Chapter 21

Zaidna

The Strait of Kitadesh

Sorai longed for sleep, but every time she shut her eyes for more than a moment some sound startled her, whether it was a brush of fabric or footsteps outside her cabin door. Each time she sat up and looked, she would only ever find Rao, coiled up near her feet. This was the first day Rao was willing to nap near her all week. Ever since she threw that tantrum over her inability to eat her favorite foods, he had kept his distance, even hissing quietly at her from behind his paws whenever she called him to her. She was glad that he was willing to start trusting her again.

Still, he didn’t let her get too close to him, much less pet him. Instead, he seemed content to natter on about a current mate of his living in Judath that he intended to make cubs with during the summit. Maybe the summer season was making him act more aggressively.

Thinking of Rao’s strange behavior reminded Sorai of the sazi flock. She hoped that Chibchatchu had gotten his fish. Her entire journey home from the outpost had been a blur of sensations and feelings. Her only coherent memory was of waking in her bedroom, Tashau leaning close and whispering in her ear. Her heart had swelled to know that he was alive. Now she wanted nothing more than for him to sit at her side and make her feel safe, but he was busy preparing for the summit. He rose early and retired late and Sorai hardly got to see him. It made her flesh crawl with anxiety to be away from him, even to the point that she relished clinging to his slumbering body for those sleepless hours late at night, though he never responded to her proddings.

He hadn’t wanted her to come with him to Judath at all and had become upset when she insisted on her handmaidens packing her luggage and having it loaded onto the ship without his approval. Sorai tended to mind Tashau, and he, likewise, tended to mind her, especially when it mattered most, but not this time. His concern had been for her health, while hers had been for Faro’s. She still shuddered to think of how tempting it was to pull at those silvery threads that flowed from time to time out of people’s heads, and she was ashamed to think how close she had been to tugging at Faro’s tiny strands.

Sorai shut her eyes as they began to prickle with tears. She couldn’t stop seeing that padu in her mind, nor could she forget Anoth and his promise about what she would do to her son if she went near him. How was it possible that Anoth had stalked her for so long without her knowledge? Every secret, sacred thing she’d ever done in the walls of the palace had been violated with his eyes. Now she saw him everywhere!

No—no, she would be calm. He wasn’t near. She was safe.

Sorai dried her eyes on the sheets. Sleep, she told herself, just sleep! But as her muscles began to relax, her senses were assaulted by a cacophony of men’s laughter, accompanied by the heavy stomping of feet. She covered her ears and moaned. It was late afternoon again, and all the noblemen, except for Tashau and his advisors, were done with their work. Now they were going to be drinking riotously and playing games well into the evening. This had been going on since the beginning of the trip, but it seemed that the men grew ruder and noisier with each progressive day. Now it was as though they were rattling their dice right outside her cabin door, shouting and singing all the while.

“Why are they so loud?” she hissed as she wrapped her pillow around her head, trying in vain to stuff it into her ears. She couldn’t remember the noise being this unbearable on previous trips to Judath. Had the bulkheads been hollowed out?

“I don’t hear anything,” Rao trilled from down at her feet.

Sorai groaned. “Must you always shout, Rao?”

“But . . . I wasn’t shouting.” His head popped into view, a quizzical expression on his face.

Sorai sat up. There was no point staying in bed any longer. She certainly wouldn’t get any sleep with the din surrounding her on all sides. She arose and dressed herself in a long, purple robe, which she belted with a gold sash. She glanced at herself in the mirror to make certain her scabs were suitably hidden, but paused when she saw her face; her skin had never looked grayer. She shook her head and pinched her cheeks, then turned and opened the door to her cabin. She was immediately inundated by a deluge of laughter, but the dim passageway was empty. Wincing, she made her way toward the stairs to the weather deck. The sea had always soothed her since she was a child. Perhaps it could offer her some solace where her cabin couldn’t.

