Chapter 10
“S—sleeping?” Gryshen asked.
Hena shook her head very slowly, her thick hair obediently matching the movement, her eyes never losing that stark wideness. “Planning.”
“Planning what? They don’t know — ”
Hena let out a burst of a sound that was somewhere between a scream and a laugh. “Word spread just after it happened, Gryshen. They are grieving your father, of course, but no, they are plotting. They’re all just trying to give you a little time to heal and go through your Forms so you can lead them into battle.”
“But no one was to say—”
“I think one of those sisters overheard something. Helda? Velda? I can never keep track of those two. I remember them from when we were little leens. They were just a bit older, huh? But they were always wretches.”
Gryshen wasn’t sure if she was horrified or relieved about her pod’s knowledge. If they all knew, then she didn’t have to tell them that in the hour of her father’s death, she had managed to lose their only hope of lasting survival.
“But no one said anything to me.”
“The future chieftainess with the dead king father? I wonder why.” Hena switched back and forth, not thinking in terms of feelings; then she would catch something in her friend’s face and soften again.
“They don’t blame you, Gree.” She reached a hand out, then stopped midwater.
“I don’t believe that.”
“Well, they do not. I’ve been listening.”
“Then it’s only because they don’t know the whole story.”
“And so what? When was a leader’s private story a tale for her tribe? They know enough.” She pursed her deep mauve lips, her dark brown hair billowing as she set her black eyes on Gryshen. “Will you tell me the whole story? Soon?”
“Soon. But first, I need you to help me get through my paces. And then I’m going to need . . . a lot more.”
“Suggestions on how to wage a war?” Hena’s face became tightly set.
“I have to get our pearl, Hena. It’s my fault it’s gone. I have to be the one to get it back. There is no other choice.”
Hena stared in that way she had sometimes, through her, past her.
“Hena? There is no other choice, right?”
Hena fingered the pale pink pearls tied around her neck, sliding them back and forth. A gift from her Uncle Qoah, when he still had his own mind. Gryshen remembered when Hena got them. Finally, Hena focused back on her.
“No, there’s not. But I will be with you. There’s no choice about that, either.”
They spoke awhile longer, circling the cavern end with quieted signals. Gryshen wished she could speak to Hena on her frequency so there was no risk of other Rone’s hearing, but this was one sacred secret between each pod.
The light hadn’t reached the water when it was time for Gryshen to wake. Bravis was posted outside her chamber, she wondered for how long, when she woke to a hushed drumming of a signal from him. Her chest felt dramatically stronger; the pain was barely noticeable now. Her gray fin had some stiffness in its winding rows of vertebrae—possibly an effect of circling around late into the night with her friend.
Gryshen rose and swam to her mirror. A pouch was waiting for her, hooked against a broken chunk of the swirled gilt frame. The small net held the rest of her medicine. A petite shell arrow, like a crude knife, was nestled beside it. A purple shell that had once housed a little creature was the last item in the collection. Gryshen reached in to fish the round shell out with her fingers for closer observation. She turned the deep-hued figure over and saw the opening with something packed inside. She made a guess, dipping in a pinky finger and pressing it into the colored stain within.
Painted masks were for sacred ceremonies. Battles, yes. In sweeter, swirled patterns around the eyes for bindings. In smudges around the heart, to make a window for the soul to move forward, in death.
And for Forms. But unlike some of its other uses, like protection in war, or blessing in a binding, the markings for Forms were an invitation for wild, an opening for the unknown to enter. They were applied alone.
Bravis remained outside while Gryshen tamed her hair into two long, tight braids. She began to feel something again as she prepared. The silence before the pod awoke left a space for the time coming.
Gryshen dove into the paint with two fingers, and it clung to their tips. She pressed it so hard to her cheekbones, defining the angles even further, pushing with such force that it might very well bruise.
Bravis tried to maintain a placidity to his expression, but waves of fear—and something else—kept sliding across his face in betrayal. Something like . . . grief. For a flash Gryshen considered the fact that Bravis had lost his best friend, someone who was like another father to him. It was almost as if she could relate, if it weren’t for the fact that, despite his physical age, Bravis usually acted older than Apocay, whose birth no one could remember.
He studied her, as if searching for a sign of something he could use to stop her from going forward.
“Gryshen . . . ”
“I have to—I must do this now.”
“I’m going with you as far as will be allowed.”
“All right.”
Bravis joined her in Breathing Chamber Number Three. It was empty this early. Gryshen drank the air in steady sips, letting it coat her insides. Once a she watched Bravis draw breaths from the next tube over, as if they didn’t both know he had fueled himself before meeting her. When she had finished, they turned from the chamber and swam in a nearly straight stream. Small white-and-green fish moved out of the way, their schools like fluid boats that bowed to the steady force. Gryshen passed the chambers of the still sleeping, and saw a face looking out from one of the openings. She knew the room well. She had expected her brother to be awake, watching for her. And there he was. She almost sped past him, but forced herself to slow down. Bravis matched her speed.
“Grysh?”
“Jode, I have to.”
“I know. I know. But here.” He reached to his left wrist to the fine meshed net of linked chain that wound along his forearm, bearing at its center a pattern of bones taken from his first hunt. He had gone with their father, and he had taken down the beast by himself, with a fin whip to its back and a spear twice to the belly. He still wore the scar on his hand from it proudly.
“You can just borrow it—for the day.” He managed to retrieve a shade of his grin for her, and it was like a gulp of fresh air.
Gryshen nodded, returning his smile with one of her own. She held out her arm as he wound the piece carefully around her own wrist.
She patted his hand gently as it rested on her arm. “Everything is going to get better. Again.” She hadn’t expected or planned to say this to anyone, least of all the brother who looked up to her, but it came out. “I promise you.”
“I believe you.” And past the sadness, beyond the grief, anyone who took a moment longer to look would see that he meant it. Optimism is built into some beings like ribcages, and Jode was one of those beings.
“Thank you, Jode.” Gryshen took his words, seeing them binding against her arm wrap as if they transformed the bracelet into the most powerful talisman. He gave a swift wave, and as she and Bravis pressed forward, she glanced back to see him bobbing just outside his doorway, watching them glide away.