“Maybe we’ll talk about it,” she added, trying and failing to lighten the mood. “Come on. Let’s wake Ilyr.”
Thiyo might have taken vindictive pleasure in that punch, but he didn’t want Ilyr ruined. Or dead. He shouldn’t be drinking wai.
Ev asked a question. Thiyo assumed it was a question, anyway. The only word he’d caught was “Ilyr.” Progress was so painstakingly slow he couldn’t stand to think about it, so he ignored Ev—he had no other reason for pushing her aside, certainly not hurt feelings, definitely not the fact that he had no idea how to string together the question “Would you want me if I could still talk?” in any way she’d understand. He focused on Ilyr instead.
I refuse to carry your drunk ass down to the village, Thiyo wished he could say. That tactic wouldn’t work even if he knew the words. Better to convince Ilyr to come with them. That way they wouldn’t have to worry that he’d run back to Summit to keep spying for Iriyat.
Their slow walk through the rain had left Ilyr sodden, and when he woke, he glared at Thiyo from beneath the dripping fringe of his hair. Rivulets of water cut pale tracks through the grime on his skin.
There was a way to persuade Ilyr to come with them without words. Thiyo went to him and knelt in the mud at his feet. He touched Ilyr’s knee. The mud, the dirty cloth of Ilyr’s trousers, begging like this—all of it made Thiyo want to cringe. But he couldn’t leave Ilyr alone to continue working for Iriyat or drinking himself to death. The thought of Ilyr guzzling wai on his trek down to the banks of the Ohi made Thiyo sad, so he let it show in his face.
Ilyr swore. Thiyo didn’t need to understand words to know that. He tore his gaze away from Thiyo and spat something accusing at Ev. They exchanged one or two more brief remarks in Laalvuri. Thiyo listened for the tragically small list of words he recognized: yes, no, and, Hoi, Laalvur, Adappyr, and a few other names.
Ev said Thiyo once and didn’t look at him. Being discussed as if he weren’t there was just one more indignity of his condition. They didn’t make any effort to include him in the conversation, although he could hardly blame them. He’d bring the level of discussion so far down as to be nonexistent. No, his only role here was as a pretty distraction. He’d beg and bat his eyelashes and maybe Ilyr would cooperate.
He’d used these tactics to get what he wanted his whole life, but it felt dirtier now—and not because of the mud.
Dirty or not, eventually Ilyr gave a weary nod and got up to stand with Ev. Thiyo led them back down to Halelitha’s home, wishing he could know what agreement they’d come to without him.
16
Always
“It shouldn’t be any trouble to get a ship to Ndija,” Ilyr said to Ev as they approached Halelitha’s house, Thiyo leading the way.
Ilyr had acquiesced and come with them so easily after Thiyo had begged him to. Ev should have let Thiyo handle Ilyr at their first encounter, instead of resorting to violence. She couldn’t tell if Ilyr believed them, or if he had some other goal in mind, but she felt more guilty than wary. Ilyr had barely mentioned their earlier altercation. Despite still reeking of wai—and most likely, still being drunk—he was treating her with diplomatic cool. Maybe he meant to knock her off guard. She’d prepared herself for more fighting, not this distant calm. “It’s the closest Dayward port to Adappyr and all the islands trade with them. They do it with caution and secrecy, the way they do everything, but there are frequent ships. It’s a short voyage.”
“And from Ndija to Adappyr?” Ev asked. It was embarrassing to have to ask Ilyr. Her father had hardly mentioned Ndija, but Ev knew it was where he must have gone after his exile. Her aunt Ifeleh had followed his footsteps a few years later. The coastal city was where former citizens of underground Adappyr learned to sail. She should know more about it.
“Ndija and Adappyr have… an unfriendly relationship,” Ilyr said. “They are not at war—the Adpri don’t believe in war—but the lack of fighting can’t be described as peace. Ndija is essentially lawless. The whole city is a market for stolen goods. People go armed in the streets. You can get anything you want if you have enough money.”
“And if what we want is transport to Adappyr, how much will it cost?”
