26. Twenty-six
Chapter 26
When one of the men asked Oraik to help split firewood, he cheerfully agreed… and then volunteered me to help with the cooking. An hour later I was still sitting at one of the tables, glumly spooning a dark marinade over a batch of the scaled, gutted laghek fish.
“So, you and Oraik?” Cliantha asked beside me. She had a needle in hand to repair a string of decorative flags that had apparently been torn in last night’s celebration. “You really are just friends?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Look at him.”
Handsome Oraik was with one of the town’s old women, gesturing emphatically before moving a flowerpot five inches to the right and then back again. Nikko’s clothes turned out to be a little too wide on him, but the loose, clean shirt still did him more favors than the bloody one. He’d tied back his damp hair, and I couldn’t help but notice that two gold earrings had mysteriously made their way back into his ear from who-knew-where. Probably his shoe again.
“He’s sweet,” Cliantha said with a shrug. Her lips twitched watching him. We couldn’t hear what was being said across the square, but we both watched as Oraik leaned backward with a laugh and clapped a hand over his mouth.
“I guess,” I told her. “But so’s mad honey, and that still makes you see things.” Cliantha laughed.
“We just don’t get many newcomers. Every man I know, I’ve known since I was a child, and if I haven’t been sweethearts with him, one of my friends has. That, or he’s a relative twice my age.” She pierced the needle through the flag’s fabric. “But I guess you wouldn’t know anything about that, being from Rovileis.”
“I’m not. And if you don’t like it here, just leave.”
She shrugged. “I don’t think I could. It’s home.”
“I grew up somewhere like here. You’re the only one stopping yourself.”
“Well, maybe,” she said quietly. “I don’t know. I couldn’t do that to my parents.”
“They’d get over it,” I snapped, but I don’t think she was trying to insult me or call me a bad daughter. Anyways, it probably was harder for someone like Cliantha to leave. Why would she? She wasn’t a witch, or an artisan. She was just a normal person. She was sitting silently beside me now, looking very fixedly at the flags in her lap. I chewed my lip. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude.”
“You miss it,” she guessed quietly.
I missed the life I’d had, with Eudoria and Kalcedon, perhaps. I didn’t miss Missaniech or Zebitun, the village my parents lived by, though at some point I really did owe them a visit. I didn’t miss any of it the way Cliantha was suggesting, but it was as good an excuse as any for my casual spite, so I nodded.
“Sometimes,” I lied, and set down the spoon I was holding.
“It must be exciting. Traveling all over the isles. Going wherever the wind takes you.”
I didn’t mind that she was painting me as some far-flung traveler when I hadn’t been gone from home long at all. It sounded exciting, the life she described. It made me sound exciting.
“It has its moments,” I admitted. She seemed to be waiting for me to say more. “But for every place I’d like to go, there’s a half-dozen I’d rather avoid.”
“Like where?”
“I wouldn’t have come here,” I said, before I even realized I was saying it. I winced, and avoided looking Cliantha in the eye. “No offense. I’ve just had enough of tired little towns for a lifetime. And does a fish really need its own holiday?”
“Well, maybe not,” she said quietly. “I’m sure it all seems silly, from the outside.” I could see her hands out of the corner of my vision, plucking at the string without actually sewing.
“No, ignore me.” I sighed. “I’m just… missing home. Like you said. I think these are done. What now?”
“I’ll skewer those, if you want to walk around,” she offered.
“Really?”
“We don’t get visitors often. I’m sure everyone wants a chance to talk to you.”
I was half-convinced she just wanted to end our awkward conversation, but then, so did I.
I opened my mouth to apologize again, and hesitated. What difference did it make? She already didn’t like me, and with good reason. I wasn’t like Oraik. I didn’t know the right thing to say, or how to smile when I didn’t mean it, or how to talk about something that didn’t matter to me. I would never belong here. Someone like Cliantha would never like me, even if I tried my best.
