Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 76583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“I need fresh water,” Daidu says, unfolding his legs and getting to his feet. He puts two hands at the small of his back as he stands, bones creaking. “Be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”
Our healer loves his own jokes. I bite back a sigh. “Funny.”
Then I’m alone with Vali. All is quiet for a time, with nothing but the sound of sea birds calling to one another and the gentle lap of waves against the shells of the flotilla’s turtles. There are distant murmuring voices of others, likely the chieftain’s family and my mother. Akara’s thoughts brush against mine now and then, calm and distant. She does not mind waiting, and will sun herself and enjoy the waters here. She will grow restless if I stay here long-term, and our bond will weaken without close connection, but for now all I need to do is heal up and tend to Vali.
My Vali.
I glance down at my wife. Her eyes are open and full of worry. I know my wife’s penchant to lie to protect herself, but for some reason I’m not annoyed that she might have been pretending to be asleep through my conversation with my mother. “Have you been awake long?”
“I heard everything,” she whispers. “Should we not marry? Is it wrong?”
I shake my head. “No, we will marry. I said we would.”
She hesitates, her fingers moving along the spiny fin on one of my arms. “I just…they don’t seem happy you brought me. I want your family to be pleased with me as your bride. I want you to be pleased with your bride.”
Her words irk me. After all we’ve been through, she is yet uncertain? “You don’t please me.”
She flinches, gasping. Her eyes immediately fill with tears and she sits up. “Oh.”
By Vor, will my mouth ever stop getting me into trouble? I must learn to think before I reply. “No—wait. I misspoke, Vali.”
“It’s fine,” she says, but I can hear the tears in her voice. She stands and won’t look at me, her arms hugging her chest, a length of fish-hide tied at her waist to clothe her nudity that she hates so much. “I should have known—”
“You should please yourself, not others. That is what I meant.”
“And not you.” There’s a wealth of hurt in her words.
“Just yourself,” I repeat again. “No one else matters.”
“Maybe not in your world,” she says, voice small. “But my survival has been about pleasing others.”
She’s right, and the more I talk, the more of a mess I make of this. “You have to understand, Vali. No one will be pleased you’re here. Not because you are human, or because you are you. They simply do not understand. Among my people, the young marry to bring new blood into the flotilla. They expected me to take a bride from a neighboring chieftain’s tribe, and not for a while yet.”
Vali turns and shoots me a frustrated look. “Then why demand a bride from the slave boats? I thought you were lonely!”
My tongue feels like a stone in my mouth. “Bribe. I meant to say bribe. I misspoke then, as I did now.”
Her face crumples. “Ah. I’m a fool.”
“It’s fine, Vali—”
“No, it isn’t. I’m not wanted anywhere. And this—” She gestures at my leg. “A sea dragon? When were you going to tell me, Ranan? Or is a human you didn’t want not important enough to tell these things?”
I clench my jaw. I should have told her, but I never found the right time. “I didn’t want you to worry.”
“So I get to save you and feed you and bathe you, but I’m not good enough to talk to about the important stuff? Got it. Guess I should have stopped thinking of myself as your wife. At least as a slave, I knew my place.” She tosses her hair, magnificent in her outrage, and storms out of the tent.
Vali storms back in a moment later, her hands balled into fists at her side. “I don’t know where to go.”
“Find my uncle’s husband—the human. His name is Balo and he has a thick beard. He’ll help you find a tent.” I want to do this for her, but I’m stuck here in my sickbed, and I hate it. I try to get up anyhow, because Vali shouldn’t have to face the curious, unwelcoming eyes of my people alone.
She puts a hand up. “Stay down. I don’t want to talk to you right now, and I sure don’t want to help you if you fall.”
And she storms back out again, all righteous fury.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
VALI
I’m such an idiot.
Bribe.
Not bride.
Ranan is always tongue-tied when he feels too much too fast, and of course a dangerous situation like the robbing of ships would mean he’d lose control of his mouth. I know he misspeaks and it shouldn’t hurt as much as it does.