“Can’t tell,” her father replied.
“Have you done this before? Try again.” Now she was curious.
“I have done it before, for the both of you. After your births.”
“And?” Gryshen asked.
Frall looked from daughter to son, and back again.
“And the results were the same.”
“So, what am I? I don’t understand.”
“Maybe you’re some weird spirit that hasn’t been discovered yet. The quick-scatter kind. The I’m-not-telling-so-go-away kind,” Jode signaled.
“The nothing kind. The nobody kind,” Gryshen replied, feeling that familiar weight return to her belly.
“Aw, Grysh, I was just kidding.”
“It’s just like with Mom.”
“What’s with Mom?” Jode asked.
“Yes, what is it, Gryshie?” her father asked.
“No connection.” She murmured, staring off past the point where the remaining black sparkles had disappeared from view.
“What? What connection?” Jode asked.
“Nothing. It’s nothing,” she quickly replied.
“Gryshen, there’s something important, something all ilorays should remember, but you especially,” signaled Frall.
“And what is that?” Gryshen asked distantly.
“There are other ways to find out what you’re made of.”
Well, obviously. The Forms spelled it out clearly for everyone, every time. She just didn’t like the promise of the tie-down she saw looming. Gryshen reminded herself again of the very thing that was making all this bearable, the only thing that was allowing her to breathe through this.
“I’ll speak with Apocay and we will set up your Forms soon.” Frall nestled the pot back into the net and turned back to face his children.
He reached out his hands. Gryshen instantly stretched back and placed her palm in his, squeezing tightly.
She saw him wince.
“Sorry.”
Frall just smiled at her, and gently cradled her fingers. He left his other hand still open.
“Okay.” Jode reached out his hand and rested it lightly on his father’s. “Are we gonna sing or chant or something now?”
Frall chuckled. “You know, son, for someone who has no difficulties showering affection on the leens, you certainly seem to have difficulty touching your relatives.”
“Look, Dad, I have no trouble holding Grysh’s hand. And I love you.” His signal sputtered briefly on those last words. “You know that. It’s just . . . I’m a full-grown lax.” He puffed out his chest in exaggerated pride. He gave a firm shake to his father’s other hand. “Better?”
Frall winced again.
“Oh. Sorry, Dad.” He looked over at his sister with a helpless expression.
“All right, you two. We haven’t really had a chance to discuss what is to come. Not since . . . since everything first happened.”
Gryshen recalled the other times their father had taken their hands like this. When their mother died, and when he told them he was dying. She found herself wishing he would find other reasons to embrace them, reasons that didn’t involve death.
“I need you to understand something. You are not being placed in your positions out of obligation.”
“But, Father, this is the only way it could go. I am your daughter, I am the firstborn, so I must do this.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her words.
“Gryshen, enough. You are honored to do this! Honored.” The edge of his signal was sharp and scraping, like the blade Jode had shown Gryshen from a recent hunt, strapped across his chest like a talisman.
“I am honored.” She repeated the words, as if by doing so she could release any pain from her father.
“And I’m speaking to both of you. Both of you. Don’t you see how pivotal your places are? Gryshen, a great chief does not rule alone. I had your mother.”
And I’ll have Coss. The thought relaxed her again.
“And after I lost her, I still had Bravis.”
Gryshen nodded obediently.
“You are blessed. You will have each other, and you’ll have Bravis. And your betrothed, one day.”
He swept what felt like a slightly longer glance in her direction. Did he know something? She peeked at Jode, who was looking downward.
“But really, most of all, most importantly, it will be the two of you. Jode”—her brother looked up at Frall at the mention of his name—“do you understand how all this pertains to you? You have a sacred place, Jode, a divine role.”
It was words like this that had hung over Gryshen’s head like the heavy crown to be heaved upon her. And now they were being poured on her brother. This was different. She had never seen him placed in charge of anything outside of beast kills and escorting visiting leens.
“I am counting on you, son.” His eyes were fixed only on Jode. “We will both be counting on you for much in the coming seasons.”
Jode looked thoughtfully at his father. He was alert. Not woozy from the burden of these words as Gryshen had felt when she had first learned how soon she would wear the mantle of responsibility.
He carried the unseen crown with strength and grace.
Gryshen was suddenly filled with a sense of overwhelming guilt.
“Well, who’s ready to eat? I’m starving.” Frall attempted to bring cheer back to the discussion.
Gryshen was heartened to see her father’s appetite returning, and the business talk of this feast gave her many opportunities to meet the glances stolen by Coss. He found all kinds of reasons and excuses to brush his hand against hers at the table, to touch her shoulder. His boldness never failed to inspire awe, especially with Morfal so near and so shrewdly aware.
But this lax was so careful. His instincts were perfect. He made his moves just as his father was preoccupied with yelling at a subservient iloray for bumping into him, or snatching a fishbone to pick his teeth with. Coss timed himself wisely with her own father, too. He even managed to whisper in her ear after several leens had just finished laying small nets of mussels in his lap, while they tried to shell them for him. He just stared at Gryshen, who prided herself on never having behaved so ridiculously.
“I want them all to know. Soon they will all know how I feel about you.”
“How we feel about each other.” She grazed his cheek with her lips as she spoke, impressed with her own daring. Gryshen looked across the table to see Bravis, who was apparently engaged in conversation with a more delicate leen from the Rakor tribe. She realized she was staring when she batted away the twinge that twisted inside, annoyed with herself for feeling it. She was sure he had seen her out of the corner of his eye. That unnamable expression seemed to twist the stone mask that was Bravis’s reliable face.
After a few furtive glances his direction, it became clear that he wasn’t about to confront her here. Of course, he wouldn’t. But would he bring it up to her father later? Gryshen saw Frall looking more relaxed than he had in some time, and for a moment she felt a bubble of hope—the kind of hope she used to grab hold of when he didn’t look sick yet, before disease had taken its toll on his body. But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t afford it, that kind of delusion. Gryshen knew she had to start letting him go.
Coss seemed to notice, too, because he kept offering Frall more puffer fish and blue weed.
“Keeps the mind sharp,” Coss told him as he passed the plant bound in a little brass net.
“As if I need the help,” said Frall.
The table chuckled, and Jode brightened at his father’s humor and appetite. But Bravis wore a small frown, and Gryshen matched it. She wasn’t so sure that he was boasting about his cleverness as much as he was underlining his inevitable exit.