I walked to the edge of the square, grabbed my bag, and looked for a nice place to sit and read. Perhaps I ought to have kept Oraik in sight, but every table I saw had people talking or working. Odds seemed high that someone was going to interrupt me to talk about the weather or ask where I was from or to bring up some other mundane and uninteresting human topic. Then they’d realize I was terrible, too.
Maybe Oraik had wanted to come here so he didn’t have to be alone with me.
I started walking down the main street to the ocean. Most of the houses had doors right at the street level, but I paused at one with a stoop. As nice a place to sit as any, and if Oraik screamed, I’d probably hear it. I sat, pulled out my transcription of the Ward, and started to mull over it again.
It was easy to get lost in Tarelay’s enchantment. Every sigil seemed to hold meaning upon meaning. I found myself sketching them in the air, but they were so complex it was impossible, even if I’d wanted to try casting them. I’d always thought of written enchantments as stiff, but now it occurred to me that what they lacked in fluid movement they might make up for in capacity, for how many sigils could a pair of hands hold together in mid-air? Certainly not as many as Tarelay had drawn into the stone.
Tied to life. Keyed to a blood line.
“There you are,” Oraik said. I looked up and realized it had gotten shades darker while I read. Nightfall was nearly upon us.
“Is the food ready?”
“Yes. What are you doing out here? What is that?”
“Just some reading.” I stuffed it back into my bag.
“What, now ? Don’t you want to enjoy the festival?” he sounded shocked. When I shrugged, his eyes widened. Oraik sighed and sat down beside me.
“I wasn’t planning to avoid all of it,” I grumbled. Oraik patted my knee, which I didn’t enjoy, and then looked me so squarely in the eye I couldn’t look away even if I wanted to. Which, coincidentally, I did.
“Meda,” he said. “Please tell me: why do you hate everything fun?” His big hand was still on my knee. I shifted my legs away.
“Since when is ‘avoiding kitchen duties’ the same as hating fun?”
“I don’t know. Since when is ‘reading alone’ a normal way to spend a festival?”
“Maybe since the festival is in a horribly boring little town?”
“Boring?” He leaned back, frowning up at the sky. “Is it? I didn’t think so.”
“Well, since I’m not interested in dancing with anything that moves,” I muttered.
“Is that an insult? Because I’m going to take it as praise of my joyous nature.”
“You do that.”
“Are you upset I’ve been asking others to dance? Did you want someone to ask you? I could make introductions. None of them are gray, though. Will that be a problem for you?”
“ No . Don’t introduce me to anyone .”
“Is it your Kalcedon? Are you missing him?”
“Just stop,” I snapped. Couldn’t he see I didn’t belong here, that there was no sense in either of us pretending?
“Well, it’s hard to know how to cheer you up. Are you hungry? Should we eat?”
“I don’t need cheering up,” I said. “And you aren’t supposed to ask a dozen people to save you a dance. You’re—”
“I only asked four people,” Oraik said.
“— supposed to find one person, and ask them —”
“It’s just a dance . Aren’t you supposed to change partners?”
“—and by the way I didn’t want to help with the cooking, and I’m not in a bad mood, and just because you want to be here doesn’t mean I have to pretend I do too.”
There was a long pause, in which I felt my stomach slowly turn over itself. There was no way that Oraik was going to follow me to safety now. I was going to be stuck in this idiotic town forever trying to stop some murderous cabal of witches from blood sacrificing him for who-knew-what reason. Or maybe Kalcedon would help me club him over the head and drag him to safety. But I’d definitely ruined any prospect of staying his friend. That was certain. It had only been a matter of time.
“Well enough,” Oraik said after a moment. “So, that was a lot. Are you hungry?”
“…Yes,” I admitted.
“Then let’s fix that,” he said. He stood up and offered me his hand. “You can’t celebrate Laghek Day without trying the laghek.”
I looked up at him suspiciously.
“Why are you still being nice to me?”
He sighed.
“Because, for a captor, you’ve been very accommodating. A pleasant abduction, all things considered.”
“I saved your life. I didn’t abduct you,” I grumbled as I took his hand. He hauled me up.
“Well, maybe,” Oraik admitted. “But that makes for a much less interesting story, doesn’t it?”