Shadebloom

1 Day or Night

“I keep waking up naked in bed with you, but it never happens the way I imagine it,” Thiyo complained. “There’s always a great deal of pain involved, for one, and a total absence of pleasure. I’m sure we can do better.”

The bed, in this case, was a hammock. They were on a boat—someone must have rescued them from the water. An islander craft, from the looks of it. It must have been tracking the medusa they’d killed. Thiyo didn’t remember how long they’d floated atop its carcass, or how they’d gotten from there to this boat, but he didn’t much care. He was alive and safe and in bed with Ev. He rolled onto his side, rocking the hammock, and grinned at her.

Ev blinked at him as if she hadn’t understood. Typical. Why he’d developed such tender feelings for a prude, he’d never know. Of course, she was gorgeous, tall and strong and curvy, fierce and gentle, with a smile more brilliant than the sun. And there were all those times she’d saved his life. And if they weren’t both exhausted—and already in bed—she’d absolutely be capable of throwing him over her shoulder and carrying him off to have her wicked way with him. He had a great appreciation for all of those things. But she was so shy.

Put a spear in her hands and a sea monster in front of her and she was the most decisive, fearless person alive. But the mere mention of sex left her speechless and shuffling her feet. His most heartfelt compliments made her duck her head or roll her eyes. No one else had ever been this reluctant.

He sighed and spared a glance for their surroundings. None of the crew were in sight, but judging from the hammocks, there were eight of them. The painted wood panels inside the hull and the woven hammocks were all in shades of black, red, and yellow, which put him in mind of Kae. If they’d caught the medusa he’d killed, they’d be on their way home now, which meant Thiyo was going back to the islands.

He examined himself. New black scars lashed his arms and legs—the venom must have eaten through his clothes—and there was one nasty cluster that raked diagonally across his torso. The fingers of his right hand were still crooked, but his collection of cuts and bruises from Nalitzva had faded. He touched his face and felt the familiar shapes of his nose and cheekbones. His fingertips didn’t run across any scars there. His hair was still a mess of short, wavy locks, but there was nothing to be done about that except wait. Not bad for someone who’d been thrown overboard and confronted with a sea monster.

Lying on her side and facing him, Ev looked even better. The scars—charcoal black whorls against the deep, warm brown of her skin—only added to her beauty. He reached down and traced one that ran along her calf. She shifted a little, but didn’t knock his hand away. “These are a mark of courage,” he said. “Something to be proud of. Hunters like to display theirs.”

He didn’t move his hand any further up her leg, although there were scars to trace there, and plenty more he’d like to touch. But he’d only do that if invited.

Ev smiled, shook her head at him, and stroked a hand through his hair, pressing his head back down toward the hammock. She closed her eyes, indicating that they should both go back to sleep. Thiyo didn’t want to—they’d lived and he wanted to talk about it, or better yet, celebrate it—but he respected Ev’s wishes. She was touching him, at least. There would be time to talk about it later.

* * *

When Thiyo’s breathing slowed to the even rhythm of sleep, Ev slipped out of their shared hammock and stilled its rocking. She pulled her shredded clothes from their pile and covered herself as best she could with the saltwater-stiff rags that remained. At odds with the silence of her feet on the wooden stairs, her heart hammered as she emerged onto the deck. The sky had lightened over the course of their journey, though she couldn’t say how long they’d been sailing.

Time was standing still. She felt as adrift on this ship as she had in the ocean with Thiyo. At least before she’d persuaded him to attack the monster, they could both have died whole. Since their rescue, he’d been too dazed to realize what had happened. What would he do once he did?

Alizhan would have known how to make this better. Her absence was a rip in the fabric of the world.

The crew members noticed Ev, but they didn’t stop their strange, two-fold conversation, which was happening through words and hand gestures at once. Even the sailors who could speak were participating in the vigorous—but silent—discussion. Without understanding either the spoken or the signed language, Ev knew what they were discussing. Her.

They were islanders, sailing home with a prized medusa in their nets. But they couldn’t bring a foreigner to their shores.

If they were going to stare at her, Ev refused to feel bad about staring at them. She’d only ever seen one islander, but she’d thought the others would resemble him—tall and slender, with long, angular faces and sharp eyebrows, tan skin with a smattering of freckles. It wasn’t that the crew members didn’t look anything like Thiyo. Most of them had eyes shaped like his and glossy black hair, but there was something different…

With a start, Ev landed on the answer. None of them were as stunning as Thiyo. It made her cheeks heat with embarrassment, even though Alizhan wasn’t there to read her mind. How naive, to think they might all be beautiful. Where else in the world was that true? And how foolish, to fixate on Thiyo like that.