As she emerged from the gloom of the hull and onto the deck, she shielded her eyes from the assault of the sun. It was so bright. She couldn’t remember ever seeing the sky such a vivid silver-blue.

“Doesn’t the wind feel good on your fur?” Rao shouted as he darted from between her legs.

Sorai made no reply. The air was so thick with salt that she could taste it the instant she breathed it in. She tried to force her eyes open from their tight squint. Had she truly been in the dark for so long that she couldn’t take a little sunlight? She moved to the bulwark on the starboard side of the ship and held to it fast, the grain of the wood rough beneath her fingers. Her father’s estate sat right on the shores of the province of Anoi, and she used to be able to walk out to the beach any time she wanted. She used to look at the soft wash of blue at the horizon and took comfort in the knowledge that it would always be there for her, but not now. Now the sheer brightness of sea and sky made her eyes burn and water without control. Why did everything hurt? Why did it feel like her senses were raging out of control?

“Are you seasick?” Rao asked. His shout sounded far away—a single shrill whine amongst the garbled voices of the noblemen encroaching ever nearer.

“Stop yelling!” she snarled down. Rao backed away, his eyes large.

Sorai tried to calm herself, but fury and despair boiled over within her. She hid her face with her hands as the sound of the wind and waves beat down on her from all sides. All the voices from below deck were blending discordantly with the booming sea, creating a chorus of chaos.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

She covered her ears with her palms, digging her nails into her scalp as she paced frantically back and forth on the deck.

“What’s wrong?” Rao demanded, dodging her stamping feet.

The sea! Yes, the sea would make everything right. If it could just fill her aching ears, it would be a soothing balm and block out all sound!

“Hey!” Rao snatched her skirt with his teeth as she attempted to hoist herself up and over the bulwark. He tugged hard, halting her progress only temporarily as a piece of her skirt tore off in his mouth.

Sorai looked down to see Rao swipe at the air, his head bobbing up and down.

“Stop!” he cried. “You stay right there. Don’t you do anything!”

Sorai turned back to look at the calm, inviting sea below her, ignoring the sazi’s hurried padding as he fled. Unencumbered, she lifted one leg over the side of the ship and straddled the bulwark between her thighs as if it were the back of her son’s toy naru. She gripped the wood tight.

The light suddenly dimmed, and the voices and sounds all diminished, almost as if they acknowledged their part in torturing her. Her senses were finally as they should be, but the respite wouldn’t last; when the noise returned to full strength, it would be more unbearable than ever. She couldn’t live like this. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then allowed herself to lean toward the sea.

Before she could fall completely from the bulwark, someone shouted her name and caught her arm. She was yanked up and spilled to the deck like a flopping fish. She didn’t have a chance to open her eyes before she felt herself being wrenched to her feet.

“What were you thinking?” It was Tashau yelling. That damned sazi had fetched him!

“Why?” Sorai raged when she spotted Rao at Tashau’s feet.

Tears bubbled up in Rao’s eyes and dribbled down his nose. He fled, and Sorai was not the least bit sorry he had gone.

“Stop!” Tashau roared as he gripped her arms tightly.

“It hurts! I can’t bear it!”

Tashau gritted his teeth. “Calm down!”

“They won’t stop! The sounds won’t go away! It just keeps getting worse and worse!”

Before Sorai knew it, she was being led back through the ship’s passages and ushered into her cabin. The lock on the door snapped too loudly into place, and only then did Tashau finally release his hold on her arm. She didn’t dare look at him, but could feel the intensity of his eyes on her.

“Sorai,” he murmured. His voice sounded strained. “This is why I wanted you to stay in Chalei. It is too soon for you to be traveling.”

She said nothing. It wasn’t fair! He would understand if only he knew.

“I can’t allow this to go on. I’m sending you back.”

Terror clawed at Sorai’s ribs to think of her son’s sweet, trusting face amidst the strange, tempting threads that flowed from his temples. She couldn’t go back, not knowing what she might do when alone with him. “No, Tashau, you can’t!”

