26. 25 #2
Davian nodded. “They had a contest for who could best command the sea. Otori made the waves into the darkest jet black, rolling them like the night themselves. Pleiidus summoned a swirling tempest that wrecked one hundred ships in the Strait of Astakos.” It was calming, the rhythm of his story with the slow pull of the boat.
I hated how much I liked the sound of his voice.
“The gods decided that Pleiidus had won, and she was allowed to keep her House. But her tempest also destroyed a Moon shrine on a nearby island. The pair have been bickering ever since over whether that was intentional, who is more connected to the water, and who the rightful winner should have been.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I scoffed. “No devotee would kill for that, surely? It’s an argument of ancients, not for the likes of mortals to involve themselves in.”
Davian kept rowing. The sun pulled behind a thicker cloud. Under my sleeves, the hair on my arms prickled in the shade.
“People kill for all sorts of reasons.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I was astute enough to know he wasn’t talking about the Moon and the Sea. I assumed it was about Seera, and that was a wound I didn’t want to poke without him bringing it up himself.
Davian rowed us around the coast for half an hour, and in turn we pointed out anywhere we thought anything could be hidden or moved.
We each only found one place. There was a narrow beachhead between the two Houses, with a set of sandy stone-cut steps down to a small shaded cove, which was little more than an overhanging rock.
Then there was the House of the Sea’s own jetty, which was far more expansive than the Moon’s.
Dytho’s main fishing vessels set off from the mainland, but the House of the Sea had a couple of their own, plus a beautiful deeply varnished caravel with a huge seafoam mast and a smaller white mast.
It would have been very difficult for any person to hide a body around the coast, that much felt clear. But it didn’t get us any closer to the truth.
The sun came out from behind the clouds as Davian paused with the House of the Sea in the distance. He reached behind him, and pulled the basket around to our feet.
He opened it, and unsealed the clay jug of apple cider. I reached straight for the strawberry tart, the paper sticking to the sugary glaze which had spilled over the lip of the crust.
My mouth watered and I bit into it eagerly. Half a strawberry almost fell, and I inelegantly swept it back into my mouth. I grinned around the full mouthful as the flavours burst on my tongue.
Davian shook his head as I took another greedy bite before I’d even swallowed the last mouthful. I gorged on the tart, and it was gone in seconds. Davian only swigged his cider and watched me with amusement twinkling his silver eyes.
I sucked the juice and cream off my fingers and wiped the crumbs from my mouth, reaching my hand out for the jug in his grasp.
He passed it to me with another shake of his head. I drank deeply, continuing to ignore his playful disapproval. Eventually, I passed the jug back.
His hand covered mine, and I stilled.
I met his gaze head on. His hand was warm, and sweaty from the rowing. I could feel the callouses rising on the pads of his palm.
“You’ve missed something,” he said, softly.
“What?”
He reached his free hand forward and nudged my nose with the back of a finger. He showed me the splodge of cream on his knuckle as I flushed red.
“See.”
“Whoops,” I said, my voice low.
His hand was still over mine, holding me in place. But it was truly his eyes that held me there, as he licked the cream slowly from his finger.
Shit.
I bit my lip, and he stared at my mouth.
Then, as if nothing had happened, he grabbed the neck of the jug with his other hand and released mine.
He leaned back, looking at the House of the Sea and taking another drink.
Oh.
He had felt it, too. Was it all too romantic for him? Was any of this real? I hated how much I wanted this to be real.
I straightened, and looked down at my skirts. I had thought the island was a trap, but I was caged in this boat, too. He could rebuff me all he liked, and I had no recourse.
Davian sighed. “Annie, I need to tell you something.”
I tried to smile, but I didn’t raise my eyes from my dress. “Something you want to tell me while we’re alone on the Adrisus?”
Davian inhaled, and I did dart my eyes up, then. Quick enough to catch the guilty look in his eyes, and his uncertain swallow.
“You’re right.” Davian nodded, and he reached for the oars. “It can wait. You should be able to leave if you want to.”
I leaned forwards again and touched my hand to his on the oar. He froze. “Davian, I was joking.”
The sentiment was there. I was scared of what he might tell me, when there was no way for me to leave. But not because I didn’t want to hear it. I needed to know what was on his mind. I thought it might kill me if I didn’t.
I feared the rejection I expected to fall from his lips. Some comment on how I had misunderstood everything. That didn’t mean I was scared of him. I patted his hand, and settled back onto the bench. “Whatever it is, I want to know.”
Davian looked at the skin my hand had touched, and then gauged my expression as if testing the truth of my words. I shrugged.
He blew out a breath and I readied myself for the blow.
“When my mother and my father married, she was still a devotee. Young. Beautiful. He was some minor lord, a landowner in the north. It was a good match for her. Things were different thirty years ago. Opinions on the Aralaji were less kind than they are now.”
I blinked in the sunshine, completely thrown by the direction of his words. Davian wasn’t looking at me anymore. His tone had reverted into that stilted retelling usually reserved for things he had picked up from Wisdom.
He cleared his throat. “I don’t know if he started hitting her before or after she was chosen as the next Leader.
All I know is my first memory was trying to find my mother, and walking into the upstairs library, and hearing the sound of a crack.
My mother was holding her face, and my father was sat back into his armchair like nothing had happened. ”
My breath had scattered at the first sentence. I watched his face in horror.
“She was a great teacher to both me and my sister,” he said, a hint of a smile pulling at his mouth. “I was the perfect student. I think part of me felt so bad and powerless, that I thought if I studied hard enough that he would be proud of her teaching, and he might stop hitting her.”
He snorted, and shook his head, his hands still resting on the oars.
My heart cracked for him. “Davian.”
He continued, the words thicker now. “My sister hated studying. She was seven years older than me, and she’d left before I was old enough to actually know her. My mother never said anything, but I think he was hitting her, too. I don’t know where she is now. I hope it's far away.”
Tears prickled at the smile in his tone when he considered his sister’s escape. I swallowed past the lump in my throat. This wasn’t about me.
Davian finally looked up, and the dull distance in his eyes haunted me. “He never hit me,” he told me. “I hated that. I wished he had hit me, too. I know that sounds confusing. I don’t know how to explain it. I felt guilty, I suppose, that I wasn’t being punished and everyone else was.”
I only nodded.
Davian took a deep breath before continuing.
His voice was quieter now. More unsure. “When I was thirteen, I was chosen by the Goddess Knessus. The youngest Wisdom devotee in living memory. I thought it would be enough. My mother was delighted. That evening, my father came home drunk, and walked into the room where we were reading, and he said: ‘Congratulations, you’ve made him just like you.’ He grabbed her by the hair and slapped her across the face, just like when I was a child.
” He leaned forwards, losing his grip on the oars, and held his head in his hands.
His mask tilted under his grip, pulling away from his nose and mouth.
He hardly breathed. “I didn’t do anything. My mother told me to leave, and I did.”
I wanted to reach for him, but I knew it wasn’t the right time.
“That was the night I promised I would kill him,” he said simply.
I held my hands in my lap, my fingers cold despite the beating sun.
“My father took me to Aseem’s,” he continued, lifting his head from his hands, but still hunched over.
His gaze was unseeing into the basket as his arms crossed over his legs.
“He had a daughter around my age, and now that I was a devotee myself, I had enough status to be considered a good match for her. Aseem was scary, even then. Intense, and judgemental. The House Leader of the King of the Ten, it was hard not to be intimidated.”