The warship deck smelled of scorpion jerky, cooked gonda, kebabs of skinkos, grilled sandsnake, and anything else Rasia could empty out of the warship’s stores. All day, she conscripted the kull’s help to prepare a feast for their last night of the Forging. They rolled out barrels of scavenger moonshine and decorated the warship with flowers and strings of dragonglass. Crackling energy followed their heels all day and they finally gathered around all of their hard work.
Rasia overflowed the brim of their gourds with scavenger moonshine. Kai had seen this stuff take down the stoutest of Timar’s facehunters. It crept up on you and the next thing you knew, you were on the ground.
Zephyr sniffed at the drink. “I’m pretty sure this is going to kill someone.”
“A kid from the Tents is afraid of scavenger moonshine?” Rasia asked.
“I’m saying this kid from the Tents is going to watch all of you drop by the end of the night.”
“Don’t bet on that,” Azan said. “My jihs have been sneaking me drinks since I was five-years-till. I can drink all of you under the table.”
“Is that a challenge?” Rasia crowed in excitement.
“I guess this will be good practice for the namepour?” Neema asked slowly.
“Exactly.” Rasia winked at her. “You don’t want to be the one vomiting after one drink.”
Most people consumed alcohol for the first time during the namepour, and new faces must learn quickly how to hold their drink. You couldn’t buy food in the Grankull, but you could buy alcohol. You purchased it as a gift for when you’re visiting someone’s home, meeting a friend you haven’t seen in a season, courting gifts for flames, and celebrating every birth, death, new job, lucky windfall, and stubbed toe. Celebrations are called a pouring because the alcohol flowed faster and quicker than water.
Rasia handed Kai his gourd so full that the drink spilled down his arm. It gathered in a pool at his feet, pale and milky like the overhead gibbous. The dragonglass chimed twinkling songs in the wind. The oil lamp glowed off the mast posts and encased them all in a citrine glow.
Rasia raised her gourd and toasted, “To the best kull this Desert has ever seen. Tonight, we celebrate our hunt, we celebrate each other, and we celebrate ourselves. Thank you to all of you, both stupid and brave, who followed me on this hunt. We killed a ta-fucking dragon!”
“Oi-yo!” Everyone drank.
Kai took small sips. He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep up with everyone else otherwise. He learned that the hard way back at the gorge. When he swallowed, he thought he knew what to expect, but he gagged on the trail of fire that burned down his throat.
“Shit,” Azan coughed, then doubled over and coughed some more.
“My throat is still burning,” Neema hacked.
Zephyr watched, smug. Rasia rolled her eyes at the dramatics.
“Suck it up. This is a kull toast. We’ve got four more to go,” Rasia reminded them all. “Lani, your turn.”
Kai blushed deep red at the address, nor did it go unnoticed. Azan glanced between Rasia and Kai. Neema snarked, “You two do know that Forging flames never last?”
“They also say it’s impossible to slay a dragon within a Forging season, but we beat those odds,” Rasia said.
“You two are like, together?” Azan asked. “You’re not wearing any namesakes. How am I supposed to know if you’re together if you’re not wearing any namesakes? I’ve been flirting with you all day!”
“Is that what you’ve been doing?” Rasia scoffed and patted Azan’s shoulder, consolingly. “Flattered, but his dick can do magic.”
Far from being put off, Azan rose his brows intrigued. “Are we talking about literally or figuratively? Or both?”
Kai hid his face in his hands, while Rasia whispered loudly, “both.”
“Ugh. Too much information,” Neema complained.
“Try being stuck on a windship with them for half your Forging,” Zephyr grumbled.
Rasia cackled and nudged Kai in the arm. “Come on, toast. At this pace, we’re never going to eat.”
Kai cleared his throat, shoulders up to his ears, embarrassed to face them all. Most people would be proud of the fact they could satisfy their partner, and Kai should be proud Rasia boasted of it—but he was still embarrassed. More than ready not to be the center of attention, he lamely mumbled out, “To the kull?”
“That toast sucks,” Rasia said. Because of course, she would never let him get away with that half-ass attempt. “Come on. Try again. Make me wet.”
Zephyr took a drink without prompting. Azan looked entirely too invested. Neema blanched. And Kai realized, at that moment, that none of the others mattered. He killed a dragon. What did he have to be embarrassed of? Kai focused on Rasia. He raised his drink, and the movement sloshed most of it down his arm.