Ev refocused her attention on the sailors. Since islanders lived in isolation from the rest of the world, she hadn’t expected so much variety in size, shape, and color. But the sailors were as different from each other as a random crowd in Laalvur’s famously diverse harbor. Four of them were as tall or taller than her, including two men with enormously broad chests and round bellies. The others were smaller and more compact, although none of them looked like they’d go down quickly in a fight. Most of the sailors had tan or brown skin, but one was as pale as a Nalitzvan, with white hair to match. Among them, Ev saw straight hair and curls, flat noses and pointed ones, hairy chests and smooth.

A short, muscular young woman broke away from the group and came toward Ev. “Adpri?” she asked.

“Laalvuri,” Ev said.

“Oh,” the woman said, her amber eyes going wide. She shook her head and the heavy mass of her black curls hardly moved. “Sorry. That’s better for me, though—obviously.” She laughed. She was speaking Laalvuri. Unlike Thiyo, she had an accent. It wasn’t so much a change in any particular consonant or vowel as it was a meticulous care with every syllable. It had the effect of smoothing the rhythm of her speech, calming all the stresses.

“Do you speak every language?” Ev asked. For all she knew, maybe most islanders could. She’d only met one.

The woman laughed again. “Not by a long way. If you only spoke Adpri, I would have had to direct you to Teawi. But we like to have a few different languages among the crew. You never know who you’ll meet out here.” She tilted her head at Ev. “My name is Biha.”

“Ev.”

“Welcome aboard Arrow.”

Ev didn’t smile. “Please don’t misunderstand me. I am grateful that you rescued us. But I have to ask—are we prisoners?”

Biha wasn’t bothered by the question. “Come here,” she said, and led Ev around behind the mast. It was a small ship and it took only a moment to reach the stern. Trailing behind the vessel, caught in a net of thick rope, was the gelatinous carcass of the monster Thiyo had killed. Ev’s stomach threatened to revolt, but she didn’t turn away.

“You killed the medusa?”

“My friend did,” Ev said. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about—”

“We’d been tracking it,” Biha interrupted. “It’s what we do. We were surprised to find it already dead, and even more surprised to find it with… passengers. It was a difficult moment—some of the crew didn’t want to save you, since you’re foreign and it’s illegal to bring you to Kae. They wanted to take the prize and return home. But some of the crew argued that by rights, the kill is yours. If we were going to take it, the least we could do would be to save your lives. Still others argued that we ought to give you a share of the profits.” Biha paused, holding so still it was obvious she was working hard to hide the identities of the crew members she was discussing, as well as her personal opinion. It didn’t matter to Ev. “We came to the conclusion that saving your lives is fair recompense for the kill. We will take the medusa to Kae, and you will come with us. There is no chance you will be permitted to stay there more than a triad or two, but we will have repaid you by pulling you from the water. After that, some other ship will take you to Ndija or somewhere else on the mainland.”

“I don’t care about the profits.”

Biha’s brown eyelids and dark lashes flipped down over her tawny eyes. Once. Twice. “Then what do you care about?”

“My friend. Is he going to be okay?”

“He killed a medusa in open water and came away with all his limbs. Just a few scars for decoration. I’d say he’s more than okay. I don’t know how it is where you live, but if he comes ba—that is to say, in our world, he’d be treated as a hero.”

So Biha and the crew had recognized Thiyo as an islander. Ev wondered if they knew exactly who he was. How many islanders left? Was Thiyo famous? Ev reconsidered sharing everything with Biha. These people might have saved their lives, but it hadn’t been altruism. It had been a transaction. That medusa represented a profit.

“You should both rest,” Biha said. “You will be safe among us. For now, if we are going to talk, let us sit.” She left the stern and returned to the deck where the rest of the crew was gathered. She chose a spot near the railing and sat right down on the wood, crossing her legs. Ev had heard rumors that islanders went naked, but Biha was wearing a tunic and trousers, both yellow-brown with a faded black geometric print, loose and long-sleeved to protect her from the elements. The rest of the crew were dressed in equally well-worn clothes. Though their clothes were in disrepair, the sailors themselves were cheerful and decorated, sporting tattoos and jewelry. A few thin braids were scattered among Biha’s mass of black curls, each one marked with a shell or a bead. Around her neck was a leather cord strung with white shells. Ev had grown up hearing wild tales of islanders, but they just looked like people.

