I say, “Your words are beautiful. I do not fully grasp them.” She reminds me so much of Old Song that I feel my eyes stinging. “Let me tell you about Old Song.”
That deep melody bothered and beckoned me every night. In my language, it was an undulation of wave, moonless and restless, a scrape of odd weather from strange and unbonded corners. I was disturbed. In the isles, one does not pay that much attention to oneself. But a single person’s unease can disrupt the whole Shoal. We can commit crimes by yearning, I think. Yearning for a different way, for knowledge perhaps, but really for danger.
When a soul darts aside, like a bright and terrified fish, it can drag the whole shoal with it toward danger. Straying endangers all—and so we must give any bad feelings away to a wise one from the Song storyline. A Song person will first understand it, then sing it, then diffuse it in water and weather. After that, again we become calm.
Old Song was my bonded through my strongest deepname, the one with a single syllable. Before we were bonded, Old Song sought me out. They were old and large, the silver-gray of their face darkened with age into a color of the evening sea. Faded scales, almost white and pearlescent, covered the sides of their face, and their fin-hair was limp. Their eyes were faded, too, into a very pale blue. I later learned that they had a different name once, but I was never told what it was.
“In myself,” Old Song said, “there is a deepname that once was a two-syllable. It has recently been shortened. It is now stronger and has one syllable. The bond which attached to my two-syllable is no more. You are young and have an unattached deepname, also with one syllable. Will you bond with me?”
It was strange to hear about Old Song’s destroyed bond. Such things do not happen among us. We are all bonded forever.
“Your bonded person died?” I asked, but it could not be right. We remain bonded after we die. Once the body dies, the deepname structure that contains our souls simply sinks undersea. The bonds do not break once we become ancestors.
“Not died,” Old Song said. “The bond itself was destroyed.”
I was terrified, and flattered to be asked to bond with an elder, but I could not stop asking questions. “So what happened to the person you were bonded to, when the bond was destroyed?”
Old Song’s light-blue eyes deepened to storm. “They are gone.”
This conversation felt like a sliver of ice in my mouth. Strange and exhilarating and blood-in-my-cheeks sharp. “Why do you want my bond?”
“Because you are strong,” Old Song said. “I need you to anchor to the pain I carry. To keep me in place. This is, after all, the forgotten purpose of Stones. Before the Star of the Shoal was carried on Bird’s tail, Stones were warriors.”
“Warriors?” I tasted that unfamiliar word in my mouth. Kahren. In our language, it sounded almost like kahir. Stone.
“Those strong in the body, those who protect the Shoal,” said Old Song. “Strong and curious are Stone and Song, and so we are matched. We are the foundational storylines. You will anchor me here, in the isles.”
But I am curious too, I wanted to say. Instead I bit my tongue bloody, attuning me further to the world’s presence, the rock upon which I perched, the woven garment of moss on my body, at times chafing and comforting. I felt the tiny drops of seawater hitting my skin as the wave crashed ceaselessly against Stone Isle, the salt on my tongue, the smell of seaweed and some unfamiliar spice wafting from Old Song’s moss-woven garment. It was centering, calming; I could close my eyes tightly and drift into sleep until Old Song flickered away.
But my eyes remained open.
After a while I noticed that Old Song waded in water, their feet not quite touching Stone Isle. How did they come here? Did they flicker to me, or to someone else among the Stones? Or did they, perhaps, cover the distance in some other, different, more laborious way? I wondered if they would tell me anything at all if I simply waited. It would be good to wait, to stay suspended between the sea and the sky, to wait for an understanding.
But I was restless, so I asked, “Why is Stone the second most important storyline?”
Old Song’s mouth moved, but the words I heard reverberated only in my mind. “Because Stone supports the Song that must issue forth, for us to exist and continue. Without Song, we leave no trace, we disappear. Without Stone, we cannot be protected, cannot be anchored, we drift and we drift apart. I cannot let myself drift. My song must be here.”
I wanted to know more, but I knew that we came close to bonding already, Old Song’s words in my mind, the feeling of them in my bones. It was as intimate as sharing bodies would be, but through stories—like two waves coming together, water and water distinguished by nothing but the primeval force that pushes both waves to meet and merge. I could resist this. Cast my mind elsewhere. But already I learned from Old Song, and the desire for more was a tidal pull. Bodies were unimportant. When my body died, I would still be bonded to this elder, still a part of their song.
“Kah,” I said. My single-syllable deepname.
Ulín gasps, and I feel the corners of my mouth twitch up. “You are surprised I utter my deepname in your presence?”
“This is not done. It is dangerous to share—”
I shrug. “What would you do with it? You are nameless. You have suffered nameloss. Did you give your deepnames out to strangers?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“Of course not,” I say. “Whoever did this to you did not know your deepnames, and yet they harmed you.”
Ulín swallows, about to protest something, but then she looks away. What did I even say? Ah. Perhaps it wasn’t a stranger. I say, “You did give your deepnames to someone?”
“No, no,” Ulín says. “It doesn’t matter.”
“But . . . it wasn’t a stranger.”
Ulín nods, speechless.
“A loved one. Of course.” Why else would she hesitate, having come all this way, to name her target and bargain with me for a contract? I do not want to say, but it usually is a loved one. Especially for women.
I tell her, “I belong with the Orphan Star now. If I decide to take your commission, I’ll kill the one you want me to kill. They, too, will feed the Orphan Star. Many students come to this court and are killed here in training, and those who survive to graduate accept contracts and kill. All these perished souls are devoured by the Orphan. This is the true cost of the contract, the heart of all that happens here. The knowledge of my deepname will not serve you.”
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“For what?”