“A toast—to all the hunts awaiting us, to all the horizons we’ve yet to reach, to all the nights we’ve yet to sail, to many more ends and many more beginnings, and all the journeys in between. This is a promise to you, Rasia.”
“Oi-yo,” Rasia purred in response. She hid the curling of her lips over the rim of her gourd, but her eyes visually stripped him of his clothes. He sipped at his gourd and eye-fucked her with the same intensity. He barely noted the second burn of the alcohol.
“You two are so weird,” Neema muttered.
“What do you think of a threesome?” Azan asked.
“Is food and sex all you think about?” Neema asked, exasperated.
“Yes. Why? You interested?”
“Not my type.”
“You mean your type for small, curved, and sharp?” Azan joked, referring to Neema’s obsession with her daggers.
She gave Azan the ‘V’ of her fingers. “My type is someone with a job, and established, and with status.”
“To the Tents, to prosperity, and to better seasons,” Zephyr toasted, interrupting them all.
“Oi-yo!”
Azan toasted, “To all the faces we’re going to fuck on our Naming night!”
“Oi-yo!”
Neema toasted, “To glory! To a name remembered!”
“Oi-yo!”
They drank. Both Rasia and Zephyr emptied their gourds. Neema looked to have the same idea as Kai, sipping at safe mouthfuls, while Azan finished half of his. Even with small sips, Kai wobbled as they gathered around the feast and attacked the endless spread of food. Per tradition, it was Rasia’s duty as Han to make sure the gourds were always topped off, and she certainly took the job seriously.
It was said that those who eat the heart of a dragon die as legends. Many lived their entire lives without a taste of dragon meat, and only a handful of hunters have ever eaten the heart. They didn’t have the time to celebrate the day they slayed Aurum, but Rasia had sun-dried and salted the organ to eat on their last night of the Forging. They all sat in reverent silence with that dragon heart on their tongue. Even though dried, it melted like butter in their mouths.
“I don’t feel any different,” Azan said when he finished.
“Of course not,” Rasia said. “It’s food like everything else.”
“Yes, but it’s magic food.”
“It has never given anyone magic to have eaten it,” Rasia said. “Shamai-ta killed two dragons, and he was never any different.”
“They say you live longer,” Neema piped in.
Rasia said darkly, “You don’t.”
“I always thought the magic was in the bones, not the meat,” Zephyr said.
All at once, they turned to Kai for clarity. Transport one warship across the Desert and now, suddenly, he was an expert on magic.
“He’s right,” Kai explained. “There’s no magic in the heart, only the bones. Bones are . . . magnets for magic, but that doesn’t mean all bones hold magic, or can hold magic at the same capacity. Magic prefers dragon bones because dragon bones remember magic the most, but that doesn’t mean the magic won’t transfer if there is a more appealing container. Magic might prefer dragon bones, but it also prefers living ones. Eventually, the magic will be recycled somewhere else.”
They all squinted at him.
“Huh. Are the throwing bones really magic, then?” Azan asked.
“Kind of? Because the throwing bones are made from the bones of the magicborn, they attract more magic than normal bones, but I wouldn’t say they contain a lot. I can’t speak to how much they affect a greater divine plan, but at the very least, they stay in the air a little longer.” Kai shrugged.
Rasia guffawed.
The throwing bones were supposed to be sacred and held the secrets of everyone’s destinies. Kai sometimes forgot that the Grankull didn’t perceive things the same way. Nico constantly reminded him that the truth was not always the truth. Sometimes it was false for a reason, and sometimes it had been stretched over hundreds of years to become something new.
“We probably shouldn’t mention this in our interview,” Neema grumbled into her cup. “After everything, we wouldn’t want the Grankull to fail us for blasphemy.”
“We’ll need to omit quite a bit from our interview,” Rasia said. “No one should mention anything about Kai’s magic either. We caught a lucky wind and made it in time. That’s that.”
“Why don’t you want the Grankull to know about your magic?” Zephyr asked Kai.
“That’s Nico’s thing, and I don’t want the Grankull to expect it of me when I might not always be able to perform it.”
“But why should we have to lie to the Grankull on the runt’s behalf?” Neema asked.
Rasia surged through the crumbs and dishes. She swiped up a bone, chewed meat still clinging to it, and brandished it at Neema’s throat. “He killed a fucking dragon. You put some respect on his name.”
