Eona - Alison Goodman [133]
“She is worried sick about you, too.” His hard stare warned me away, but right then I had no patience for unnecessary suffering. “You are a fool if you think she cares about rank and fortune.”
“I know she does not.”
“Is it because she is physically a man?”
He gave a sharp laugh. “I grew up around stranger couplings. That is not the reason.”
I crossed my arms. “What is, then?”
He rocked on his feet and, for a moment, I thought he was going to walk away.
“I am not meant to be alive,” he finally said. “Shola allowed you to pull me back from my death. Do you think it was out of pity?”
I swallowed, remembering the fisher village. He had truly been walking the pathway to his ancestors.
“I am here for a reason,” he said with determination. “I do not know what it is, but I doubt it is to find my own happiness. I am marked by Shola, and she will reclaim me when my part is played in this gods’ game. I do not have the right to pull Dela close or make plans. It would not be honorable.”
“You are here because I healed you, Ryko. My power brought you back from death. If anyone has a say in your life, it is me.” I jabbed my finger into my chest. “And I say take happiness while you can.”
At least one of us could have it.
“Are you so powerful now that you count yourself with gods?” he demanded.
“No! You know I did not mean that.”
“You may have control of my will, Lady Eona, but you do not have control of my honor. It is all that I have left. It is all that I can give Dela.” He gave a stiff bow. “With your permission.” Without waiting, he turned and walked away.
I watched Dela’s pale face turn to follow him as he strode across the camp. So much unhappiness in the name of duty and honor.
The village of Sokayo had a bathhouse.
It was a small, foolish thing to be excited about, but the report from Caido—recently returned from scouting the village—still lifted my spirits. We were less than a full bell’s walk away, and had taken temporary refuge in a ravine with a small stream at its base. Although it was midmorning, Kygo had decided we could cautiously cross the final distance. Opposite me in the circle of intent listeners, Vida was grinning too, although I doubted it was from the thought of a hot bath; she would soon be reunited with her father.
And with Master Tozay would come my mother.
As Caido continued his report, I rubbed at the dust and sweat ingrained on the skin of my arms, flicking off tiny rolls of dirt. The shallow stream had provided a welcome drink and a quick cooling splash, but only a long, hot soak was going to budge the result of three days of hard training and traveling. Hopefully the bath house would have some kind of soap or washing sand. I did not want to look like a slattern.
“I can see why Master Tozay elected to use the harbor. It is sheltered and deep,” Caido said. “But the village has strategic problems; it is in a cove between cliffs, with limited routes in and out.”
Beside me, Kygo brushed away a spiral of persistent flies. “How much risk?” he asked Yuso.
The captain shook his head. “I would say low. The villagers support the resistance, do they not?” Caido nodded. “Then it will be manageable.”
“My father has charted all of the coastline. He knows the harbors as well as he knows his own children,” Vida added. “This will be the best one for him to use with the tides.”
Kygo turned to me. “And the cyclone?”
I glanced up at the strange sky. The dark clouds were high but held the oppressive weight of a low storm, with the occasional flash of dry lightning. A hot inland wind had brought the swarms of tiny flies that surrounded us.
“Still two days away,” I said.
Outside the circle, I saw Ido nod his agreement. We had not spoken since I had compelled him to call Dillon. Dela told me that his gaze followed me everywhere, but so far I had managed to avoid meeting his eyes. The intimacy of that new compulsion was still in my blood. No doubt it lingered within him, too.
“Cannot Lord Ido stop the development of this cyclone?” Kygo asked