Aili was still sitting on one of the pillows, hugging her knees, feet crossed in front of her. She didn't even glance up as Saia crossed the room to fill her glass with water. She drank it in a gulp, then filled it again and finished that too. She abandoned it on one of the rugs that covered the ground and took a green blanket from the pile that Haina had given them. The fabric was soft, more than what could usually be found at Lausune’s market. Blue trees were embroidered along the border.
Saia looked around for a good spot. She wanted to ask Aili where she intended to sleep, but she was still staring at the red rug, deeply in thought. So Saia put down her blanket on the right side of the tent, next to the wall of cloth. She opened the bag to look for the orange shawl. She planned to wrap her hair and fall asleep immediately to avoid Aili's questions until the next morning. The moment she saw the snakes, she realized it wasn’t possible. She touched their scales, remembering Zeles’s words: if she fell asleep while she was using magic on them, they would wake up. She couldn't sleep that night if she wanted to be still alive the next morning.
“I was thinking…” Aili said, startling her a bit. “What they did to the boar, is it the same thing you do to your snakes?”
Saia closed the bag before Aili could look inside.
“No,” she said, knowing she wouldn't have believed her.
“You weren't surprised when they talked about that thing. The ‘viss’.”
“I don’t know what that word means.”
That, at least, was true: she had realized they were talking about the energies inside living creatures only when Daira had mentioned the boar.
Aili turned to face her.
“Where have you learnt it? Was it one of the monks? Did you already know about them, too?”
Saia shook her head and didn't answer. Her training as a secret-keeper was thumping at the back of her head, reminding her of the last time she didn't listen to it.
“I can't talk about these things.”
“Why?”
“Can you please leave me alone?”
Aili kept staring at her.
“You looked quite scared of the monks,” she said. “Why did you choose to join them?”
"I already..." Saia started, voice raised, but then realized that there could still be monks nearby, so she lowered it. “I already said everything I had to say about that. And what about you, anyway? Why did you choose to join them?”
“I have no problem talking about that.”
“Good for you.”
Saia kept staring at her bag, hoping that Aili would leave her alone.
“I consider you my friend,” Aili said. “Or at least someone I can trust. We worked side by side for two weeks before all of these strange things started happening, and you keep getting more and more mysterious. But now we're alone. Even when we'll join the monks, we'll always have more in common with each other than with them. So I want you to know that I'm on your side, and I'll have your back if you need my help. You don't have to be scared of me.”
“I’m not.”
“You look scared.”
“Stop telling me how I look. You're wrong.”
Aili crossed her legs and started fidgeting with the frayed edge of a rug.
“What's the oldest event you studied at school about the history of your village?”
Saia was so taken by surprise by that change of topic she couldn't even begin to think about an answer.
“In Lausune we learned about the outbreak of fever that happened six hundred years ago and lasted for a month before Koidan stopped it. But further than that? The teacher only talked about a 'foundation', but wasn't able to provide any details about it. We just know that the village started existing, at some point, but there's no record of who was living there in that period. Not in the archives, not in history books. I've travelled a lot, I've read almost everything I could find about the history of the villages, but the oldest event they mentioned happened eight hundred years ago. Nobody knows what the foundation is and who did it. And these people, these monks, apparently existed before that.”
“So what? Maybe they lived here before everybody else arrived.”
“But then why nobody ever wrote down anything about these things? Were there conflicts for the land? Were the gods still there, protecting us, or they arrived later?“
Aili’s stomach growled, so she leaned back to take one of the four left meatballs. She pushed the plate toward Saia.
“Or maybe,” she continued, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. “Maybe somebody did, and everything was destroyed. Maybe the gods were involved, maybe it's the monks' fault, who knows. But they seem to have the answers, and if joining them is the only way to find out what happened, I'll do it.”
“You're going to change your whole life just because you want to know how the villages were founded?”
Aili nodded, chewing a piece of meatball.
“Why? What if it's something boring like ‘they arrived, found a good spot and started building’?”
