“Ready?”
Raiment looked down at Rasia from the bow of the windbarge. Just looking at the ship, weighed down with crates and barrels and her ticket out of here, she could barely contain her excitement.
“Almost!” she called up.
Rasia could delay her dreams, for just a moment, for the people who cared about her. She turned to those standing on the edge of the shipyard.
Ysai rushed her and smothered her in a hug that kept going and going. Her feet kicked uselessly off the ground. He swung her to and fro, and then with a tearful sniff dropped her to her feet. He knocked her on the head one last final time.
“I’m going to miss you.”
“I’ll write, because I can do that now,” she said. “I have to send back reports of my travels, and they’ll be stored in the Temple. You can read all about my epic adventures every time you miss all of this awesomeness.”
“My poor bones are so comforted,” he chuckled. They pushed at each other until Jilah swooped in and gave Rasia a hug of her own. Rasia might have lost a parent, but she had earned a sibling in Jilah. They were family now and Rasia knew her jih would always be in good hands.
Rae sidled up next and pulled on Rasia’s pants. She crouched down, expecting another hug, and not at all expecting the disapproving glare out of the half-shroud. “You promised to protect him.”
The words hit hard and unexpected. She stared at the child, lost at how to explain that some promises weren’t indestructible. Sometimes they’re broken, and sometimes they hurt. She leaned forward on one knee and told Rae seriously, “It’s your turn now. Take care of your jih, and make sure he eats. You promise?”
“On my names,” Rae vowed.
Kenji-shi scooped Rae onto his hip, and with the other arm, shoveled Rasia into a one-armed hug. “The hunting kulls are disappointed, but I know if Shamai-kull were here, he’d be proud of you, too. I am sorry I wasn’t there for you after he passed. I should have been.”
“Take care of my kulani and we’re even.”
“I’ll take care of him,” Kenji-shi promised, and retreated.
Of course, Nico was next.
The two young adults stared each other down. Rasia clicked her tongue and said, “I’m not wrong about a lot of things, but I was wrong about you. You’re far stronger than I ever gave you credit for. If there’s anyone who can change the Grankull, it’s you. Make it better, Nicolai Ohan.”
“I will, Rasia-ji.”
They both nodded at the acknowledgment.
Everyone unsubtly pulled away to give her and Kai some semblance of privacy. He wore his shroud, both a shield and a cage. Sometimes the shroud protected against the wind and sand, or wiped at sweat as a rag, or hung as a belt tied around your waist. Sometimes it was a makeshift wrap or a flag flying the summit of a warship. It was a memento from childhood and embroidered with color in adulthood. It was many things to many people.
“Kailjnn,” Rasia whispered, and the namesake glowed between them, illuminating their faces. She had thought long and hard about the last words to say to him, but they had said the important stuff already.
She moved for a final kiss over his shroud and at the last moment, he pulled back the linen. Their lips met in a kiss so long and dramatic it had the tent crew cheering by the boldness of it. She sucked in the warmth and a sweet honeyed-date longing that would never fade. He kissed her with all his everything, and then dared to surrender her wet and trembling with memories engraved all over her body. She laughed at the breathlessness of it.
He smiled, pleased. “Stay wary the Hunter.”
“If he stays wary of me.” Rasia winked.
She fastened her gaze to that smile as she walked backward toward the barge. She climbed the steps, crossed the deck, and leaned against the railing without ever breaking her view of him. The sail billowed. The anchor lifted. The wheels creaked. And Kai’s face drifted away to a speck of sand.
Then she turned to greet the horizon. And didn’t turn back around again.
Most kids took their palm sweet time with the bones. They rattled them in cupped hands, rubbed together sweaty hopes and dreams, blew on them four . . . five . . . forever times for luck, before finally tossing all that childish fat up to the air.
Rasia Dragonfire pitched her bones to the wind.
