Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 76583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“Oh, you were. Just not to the net.” My mother indicates the shell in her hand. “Drink this. It’s good for you.”
I roll my eyes at her pushiness, but I take the shell and drain it. Vali’s laughter echoes over the flotilla and I lower the drink so I can watch her. She has a sling spear in her hands, and Dorran is trying to show her the proper way to fit the sling around her wrist so she can fire it through the water at great speed. Vali tries again, and instead of launching itself, the spear clatters to the ground. Balo and my uncle burst into laughter, and Vali holds her sides, giggling wildly.
I scowl down at the shell in my hands. Does she laugh so brightly when I talk to her? It seems that Balo makes her giggle all the time.
“I have decided I like her,” my mother declares in a lofty tone, as if sensing my thoughts.
“She is my bride whether you like it or not,” I tell my mother sourly. Well, as long as Vali accepts me in marriage. I have not broached it again.
“I know, but it makes it easier that I like her.” My mother is unruffled. “She works with Balo every day to learn how to swim, and she has made great strides in it. She gathers water without asking, and refills the canisters if she sees them. She helps clean the fish and she never complains or demands to be given easier chores. She is a hard worker. It is a good thing to have in a wife.”
“Mm.” Vali could be lazy and I would still want her in my bed, so my mother’s reassurances annoy me. She does not know that Vali is a people pleaser and thus works herself to the bone in order to ensure that everyone is happy with her. “Don’t give her too much work, Mother. She is still a guest. I don’t want her to think the seakind are testing her.”
“But we are,” my mother says lightly. “Do you know how much fishing your father had to do to win my hand? It wasn’t until he brought back three swordfins in one day that I relented and agreed to be his bride. You have it easier. I think if you snapped your fingers, the human woman would fall at your feet.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“No?” Mother tilts her head, her earrings tinkling as she does. Her expression is one of utter casualness as she holds her hand out, examining a bangle on one wrist. “She watches you when you think she is not looking. And she comes into your tent many times a day to make sure you’re sleeping well and that you haven’t woken up or require anything.”
I am stunned to hear this. “She does?”
“Well, not as much now that you are awake more. But Daidu’s potions worried her, I think. She’d hover over you and one time I caught her with her finger under your nostrils, checking your breathing.”
Interesting. It could mean nothing, but this time when Balo laughs heartily, I no longer want to cram the shell in my hands into his face.
“Have you told her how you feel?” My mother prompts. She reaches out and touches my ear fin, the fussing of a parent. “I have noticed you struggle to talk to her. You have always had such difficulty with words, my son. Just like your father.”
Have I told her? I have tried, but words seem to only make it worse. “I do not think Vali will listen.”
“Then you must make her listen.”
My mother makes it sound so simple. As if nothing more is required than putting a hand on Vali’s shoulder and demanding that she listen to my words.
My words have been the problem all along. I have to show her how I care without them, or else I am doomed. “Thank you, Mother.”
She pats my arm. “I’ll let you get back to strangling your nets.”
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
VALI
Inever knew that slingshot fishing could be so much fun. It’s not something that ever occurred to me—I thought fishing always happened with a net or a fishing pole. I know Ranan uses a trident, but he swims underwater so I figure the rules are different for him. But slingshot fishing makes me feel powerful and strong, like a water goddess of fishing.
“You’re getting pretty good at this,” Balo tells me as we tread water at the side of one of the older turtles. Its head is covered with fuzzy seaweed that drifts in the sea around it and I’m told her name is Sjaata and she likes chin scratches. I rub the enormous chin while I hoist my spear into the air, a wriggling blue fish on the forked end.
“I love this,” I gush to him, and I mean it. I kill the fish and toss it into the large hole-strewn basket on Sjaata’s side. There, other fish float in the water while waiting for someone to come and prepare them. I’ve seen the elders and some of the children go and grab the fish to clean and gut. No one declares ownership of a catch. It’s assumed that if it goes in the basket, it’s for anyone to use. It all gets used, too.