“I don’t know,” Ilyr said. “Officially, there’s no traffic between the two cities. You can’t travel over land to Adappyr without extreme hardship—the sun is too hot. Unofficially, there’s something called the Exile Road. It’s a network of caves. People usually travel it the other direction—they’ve been exiled from Adappyr and they have to get out without dying. Presumably, you can sneak in as well as out, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing so.”
A lawless port. A network of caves. A collapsing underground city. Nothing was ever simple. “Well. One thing at a time. We’ll stop at Halelitha’s to rest and then we’ll go back down to the shore next triad and find out about passage to Ndija.” Ev sighed. “I was really hoping Thiyo could do the talking. I’m glad you’re here to help.”
She wasn’t entirely sure Ilyr was here to help, but if Thiyo had taught her anything, flattery was effective. Ilyr had been taken with the idea that, being a recognizable public figure who had traveled to Adappyr before, he could be the one to deliver the message of the upcoming disaster. He could be the hero. Ev didn’t think that was why he’d come with them, though—it was the pleading way Thiyo had looked at him.
“It is troubling, isn’t it? Seeing him like this?”
“More troubling for him,” Ev said. But she knew what Ilyr meant. He had sympathy for Thiyo, and she shouldn’t antagonize him more than she already had. “I’m sorry about hitting you earlier.”
He rubbed his face. He’d have a nasty bruise on his cheek soon enough. “I should hope so.”
“I shouldn’t have. But I couldn’t think of how to convince you. The problem with Iriyat is that no matter what crimes she commits, no one ever believes she’s a bad person. But I know Iriyat has had people tortured with medusa venom. And she abused someone I love. Whatever she wants, we have to assume it’s better she doesn’t get it. When it seemed like you wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say, I panicked.”
“You panic rather forcefully.”
“Yeah.” And you broke Thiyo’s heart, and maybe I was mad at you for that, too. Ev kept that to herself. Ilyr hadn’t escaped the end of their relationship unscathed. And she was trying not to antagonize him further, she reminded herself.
“I don’t know that I’ve been convinced,” Ilyr said. “And I can’t say I forgive you. But I trust Thiyo—or I used to. And I know him better than Iriyat.”
It was strange to contemplate the kind of relationship Ilyr had with Iriyat. Ev had assumed Iriyat was exploiting Ilyr, because that was what she did, but perhaps he didn’t see it that way. “Is she… a friend?”
Iriyat and Ilyr weren’t equals—at least not politically. Ilyr was the sole heir to the Nalitzvan kingdom. Iriyat was one of nine Council members in Laalvur, which was only a city-state, no matter how wealthy and populous. There had been a Day Empire, once, but it had broken apart. Nalitzva had kept a tighter grip on its borders. But for Ev, far stranger than any gaps between what kind of army they could command was the idea that Ilyr and Iriyat might have… chatted. Corresponded. Confided in each other.
“I suppose so,” Ilyr said. “Or she was my friend. I don’t think whatever friendship we had will survive this betrayal, if I am to betray her for Thiyo.”
Not for Ev. Not for Adappyr. Not for the world. For Thiyo.
“Was she…” Ev didn’t even know what she wanted to ask. Was she nice? sounded like such a banal question, and Ev already knew the answer. Everyone thought Iriyat was nice. Ilyr had known the side of her that the city of Laalvur so admired, a woman so beautiful and clever and dazzlingly charismatic that you couldn’t help but adore her. What had their friendship been like? How had she disguised her true nature? Had he ever had an inkling of what lay beneath? “Never mind,” Ev finished.
“She’s love
ly,” Ilyr said. “A brilliant mind. I did tell you I wasn’t convinced. It’s just so hard to square the conversations we’ve had, the letters she’s written, with what you’re telling me. She has a secret child? She conspires to torture and murder people in some insane pursuit of knowledge? It’s all so absurd. All you and Thiyo do is burst into my life uninvited and tell me my friends are lying to me.”
“Next time, we’ll wait for an invitation.”
Ilyr didn’t find this amusing. “Not only that two of my friends are lying to me, but that Merat Orzh is Iriyat’s mother, a fact both of them have hidden from me for years, and that they have both been manipulating me for their own gain.”
“It would be hard to make all this up,” Ev said. “And Thiyo told you that Merat was the one who had him thrown in prison once before, but she must have made you forget.”
