So I glared at the cloth hanging between us, temporarily resenting its presence. Then I reached under it and slapped him on the shoulder. Four times.

  Chapter Six

  The camp was rolled up early the next day, and we started walking toward the next location. The path we traveled was a narrow one, barely wide enough to accommodate the troupe’s one wagon, pulled by two mules and itself narrower than what I was used to seeing at home. The air was thick and seemed to settle on my skin like an extra layer of weighty discomfort. It was hard to breathe, and the dense foliage that surrounded us blocked the sky and trapped the heat. It felt like the inside of a damp, dark, hellishly hot box. During the worst of the day’s heat, we stopped to eat and rest, but I was exhausted, my shins stinging with the unaccustomed activity.

  “Just watching you is making me sweat,” a low voice purred beside me, dragging my eyes up from the wheels of the covered wagon I was following. “One of us must have given you something deccy.”

  I wasn’t sure what deccy meant. I looked at the shell gamester bouncing along beside me. Her clothing was far more subdued than it had been the first day I’d seen her, her skirt of thicker material and falling nearly to her knees, a shirt covering most of her torso, though leaving her arms bare. She had sturdier sandals, and most—though by no means all—of her jewelry was absent.

  “People were most generous,” I said. Though could it be called generosity when we were expected to pay for it? “But I don’t know what ‘deccy’ means.”

  “Ah. Good. To wear.”

  “I’m not used to the sort of clothing your people wear.”

  “You will faint from the heat,” she warned me.

  “It’s not likely. Shields don’t feel temperatures as much as other people.”

  “Shields?”

  I was starting to get over the shock of hearing people who didn’t know what Shields were. A little. I explained what Shields were, and why that meant I felt physical sensations a little less acutely than most people.

  “Oh,” she said. “Fin told me they were tricksters.”

  “Tricksters.” That was always a fun one.

  “Claiming magic that isn’t there. Halting storms that never were.”

  That again. “I can promise you,” I said through gritted teeth, “that is not the case.” Obnoxious brat. “And it’s not magic.”

  She shrugged. “We have no such people here.”

  I noticed. But there was no point in beating the point into the ground. “Our skin isn’t used to the sun. We can’t wear your clothes yet.” Karish being a case in point. His skin had gone a deep painful red from the waist up over the night, and he was stretched out and suffering in the wagon in front of me. He couldn’t bear to be touched and he was, of course, highly irritable. He had ordered me off the wagon, telling me to leave him alone. I did, without comment.

  “So you are not linking?”

  I dragged my eyes up from the wheels once more. “I don’t understand.”

  “You and the plain one aren’t lovers?”

  I stared at her. What the…? Who was she to ask such a question? And what in the world did that have to do with what kind of clothing we wore?

  “Fin told me the plain one refused double mats for singles.”

  “Fin should keep his mouth shut,” I snapped. “And stop calling Karish plain. You’re all blind.”

  She laughed. “Everyone knows everyone’s goings here. Might as well get to it first stride.”

  Ugh. I’d forgotten about that sort of thing. One of the reasons I’d been happy to leave the Academy. Everyone into everyone’s business. It exasperated me. Really, who cared about the fights, who had been caught cheating on a test, who had stolen the grammar teacher’s hairpiece, who was sleeping with who? In people trained to be discreet, objective and mature, gossip was a disappointing vice.

  Not that I’d never done it. And not that I hadn’t enjoyed the odd tidbit of information about people beyond our walls, including one Lord (former) Shintaro Karish. It had been a part of the package of news we received about the outside world. But I never cared to engage in that sort of thing about people I saw every day. There was something more sinister and underhanded about it then.

  I wasn’t looking forward to diving back into that kind of environment.

  “And your man is plain,” she insisted. “He is too pale.”

  “Then I must be hideous, because I am far more pale than he.”

  Her eyes widened in shock. “No!” she objected, gesturing wildly with her hands. “Yes, your skin is light, but there is fire behind it. And your hair—” She reached out to touch, but perhaps something showed in my face, for she halted long before contact was made. “Is it your color?”

  “My color?”

  “Do you dye it?”

  “Oh. No.” Why would anyone dye their hair red?

  “Oh.” And she was disappointed. Her body practically drooped. “So I cannot find that color.”

  I stared at her. Her hair was a glorious, deep black. “Your hair is beautiful!”

  She shrugged. “It is common,” she said dismissively. “Almost everyone has this color. Like your man.”

  I had thought, the previous day, that Atara had either been rude in her assessment of Karish or was showing the insensitivity of a trader trying to shove the price down by claiming there was no value in the product. Perhaps, though, it was a cultural characteristic. “Who are you?” If they could be blunt, so could I.

  She laughed again. “I am Kahlia. Daughter of Atara.”

  Ah. A family trait, maybe. “Pleased to meet you.” But wait. Atara was so dark, and Panol nearly so. And both had the slimmer frames of most of the other islanders I had seen.

  But then, family members didn’t really have to look alike. I supposed.

  “So, you are not linking?”

  What damn business was it of hers? Unless. “Why? Do you want him?”