Kai was so used to Neema calling him runt, he hadn’t realized this was the first time Neema had said it in Rasia’s presence. Neema reached for a dagger, but Rasia already had that bone shoved so hard against Neema’s throat she could barely breathe. She gave a reluctant stubborn nod up.
Rasia shifted enough for Neema to breathe in air, but kept her glare pinned on Neema in case Neema had the gall to call him a runt a second time.
“No one complains when it’s Nico,” Rasia complained. “None of those oasis kids killed a gonda on their own. Those gonda were our kills. They haven’t earned their Forging, but Nico made us all agree to lie for them. That’s the one thing I respect about you, Neema. You didn’t take the easy way out. You killed your hunt. Don’t ruin that by playing the fucking snitch.” Rasia plopped back down and pointed to both Azan and Zephyr. “And that goes for both of you. Anyone spills about Kai’s magic, or anything about me and Kai, and I swear no one will ever find your bones.”
Azan said after a moment of silence. “You know, Rasia. You can be kind of a bully sometimes. Of course, we aren’t going to say anything. We wouldn’t be here without you.”
Neema’s dark glare told a different opinion, and Rasia didn’t miss it. She dragged the bone across her neck in warning.
“Okay . . . anyone up for a game of rattle bones?” Azan asked in an attempt to lighten the air.
“Ooh, we should play the drinking one.” Rasia brightened and tossed the bone over her shoulder.
Azan jumped to his feet in excitement and then stumbled back. Zephyr caught Azan by the shirt and stabilized his footing.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” Azan said. He rushed below-deck to grab his pouch of playing-bones.
Zephyr shook his head and helped Rasia clear the deck of the empty earthenware. Kai didn’t exactly feel comfortable trying to stand right now. For a moment, Neema and Kai sat across from each other, alone. The alcohol pulled the words from his lips. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For your jih. And I’m sorry for what happened back at the scavenger camp. I wasn’t strong enough to save you.”
“I never thought you could,” Neema said. “But Rasia is right. You sailed that windship against the dragon like one of the best. You are no longer the runt of the Grankull. You’ve outgrown that. Doesn’t mean I still don’t want to see you dead.”
“I understand.”
Neema nodded, sharp and quick.
Azan slid between them. The pouch fumbled out of Azan’s grasp and the bones rattled. Kai moved to catch them before they rolled across the deck. He placed the bones back into Azan’s hands and found himself surprised when Azan latched onto his wrist. Azan’s thumb rubbed the top of his hand.
“Are you double-sided? All-sided?” Azan asked.
Kai snatched his hand away. “I d-d-don’t know.”
“I’ve got experience. I’d take good care of you. You tell Rasia that.”
Neema gagged. “Ugh. He’s a stick.”
“You’re only mean to him because you know he’s pretty. I’ve seen you staring when he’s at the steer,” Azan said to Neema before turning back to Kai with a drunken wobbliness. “You become a whole different person when you’re steering the windship. It’s so fucking hot. Sometimes, instead of the steer, I imagine my dick in your hands.”
Kai slapped his hands to his face. “If this is you flirting, I don’t understand how Rasia missed it.”
“Me neither. She laughed at everything though. Maybe she thought I was joking.”
“That’s because Rasia has eyes for only one person,” Neema scoffed. “Why you would get yourself so entangled with one person right before the Naming is beyond me. She’s the last person I’d peg to be the hit-it and commit-it type.”
“Didn’t her jih choose a kulani after only a year? Maybe it’s a family thing.”
“Maybe I just give good dick.”
Azan and Neema swiveled their heads towards Kai, both struck speechless by the unexpected boast. Azan exploded into laughter.
Huh. Kai didn’t mean to say that. But he was not taking it back.
Azan’s eyes grew heavy, looking him up and down. Kai had no doubt Rasia would be up for it, but he didn’t want this night spiraling out of control. He needed to establish boundaries before he couldn’t consent to them anymore. He placed a placating hand on Azan’s forearm, and it took a lot of courage just to do that. The difference was a stark reminder of how much he trusted Rasia, unequivocally.
“I appreciate your interest, but I don’t think . . . I’m not ready.”
Azan gave a sweet endearing smile. “I’ll be here when you are.”
Kai flushed, noticing for the first time how handsome Azan was when he smiled.
“Can we play?” Neema groaned. “All this flirting is making me sick.”
Azan grinned unapologetically, then began setting up the game. “Do you know how to play rattle-bones?”