“Yes. That detail—people who can alter memories—is awfully convenient for you.”
“Trust me. It’s not.”
Their conversation came to an end as they arrived at Halelitha’s house. Ilyr and Halelitha seemed to know each other already, and Ev couldn’t discern what was between them. Hoi hospitality dictated that she welcome them into her home, so she did.
Ev and Thiyo hadn’t even been gone a shift and everything had changed. Ev disposed of Ilyr’s notes in the kitchen fire without consulting anyone, and then joined the others as they gathered around the low table in the center of the house. Over a meal of rice, some root vegetable that grew in fresh water, and the ever-present fish, Ev explained to Halelitha that they needed to find a ship that would take them to Ndija as soon as possible.
“And Thiyo will stay here, I assume,” Halelitha said.
“What?”
“He still can’t speak any language. You brought him to me so I could teach him again. Why would he not stay?”
“No, he has to come with us,” Ev said, just as Ilyr said, “He’s coming.”
Halelitha had been nothing but generous to Ev and Thiyo, and still Ev couldn’t trust her. Not after she’d suggested taking Thiyo to a memory-changer. And last time Ev had left Thiyo alone, he’d been drugged and kidnapped and they’d been reunited anyway. No, she wasn’t leaving without him.
“My participation in this plan is absolutely contingent on Thiyo being there,” Ilyr said. “I’m not going anywhere alone with her.”
“Thanks,” Ev said.
Halelitha shrugged. “Don’t blame me for not accomplishing your goals, then.”
“I would never,” Ev assured her. Then she looked to Thiyo, who must have heard his own name in this conversation, and found him watching her. Ev broke their shared gaze first. The memory of their moment in the rain unsettled her.
You should have let him kiss you, a voice in her thoughts whispered. But that wouldn’t have felt right, either.
“Well,” Ilyr said, interrupting her thoughts. “Thank you for this meal, Halelitha, but for now, I would like to go outside and speak with Thiyo alone.”
Halelitha and Ev must have shared expressions of disbelief.
“Yes, I’m quite aware that he can’t speak as he used to,” Ilyr said. He reached across the table. The small ceramic bowl of red paste that Halelitha had put out triads ago as a sign to Thiyo that he should speak more freely was still among the dishes, and Ilyr grabbed it. “But I’d like to try anyway.”
Thiyo and Ilyr were at opposite ends of the low table, but Thiyo seemed to have grasped Ilyr’s intentions. They stood at the same time.
If Thiyo was willing to do this, Ev wouldn’t stop him. Still, she wanted to hover near their conversation—what if something went wrong? What if Thiyo needed help? What if Ilyr wasn’t trustworthy? But what plagued her beyond all these questions was that in every previous interaction she’d witnessed between the two of them, Thiyo hadn’t seemed to want any privacy with Ilyr. What had changed? Was it because Ev had pushed him away?
She couldn’t ask. She could only watch the two of them walk outside together.
Thiyo hadn’t touched that depths-drowned paste since the first time Halelitha had put it on the table. In truth, he’d been afraid of what sounds might come out of his mouth. But Ilyr had issued a challenge, and he wasn’t going to back down now. They walked out of the house and sat on the bench outside. The village was quiet, and even if someone did walk down the street, everyone here had seen Ilyr before. No one would make a fuss.
Thiyo didn’t expect Ilyr to jab two fingers into the bowl and scoop out a healthy amount of akilithana paste to put in his own mouth. What in Mah Yee’s name did Ilyr need it for? And why had he taken so much?
He said something that Thiyo couldn’t parse. Was that Nalitzvan? Thiyo couldn’t tell.
Ilyr passed the bowl to Thiyo and continued talking. He spoke slowly, repeating himself. This time, he sounded more like Halelitha. Hoi had come back more easily than anything else. Perhaps because it was the first. Perhaps because there was something in the music of Halelitha’s epics. Thiyo still couldn’t express himself, but he recognized the names of languages in what Ilyr said: Nalitzvan, Laalvuri, Hoi. He was listing the languages he could speak.
This was enough for Thiyo to fill in the rest. Ilyr had said something along these lines many times during their relationship. I can speak Nalitzvan, Laalvuri, and Hoi, and among us mere mortals, that’s considered impressive.
