Frall saw Gryshen’s face, and helped himself to another chunk of blue weed.
Chapter 7
“Ralo, you’re such a welcome sight,” her father signaled to a latecomer, a traveler from the Wanaa pod who had come to scout binding prospects for other ilorays. Ralo was a caretaker back at Wanaa, but on this visit he was acting as a matchmaker. This was done from time to time among pods, when everyone of binding age was scooped up and a few were left who didn’t feel amorous toward their peers, or sometimes simply to keep options open and goodwill flowing between tribes. Jode seemed to possess some kind of love sonar, since after being settled in at the table next to the royal family, Ralo immediately started asking him, in a veiled attempt at seeming casual, about what position he played in games, what his wildest catch was on a hunt, and would he describe his eyes as more sky blue or lagoon?
Gryshen could barely contain a snicker, and even Bravis betrayed a tiny smirk as Jode took pause to seriously consider these questions. Frall beamed, patting the guest on his back. “Of course, I would encourage any of our untethered ilorays to look outside our own pod and connect with our sister tribes, but I must admit that I have a particular bias with yours.”
He didn’t have to push encouragement—a couple of single laxes had used the questions about Jode’s hunting skills to bolster him up while bragging about their own abilities. One leen who was in an apprenticeship to be a healer begin to exclaim dramatically about a nearly healed scrape on Jode’s forearm, pulling out a pocket watch that had been gutted to contain a kind of heavy purple mud. It stained the water around them as she furiously rubbed the balm on Gryshen’s brother, warning him of the dangers of infection with properly untreated shark bites.
“It was actually from some ice I saw him bump into.” Gryshen tried to wave the purple out of her eyes as she spoke.
“Now, Gryshie, let her work.” Frall’s eyes glowed. It was clear that the hope of joyful matches for his son and the other ilorays, and the surge of energy brought on by thoughts of romance, were doing a lot for him.
So Gryshen took to just rolling her eyes for Coss to see when her brother began to elaborate. “It was a very jagged piece of ice. I wouldn’t be the first to lose an arm from something like that.”
And it took everything to keep her mouth from dropping when a tone-deaf Rone leen, tired of being ignored by Coss, began to croon a traditional Wanaa song while writhing around on the back of a very irritated beluga.
Listening politely was next to impossible, but Frall wore a straight face when he signaled to his newest visitor, “Wonderful, wonderful. Who doesn’t love a singer?”
“Ralo, how’s Hena? I haven’t seen her in so long.” Gryshen finally got down the mollusk she had nearly choked on after her father’s remark.
“Our chieftainess is who she’s always been.”
Gryshen grinned at this response. It was actually Hena’s idea to feed the beasts redshell—a shellfish that was known as a potent aphrodisiac—just before a major hunt, when the two leens were still too young to go along. The effects of the redshell took hold quickly, and made hunting preparations at first awkward, then quickly impossible. Her father had been angry—it was one of the largest planned forages for food in a season—but she could remember how he and Bravis both seemed to be suppressing smiles. Jode had openly guffawed.
“Who she’s always been?” Gryshen asked.
“Yes. A joyful and steady ruler. Pods don’t often get both in a leader, present company excluded, of course.” He nodded in Frall’s direction, who returned a polite nod. It was starkly obvious that he avoided looking in Morfal’s direction. Morfal didn’t seem to mind, or for that matter, notice. He was licking a cod’s spine with his extraordinarily long tongue in a series of mesmerizing, albeit disgusting, laps.
Gryshen agreed with his description of her friend. Hena always had an ease to her—a confidence and a comfort about herself that spread like sunlit water to those in her presence. She was a lot like Jode in this way, but beneath her ribbons of black hair, her strong build contained a cunning that Gryshen’s brother did not quite possess. Jode was clever, but Hena was crafty.
Gryshen smiled wistfully, thinking of her friend.
“When will she be joining us? I haven’t received a message from her in a season.” Hena had last sent her a carved message in slate tied around the belly of a pearl-white dolphin named Sarawa with a symbol expressing her love and support after she had learned of Frall’s illness. Gryshen was hurt that her friend had not been to visit since this greeting, even though she knew it wasn’t entirely fair for her to be upset. After all, Hena was in the same position that she was doomed to take.
“Well, I have good news,” Frall signaled to the table, looking closely at Gryshen. “Hena will be here soon. All of the pod leaders will. We’ve invited them to join our . . . territory discussion.”
Morfal glowered, slurping down a mollusk.
The hub was instantly filled with excited streams of signal. Gryshen was startled to find that, instead of being delighted, the thought of seeing her friend now made her nervous.
With Hena, it was her uncle who had occupied the throne. With no mate, and no children, she was the next in line. Her Uncle Qoah was still alive, but she was appointed chief after his mind began to float apart. Sometimes this happened with ceasids. Their bodies could withstand a lot, and lasted far longer than their human counterparts, but on rare occasions an iloray’s brain began to deteriorate before their body gave way to transition.
This was not to be viewed as shameful, and the shamans had sometimes even referred to these types as transcendent beings, because they believed that their thinking had advanced to the next existence, and their body just needed to catch up.
This didn’t make ilorays more comfortable with it. Uncle Qoah had picked one too many fights with other ilorays in Wanaa. After his third attack, in which he slashed a broken shell across the face of an iloray he thought was mocking his ideas, the elders of the tribe, along with Hena, agreed that he had to be crossed to protect the others.
He could not be trusted.
Gryshen winced as she thought of Hena’s uncle, and her last encounter with him several seasons ago. Really, it wasn’t so much an encounter, as she avoided him as much as possible, to the point of ignoring him when he began babbling about illusions.
“Lies and illusions. Lies that snare like a fisherman’s net.” He sang the words to no one in particular.
Hena just nodded to placate him as healers placed starfish on his body. Sometimes he’d get particularly anxious, and they hoped sea stars would draw out excess nervousness and leave him at peace with himself.
But Gryshen couldn’t look at him, a once wise leader now marked. She just couldn’t stand it. And this seemed to draw him to her.
“Would you care to know what I know, Princess?” He invited her. She busied herself with a loose pearl on her seaweed wrap. “I know you can hear me.”
She didn’t know what to say, and paused for too long. Now she felt even further tied into pretending. Her cheeks boiled, and at the same time it felt like a streak of ice was working its way down her spine.
“Now, now, Uncle.” Hena spoke as if soothing a child in a fit.
“Oh, Hena. Hena, let me help.” His tone had shifted to pleading.
“Let’s get you to the oxygen chamber. We need to replenish you after all that excess energy has been pulled,” one of the pod’s healers gently ordered, and led him away.