“Yes.” It was too tempting not to share this. “He wanted to catch the Star of the Shoal, but my ancestors who sought his embrace were overruled. And our star escaped Ladder, but not before his gaze was anchored in some of our people. This is how I could come here. The Shoal keeps all generations, and so bonds are eternal in the Shoal.”
The Raker looked bitter. “Would you not despair too, if you were merely the second-chosen? I was never the favorite child. Not even a good-enough child. Even before my crime.”
“The Orphan gives shelter to those disdained by everyone.” This had been a solace for many of us here, and I understood it now.
The Raker said, “But the Orphan, too, wanted something different than to always be second-best.”
“And so it called you,” I guessed. “Without the Headmaster’s knowledge.”
The Raker shrugged. “Everybody wants something from me.”
“What do you want, then?” I asked, even though it wasn’t my turn.
“You ask too many questions.”
He turned away and pretended to fall asleep. There was new saltwater in my pool, and it was clear.
Ulín’s face smoothed out with my telling, and now she appears calm. “You want me to spare him.”
I grimace. “He does not need your pity, and neither do I. I will take on your assignment, whatever it ends up being, and I will be successful. Father, brother, or lover. You are the one with the grievance.” I am thinking now, thinking hard about what it all means. An Orphan’s contract requires a legitimate grievance. Many have grievances with the Raker, I’m sure, but what if Ulín is the only one whose grievance could bind a contract? And I—what if I am the only one who can actually kill him? It makes too much sense. And I hate it.
I speak. “If that is your decision, I will carry it out.”
She says, “I wonder if you are trying to change my mind.” And here it is, the steel at her core. She is gentle, but not all that gentle. I am not gentle at all.
I frown at her. “How did you want our conversation to go? You asking me questions about the siltway language and customs, and writing my answers down in your notebook, perhaps some tea, and then you’d pay me for a slaying? Later, you’ll write a book about me. Customs of the Fish People. I have met people like you before.”
“No!” she cries out. “No, Stone Orphan, I did not come here to use you!”
“Don’t protest.” My voice is stone-cold. “It would be easy and pleasant for you to take and take from my labor. No, labor must be done by all. In this, I believe the Bonded Shoal is right. All must contribute their labor for the flourishing of all. So now, you and I are entwined. Not just through the story we shared, but through how we shared it. We exchanged pain and yearning. This was work.”
“This was work,” Ulín echoes. “The work of the two of us.” She is thinking, and I let her be, until she is ready to speak again. “Please, tell me the truth as you see it.”
I nod, sharp. “You hesitate. I think you came here hesitating, but now your hesitation is made clear to you through these stories and their pain.” Ulín has asked, and so my voice rings with the cadence of the Song storyline. “This is the moment of truth. The moment when a round plain stone is cleaved apart. It is not a regular stone. It is a geode that opens to reveal a cave of amethyst. This is you.”
“Perhaps you, too,” Ulín says.
I do not deny it.
Ladder called me to his side, the next day. “I heard that you bunk with the Raker. Well, learn his weaknesses then, and learn how to slay him. This will be an asset for your graduation.”
Ladder had been disappointed, I think, that I could not flicker to him as easily as I could when I was in the Shoal. Without my flickering, I would not be such a good prospect for an outside contract. Everything was ashes, but a contract could take me out and into the wider world. Perhaps my contract could even be sold to Lysinar, where I might meet the Kran-Valadar.
So I said yes.
“So . . . you learned how to slay him?” Ulín’s voice is hesitant.
I will not allow for emotion. “I’ve done as Ladder commanded. I’m an orphan and this was my shoal.”
She says, “May I ask if you have been lovers? My brother and you.”
The things she wants to know are all wrong. “It does not matter if we had been lovers, nor would it sway me if we were.” Nor would it be her business if we were.
“Look,” I say, irritated. “When I came here, I wanted pleasure in the body. It was not something we talked about in the Shoal. You shared the body for production, not pleasure. I wanted to experience that. But then, the longer I lingered and learned about your people, the more I perceived that the Shoal and this place were alike. I began to want other things.” Things like someone who wouldn’t use me. Things like a friend.
She says, “Thank you for telling me.” I can see Ulín thinking, but I have no idea what she’s thinking about. I see her reach the end of her thoughts, and lean back, exhaling. She says nothing.
I tell her, “Listen to something else.”