Tashau shook his head. “Come, let’s pack your things.”

Sorai’s body was racked with frantic sobs. She hated it when Tashau was so cold—when every word he spoke was final without permitting her any say. She caught one of his wrists as he turned, refusing to release it. “I won’t go back there! It’s what he wants! He wants me alone!”

Tashau’s wrist tensed beneath her fingers.

“He said he’d been watching me since before we were married. All those times I nursed Faro in the gardens or bathed in the pavilion—he was there watching, and no one knew!”

Tashau gritted his teeth and stared, sudden anger burning in his eyes.

Sorai couldn’t stand the silence. He only had this expression on his face when making a harsh decision that he intended to carry through with exacting authority. “Please, please don’t send me back,” she whispered. “I won’t—I won’t make any more trouble. I swear.”

Tashau pried his wrist from her grip, a grim line forming across his jaw. “Why did you try to throw yourself into the strait? Were you trying to kill yourself?”

Hearing Tashau’s questions brought Sorai a moment of clarity, which quickly turned to shame. What had she done? What was the thinking that caused her to do something like that? “I didn’t mean to,” she quavered, uncertain how to explain herself. Enveloping her senses in the sea had felt like the only option at the time. It had been rational, reasonable—sane. “Everything was so loud it hurt. I just—I just wanted the noise to stop so I could sleep.”

Tashau deflated. It seemed he wanted to say something, but each time he started to speak, he withdrew and shook his head instead.

“Don’t look at me like that! I-I keep seeing things—hearing things! I’m telling the truth!”

“I realize you’re under a great deal of stress,” Tashau began.

“I’m not stressed!” Sorai screeched, knowing that she was just making everything worse by shouting. “It’s the glyphs! It has to be! There’s ormé in them. They burn! They burned when he—when he—” She couldn’t go on. Speaking of it caused her to fall back into that awful moment, again feeling every slice and staring helplessly at that monster’s exultant, blood-splattered grin. He had poured his blood into the heart glyph. Part of him coursed through her veins—lived in her. She had been violated, defiled! Frantically, she dug at her glyphs with her fingernails. No matter what she did, she could never be rid of him!

“Stop!” Tashau caught her hands and jerked them apart. He embraced her tightly, bringing her back to the present.

Sorai continued her sickened sobs. “The glyphs are changing me!”

Tashau pressed her head against his chest, smoothing her hair with his hand. “No, they’re not.”

“But they are!” The only time her wounds had ever stopped aching was after she touched that padu—

Tashau sat Sorai down on the bed and rolled up her sleeve, revealing one of the crusty scabs. “There isn’t any ormé to these glyphs,” he said. “I’m looking now. There is no extra primal matter in them. It’s just a scab. So are all the rest.”

Sorai looked from the glyph to Tashau. “But that can’t be right. Everything I’ve been seeing—smelling—hearing. It’s not just my imagination. I’m not insane!”

Tashau frowned sadly. “Is it sane to want to silence noise that isn’t there by jumping into the sea?”

Sorai hung her head.

Tashau placed his hand upon her jaw. “You’re scarred, but you’re alive. You need to be grateful for that.”

How could she possibly be grateful? Every time she shut her eyes, Anoth was there. Even if she never actually saw him again, she would never cease to feel him in her scars. “You don’t understand! You don’t know what he put me through!”

Again, Tashau was quiet.

How could he be so distant and unsympathetic? All she wanted was for him to make everything better. “Don’t send me home,” she pleaded.

Finally, Tashau spoke. “If you stay, it’s conditional. You are not to leave this cabin again without me, and you will allow me to perform a cleansing on you.”

“Anything! I can’t go back!” She hated that he wanted to perform such a thing on her, but she could not refuse his demand. Besides, it was probably for the better. She would rather be insane than be a hadir.