Chapter 28
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
The heart is annoyingly accurate
The fish was enormous.
I knew from the tension in the line and the strength of the pull. It worked against me with a patience I respected. I’d been after this particular fish for three weeks and had gotten nothing but smaller catches and stolen bait. Not today.
I worked the line. The sun was barely up, the water still gray-green in the low light, and I had lost track of how long I’d been at it when I finally got the fish near enough to see. This had to be the elusive blue-mouth, long as my arm, colors vivid from the deep.
“Gilrox.” Pasek’s voice sounded, from the deck above. “It’s time to come in and get ready. You cannot be late for this.”
I glanced up at Pasek, who was standing at the railing with his arms folded. My belly was full of nerves and had been since I woke up, which I was not going to mention to anyone.
“There will be more fish,” Pasek yelled. “Get up here.”
I didn’t reply to him as I pulled in the fish and unhooked it. I held it up to admire it. Ah, it was a beauty indeed, but I wouldn’t be keeping this one. I carried it out to waist-deep water and let it go. It hung motionless for a moment, then wriggled off, back into the dark water.
“I’m coming,” I called up.
He was waiting in the front room when I came in, dripping water on the floor. He looked at the floor, then at me and sighed. “Go get cleaned up” he said. “You smell like fish.”
“Fine.” I sounded irritable but went to the washroom, to wash, get dressed, and make myself look presentable.
“You may want to wash off that scowl, too,” he said through the door. “One would think that you don’t want to do this today.”
“I do,” I said loud enough for him to hear me. “I just wish there was less ceremony involved.”
“It is literally a ceremony,” he replied.
“The whole village has been planning this for months. Aila made Silli take a bath last night and let’s just say, she was exhausted afterwards.
Our special guests made a special trip for this, and Braija has been roasting that pindlok special for you. You should be more grateful.”
“I am grateful,” I groused. “I could be grateful with fewer people watching.”
“Sorry, but this is how it’s done,” he said. “The whole village gets involved. I’d hurry up, if I were you. If you’re late, she might change her mind.”
She wouldn’t. I was sure of it, but I hurried up anyway.
The village had changed in six months. Rebuilt, mostly, and better in some ways.
Maive had approved a new dock design the fishermen had wanted for years and the communal hall had the additional meeting room that had been discussed since before I arrived.
The fire damage that remained was minimal, and the newer stonework was already beginning to weather into the older material.
Anlara walked beside me for part of the path.
Every step she took was upright and regal.
She was taller than I’d expected the first time we met and that still surprised me occasionally.
The mountain Runams had sent a delegation for the ceremony, fifteen of them walking with us in their layered earth-toned clothing, and the sight of them alongside the coastal Runams had become familiar over the past months, which was itself remarkable.
Knowledge shared, food exchanged, technology in both directions.
It had taken centuries to begin and was now moving with a momentum neither community had anticipated. The mountain Runams really liked fish.
“Nervous?” Anlara whispered to me.
“No,” I said.
She snorted.
“Somewhat,” I said.
“Good,” she said with a smile. “She’s extraordinary. Nerves are appropriate.”
“I’m aware of what she is,” I said.
Tregen walked on my other side without saying anything, and Pasek was ahead of us talking to someone from the mountain delegation. I didn’t need to hear the conversation to know he was entirely at ease. Pasek simply had never met a stranger.
I heard the music before I saw the gathering. Nothing like the festival drums. This was slower, more deliberate, with a stringed quality I hadn’t encountered before, and underneath it was the scent of flowers and the pindlok Braija had been roasting.
Then I saw Maive.
She stood near the rebuilt dock with Salie and Aila and Braija and the other women of the village.
Aila stood beside Maive in a pretty new tunic that matched Silli’s dark purple fur.
The little creature lay sprawled in her arms, looking sleek and shiny in the aftermath of his bath.
Maive, however, looked like royalty in a long dress in deep purple that reached the ground.
Her long ropes of green hair were up and secured with gold clips.
Jewelry winked at her neck and wrists, catching the morning light.
She was looking elsewhere when I first found her and then she turned, as if she knew, and her eyes found mine across the distance.
I stopped walking for a moment without meaning to. Then I continued toward her and everything else faded to dull colors and soft edges. It was only her that was in perfect, sharp, stunning focus.
She took my hands. Or I took hers. I’m not certain which.
Her fingers were warm and her grip was certain and she looked up at me with steady focus.
Her eyes said, are you ready? I nodded in silent reply.
Someone, I think it was Salie, made some remarks about the joyous occasion of this Devotion Ceremony, but I wasn’t really listening.
My hearts pounded and my head buzzed, but I knew when it became quiet again that it was my turn to speak.
I had thought about what I wanted to say on this day for a long time. I’d worked through all the words, trying to find a combination that adequately described my feelings.