“I have a feeling it's not that simple. There is the fact that gods have to disappear at least every two hundred years, and somehow it's the monks who have to ‘restore’ them, they said. And a lot of villages have faced some incidents during that period of time where the gods didn't seem to exist. For us, it was the outbreak of fever. Two hundred years ago apparently nothing happened, but this month we already had an earthquake, a fire, a murder, and a ship from outside the villages. Compared to similar events in other villages, it's too much happening in a short amount of time. Something's going on.”
“Koidan talked about being distracted by the evil god.”
“But the monks seemed skeptical about it.”
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“Not Coram.”
Aili narrowed her eyes and looked up, as if trying to remember.
“No, I'm pretty sure he talked about 'something going on', but he didn't mention the evil god. But yeah, let's keep that as a possible explanation. Still weird that it hasn't happened before.”
“If they actually hid every information about what happened during the foundation, why they didn't hide these events you’re talking about?”
“Oh, but they did. I didn't find them in the books.”
Saia tilted her head.
“And where, then?”
Aili looked slightly embarrassed for an instant.
“From people, mainly. I always try to talk to them when I travel through the villages. There are a lot of stories that were passed on from generation to generation. They look like family legends, things you tell kids to make them sleep, but they're pretty consistent across the families in the same village.”
She took another bite and chewed for a bit before continuing.
"Take Elgen, for example: some of the elders talk about a deluge, some say there was a day where the boats became alive and left the village. And one of the local heroes is a man who made a pact with the sea to save his daughter from drowning, giving his life in return."
“And what actually happened?”
“Nobody knows, but I'm pretty sure that it rained insistently for days, causing the river next to Elgen to flood the houses to the point people thought it was the sea.”
“And the boats?”
“Some of them were freed by the current and got stranded with the tide.”
“And you managed to find out all of that by asking people?”
Aili nodded.
“If they're really trying to keep everything hidden,” Saia said, “wouldn’t the monks try to stop you?”
“I think they did. Mivion asked me some weird questions, once.”
“Weird how?”
“I don't remember the exact words, but she asked me about random events that happened in the villages, to list the name of the gods in clockwise order, then again one by one, randomly this time.”
Saia thought about how Coram had said Zeles’s name instead of Koidan’s.
“Maybe she wanted to know whether you were an exiled monk,” she said.
Aili hugged her legs.
“That's what I think too, after what they've told us. Which means I got really close to being killed. And to think that the conversation seemed so natural at the time, even if a bit confusing.”
She finished eating the meatball, glancing up every once in a while.
Saia let go of her bag’s strap and ran her hands on the rough leather. Aili could have put her in trouble already. She hadn't told the monks about talking to her right before the ship disappeared, Loriem being healed from the venom while she was away, her trick with the snakes.
“I can't tell you everything because there's a person I have to protect.”
“The one who taught you magic?”
Saia nodded heavily.
“Yes.”
“Don't worry. I'm not telling them.”
“Well, I'm keeping some stuff for myself, just to be sure. I do know how to put snakes to sleep and I can wake them up when I want by touching either them or one of these scales.” She extracted a glove from the bag and showed it to Aili. “I have to focus and kind of... Imagine a sea inside me and channel the waves toward them. It's difficult to explain.”
“Can I?” Aili asked, extending a hand.
Saia gave her one of the gloves and watched as she examined it.
“When you let me wear them at your house I thought they were just decorations.” She passed the index on the shiny surface of the scales. “Why gloves?”
“I always have them with me. Apart from that, they have nothing special.”
Aili nodded and gave her the glove back.
“What’s the difference between touching the snakes and touching their scales?"
“Not much. The scales are more difficult to work with, but it's easier to control more than one snake. You can use anything, teeth, bones, skin, as long as it comes from the animal you want to put to sleep.”
“I wonder why.”
“I have no idea. But there's another problem.” She sighed, looking at the sleeping snakes. “If I fall asleep or become unconscious in some way, they will awake immediately.”
“I can imagine how it can be a problem.”
Saia produced a bitter smile, tilting the open bag toward her.
“Oh, you have no idea.”
Aili's eyes widened.
“You brought them with you?”
“I don't trust these monks.”