  She shook her head quickly. I was both relieved and annoyed. “There is no light behind his smiles.”

  Please. Not a whole tribe of people who spoke like Sources. “I don’t understand.”

  “He smiles because he has to, not because he feels to.”

  Was he still doing that? I thought he was getting over that, a little. And why would he feel the need to do it here? These were complete strangers, with no foreknowledge of the Triple S or the Stallion or the Karish family. “He’s certainly not smiling now.”

  “I will help you choose your clothing,” Kahlia announced.

  “Is that what this whole conversation has been about?”

  “The clothes you wear now, I have never seen anything so ugly. You must have no eyes.”

  “These are travel clothes.”

  “So?”

  “So, they are meant to be sturdy and comfortable, not beautiful.”

  “They can be both.”

  “Perhaps, but to make things beautiful takes time and effort.”

  “So?”

  “So, it’s time wasted on something that’s made to be functional.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Beauty is never a waste of time. You have such strange ideas.”

  I longed to tell her the same thing.

  “Your costume for dancing, you concede it must be beautiful?”

  If I had to. “Yes.”

  “You will let me choose it?”

  If I had to.

  She would know best what would appeal to her own people. And I should be grateful that she was willing to invest so much effort in me. “Yes, thank you. That’s very kind.”

  She pressed a small cloth bundle into my hand. “Give your man that. It will make him feel better.”

  I unwrapped the bundle and found small polished pebbles, light brown in color. “What do you do with them?”

  “You eat them.”

  “They’re medicine?”

  “No. They’re sweet.” She winked at me and then skipped away to join someone farther up the line.

  I climbed up into the wagon as quietly as possible, in case Karish was asleep. He raised his forearm off his eyes only long enough to see who I was. I couldn’t blame him for his lethargy. It was even hotter in the wagon. “How are you feeling?” I got a grunt in response. “Kahlia gave me something for you to eat.”

  “Not interested.”

  “She said it would make you feel better.”

  “She said it was sweet.” His mouth scrunched up in disgust.

  “You heard her?”

  “I’m not deaf,” he snapped.

  I put the small bundle down, near enough for him to reach if he should change his mind. “You weren’t such an impossible patient when you were stabbed.”

  He bared his teeth to the canines. “So sorry I’m not entertaining you.”

  “Do you want me to get you something to drink?”

  “Stop fussing, Lee.”

  I climbed down from the wagon, deciding not to talk to anyone else for a while. I seemed to be coming off for the worse in these conversations. But this was a resolution the others in the slowly moving troupe chose to ignore. Many in the troupe came back to ask questions they had no right to ask. They were entirely resistant to my hints to go away.

  I gave up on trying to get anyone to call me Dunleavy. They merely gained amusement from the attempt. They wouldn’t even settle for Lee. They liked the way Leavy sounded, and they refused to move from it.

  Shortly before the softening of the air announced the imminent arrival of sunset, a halt was ordered. Everything was moved off the beaten track that served as a road. Many of the adults pulled out large-bladed knives and cut away undergrowth and small trees. The tents were erected, but along different lines than they had been at the outpost. Much smaller, with no ovcas, in order to squeeze into the smaller space.

  Karish finally emerged from the wagon to put together our tent, because I hadn’t the vaguest idea how to do it. Fin came by to show us how to prepare the ground and set up. He was a wonderfully patient man, and a good thing, too, because I was incompetent and Karish was barely hanging on to his temper. I came out of the trial with my fingers scraped and pinched and bruised, and I began to suspect that there was a reason why I never did anything with my hands.

  As soon as the tent was set up, Karish unrolled a mat and put it directly on the ground. Then he stretched out on the mat and the forearm went back over the eyes.

  “Have some water, Taro.”

  “Don’t nag, Lee.”

  “You’ll feel better if you drink something.”

  “The water’s not cold.”

  What a child. “So?”

  He didn’t bother responding to that at all.

  I unwrapped some cold rice. I didn’t care for eating it that way. The only way to eat rice at all was in pudding. But I was starving and too tired to try preparing anything. Though the pace had been slow, I had been walking most of the day, and I wasn’t used to it.

  I watched the others preparing their food, fires and torches piercing the fading light. Some of the troupe members were practicing their acts, apparently unwearied by the travel of the day. I noticed Corla looking at us, and frowning. I kept my face free of impatience as I watched her make her way over to us.

  I really didn’t feel like talking to anyone.

  “Young man!” she snapped at Karish. “Why is your mat on the earth?”

  He sat up for her. “It’s uncomfortable lying directly on the ground, ma’am.”

  “And why are you lying outside?” she demanded. “You want to lie down, you go inside. Come. Up. Get up.”

  It always amazed me that old people seemed to think they had the right to tell absolutely everyone else what to do. And if she was aware of Karish’s clenching jaw, she gave no sign of it as she prodded him to his feet and ordered him to roll up the mat. Then she asked, “Where are your croppers?”

  “Our what?”

  Apparently two of the unrecognizable bundles we had received the night before were collapsible chairs of small wooden bars and cloth. We had been given only two, however, so Karish was stuck sitting on the ground while Corla and I sat in the croppers. I pitied Karish, who so obviously wanted to lie down in the tent, but he was afflicted with too stringent a set of social graces, and he wouldn’t leave until Corla did.

