“Oh,” said Sharrar, “you’re hunting.”
“I am hunting.”
Shursta bit his lip. He did not say, “Be careful.” He did not say, “I will not sleep until you return.” He did not say, “If the rumors are true, then bring him to justice. Let the Astrion Council sort him out, trial and judgment. Even if he proves a monster, he may not be your monster, and don’t you see, Hyrryai, whatever happens tonight, it will not be the end? That grief like yours does not end in something so simple as a knife in the dark?”
As if she heard all that he did not speak, Hyrryai turned her grin on him. All the teeth around her throat grinned, too.
“It is a nice necklace,” Sharrar observed. “I told Shursta it was a poem.”
The edges of Hyrryai’s grin softened. “Your brother has the heart of a poet. And you the voice of one. We Blodestones are wealthy in our new kin.” She turned to go, paused, then added over her shoulder, “Husband, if you drink a bowl of water upside down, your hiccups may go away.”
When she was gone, Sharrar nudged him. “Oohee, brother mine. I like her.”
“Ayup, Nugs,” he sighed. “Me too.”
It was with trepidation that Shursta introduced his sister to Laric Spectrox that night at the feast. He need not have worried. Hearing Laric’s name, Sharrar laughed with delight and raised her brown eyes to his.
“Why, hey there! Domo Spectrox! You’re not nearly as tall as Shursta made you out to be.”
Laric straightened his shoulders. “Am I not?”
“Nope. The way he writes it, I thought to mistake you for a milknut tree. Shursta, you said skinny. It’s probably all muscle, right? Wiry, right? Like me?” Sharrar flexed her free arm for him. Laric shivered a wink at Shursta and gravely admired her bicep. “Anyway, you’re not too proud to bend down, are you?”
“I’m not!”
“Good! I have a secret I must tell you.”
When Laric brought his face to her level, she seized him by both big ears and planted an enormous kiss on his mouth. Menami and Orssi Blodestone, who stood nearby, started whooping. Dumwei sidled close.
“Don’t I get one? It’s my birthday, you know.”
Sharrar gave him a sleepy-eyed look that made Shursta want to hide under the table. “Just you wait till after dinner, Dumwei, my darling. I have a special surprise for you.” She shooed him along and bent all her attention back to Laric.
“You,” she said.
He pointed to his chest a bit nervously. “Me?”
“You, Laric Spectrox. You are going to be my friend for the rest of my life. I decided that ages ago, so I’m very glad we finally got to meet. No arguments.”
Laric’s shining black face broke into a radiance of dimple creases and crooked white teeth. “Do you see me arguing? I’m not arguing.”
“I’m Sharrar, by the way. Sit beside me tonight and let me whisper into your ear.”
When Laric glanced at Shursta, Shursta shrugged. “She’s going to try and talk you into doing something you won’t want to do. I don’t know what. Just keep saying no and refilling her plate.”
“Does that really work?”
Shursta gave him a pained glance and did not answer.
Hyrryai came late to the feast and took a silent seat beside Shursta. He filled a plate and shoved it at her as if she had been Sharrar, but when she only picked at it, he shrugged and went back to listening to Laric and Orssi arguing.
Orssi said, “The Nine Islands drowned and the Nine Cities with them. There are no other islands. There is no other land. We are alone on this world, and we must do our part to repeople it.”
“No, no, see”—Laric gestured with the remnants of a lobster claw—“that lacks imagination. That lacks gumption. What do we know for sure? We know that something terrible happened in our great-great-grandparents’ day. What was it really? How can we know? We weren’t born then. All we have are stories, stories the grayheads tell us in the Hall of Ages. I value these stories, but I will not build my life on them, as a house upon sand. We call ourselves the Glennemgarra, the Unchosen. Unchosen by what? By death? By the wave? By the magic of the gods that protected the Nine Holy Cities even as they drowned, so that they live still, at the bottom of the sea? Let there be a hundred cities beneath the waves. What do we care? We can’t go there.”
Laric glanced around at the few people who still listened to him.
“Do you know where we can go, though? Everywhere else. Anywhere. There is no law binding us to Droon—or to Sif”—he nodded at Sharrar, whose face was rapt with attention—“or anywhere on this wretched oasis. We know the wind. We know the stars. We have our boats and our nets and our water casks. There is no reason not to set out in search of something better.”
“Well, cousin,” said Orssi, “no one could accuse you of lacking imagination.”
“Yes, Spectrox,” cried Arishoz, “and how is your big boat project coming along?”
Laric’s round eyes narrowed. “It would go more quickly if I had more hands to help me.”
The Blodestone brothers laughed, though not ill-naturedly. “Find a wife, cousin,” Lochlin advised him. “Breed her well. People the world with tiny Spectroxes—as if the world needed more Spectroxes, eh? Convince them to build your boat. What else are children for?”
Laric threw up his hands. He was smiling, too, but all the creases in his forehead bespoke a sadness. “Don’t you see? When my boat is finished, I will sail away from words like that and thoughts like yours. As if women were only good for wives, and children were only made for labor.”
Hyrryai raised her glass to him. Shursta reached over to fill it from the pitcher and watched as she drank deeply.
“I will help you, Laric Spectrox!” Sharrar declared, banging her fists on the table. “I am good with my hands. I never went to sea with the men of Sif, but I can swim like a seal—and I’d trade my good leg for an adventure. Tell me all about your big boat.”
He turned to her and smiled, rue twining with gratitude and defiance. “It is the biggest boat ever built. Or it will be.”
“And what will you name her?”
“The Grimgramal. After the wave that changed the world.”
Sharrar nodded, as if this were the most natural thing. Then she swung her legs off the bench, took up her cane, and pushed herself to her feet. Leaning against the table for support, she used her cane to pound the floor. When this did not noticeably diminish the noise in the hall, she set her forefinger and pinkie to her lips and whistled. Everyone, from the crones’ table where the elders were wine-deep in gossip and politics, to the children’s table where little cakes were being served, hushed.
Sharrar smiled at them. Shursta held his breath. But she merely invoked the Sing, bracing against a bench for support, then raising both fists above her head to indicate the audience should respond to her call.
“Grimgramal the Endless was the wave that changed the world.”
Obediently, the hall repeated, “Grimgramal the Endless was the wave that changed the world.”
Sharrar began the litany that preceded all stories. Shursta relaxed again, smiling to himself to see Hyrryai absently chewing a piece of flatbread as she listened. His sister’s tales, unlike Grimgramal, were not endless; they were mainly intended to please grayheads, who fell asleep after fifteen minutes or so. Sharrar’s habit had been to practice her stories on her brother when he came in from a day out at sea and was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open. When he asked why she could not wait until morning when he could pay proper attention, she had replied that his exhaustion in the evening best simulated her average audience member in the Hall of Ages.