“I’ve never played before,” Kai admitted. He had observed a few family games. His cousin, Ashe, the math genius, was infamously banned from the gambling houses. He glanced up when Zephyr and Rasia emerged from below-deck, sniping at each other as they often did.
Thoughtfully, Kai said, “You might roll a better hand with Zephyr.”
Azan dropped the bones, again, clattering them over the deck. Kai caught the ones that rolled in his direction. Azan swiveled his head toward Zephyr.
“It’s pretty obvious he has a thing for Nico,” Neema said. “Why does everyone have a thing for her?”
“He’s trying to get over her, not very successfully,” Kai said, “but he’s open.”
“I pegged him for a top,” Azan said, thoughtfully.
“He’s a bottom,” Kai corrected. He tossed the stray bones at Azan. Azan barely caught them, distracted, as he watched Zephyr and Rasia walk over. It was a wonder that Azan hadn’t lost any of the pieces yet.
Rasia hopped into Kai’s lap, and asked, “You don’t have the game set up yet?”
“I’m working on it,” Azan said. Finally, with everyone’s help, Azan got all the bones together into one pot. “Each round, everyone but the winner drinks. Someone rolls a red, everyone drinks.”
“Those are only the drinking rules,” Zephyr said, and then helpfully explained the regular non-drinking rules. The tent kid seemed far more stable than the rest of them. Even Rasia, often balanced to an extreme degree, rolled off Kai’s lap and plopped to the deck with a squeak. He scooped her up, settled her a little more solidly between his legs, and wrapped a stabilizing arm around her. Rasia smiled up at him, and Kai smiled at her in turn.
“No,” Azan corrected Zephyr’s explanation of the rules. “Those are the kull rules. We’re playing Tent rules. Tent rules are better.”
“Since when do you know Tent rules?”
“Kelin taught me.” Azan’s eyes narrowed on Zephyr, trying. “Kelin taught me a lot of things.”
“Roll, Azan.”
The bones clattered into the pot. Kai sort of got the hang of the game as best he could but felt the worst of the alcohol brewing like an encroaching storm. To everyone’s surprise, Rasia was disastrous at the game. Her number guesses were wildly off. She took a shot every round and got drunk much faster than anyone expected.
“This is stupid!” Rasia shouted. At another loss, she leapt off Kai’s lap and overturned the pot. She scattered the bones around with her body, wiggling like a sand-snake in retribution.
Azan whined. “I was winning!”
“What the fuck is your math? I was winning,” Neema said.
Azan squinted and counted his bones. He counted several of the same bones three or four times. Zephyr shook his head at how utterly out of hand the game had gotten. Kai secured Rasia back into his lap. She pouted as she slumped against his chest. “It’s not fair. I hate this game. I never win.”
The more Rasia began to lose, the less she cared about the game, and the more her hands roamed underneath Kai’s clothes. He threw his bones. A lap full of Rasia. Time tilted sideways. The next thing he remembered, he had Rasia in his mouth and a dick hard and throbbing in his pants.
“Kai?” Zephyr’s voice floated at the edge of his periphery. Whatever Zephyr wanted, it hardly felt as urgent as the pressing heat of Rasia in his lap. Kai tightened his hands around her ass, clutching at the friction as she humped him like a rabid drunken bunny.
“Are they fucking?”
“Skip ‘em.”
“They are worse than my tahs.”
Kai’s senses exploded into awareness. His heart pounded in his ears at the end of a race he didn’t remember. Rasia lay loose and content against him. Wet fingers chilled cold in the night air. He had made a mess in his pants.
“I’m sticky,” Kai complained. He tapped Rasia on the behind. She rolled off him and flopped to the deck.
Kai got to his feet and wondered why the warship was moving. He stumbled over to a more secluded area and grasped at the railing for dear life. The warship kept lurching underneath him. He pissed off the railing, and then used the rest of the water in his gourd to clean his hands, thighs, and groin. Behind him, he cringed when an exultant cheer rang out as Neema won the game. She jumped up, then quickly crashed back down. Laughter, then worry, then more laughter followed.
Once Kai felt adequately presentable, he swayed a meandering path toward the food. He dropped down and stuffed his face, starving even though he had eaten a lot a few moments ago. The food settled his stomach and rounded the sharp edges of his drunkenness. He ate while Neema and Azan argued over who won.
Zephyr joined him and scooped up a bowl of olives. He popped them into his mouth and looked at Kai shrewdly. “How are you feeling?”
“Drunk.”
