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.Had she followed him tosee that? And did he remember her from then? He had appeared absorbed ineating, his steps hesitant as though not sure where his feet might end up.Did he have the same look now? And what would it mean, if anything?Niv knelt close to Mirwin; she had to strain her neck around to see him.Hebowed deeply to her and murmured something.That close she saw the damageto his scales, the edges had cracks, some were chipped, most were speckled withwhite.Like the tear in the scroll.had she done that to him? Leaning so that their arms touched, Mirwin began to talk to Niv in a soft voice.A different languageagain.“They're all staring at me,” she said to Bolda.“Of course they are.”“Lin?” she said.He raised his head from talking to a heavy man kneeling at thetable.“Linwistas Wistasil dis'Camsil,” Bolda said as though announcing him.“May I present my father and mother.,” he said, giving their names.His eyeswere knowing; he had his father's eyes.His mother only stared at her son,bloodless fingers pressed over her mouth, motionless as though she hadn't heardthe introduction.Lin had thrown the stone.Blood on the tiles of the bathhouse.The molded claydolphin with blood on the scales.Ulanda would have stood up but for Boldaholding her down.The room swam around her, suddenly hot and airless.“Empire's song,” she said to Lin's puzzled look.Ca'mit held his hands in a motion of polite apology.“The song of yourpeople.” He bowed.“.is Empire's song still.”Behind him, the old Speaker was there, blood still dripping from his lip.“Herfaith was like a flower,” Ulanda said.Except he wasn't there at all, anotherZimmer was, returning her gaze with a blue-eyed stare.From the High Market,the day she had met Lin.Would he disappear like the Speaker had? “Would youhave thrown it?” she asked him.“No,” he said.Niv held the word: two fingers over an open palm.“Thrown what?” Boldaechoed.A red and white ball.The Zimmer crew, one was a Tech Second, the other.Ulanda saw them too.A change purse, the coins rattling inside.Leather.white leather now except originally the purse thrown to the jugglers had been cloth.The purse split against the wood table in a hail of coins.Ulanda picked one up.A Laurel Hickeywww.2morrow.bc.caEye of the Ocean – Book 1: Ji’Jin Stationdolphin was stamped on the surface, the head making up most of the animal, thebody curved like a comma to fit on the round.On the other side was the same.“Ulanda?” she heard.A woman's voice, Alicia, she realized, looking over with astart.But it was Mother Pasbal she saw, her broad face darkened with bruises, a cut on her right cheek, her lip was split and her breath whistled as though teeth had been broken.A stone was in her hand.“And you?” Ulanda whispered.Exceptit wasn't a stone, but a bun.“An ordinary life,” Pasbal said through her ruined mouth.She did stand, despite Bolda's tugging.“Is that what you really want?” Herheart skipped wildly.“You would too if you had the sense of a goose,” the Speaker said, back again,his eyes.they were speckled with red, same as Be'ell's had been.She felt arms around her.Rit's - she knew his breathing, his scent.Her handstouched his face, she couldn't see him.“For those who need words, would yougive them?” he whispered.What would you do if you were me? she heard in a voice that spoke of a loss and a hunger that had nothing to do with the words.“It was a favor for a young girl,” she said, her lips pressed against Rit's neck, tasting her own bitter fear with the salt.“It's not your fault.” Camerat.Grandfather.From her visions, she had seen huge red sun set so many times, thelast of the light winking out as the chant for the Opening of Initiation began.But she was running in the wet streets, in the smell of the rain.“.the garden in Cam'lt Temple,” Rit said as though he could read her mind.“Do you remember it now?”“Too many times,” she tried to say.“Let your mind go.”“Kill her.” The words were all around, not Rit's voice but familiar.“Kill her.”She tried to push away as the last of the room dissolved.She knew.“Kill her.”The shadow forms that must have been the real people were gone.White.Like ashell, she thought, a gull's egg, but inside and as though someone held it to the light.She had fallen to her knees.“Rit?” Only blinding white, she had no sense of distance, only that of knees and then hands on the cold.Handprints of black, no blood, she recognized the copper scent.“An ordinary life,” she heard with a tic-tic in the sound.“And you?” she asked, knowing it must mean something.Cayse.“You are very much your breeding,” he said.“They want what they've always wanted,” she whispered to the sound of areed flute.To the sound of laughter all around her.A woman.She heard the words take flight from her lips: “Wings, wings, wings.”Laurel Hickeywww.2morrow.bc
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