How was it relevant? Thiyo no longer spoke any of those. Unless Ilyr thought the akilithana would help—as though Thiyo’s mind were awash in the debris of words, and if he cast a wide enough net, he could draw pieces to shore and build something from the wreckage. Why not? It was worth a try. And if Ilyr had something to say to him, he had a few things of his own to say. It had been so hard, this time of silence. Thiyo had let thousands of things, big and small, go unsaid. Sometimes he felt that they were filling him up bit by bit and soon he’d burst.
Thiyo stuck his fingers into the bowl and put a generous helping of the sour red mash into his mouth. He swallowed and grimaced. Normally, it was mixed into rice or served with flatbread. Something starchy to cut the flavor.
Ilyr turned to Thiyo. He kept speaking in his slow, repetitive way. He gestured at Thiyo, then toward Halelitha’s house, then clasped his hands and batted his lashes. He covered his mouth with both hands.
Ilyr was repeating whatever he’d already said, but Thiyo knew him well enough to feel accused. You like that woman in there and that’s why you’re afraid to talk in front of her was the sum of all those gestures. It was true enough. His particular relationships with Ev and Halelitha were fraught—he wanted to impress them, his former teacher and his… whatever Ev was to him. Thiyo hated to fall prey to embarrassment so easily, since he’d been shameless the rest of his life, but Ilyr had seen right through him.
Ilyr waited for some kind of sign from Thiyo, and at Thiyo’s nod, he continued. He gestured to Thiyo, and then to himself, and then shrugged and slouched down in apparent boredom. It was probably the gestures that made it clear, but Thiyo couldn’t resist imagining the ghostly echo of whatever Ilyr was saying: Me, on the other hand—we know each other. You don’t need to impress me.
Well. Ilyr was wrong about that. Given his preference, Thiyo would impress everyone.
Still, he had a point. Maybe they could work out a way to understand each other. It was worth a try.
Ilyr said something else. He was definitely speaking Hoi. Thiyo picked out the words I, you, and love. He knew that last one because all the Hoi epics were love stories. Halelitha said that word all the time. But the sentence stretched too long to be a simple I love you, and the other words could change everything. I used to love you. I still love you. I don’t love you. Which was it?
Ilyr wasn’t starting with small talk. That much was clear.
Thiyo’s lack of response opened a long silence between the two of them. Maybe he hadn’t taken enough akilithana. Maybe no amount would help. He could think so clearly, but a chasm had opened between what he could articulate in hi
s thoughts and what he could convey in words. Eventually, he sighed and slumped down, a movement that brought him closer to Ilyr. Just because Ilyr wouldn’t understand what he had to say didn’t mean he had to keep it inside.
“I loved you,” Thiyo started. He had no idea what language he was speaking, but it felt right to open up and let something out. “I still care about you. But we weren’t good for each other, Ilyr. Even before Merat had me abducted, the two of us had fallen apart.”
He glanced at Ilyr. His blond head was tilted toward Thiyo. He was listening, at least. His expression of concentration didn’t bode well for Thiyo’s language skills. But in a way, knowing Ilyr couldn’t understand him made it easier to speak these difficult truths.
“We’re too much alike and too different all at once. You were only meant to love one person, Ilyr. And that person can’t be me. I’m always going to make you unhappy.” Thiyo hadn’t intended to admit his own fault so freely. He’d planned to emphasize that Ilyr was always going to make him unhappy. Depths-drowned drugs, making him confess things he’d rather keep to himself. He rubbed at his eyes. So not only did he have to embarrass himself in front of Ilyr, but now he had to cry, too. What a great idea this had been. Thiyo turned so Ilyr wouldn’t see the tears, but turning away was already an admission.
Ilyr’s hand curved over his shoulder. Thiyo thought about pushing it away, but it might be the only way they had to communicate.
“And I’m always going to make you unhappy,” Ilyr said.
Thiyo turned back toward him, gaping. Was this a dream? It had sounded so real. So clear. And Ilyr had said exactly what he’d been longing to hear. How high was he?
“You…” Thiyo said.
“I don’t know what you’re speaking—three words of this, three words of that—but I’m managing,” Ilyr said. He was still speaking far more slowly than he normally would.
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