Zephyr offered his gourd of water. Kai took deep sips of it. He wiped the droplets from his mouth, lowered the gourd, and was met with Zephyr’s serious expression.
“One of you needs to stay sober,” he said. “No more alcohol tonight.”
Before, Kai would have chafed at the command and complained that he could take care of himself, that he didn’t need anyone looking out for him. But he was also the dumbass who got Rasia pregnant, and it would be just his luck to mess up again so close to the Grankull. He ceded. “‘kay.”
Kai looked at Zephyr owlishly. “I . . . thank you. For being a friend.”
They had a rocky start, but Zephyr had always tried to respect him, and had more often than not learned from his mistakes. He tried to give space and understanding when Kai needed it, and, in turn, Kai had begun to understand Zephyr’s own peculiarities. Zephyr just . . . talked like that, to everyone. Kai learned not to take it too personally. Even though his relationship with Rasia was one of the momentous things to come out of this year’s Forging, just as importantly, he also gained a friend.
“I might have suggested to Azan you could be interested,” Kai said.
“I picked up on that.”
Kai concentrated on making sure his words made sense. “I know you haven’t had sex since your last flame, and I can’t imagine how hard it must be to move on from that,” he said. “But . . . you deserve to get laid.” Kai swore he was trying to say something far more eloquent. Zephyr was right. He had got to stop drinking.
Zephyr pouted. “True.”
“Let me be the responsible one tonight,” Kai said. “Have fun. I owe that to you.”
“You owe me so many.” Zephyr slapped him on the back, leaving his water gourd with Kai, and went to go piss over the railing.
Kai ate and focused on sobering up. Rasia had disappeared off somewhere. She showed back up whatever-time later. She carried something behind her back, but he couldn’t get a good view of it before she crouched in front of him. A shy smile spread across her face.
“I made you a gift,” she declared.
Rasia presented an ilhan. Some things started making sense. She had gone off on her own yesterday morning before everyone woke up. She brought back a huge sand-snake for the feast, but Kai had suspected she had other motivations, or she would have invited him along.
“I found it in the hold. It was in a bit of a rough shape, but I’ve replaced some of the materials. Considering I broke the last one, I figured you could use a new one. And this time, it’s yours.” Rasia grabbed his hand and placed his fingers along the neck. He blinked at the carved letters written into the palm wood. It was too dark to see the lettering, but he traced the letters with his fingers: Rasia’s name.
It was a namesake—a courting gift. Kai couldn’t help the smile, and the ridiculous backward way they always managed to do things.
“It’s not exactly a traditional namesake that you can wear, but I figured—I thought you would like this better. When I earn the rest of my names, I’ll add those too, all down the neck, which means you’ll have to play it, so people will see my name and know you’re mine.”
“I . . .” Kai’s throat clogged with emotions. “Thank you.”
“Play me a song.”
“I can’t actually play, Rasia.”
“What does that matter? I’ll dance to any sound you make.”
How could he possibly refuse?
High on the confidence of alcohol, Kai sat atop an upturned calabash bowl. He pulled the ilhan between his legs and curled his fingers around the handposts. They were a little bit uneven, the top of the left post chipped off. He strummed his thumbs forward along the strings. Rasia hadn’t known how to tune it, but despite the off-note sound, she shimmied to it anyways.
He knew exactly the song he wanted to try. Rasia, Azan, and Neema drunkenly cheered at the unmistakable notes. Without further prompting or even the right chords, everyone raised their voices to sing the infamous kull shanty, which over the centuries had turned into a rowdy song no proper celebration could go without.
Drink another gourd for me
The Han of winds I obey
A fortnight apart from my kulani
The hunt got us blowing away!
Clap. Clap.
Drink another gourd for me
And dance the ilhan sway
A fortnight returned to my kulani
and now I can’t wait to get away!
Clap. Clap.
Rasia pranced and danced around the deck with Azan. Neema spun effortless circles. Zephyr flipped over a few more dishes and accompanied Kai with makeshift drums. They glanced at each other with foolish grins and played off each other’s cues. Music had always fascinated him, at the way sounds could be woven into beautiful shrouds. He had seen Kenji Ilhani thread music from air and compose tapestries of songs dedicated to Ava-ta, Nico, and Rae. All he had ever gotten was silence.
Now, Kai played his own songs.
Clap. Clap.