Ev sat down next to Biha, pulling her tattered tunic so it didn’t slip off her shoulders.

“Ah. Clothes.” Biha smiled. “I think we can find some in your size, although not among my things. But the rest of us are taller. I am sorry if we caused offense—we had to take them off to check your wounds.”

“I understand. And thank you again. What do you think will happen when we arrive in Kae? Will people be angry?”

“You and… your friend killed a medusa. I understand you to be offering it to us. The least we can do is to give you some time to recover. I will speak to the others on your behalf.”

Across the deck, there was still a silent, ongoing conversation. Ev watched the sailors’ hands shape sentences. What would it be like to talk like that? “If they know I can’t understand their language, why are they still using their hands?”

Biha seemed as surprised by this question as she had been by Ev’s lack of interest in the medusa corpse. “Do your people not have a gesture language?”

“We do. Or some of us do—the ones who can’t hear.”

“And what if you want to speak without disturbing someone’s rest?”

“We whisper.”

“Much easier to use your hands, no?” Biha said. “It’s useful. And Eili, our tracker, is deaf, so it’s her primary language. But we all learned both languages as children—everyone does.”

Here was a topic worth probing. “You all learn both…”

“A gesture language and a spoken language. And more, for those with the aptitude. I speak Laalvuri, as you can see. Eili knows all the gesture languages of the islands—they’re similar, but not the same. Most of us can make ourselves understood throughout the islands, although it gets more difficult the farther you get from home. Fiheyi and Kikiahe speak Nalitzvan, Teawi speaks Adpri, and so on.”

“So… how many island languages are there?”

Biha laughed. “That kind of question makes people argue for hours. Where does one stop and another begin? There are enough that my people place a high value on learning other languages.”

And yours don’t didn’t need to be said. Ev opted to ignore the unspoken insult and focus on the new information. Perhaps lots of islanders had Thiyo’s gift. Accustomed to tiptoeing around the subject, Ev hesitated before posing the next question. “Have you ever heard of anyone learning a language with… magic?”

“Of course,” Biha said easily.

“Is that how you learned Laalvuri?”

Biha shrugged. “It’s harder for some than for others. But it’s all magic.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“I had heard mainlanders were like this. Yes or no. Day or Night. You know there is a twilight where we all live, yes?”

“We call it The Balance,” Ev said. “I don’t understand what that has to do with my question.”

“Can you sing, Ev?”

Ev shrugged. “Not beautifully, but I can.”

“Is it magic?”

“My singing? Absolutely not.”

Biha hummed with amusement. “Have you ever been in the presence of someone who could sing so well they made you shiver?”

Ev nodded.

“That is a kind of magic, yes?”

“No,” Ev said stubbornly. “It’s hard work and skill and maybe some luck. Using the voice you were born with.”

“People are born with different voices,” Biha agreed. “And some people are born with other abilities, too. And you are right, yes, there is hard work and skill and maybe some luck in all of it. Magic is like that. You and I can sing well enough. Ngua, over there,” Biha inclined her head toward the tallest and broadest man, “Ngua can sing so well you’d weep to hear it.”

“That’s wonderful. Beautiful. But that’s not magic.”

“Many people can do it. But why should that mean it isn’t magic?”

“When I say magic, I mean something outside the bounds of what normal people can do. Speaking a language without ever studying it. Knowing someone else’s thoughts. Changing their memory.”

“Who are these ‘normal people’?” Biha asked, and Ev had the impression she was enjoying their discussion a little too much. “As for singing, I have seen a man who was brandishing a sword, ready to kill, lay down his weapon and kneel at Ngua’s feet.”

“Okay. That might be magic.”

“Aha. And do you speak more than one language, Ev?”

“Yes. Laalvuri, Adpri, and a few courtesies in Nalitzvan. I see where you’re going with this. But I learned them as a child. It wasn’t magic.”

Biha smiled and raised her eyebrows. “Wasn’t it?”

Ev hadn’t found a way to ask the questions she needed to ask and now she was more confused than ever. She sighed. “Thank you for this. For rescuing us. I think I’m too tired to appreciate this conversation, but maybe we can continue it later.”