“I came to this planet because the fishing looked good,” I said.
“That’s true. I was looking for quiet, and I found it, and then you showed up and told me to leave.
” Her eyes narrowed, but I held her hands firmly.
“I didn’t leave. That was probably the first genuinely wise choice I had made in years. Possibly longer.”
A few soft sounds from the gathered village. Maive’s mouth curved.
“You are the most capable person I’ve ever known in a long life of knowing capable people.
You’re also kind when you don’t have to be, and patient with those who need it, and you make things in your kitchen that I think about at unreasonable hours of the morning.
” I paused. “I didn’t come here to belong to anyone.
I didn’t think I was someone worth belonging to.
You proved me wrong about that. So I stand here today to say I’m yours, Maive.
Whatever I can give you, whatever that means for however long we have. I don’t intend to waste a day of it.”
She was quiet as she took that in, blinking up at me with bright eyes. The whole gathering was quiet.
She lifted her chin, and I could see her gathering herself into the voice she used when she had something to declare.
“You arrived,” she said, “and I looked at you and I saw a stranger. Large and armed and scarred, with a strange animal on your shoulder and a warship on the beach far too close to our village. I was afraid of you, and I asked you to leave.” Her voice carried across the whole gathering without effort. “I was wrong.”
She held my hands more tightly.
“I watched you learn this village and let it learn you. I watched you fix things and teach people and sit with those who needed company. I watched you give everything you had to protect us without ever being asked. And I watched you become ours.” Her eyes didn’t move from mine.
“You did not have to love us. You chose to, when you had nothing to gain and everything to risk. That tells me everything I will ever need to know about who you are.”
A breath.
“I am proud to stand beside you. I am proud to call you mine. And I intend to keep you, Gilrox Ban-Ver-Mos, for the rest of our lives together.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said.
“No,” she said, with a mischievous grin. “You’re not.”
I bent and kissed her, and the village erupted around us. Everyone from the coastal Runams to the mountain Runams, to Silli draped around Aila’s shoulders, cheered. I pulled Maive close and buried my face in her artfully arranged hair, knowing there was tears in my eyes and uncaring who saw it.
The Tulow wine was the Durbok’s finest, which he’d been clearly pleased to tell me when I purchased four cases of it. It was very good and I was on my second cup and intended to stop there because Tulow wine packed a punch.
Maive was in my arms and we were moving, approximately, in the direction the music suggested. She had shed the formality of the ceremony and was simply herself, one hand in mine and the other at my shoulder.
“Two weeks,” she said.
“Two weeks,” I agreed.
“Do we know which ones they’re sending?”
“Krax sent their names and ranks. I don’t remember them right now.”
“Should we put them in the east room, or your house?” she asked.
“My house. These two need quiet before we subject them to this chaos.”
“Chaos.” Maive snorted. “I’ll talk to Braija about cooking for our guests.”
“We’ll have plenty of time to talk about this,” I said. “Other than today. Isn’t this supposed to be our Devotion Ceremony?”
Maive laughed. “It is.”
“That’s right,” I said, pulling her closer. “No talk of mercenaries. I wish to enjoy my life partner.”
Across the gathering, Anlara and Braija were deep in conversation, likely about food. Pasek was dancing with his wife. Aila was chasing Silli along the dock with three other children behind her, all of them screaming with laughter.
It seemed like a good time. I reached into my pocket. “I have something for you.”
Maive raised an eyebrow. “You did not need to bring a gift for this.”
“I know, but I wanted to.” I looked down. “On my home planet, back before… Well, we had a custom that I wanted to honor.” I looked up and held out the ring. It was a gold band, wide, with stones set along the full face in every shade of purple, from pale lavender to deep violet.
Her mouth fell open on a soft gasp. She looked at it without speaking.
“The Durbok sourced it,” I said to fill the space. “I had an idea on the design. Tried to recreate the one my father gave my mother. Hers was blue, but you like purple, so…”
She took it from my hand and turned it, watching the stones catch the light, then slid it onto the index finger of her right hand. She held it up and looked at it there.
“Gilrox,” she said and her voice cracked. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s not practical,” I said. “I got it for the beauty and sentiment.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I love it. And you.” She took my face in both hands and kissed me. I held her there, with the music moving around us and the smell of flowers and cooking and the sea, which was the first thing I’d fallen for when I came to this planet looking for a quiet life of solitude.
I’d found something better.
After a long life of fighting and loss and carefully feeling nothing, I had excellent fishing, a village of people who’d become family, and a woman I loved in my arms.
I was, finally, exactly where I was supposed to be. I was home.
I hope you enjoyed Gilrox’s story and had fun through his “retirement” journey. I loved writing him, and I had so much fun with his personality I was sad to come to the end. Thank you for reading my books!