A strong wind jerked Rasia awake, then she jarred her elbow. She blinked at the sight of Kai’s old shroud fluttering overhead. She stretched out from under a blanket tucked around her, peeked out over the rim of the scout’s nest, and winced at the long way down. Her head hurt. She didn’t really remember how she got all the way up here.
But her mouth was dry, and she was thirsty. She clutched the handholds and climbed down naked from the mast. What had been a faint sound of music, which she had initially thought had been a lingering memory of last night, grew louder as she climbed down.
Dawn lit the horizon a stratum of blended orange and yellows. When she reached the deck, Rasia stretched her arms, popping bones and waking up muscles. The morning air felt great on her bare skin. When they returned to the Grankull, they’d have to go back to the shroud and the restrictive white of the caftan until they received their names during the Naming Ceremony. Rasia wanted to bask in this freedom for as long as possible. They had to be in the Grankull by sunset. Plenty of time for everyone to sleep off the alcohol and wash up all evidence of illicit activity.
Rasia trudged into the Han quarters, looking for her gourd, and froze at the sight of Azan and Zephyr splayed out haphazardly on the bed. Huh. Azan did have a pretty dick. But comparing the two of them, and Rasia would die before ever admitting this out loud, she thought Zephyr the more attractive one. It had always been rather irritating.
Rasia shuffled through the mess on the floor, found her back-up gourd, flung it over her shoulder, and left them to their sleep.
Kai strummed the ilhan at the bow-tip of the warship, his hands exploding with music. He played without pause. Breathless. Leaping freefall from one song to the next. He claimed that he didn’t know how to play, that he had never put fingers to an ilhan before that night in the gorge, but his fingers pressed along the strings at a frantic pace, like someone afraid to forget the steps. Those are Kenji-shi’s songs, Rasia knew. Kai played almost perfect renditions, and Rasia realized with sudden clarity that Kai had memorized the finger placements. He played through the songs with a forcefulness, with such a determined reclamation Rasia couldn’t bring herself to interrupt. Was this how Kai’s ability to observe and perfectly mimic was born? By watching Kenji-shi play music?
Fingers slipped and a sharp note halted the song. Kai shook out the strain in his hands.
“Have you been up all night?” Rasia asked.
Kai jumped in surprise. She sat down at his side, took a drink of water, and then wiped the sweaty strands of hair out of his eyes. Someone needed a haircut. It had grown longer than his shoulders. All he needed now was one of Nico’s dragonglass hairbands.
“I . . .” Kai paused and squinted out at the dawn. “I think so.”
“You must have watched Kenji-shi play a lot.”
“I . . . yeah,” he said to himself blankly. He looked down at the ilhan and said, “The Lake showed me this, too. It was in my dreams. Me and him, playing music together, forever and ever until the end of time. I’d always hoped if I ever got the chance to show him who I am, and fix things, that he would teach me how to play. I’ve been waiting for it my entire life without any hope of it ever coming true.” He shook his head, and his fingers tapped a song atop the deck. “Sometimes, there’s no time to wait on people. Sometimes, you’ve got to teach yourself how to play.”
“I get that. When Ysai-ji refused to come into the Desert with me, all the plans we had laid unfinished. We had planned to slay a dragon together. It had been our dream. Then tah died, and Ysai-ji’s plans changed. You can’t wait on people. You move on.” Rasia settled a hand over Kai’s tapping fingers. “This was better, anyway.”
He threaded his fingers through hers, and they sat watching the dawn.
“How did I get all the way up in the scout’s nest?”
“I magicked us up there.”
“What happened to my clothes?”
“You took them off. Claimed you were hot,” Kai smirked. “But you were just trying to get in my pants.”
She laughed. “Did we fuck?” She didn’t feel any of the familiar soreness, but she wanted to be sure.
“I took care of us,” Kai said.
Rasia released a sigh of relief, then dropped her head against his shoulder. This was the first time she had ever blacked-out while drinking. She didn’t like the idea of empty spaces in her memory, but it made her feel better to know Kai had taken care of things. It had been so long since she had someone she could rely on so implicitly.
Rasia watched dawn spread light over his goosebumps. She knew the difference now—between attraction, and a flame, and this. She didn’t know when it happened or how—when this kernel lodged in her chest grew to consume her.
No word could contain a feeling so vast.
She swept her fingers across the planes of his face and held him as if she had personally molded his angles out of clay. She marveled at the color of his golden skin alongside her sun-burnt copper, at the way the colors bled together in the shadows. Kai held her hand, and his thumb pressed gently between her knuckles. She surged up, and he caught her in his arms, and she knew it’ll always feel like flying.