As she moved to stand, Biha touched her hand. Ev almost flinched—she’d met too many people who could do harm with a touch. But Biha’s hand was only a hand. “I like you, Ev, so I will tell you now that we know who your friend is. He’s a divisive character.”

“I’m not surprised to hear that.”

“We will have some questions when he wakes.”

Good luck with that. “What do you know about Thiyo?” Ev asked.

“He’s the one who left.”

Ev searched Biha’s expression. What did she think of that choice? Did she disapprove? Did her crew members? Alizhan would have known. Ev didn’t, and so she said nothing.

“And based on our conversation, I think I recall hearing that he was a talker,” Biha said.

That startled a little half-sad smile out of Ev. “I suppose he does like to hear himself talk.”

Biha frowned. “I must have made a mistake. This pair of words always trips me up. Not a talker. A speaker. We were just discussing them—people who can learn dozens of languages.”

“When you were arguing that it’s not magic, you mean?” Ev said.

“I wanted to expand your understanding,” Biha said, eager to rekindle that conversation. “But yes. You asked me if I spoke every language—a strange question, unless you’d recently encountered an islander who could do just that.”

“Ah,” Ev said. She bit her lip.

* * *

When Ev went back down to check on Thiyo, he was awake. Waiting for her. He raised an eyebrow as she sat back down in the hammock. Curious. Suspicious. Why had Ev told him to go back to sleep if she was going to get up and wander?

Ev touched his shoulder. “Thiyo.”

His gaze slid to her hand. Then their eyes met. Ev tried to convey everything in that single instant of looking, as if that would be less painful. Perhaps he already knew. It was strange for him to be silent, even for this brief moment.

Then he spoke.

Of course they had to do this the hard way. There was no easy way.

Thiyo continued speaking. It sounded casual, whatever it was. Chatty. Nonchalant. When Ev didn’t react, there was break in the flow of sound—she wasn’t sure it qualified as words—and then he picked it up again, more hesitantly. His tone changed once, and then again. Was he experimenting? He stopped and restarted.

If that was a language, she’d never heard anything like it. A hodgepodge of repeated syllables, it sounded like the wordless babble of infants.

“Thiyo,” she began. Smoke, this was hard. She started again. “Thiyo, I can’t understand you. You’re speaking—well, to be honest, I’m not sure. Whatever it is, I don’t understand. I need you to speak Laalvuri. Or Adpri. Even Nalitzvan, if that’s all you can manage. I could work with that.” What Ev really needed was for Thiyo to recover and be himself again so he could listen to their mysterious rescuers—or captors. Ev kept that to herself. She didn’t want to overwhelm him. “Nod if you understand anything I’m saying.”

He didn’t.

“Thiyo. Please. Nod if you understand.” Ev demonstrated, lifting and lowering her chin.

Even with her rambling, she’d only spoken for a moment or two. In that time, Thiyo’s expression had crumpled from uncomprehending to stricken. Now his eyes were wide with panic. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it and shook his head.

Ev tried again. She spoke slowly. She attempted to say it in Adpri and Nalitzvan, and each time she spoke to him, his bewilderment gradually gave way to something far worse. Ev had never seen him look so lost or helpless—not in prison, not when he’d had a sword to his throat, not when he’d faced the man who’d broken his heart, not even when he’d been stranded in the ocean with a giant medusa. It crushed her.

“Hey, hey,” she said, tightening her grip on his shoulder. She moved her hand down and grasped his arm, choosing a place that was free of those twining black scars. “We will figure this out.”

She didn’t know that. She couldn’t. She could only think of Kasrik, who’d once been like Alizhan until Iriyat’s priests had tortured it out of him with preserved medusa tentacles. Unlike the scars swirling and tangling over Thiyo’s skin and her own, Kasrik’s scars striped his arms straight up and down. The work of a different kind of a monster—a human one. He’d lost his ability because of them. She’d pitied him, but she hadn’t taken his loss as seriously as she could have. He’d become like her. She’d never been able to read minds and she was living her life just fine.

But having spent so much time traveling through foreign lands, the confusion and vulnerability of being unable to speak or understand were fresh in her mind. Thiyo had never suffered that experience, and now he was condemned to it. He’d had every language, and now he had none. Each time she spoke to him, he recoiled.

There were few light sources down here, but when he turned away from her, Ev caught a glint of tears in his eyes.

So instead of speaking comforting words, as she wanted to, Ev pulled him up into a hug and squeezed. He held onto her. That, at least, they could both understand.

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