  Then she asked us for wine, chiding us for not offering it to her immediately. And we apparently had it. One of the water skins actually had wine. Very very pale and light, and a little sweet even for my tastes. “None for you,” Corla said to Karish. “You are too red. Did the tree beads help?”

  “Your pardon?” Karish asked.

  “The tree beads. I had Kahlia bring them to you.”

  “Oh,” I said. “The pale brown things I gave you. The little bundle.”

  “Ah.” Karish turned on her a tired version of his usual smile. “My apologies, ma’am, but my stomach was a little uncertain at that time.”

  “So you didn’t eat them? Where are they?”

  Karish’s face froze. He’d probably left them in the wagon.

  Corla clicked her tongue in disapproval. “Go fetch them.”

  Karish opened his mouth to object.

  “I didn’t give them to you to have them thrown away.”

  Karish shut his mouth and rose to his feet.

  “And you eat them,” Corla shouted after him as he disappeared around a bend in the road.

  Then she settled back in her chopper and gave me an intense look.

  “You’re going to read my fortune, aren’t you?” I asked with resignation.

  “I already have.” She grinned. “Atara lets no one travel with us unless I see a clear reading.”

  “You haven’t looked at my palm or my tea leaves. I see no crystal balls or cards.”

  “Are you going to pay me?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Then don’t demand a show. I don’t need any of that, and you know it. You’re a fool, not an idiot.”

  Zaire, what was with these people? “I see.” But I didn’t, not really. Atara had been using candles and a stone to get guidance from some invisible force to learn where the troupe should go next. Surely that sort of thing was on an equal footing to telling fortunes.

  “Do you want to know why?”

  “Why I’m not an idiot?”

  “Why you are a fool.”

  Perhaps she had heard from the talkative Fin that Karish and I slept apart. Many would consider that foolish.

  “You are letting your guilt crush you.”

  Now that was a shock. “I’m not feeling guilty about anything.”

  “You killed a man.”

  And all of a sudden, just like that, I couldn’t breathe. I pressed a palm to my chest, trying to push air through my lungs. Oh my gods. How did she know? Where had she heard? Oh gods.

  Actually, I’d killed two men. Creol, and a Reanist. But I thought she meant Creol. For some reason, killing the Reanist hadn’t disturbed me nearly as much as killing Creol. I spent a brief moment wondering why.

  She rubbed my shoulder, trying to reassure me. Or something. “Now, now,” she said. “If you were not a good person, I would not have been able to see it. It is a shadow on your light.”

  Breathe, damn it.

  “You are a creature of balance. You crave it. You cling to it, when you can. But you had to leave your balance, to kill this man, and you haven’t been able to find it again.”

  I pulled in a breath. It hitched painfully in the middle, but at least I was getting in some air.

  “And now you are afraid. You need to go so far the opposite way, yes? To restore your balance? But you are afraid to leave middle again. You will never find your balance if you are afraid to move.”

  “I don’t understand,” I confessed. And I couldn’t believe I was listening to her with anything other than polite disinterest. But how had she known? No one but Karish and I knew I had killed Creol. How did she find out?

  “What I said.” Corla appeared impatient with my lack of comprehension. “If you do not move, you cannot find your balance. If you stand on one foot, you need to move, just a very little, to stay balanced. If you are rigid, you fall over. Correct?”

  “Aye. But what does going the opposite mean?”

  “Did I tell you to kill that man?”

  I wasn’t going to answer that, one way or the other. I wasn’t going to confirm that I’d killed anyone. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.

  She didn’t require an answer. Thank the gods. “So I can’t tell you how to balance it, can I?”

  Nice dodge, lady.

  Karish reappeared around the bend, bundle in hand. “I have to beg your forgiveness, Corla,” he said, and there was an ease to his voice I hadn’t heard all day. “I ate one and it—” He halted, his gaze on me. “What happened?” And he narrowed his eyes at Corla. “What did you do?”

  She smiled. “They’re so pretty when they’re fierce,” she said to me.

  I did not smile back. I wanted her to leave. I pressed my hands together to keep from hugging myself.

  “This man she killed,” Corla said. “He needed killing.”

  Karish stared at her.

  “Ah. So you…encourage her guilt?”

  He looked at me. I looked back at him and moved my head to one side just a fraction. No, I’d said nothing to her.

  “She has a bright core,” Corla went on. “If she did not, I would know nothing of her darkness. She needs to find her balance. You can help her, but you do not. You’re afraid, cowering like a whipped dog. You stay outside the walls.”

  Gibberish. Would she please leave?

  “You look outside too much,” she said to Karish.

  She’d found a new target. Hoo-ray.

  “What?” He was confused. Imagine that.

  “She tells the future,” I explained, my voice nicely sarcastic. “Only right now she seems more interested in picking apart the present.”

  Corla ignored me. “Always with you it is what others think,” she scolded Karish. “Is not what you think important?”

  He glowered at her, lips pressed into a thin line. “You don’t know me,” he reminded her.