“This is so unbelievably dangerous!” Aili hugged her legs closer. “What if the boar attacked you? Or the monks did? You could have got bitten.”
Saia sighed.
“Yeah, I didn't think this through. And now I can't sleep.”
She closed the bag and let if fall on the rug.
“No.” Aili stood. "We have to find a solution.”
“The solution is me not sleeping. You don't have to do anything.” She watched her walk up to the entrance. “Where are you going?”
Aili put her head outside. She seemed ready to step out, but a huff of cold air entered and she closed the flaps immediately.
“I can't see anything. There could be a boar two steps away from the tent and I wouldn't even notice.”
“What were you even looking for?”
“A stone. We could seal the bag with something heavy.”
“They would kill each other during the night.”
“Better than biting us.”
“I agree, but we wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. And they could fight hard enough to free themselves.”
Aili put her hands on her hips, looking around.
“Do you see anything that could restrain them?”
“No,” Saia said, but searched the room with her eyes anyway. “The only way to stop a sea snake is to block its head.”
Aili kneeled to take a rug in her hands.
“Do you think we could tie them up well enough with these? It would be better to cut them, but…”
“I have a knife,” Saia said. “But no, I don't think it will be enough.”
She raised her eyes to the torches planted on the ground, then higher, to the vertical and horizontal poles that kept up the tent.
“We could hang them,” she said. “But we'll have to tie the head tight, so that they won't be able to see any movement or open their jaws. And keep them near the fires; the warmth makes them sleepy.”
Aili smiled.
“I like this plan. I'll do the cutting, you'll tie them.”
Saia nodded and passed her the knife. They went to work, Aili taking a piece from each of the rugs and working on the borders to make it look like they were intact, even if shorter, while Saia used all of her knowledge of knots and snake anatomy to make the wraps as tight as possible without hurting the animals.
“You didn't tell me why you decided to join the monks,” Aili said while they worked.
“I need information too. About the gods, specifically.”
“You're passionate about religion?”
“No.”
She was determined to end the conversation there, then she remembered Aili's words about Vizena being 'a difficult one'.
“You've been to Suimer before, right?”
“I’ve been everywhere around the mountain.”
“Have you noticed anything weird about the people there?”
“Like what?”
“The way they speak, for example. Is there an accent or something like that?”
“That's very vague and extremely specific at the same time. But no, I can’t remember anything of the sorts.”
Saia nodded, even if that was the worst thing Aili could have said.
“If you want to know anything else, I'm always glad to talk about my experiences in the other villages. And from what I've understood, yours wasn't a very happy departure.”
“Thank you, but I've heard all I needed.”
Aili shrugged and resumed sawing.
After all of the snakes were hanging from one of the horizontal poles, Saia woke one of them up, sending forward her buzzing energy. It started whipping its tail around, the movements gradually becoming slower. The knots didn't budge at all.
“We did a good job.”
Aili yawned.
“Great, because I'm exhausted.”
She put the last pillow on top of the barrier of spare cloth and sheets that they had created to keep away the snakes in case of fall. Her idea, after Saia had told her that sea snakes didn't like to climb at all.
Saia laid down on the green blanket, head on a blue pillow. She was on the opposite side of the tent from Aili, facing her.
“Which group will you join?” Aili asked. “I think I’ll go with the scholars.”
Saia smiled.
“That was obvious. Which subject?”
“History and magic. Only history if they won't allow me to study magic too, but I think it's really,” she yawned, “interesting. And you?”
Saia thought about it. Her heart was yearning for the sentinels: it felt like they were the ones that spent the most time outside. More importantly, she could have a chance to see her family, even if from afar. Then she thought about the days stretching forward without them being aware of her presence, while she yearned to talk to them again. It felt like torture.
So she thought about going with Aili. Studying magic could be interesting, and she could make sure that she didn't reveal anything they talked about to the monks. But the idea of staying inside, studying, devoting most if not all of her time to books and close rooms without ever seeing the outside felt suffocating.
Which left only one option, if the monks would allow it.
She was about to answer Aili’s question, but she had already closed her eyes. She did the same, keeping the answer to herself. At least she was good at that.