When word of this event spread among her caste, she did not know how others would view or judge the outcome. Sgäilsheilleache had sworn guardianship, a tradition of the people far older than the Anmaglâhk. But that he had done so for humans and, worse, for the monster Magiere left everything in doubt.
What had happened between Hkuan’duv and Sgäilsheilleache was not easy to understand. Hkuan’duv had obeyed the ways of his caste and the word of Most Aged Father. But Sgäilsheilleache had stood fast by the honor and traditions of the people as a whole. What was left in the aftermath became murky ... difficult to define ... impossible to count wholly as right or wrong.
Most Aged Father wanted to know what had truly happened, before rumors spread to taint the caste. He was taking no chances—and Dänvârfij supported him. She had been ordered to take Osha into custody, to keep him from speaking to anyone else, and to bring him back for questioning.
“Am I still anmaglâhk?” he asked, catching her off guard.
“Yes, certainly.”
“Then why shut me in this room?”
He paused long enough for an answer, but she could not give one.
“I have done nothing to breach any of my oaths,” he continued, his tone sounding in warning. “I am still of my people and their ways ... older than my oath—your oath—as anmaglâhk.”
Dänvârfij remembered the exchanged glance between the soldiers. Perhaps they had not been concerned at leaving her alone with Osha. Perhaps they experienced confusion, doubt, even suppressed fear at what they had witnessed here.
In truth, Osha was not wrong.
No one else besides Most Aged Father knew even a little of what had happened in the Everfen, and he had not gained the whole account as yet. Only the two who now stood in this small cabin could give him what he needed.
Osha had not breached any code of their caste, and Dänvârfij wavered. This was the first time she had ever doubted Most Aged Father’s wisdom.
Osha strode past her for the door.
On instinct she grabbed the side of his cloak. As he whirled on her, his eyes narrowing, something fell out from beneath his cloak. Before she could look, he slapped her hand away and reached up one sleeve ... for a stiletto.
Dänvârfij back-stepped, reaching for a blade.
With a weapon in hand, Osha snarled at her, “Do not give me reason to ...”
His voice failed. His eyes glistened as if tears might come amid anger, though they did not.
“Do not give me a reason,” he whispered this time. “Not for more lost blood between us.”
There was no doubt who would die if this moment did not pass. It would not be her, though she would be the cause of it. She did not want this.
Dänvârfij slowly pulled her empty hand from her sleeve and held it up in plain sight. Osha slid his blade back up his sleeve, and it was then that Dänvârfij finally glanced down.
A worn book with a faded blue cover, perhaps made from the dyed cotton over paperboard that humans often preferred in bookmaking, lay at Osha’s feet. It was open to some middle page of its contents.
The characters written there were those of her people’s tongue but written hastily as opposed to the formal work of a scribe. Perhaps it was a journal, but anmaglâhk did not carry such things unless instructed to do so for a purpose.
“What is that?” she asked.
Osha, never taking his eyes off her, snatched up the book and shoved it back inside his cloak.
“It is personal. It has nothing to do with anything here.” He started to turn away.
“Wait. Most Aged Father orders ... requests that we do not speak to anyone of what happened until he has seen us first, heard us first. Will you obey?”
When Osha glanced back at her, his eyes were still filled with pain and anger.
“If I am not forced to speak of it,” he said slowly, “in exchange for my rightful freedom ... then I do not wish to speak of it at all! I am leaving this cabin and going up on deck, and you have no cause to stop me. Do not try. When we have returned home, make any claim you wish before the people ... like an an’Cróan. They will hear both of our stories, as is our way.”
She kept from wincing at his last reproach, for in this he was right.
Osha ripped the door open and left without a backward glance, as if daring her to stop him.
No matter whether he went up on deck, she was still guarding him. He would go before Most Aged Father to explain the actions of Sgäilsheilleache. Yet, caught between their people’s ways and those of her caste, she was at a loss under the weight of his words.
Had this been any part of what drove Sgäilsheilleache in those last moments of his life? Pulling out her word-wood, she pressed it against the ship’s hull.
“Father?”
I am here, Daughter. Do you have him in custody?
She faltered, for she did and did not. One other detail pushed forward in her thoughts.
“Father ... he carries a small text, like a journal. He guards it as something dear to him. I do not know why or what it is.”
Most Aged Father was quiet too long before he asked, A human’s journal?
With her hands braced against the windowsill of the harbormaster’s office, Dänvârfij breathed through her mouth to force calm and clarity. She was not wholly successful. Perhaps it would have been better had she never seen that book in Osha’s possession.
There was no choice now but to deal with the present.
Turning, she opened the harbormaster’s door without knocking and stepped into a large room with two desks, an enormous brass telescope, and a variety of maps covering the walls. Two humans inside were engaged in a conversation.
“I don’t think he’ll take no for an answer,” said a slender man with unkempt hair, a loose shirt, and ink-stained hands. “He’s come back twice.”
“I’ll deal with him,” said the other. “His ship’s too big to dock at the available piers, and he knows it. Sorry I left you alone so long today. Couldn’t be helped.”
Both men finally took notice of Dänvârfij’s presence, but she focused her attention on the second. He was clearly the one in charge, and she took his measure in a glance.
He was not tall, but his chest and shoulders suggested strength. He wore boots, breeches, and a belted burgundy tunic—with no visible weapons other than a cudgel-like cane leaning nearby against the closer desk. Unlike the slender one’s, his fingers were not stained with ink. He left the paperwork to others and focused on more active duties. His hair was dark, almost black, pulled into a tail at the nape of his neck, and his face was clean shaven.
As he boldly took her measure in turn, he assumed the manner of someone accustomed to being obeyed.
“Can we help you?” he asked.
Hkuan’duv had spent years teaching her the art of interrogation. He had been a master, able to keep a captive alive for days to extract every ounce of information. She knew how to use pain and fear and the promise of relief in equal measures.
This was not an interrogation. How could this human be motivated?
Dänvârfij pulled back the hood of her cloak, letting both men stare at her long white-blond hair.
“I need ... find someone, find name of ship,” she said, attempting her best Numanese as she met the harbormaster’s steady gaze. “Who left here ... maybe today or ...” She could not think of the Numanese word for “yesterday.”
The harbormaster took a step closer, frowning in puzzlement, fixating on her strange appearance, her dark skin and amber eyes—as she intended.