, as she had that drunken night so long ago when the wound was new. He was always there for her, beside her, dedicating his life to her instead of pursuing one of his own. He was willing to die for her, never asking for anything for himself beyond her safety.
I sometimes doubt his motivations for helping you.
“What does Vai’Ensai mean?” she asked him suddenly. “What is the exact translation?”
It took Ilior by surprise, she could tell. His face remained placid but his lone wing twitched.
“It means The Children,” he said, a small confused smile on his lips. “Why do you ask? I had thought that was common knowledge.”
Selena held his gaze. “On Isle Nanokar, in the library, I was told that Accora was interested in a journal left by a human explorer. A Guildsman. This human spent a year on the Cloud Isles with your people. The journal hinted at a discrepancy between the translation with which we are familiar, and the actual meaning of Vai’Ensai.”
“A human living in the Cloud Isles?” Ilior mused. “That is very unusual. It must have been a very long time ago.”
“During the Age of Sedition.” She reached across the table to take his hand. “Vai’Ensai means The Children? You’re certain?”
He glanced down at her hand clutching him. “It is my native tongue. Of course I am certain,” he said. “Siblings is another word altogether. But why let the Bazira’s curiosity for some old text upset you?”
“Because I…I don’t understand why you’ve walked with me for ten years, by my side every day. For ten years, Ilior!” Selena flinched, the volume of her outburst clanging around the small galley. “I feel,” she said in a calmer tone than she felt, “that there is an imbalance between us.”
“There’s no imbalance. The only reason I haven’t told you of my past is there’s nothing to tell,” he said. “My devotion to you was born on the battlefield when you slew the Zak’reth who cut off my wing. After that maiming, I can never go back to the Cloud Isles. That way lies pain. I’ve told you this.”
“But ten years?”
“Serving you gives my life purpose. You are, and you have always been, worthy of every moment.”
“You don’t long for home? Not ever?”
He smile was sad. “Of course. But it’s not my home anymore.”
Selena thought of the memory the wound dredged up. Ilior’s words were an echo of her own and she felt a tingle of shame burn her cheeks.
“Ilior, I’m so sorry I spoke like…”
He waved her apology away, his dark eyes sad. “You looked at it, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Did you touch it?”
She nodded.
“How much?”
“My arm,” she whispered. “I lost the whole day.” She squeezed her eyes shut, as if that could blind her to the memories that lived in her mind.
“Now I understand.”
She wilted in her chair. “I’m sorry. Now that we are so close to Isle Saliz, I can’t help but feel everything is important. Even some misinterpreted translation. It’s the wound, Ilior.”
“Of course.”
“I can’t wear it much longer,” she said. “And I’m so lonely. Can I say that to you without hurting your feelings?”
“You can say anything to me,” Ilior said.
“As can you, my friend,” she said. To this, he only smiled.
Later that night, Cat slept in the bunk across from her and Selena was quickly following suit. Her eyes grew heavy as her conversation with Ilior drifted across her mind. Something about it kept pricking at her, like a burr in her boot.
Vai’Ensai means The Children, he’d said. Siblings is another word altogether.
Her eyes flew open.
“Oh, Ilior,” she said, her words whispers in the dark. “I never said the word ‘siblings’.”
Isle Saliz
After three days of fair winds and a following sea, Isle Saliz appeared on the eastern horizon, just as Julian had predicted. To the southeast, the faint lines of Saliz’s sister isle, Huerta, were just visible through the haze of mist. It was growing warmer. Selena, standing on the quarterdeck, felt the encroaching heat as a tingle over her skin. She wasn’t comfortable but she no longer feared being debilitated by her chill and was able to leave her heavy cloak in her cabin. But the heat was apparent on the faces of her companions; sweat beaded every forehead and clothing stuck to the backs of the men who toiled to sail the ship that was damaged and already short-handed of crew.
“Watch the water,” she heard Julian tell Whistle as she went to the aft rail. “If something moves in it, I want to know. Any godsdamnn thing at all.”
Now that they had arrived, Selena felt she could not watch the island approach. At the rail, she watched the Black Storm cut a gentle wake behind them. Ilior joined her.
“It is like the quiet before the battle,” he said.
“Yes,” Selena said. “I feel as if storm clouds hang over the island. Perhaps that is the danger of Isle Saliz, but now… She is there, waiting for me. Now that I speak it aloud, I believe she’s been waiting for me.”
“For what purpose?”