“Yeah, like you need help with that.” Jode would laugh.
“What did Gracke say? Which leens?” Gryshen was sure she would recognize their names at least. There were little more than a hundred ilorays in that pod.
“Cennyn and Sae.”
She didn’t need to ask who did what. Cennyn was quiet, so quiet you could easily forget she was around.
And Sae? She wouldn’t be ignored. If anyone was feeling revolutionary, if anyone would be an accomplice to a pearl-take, it would be her.
“What happened to Sae?” she asked.
Her father raised a brow at her swift assessment. “She was crossed, and banished.”
“Oh no.”
“Just for a season of freeze and thaw. Gracke is more generous than I would have been.”
“How can you say that? Banishment could kill her.” Banishment was one of the most extreme punishments practiced in the sea. A ceasid was left to their own resources, without the protection of pod or pearl. Most made it back when their time was finished, but a few did not.
Crossing wouldn’t kill an iloray, but it could destroy their spirit. A chieftain would carve a deep X, crossing out the mark the criminal had received during Forms, so that whatever they had been, they were no longer. Not a healer or a hunter, just crossed. They could serve in their pod. They could change their ways, but it was a constant reminder to all. They would never really be trusted again.
Gryshen thought that might be worse than being sent away to die.
“Stealing the Rakor pearl could have wiped out an entire pod, Gryshen! You know that. Without it, they would be susceptible to disease, even famine or war. Without our pearls—”
“We will perish. I know.”
He looked annoyed at her interruption.
“Dad, it’s just . . . how do we know for certain that they need their pearl to live? Maybe they’ll just be a little weak. What if they could survive without it?”
Frall drew in water, eyes wide and white, bubbles swirling.
“Gryshen, do you know a chieftainess’s most important task?”
“Protecting the tribe?”
“We are not the warriors! And I am not their father, Gryshen!” He bellowed the signal, and it shook the schools of pale fish darting by. Frall gave a nod, like an apology, in the direction of a crab who seemed like he had lost his direction in the noise. He dropped his shoulders and looked back at Gryshen with a steadied gaze.
“We light the path that leads all ilorays home.” He paused. “We are a peaceful pod, a careful pod, a wise pod, and I am trusted to show our pod who we are, like a reflection shows the surface of the sea. I am a guide. I am their reminder.”
Gryshen floated, thinking.
Frall continued, “The Rone Pearl is our greatest, clearest memory of who we are, what we are made of, where we come from, and where we’ll return.” He offered that sad smile again. “Our oldest story tells us what to do, shows us the way, and our pearls are like great lanterns, tethers to Mother. Protect the pearl with our lives . . .”
“And it will make life with protecting,” Gryshen signaled softly.
Frall nodded, squeezing her hand.
“Father, I understand.”
“I don’t know if you do. You seem to take a lot lightly these days, Gryshen.” He was drawing himself up to resemble the kind of stately manner he once always carried himself with. Only now she could detect a wince as he did it.
Gryshen repeated herself. “I understand, Dad. I really do. So Sae is banished for two seasons. And the aide?”
“Kosten, I think his name was. They punished him twofold, Gryshie. First a Drying, and then a Ripping.”
Gryshen gasped. She had not heard of such a combination of execution.
“This sort of thing is extremely rare, kelp”—he gave her arm a gentle squeeze—“but I fear I have done you no favors by keeping you in the dark about the details, the darker details that swim alongside leaders.”
“But you would never—”
“No, I would never. Of course, I’ve never had to deal with a killer in my tribe, but I can’t fathom performing both of the most brutal forms of execution.”
“How did that work, exactly?” Gruesome curiosity had taken hold.
Frall took a small gulp. “They brought him out to a barren spot—a rock farther out from the islands, and tied him up—it was a traditional Dry at first, but after two days out of water, when he was almost dead, they didn’t wait for the sun and air to finish it. They pulled him back into the water, and just when he thought they were showing mercy, they paraded him in front of their stock of sharks to feed.” He wore a look that suggested, for the briefest moment, that he wasn’t holding the highest confidence in his ability to work with someone who could do this.
Gryshen stared.
“I know, Gryshie, it’s absolutely barbaric. But I would have done something, too. Banished him permanently, I imagine, after retrieving the pearl, and finding a new place for it.” Gryshen couldn’t argue with this, especially after what she just heard. Banishment almost seemed like a tame treat.
Frall met her eyes and nodded, as if to silently acknowledge the vast universe between his version of “doing something” and Morfal’s. “But Morfal has members of his pod bringing it back from the thief’s hiding place. So they should be safe.”
“Should?” Gryshen narrowed her eyes. “You don’t believe him, do you, Dad?”
“Well, would you?”
“You think something else happened to it?”
“I think it’s very possible that it is damaged, or missing, judging from Morfal’s behavior. But you know how I prefer to handle matters of suspicion.”
“Watch and wait.”
Frall nodded.
Gryshen paused. “What would they do if it were gone permanently?”
“Well, I would have consulted with our elders, but I think the right thing to do would be to share our pearl’s energy with them. Ours is the farthest reaching. I would talk with the Calaarns about sharing theirs, as well.”
“How would that work?”
“We would move ours to a more central location. It would be a sacrifice, a drain on our resources, but it would be the right thing.”
Gryshen smiled in pride at her father. “So who knows the pearl was stolen?”
“Morfal, of course, Coss, another aide, and the executioner,” said Frall.
The Rone tribe didn’t have an executioner. It simply never came up. Then again, they rarely had violent crime, as her father had just reminded her.
“How did he explain—”
“Morfal said he had been poaching from the food supply, and had conspired to assassinate him.”
“And no one questioned this?”
“Did those Rakor look like they’d question him?” Frall asked.
This needed no answer. Of course they didn’t question.
“So, what exactly is he after?” asked Gryshen.
“Territory, power. Listen, I don’t mean to cut this short, but Apocay will be here soon to check on me after last night.”
Gryshen attempted to wash away the recollection that Apocay only appeared so often in a sleep chamber when the living were dying. He had a long, withered face, with a beaklike nose. She couldn’t really think of a time when he hadn’t appeared ancient. She also couldn’t think of a time when Apocay had spoken more than a few words to her: “Pass the seal belly, please,” or “Your father is changing course,” (dying), or “Yes, the beluga dance is impressive. Who took the last of the scallops?” His bony figure never betrayed his appetite.
“He’s so weird,” Gryshen said.
“What, you want your medicine keepers to be as charming as your brother?” Her father laughed. “Not me. I want the strange ones, the ones who are so obsessed with healing that they have no time for social graces.”