They kissed until the sun broke the horizon.
“I’ve got something for you,” Kai said, as dawn combed through his hair. “I’ve got to go get it.”
“Sure. Meet me on the deck of the windship.”
Kai got up and paused to look over her nakedness. “Do you want me to grab your wrap?”
“Nope. I’m good.”
He pecked her lips, hauled the ilhan into his arms, and rushed toward the Han quarters.
Rasia yelled after him, “Make sure you don’t trip over Azan’s huge dick!”
Kai stumbled in laughter. Rasia smiled and admired his striking silhouette as he disappeared into the cabin. She stretched up to the tip of her toes, rolled her shoulders, and pulled at her hamstrings. Her windship was hitched over the warship’s side, creaking at a particularly strong draft of wind.
Rasia skipped down the chains and landed on her dangling windship. She greeted the familiar bumpy texture of her deck. When Kai shimmied down the chains and joined her, she immediately searched him for the surprise. There was only one thing it could reasonably be.
“Is it a namesake?”
Kai sighed, more amused than exasperated. “You can at least act surprised.”
Rasia practiced her best surprise faces. Kai snorted at her attempts. He pulled the item from his belt, unwrapped it from a sheet of cloth excruciatingly slowly, and her smile dropped at the sight of the glass bauble in his hand.
It was a necklace, a pretty traditional type of namesake to give, but Rasia was expecting something a little more . . . exciting. (The namesake she gifted had definitely been better.)
“That’s it?” Rasia picked it out of his hand and lifted the necklace by the tightly woven jute braid. The sun gleamed off the clear glass and the deposits of sand trapped within. “It’s . . . nice.”
Kai crossed his arms, face revealing nothing. He said her name, “Rajiani.”
The trapped sand whirled. The bauble warmed, then flew from her hand of its own accord and tugged headward, parallel to the Grankull.
“Oh.”
“Say my name.”
Rasia smirked at the suggestiveness. She said, with a hint of playful teasing in her voice, “Kailjnn.”
The namesake flew back into her hands.
“I made it while practicing my magic yesterday. When you say your name, it’ll always point headwards. No matter where you are, you’ll always find your way. When you say my name, it’ll always come back to you, no matter what. That way, you’ll never lose it. I don’t want people to know about my magic. It doesn’t belong to them. They don’t get that part of me. It’s mine to choose who I give it to, and I choose to give it to you.”
Overwhelmed, Rasia spun on her heels to hide the sudden heat in her cheeks. Kai tied the magical compass around her neck. The entire kull voiced concerns last night regarding Kai and Rasia’s relationship but fuck their opinions. She glanced at tah’s name inscribed on the mast. After Shamai-ta’s death, she never thought she could feel this way ever again. Happy.
Kai stepped back and smiled at the sight of the necklace around her neck. The glass sat warm on her skin. It was odd—to carry something of someone else. “I intentionally made it look worthless, so the sentries won’t confiscate it when we return to the Grankull. No need to smuggle it in your vagina. But if you want to go that route, I’d still be willing to help.”
Rasia laughed and kissed him. When she stepped back, she unsheathed Kai’s dagger from his waist. She waggled it at him, and he tilted his head in question. “There’s one more thing I need to do before we return to the Grankull.”
She stood before the mast, pressed a hand to her tah’s name, and then stabbed the palmwood underneath it. She performed the movements of the kah to find the last letter.
Below her tah’s name, Rasia wrote another.
Ysaijen.
“I get it now,” she said. Kulls weren’t forever. She promised herself no more waiting on people. She was ready to move on. “Eventually, they have their own ship to sail.”
“Very wise,” Kai nodded and pressed a kiss to her scalp. “You’re an amazing Han.”
Rasia smiled, smugly. “I am.”
They said the parting words together.
“Paths diverge, and split, and end. Till we meet once more again. Forever this ship ferry your name. All hunters are hunted, but the kull remains.”
It was ironic how Rasia ridiculed Ysai for his certainty that Jilah was the one, and now she was carrying the namesake of someone she had known all of a season who had become the steer to her windship. Rasia thought she knew better than jih, thought him dumb, and an idiot, and a fool. She thought she knew everything.
If there was one thing she had learned from her Forging—that for all her vast experiences, for all her skills, and all her accomplishments—Rasia knew nothing at all.