Jode’s eyebrows raised to the cave ceiling. Gryshen could barely handle a quick nod in reply.
After dinner, Bravis followed her father and Morfal, along with a very skeletal lax Gryshen assumed to be his version of Bravis. Gryshen noted that he even wore the same stiff expression as their aide. But his face was harder, his eyes more calculating.
Her father was weak in his health, but strong in his convictions. She knew he’d stick to what he set up in the beginning; she knew he’d politely refuse to take sides. She just wasn’t sure how Morfal would take it.
A bubble popped before her face. Jode.
“It’ll be okay, Gryshie. Dad’s tough. Always.”
“Always?” She softly messaged back. Her eyes threatened to betray her, but she kept her tears at bay. She knew she could not let the Rakor see her as weak, and the remainder of them were coming back from the feast now.
“Gryshen,” Coss messaged as though he had known her forever. His tone was the familiar pitch, the kind ceasids used for family, for best friends, for . . . other close ties. Gryshen wanted to wrap her hair around her face. She couldn’t stay steady with this lax. Instead, she turned toward him, her loosened braid swirling to the side, baring her expression.
“Yes?”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Gryshen. I do not know why my father is the way he is. I know that he is afraid. I know that he is defensive. I know that he is angry. He has always been sort of rough, but it got so much worse after my mother passed.” His expression was grave, like a healer reporting the injury of a ceasid to the pod.
“I didn’t know you lost your mother, too. I’m so sorry.” The memories were faint, but she knew what she’d lost. And she remembered meeting his mother, once. Morfal’s bride sat beside him at an Oceas summit between all the tribes. Now she remembered why Coss had that shock of white hair. His mother had the same cropped hair as her son’s. She was just as pretty, too.
“Thanks,” he responded, and she cringed. She also knew how uncomfortable it could be, having conversations with others about your dead mom: thanking them for their apologies, tolerating their uneasy silence, bracing through insensitive remarks. Ceasids didn’t mean to be unkind, usually. So many of them viewed death as the second part of life, the natural transition, that they often forgot that loved ones suffered. They neglected the aching hearts of ilorays who lost a parent, a husband who lost his wife.
“She’s stronger than ever!” Some would say, “She’ll join us in battles to come!” or “Now he can really watch over the whole tribe, all at once. His eyes see everything now!”
Gryshen lost herself, just once, seasons after her mother’s death, when a leen in her pod said that she was happy to now have Gryshen’s mother as a spirit guardian.
“Really?” Gryshen’s signal frequency was like a wounded seal, “I would just be happy if she could hold me again.” The leen looked confused and apologized, but clearly didn’t understand how her words were hurtful.
Gryshen, confident that Coss had put up with similar remarks, just left it as sincere sympathy. Coss searched her eyes for several minutes, making her sway between painful discomfort to awkward swooning.
“It happened in the last thaw. She went exploring and ditched the guards that usually followed and protected her. She loved the way the sun shines on the water. I’m sure that’s where she was going. To this spot on the beach of an island. Thick jungle. Air so wet you feel like you’re still swimming.”
Gryshen had only heard of such places. The Rakor came from the farthest part of Oceas, the other side of this great ball they shared with landkeepers.
“The guards caught up to her, but they were too late. She had gotten caught in a mass of stingrays.”
A death like this was not uncommon, especially not for hunters. It was, however, more unique for a queen.
“Mine got caught in a whirlpool. It would have been fine, but her fin was still injured from a deep cut on the reef days before. She said it was better. It’s one of the few things I remember about her—she said she was fine to go traveling.” Gryshen could hear the confusion that still lingered in her tone. She never understood why her mother insisted she was all right. Arrogance? Naïveté? Two qualities that had been passed down to Jode. It was why Gryshen always felt such relief when he returned home from a hunting trip. Too many ilorays died before they even reached old age. Oceas held many dangers, and if you did extensive journeying, you would find that each new expanse of ocean offered a new expanse of terrors.
You could also live long and die naturally at an age past a landkeeper’s lifespan. The water held many friends, too. Nutrients in the food. Healing in the plants. If you were careful, if you had a healthy respect for the sea, she could offer tremendous protection.
Without consciously realizing it, Gryshen had been leading him through the seemingly endless twists and turns of their cavern. She had not been to the bone pit in several seasons. It was hallowed ground. It was a place where she kept a part of her heart. Gryshen was like an observer of herself, surprised that she was leading this stranger here. But something inside her knew why. Her heart ached for his heartache, and she could only dull the pain by finding a place for them to commiserate.
And then she was blinded.
Thick black enveloped her, filling her eyes, pouring into her gills. When she realized that blood was billowing into the hall, it only took her a moment to recognize the scent.
Dad.
With a piercing cry, she sent a high-pitched alarm, bouncing off every wall, every corridor of the great cavern. Gryshen followed the rich smell, gagging as it filled her gills. She focused on her father while she kept her arms outstretched, flicking her tail, feeling for an opening to the room where her father had taken Morfal.
Morfal. What did he do?
Did Coss know?
She couldn’t think about that now, she had to—there—she heard her father, “It’s all right, I’m all right, just a little blood.” She knew this was intended to reassure her. The only comfort it served was knowing he was still alive. Adrenaline kept coursing through her.
“Morfal!” she signaled down the corridor. “Get away from him!”
A pack of healers sped by her, skilled in their tracking, armed with medicines and wraps, and Gryshen followed. She saw them circling a figure. Morfal was close beside them with a lantern, his expression unreadable, Coss taking up his flank.
“Dad?” Gryshen trembled.
“You just rest. Don’t strain yourself,” Morfal ordered.
She saw Bravis floating on the other side of her father.
“He’s right,” Bravis signaled with some difficulty, not concealing his discomfort over agreeing with Morfal. He swept up beside her. “Gryshen, he had a coughing fit. It’s been an eventful day. He ripped something inside. But look”—Bravis pointed a long finger—“they’re stopping the bleeding.”
Slowly, the blood was diminishing. As the water cleared, she could see the room better by lantern light. Her father offered her and Jode, who had caught up, a smile that was weakly reassuring. Bravis offered balms, elixirs, and various tools from the healer’s satchels, bags made from swordfish stomachs. The stomachs offered just the right strength and elasticity.
Gryshen had nearly vomited when she tracked her father’s blood scent minutes before. Jode always teased her about how when she joined him on a hunt, she kept her distance throwing spears, and always found a way out of cleaning the kill.