The Bone Shard Daughter

Chapter 45. Ranami Nephilanu Island

Ranami watched Phalue settle into her role as governor with the ease of an otter learning to swim. She seemed born to the role, a brash and honest leader with enough humility to ask for help when she needed it. She asked Ranami for help often, sending missives to her apartment by the docks, asking her respectfully to make the trek to the palace to offer her counsel.

The distance between them was more than physical.

This was what Ranami had been working toward with the rebellion, yet she’d told Phalue more than once that she did not want to be a governor’s wife. And she knew, every time she went to the palace and offered her counsel, that Phalue wondered where that left them.

Ranami crumpled the latest missive in her hand as she strode up the path to the palace. She wasn’t sure herself where that left them. The words Jovis had spoken to her before leaving still echoed in her mind, drumming against the inside of her skull as surely as the rain drummed against the hood of her cloak. She couldn’t trust Gio. Gio wanted Phalue dead. However inadvertently, she’d brought this danger upon Phalue, had even encouraged it. Although the rebels now seemed content with Phalue’s governorship, guilt still tugged at Ranami’s heart. She’d pushed Phalue to this, to imprisoning her own father. It didn’t sit lightly with Phalue, and Ranami could see the strain each time she looked at her.

She stuffed the missive back into her pocket. “Please come to the palace. I need your advice.” That was all it said. No mention of the matter. No playful, loving sign-off at the end. Just those words and the official governor’s seal on the outside. Half-disbelieving, she’d turned it over, expecting to see more words. Nothing. Not that she deserved any more.

The guards at the palace gates recognized her without her having to explain what she was doing there. They waved her in. In the courtyard, a retinue of workers and guards were dismantling the fountain. One of the guards smiled at her. Tythus, Phalue’s sparring partner.

“It’s good to see you back here,” he said. He left his work at the fountain.

She glanced at the stone being broken apart and hauled away. “The fountain?”

His expression sobered. “Opened its eyes again. Phalue asked me to take it apart and remove it. She’s not superstitious but, well…” He shrugged, as though that explained it. “What brings you back?”

“She wants my advice,” Ranami said, flashing the crumpled missive. “Nothing more.” The people would whisper about the fountain again, but its destruction would hopefully put rumors to rest. Still, Ranami wasn’t quite sure what to make of it herself.

Tythus fell into step beside her. “I doubt that. She talks a lot when she spars. Lets off steam in more than one way, I suppose.”

Ranami felt a trickle of curiosity. “She talks about me?”

Tythus laughed. “Constantly.” He fell silent for a moment as they strode into the palace. “I don’t agree with her all the time, and until recently I wouldn’t have even said she was a friend. But Phalue tries very hard to do the right thing.”

Rain dripped from her hood onto her collarbone. She threw back the hood of her cloak and shook her hair loose. “I know.”

“You know the way from here?”

“Is she in the governor’s suites?”

“Yes.”

Ranami strode past Tythus and made her way to the stairs. She’d give whatever advice Phalue wanted, and she wouldn’t cry. These things so often ran their course, didn’t they? People grew apart, decided they were no longer meant for one another. It had happened for Phalue’s mother and father. It had happened for Ranami’s mother and father, long before she’d even been born. And Phalue had always moved from one woman to the next until Ranami. Perhaps she’d go back to that. Perhaps she missed it. As the governor, she’d have her pick. There would be women lined up to court her. The thought made Ranami more miserable than she’d thought possible.

She supposed, in the end, they’d had a good run together. They’d toppled a corrupt governor, and that was more than most could say.

She knocked at Phalue’s door with the ghost of a smile on her lips.

Phalue’s voice emanated from within. “Enter.”

Ranami drew herself up, took in a deep breath and turned the doorknob. She’d give her opinion with all the impartiality she could muster. She owed Phalue that much at least. But when she opened the door, she had to blink several times to adjust to the dim light.

Lanterns had been placed on the floor, their flames low and inviting, casting everything in gold. Bowls had been placed at intervals, filled with water, white lilies floating atop their surfaces. Phalue sat by the window, the soft light from a cloud-covered sun limning her outline. She had a stack of books on the bench beside her, piled in a tower that reached her chest. She wore her leather armor, the set that Ranami so often admired her in.

It couldn’t have been comfortable.

Phalue set her palm on the stack of books, her expression solemn. “I read them. All of them. I would have called for you sooner, but it took me some time.”

Hope blossomed in Ranami’s chest, unfolding gently as a flower in a wet season rain. “I never expected you to.”

“But you asked me to. That should have been enough. I always thought you asked too much of me, but I’m beginning to understand: you never asked enough.”

Ranami tried to gather herself. The flowers, the lanterns – they could be for someone else. Phalue had summoned her here for advice, not a reconciliation. She would have said she wanted to reconcile in her missive, wouldn’t she? But the tears had already gathered in her eyes. She wiped them away with the flat of her hand, embarrassed. “I’m not sure what to say.”

Phalue rose and strode between the lanterns to Ranami. Each step made Ranami’s heart leap. Hesitantly, Phalue lifted a hand and touched Ranami’s cheek. “I wasn’t sure if you would come if I asked you for more.” Her breath gusted warm across Ranami’s cheek. “It’s hard to remake one’s view of the world, to admit to complacency. I thought remaking myself for you was hard enough, but doing that was something I wanted. I didn’t want to realize how much I’ve hurt the people around me, and that’s what confronting my beliefs meant. We all tell ourselves stories of who we are, and in my mind, I was always the hero. But I wasn’t. Not in all the ways I should have been. Can you forgive me?”

Ranami laughed through her tears. “Can you forgive me? I shouldn’t have pushed you.”

Phalue brought her other hand up, cupped Ranami’s cheeks. Ranami felt her pulse pounding at her neck, the way it had the first time they’d ever kissed. She’d known then that things would come between them, but she couldn’t have stopped if she’d tried. She closed her eyes, her chest aching. She heard the creak of Phalue’s armor as she bent, a sweetness rising in her throat to burst like honey on her tongue. When her lips brushed against Ranami’s, it was like the sealing of a letter – a promise that could not be unwritten. She wrapped her arms around Phalue’s broad shoulders, tangled her fingers in her hair. She sank into Phalue’s embrace, her legs weak beneath her. This was home.

Phalue pulled back a little, brushing the damp hair from Ranami’s cheeks. “You promised me before that you’d live here at the palace with me if I helped you. I won’t hold you to that promise.”

“I’ll do it,” Ranami said, breathless. She clung to Phalue like a woman drowning.

“No,” Phalue said, shaking her head.

For a moment, Ranami’s heart dropped to the soles of her feet. She couldn’t gather a breath to speak.

“I want more than that,” Phalue said. She took Ranami’s hands in hers. “You said you never wanted to be a governor’s wife, and I understand that now. You didn’t want to be a party to the way this island has been run. You didn’t want to contribute to the pain you saw and experienced. But I will do better. And I want to do better with you at my side. Ranami, will you be my wife? Please?”

Ranami pressed her forehead to Phalue’s, grinning so hard that her cheeks hurt. “Is this the tenth proposal? The eleventh?”

“I would propose a thousand times if I knew you’d say yes in the end.”

“You’re governor now. I shouldn’t let you debase yourself so.”

Phalue squeezed her hands. Her voice was soft, breathless. “Is that a yes?”

Ranami had thought their love would end in disaster. It still might. But she was willing to take the chance. “Yes.”