Gryshen waited for him by the line of beasts. She greeted Sodaren, who couldn’t help but raise one eyebrow when Gryshen explained what she was there to do.
“If I may, he is very unusual, isn’t he? I never knew one of their kind to be so charming.”
“We are ALL of the same kind, Sodaren.” Gryshen rattled off her father’s words without a pause, even if she didn’t agree with what she was saying. Morfal was nothing like her. The Rakor might as well have come from a different planet. But Coss? He wasn’t the same as her, but he wasn’t like them, either. His very being made her question her prejudices like nothing else.
“Yes, I’m sorry. Of course. But—he is so very charming.” Sodaren hung on to her surprise in these words.
And as she signaled these in the language of the Rone, the iloray in discussion had pushed through the water like lifting a curtain. Gryshen felt the burning in her cheeks again, and it dropped down through her chest and belly and fin. She hadn’t said anything to be embarrassed about, but Coss didn’t know that. He didn’t receive their signal, their frequency, so there was always the underlying sense that all sorts of things might be said. This was why it was always considered rude to speak in a singular pod’s frequency in front of another tribe.
“Well”—now Sodaren spoke in the main signal—“you know where all the reins and supplies are, of course. But there was rumor of a pair of hungry sharks, unconnected and wild, that were farther out. The hunt mentioned them to me.”
“Yes, Jode had told me he spotted them. Not familiar at all. But they were very far out. We’re perfectly safe, Sodaren,” she said, although she got the feeling that Sodaren’s anxiety was somehow more connected to her riding partner than to the dangerous beasts she spoke of. Why did everyone seem to think she was incapable of self-control around this lax?
Misra was napping. Gryshen considered one of the orca, but knew it would be unwise—they were only ridden for major hunts, and were otherwise for emergency battle. She chose a narwhal, Feln, and offered the more mischievous beluga, Jeer, to Coss. Sodaren helped them saddle the beasts, tying the fibers and metal links strung together from freshly retrieved fishing nets and anchor hoists, twisting them around the horn of the narwhal while he waited. She began patting the snout and coaxing treats into the mouth of the beluga until he finally opened up and let her fasten them at the rear of his mouth.
“We’ll just be circling the perimeter of the cavern mostly—we won’t go out much farther than that.” Gryshen said this to both Coss and Sodaren. Sodaren nodded, still wearing a nervous expression, and adjusted their reins for the second time.
Coss sat astride the white whale, his long pale fin like a sleeping ghost resting alongside the beast’s great body. Jeer began to bob up and down like an impatient babe that had to relieve himself. But for all his bouncing, he barely swayed the young lax, who just smiled and petted him commandingly. Gryshen attempted to take charge, pushing forward with Feln and gesturing for the pair to follow. They swam along the edge, the rocky home to their left, wild open water to the right. Schools of fish changed in and out with the cycles of waves, and seasons of freeze and thaw, and now palm-sized silver ones fanned in between throngs of smoky purple-and-black fish.
It felt like it had been forever since Gryshen had been out in the open water like this. It was a freedom many in her pod enjoyed when they came of riding age, but it was something that she never seemed to have time for since her father’s illness. Being trained to be chieftainess didn’t leave much room for anything else. She had a sizable gulp of air just before heading to the stables, but that wasn’t what made her feel so relaxed. No, it was resting confidently on the beast’s back, sensing her moves, releasing the reins, and barely touching her horn with one hand while she stretched out the other, letting her fingertips get tickled by nipping fish, feeling the silky strands of sea grasses caress her open palm. Gryshen cocked her head back and looked up. Pools of brightness formed in the water above, and as they swam higher, she realized the dark patches existed from swaths of clouds passing overhead. She was startled to see how high they had gotten. She turned around to see Coss following close behind, taking in all that surrounded them. She had been enjoying herself so much she had nearly forgotten about him, about the twisting in her chest and the pounding in her heart whenever he was near.
But this was too close to the surface for these animals, who were trained to keep their riders beneath water unless otherwise commanded, so they tugged the ilorays back down to a comfortable level. Gryshen looked around again, and the water had clouded. She couldn’t see the cavern from here, but she knew it had to still be close. They hadn’t gone that far. Between the ceasid signaling, and the superior tracking abilities of the beluga and narwhal, being out of vision of the Rone never made any grown iloray uneasy.
She slid off Feln’s long back, tying the reins around the rest of his horn. “There. That should make it easier for you to move without them getting stuck on something.” Then she let out a high squeal and tilted her head to let the creature know she could forage for food, but to stay close.
Coss followed her lead, tying his own metal and rope around the body of the beluga, and using Jeer’s lower-pitched signal to tell him the same. Both mammals slowly turned away from their riders.
Gryshen looked up again, through the darkened sea. The tiny cousins of the silver fish occupied this space, but then parted as if to open a channel between her and the ocean. The deep blue and green shifted to puffs of lavender; the water seemed to be giving her the things she felt she had misplaced this past season. And in that moment, black hair sweeping around and a grin stretching the sides of her face, Gryshen took it all back.
Out in open water, she could finally swim again.
Without the beasts, she could fly through the water toward the surface. She didn’t have to worry about their trained protection. No guardians, no negotiations, no expectations. Just the free fluttering of her body, spinning and twirling in the water.
It warmed to the touch ever so slightly the closer she came to the sky. She broke into the air, the sun washing all her fears, all her anxieties from her. She was not near her shore. She could not see any shore from this point. Just endless sea.
Then there was Coss.
“You need this, don’t you?” he asked.
“Need what?” She shivered involuntarily.
“Open water. Escape.”
Gryshen said nothing, only focused on taking steadying gulps of oxygen.
“And this.” He held a finger to the wind that seemed to curl around them. “You go to the breathing chambers twice as much as the rest of us. You need more, don’t you?”
Gryshen allowed herself a glance upward, waiting for the judgment on his face, but all she could see was curiosity.
“Just . . .” Why was she suddenly out of breath? She was surrounded by oxygen.
“Just what?”
“Another disappointment. I can’t breathe right, I can’t fit in right, I know I can’t lead right . . . ” She tried to swallow tears along with the cool salt air. Gryshen closed her eyes, wondering why she said the things she did. She heard a splash; Coss had disappeared.
She stuck her eyes in the water and saw him, or at least his tail. He was burrowed in sea shrubs, foraging for . . . flowers?
He pulled back, his arms now full of vivid orange petals that curled. Before Gryshen could think about what he was doing, he was a blur beneath her and a splash beside her. Without a signal, he tucked the delicate flowers into plaits he wove into her hair, behind her pointed ears, nestled into knots along her jaw.