Finally, he nodded and refused to meet her eyes. “Come on. She’s waiting.”
They strode through a perimeter of smaller huts and eventually reached a bustling epicenter teeming with movement. The villagers were gathered around several horse-drawn wagons, unloading crates.
“Necessary provisions,” Roman said in response to Selene’s wandering gaze. “The Mother and a few others sail to the mainland a few times a year for food and medicine, though we’re fairly self-sufficient otherwise.”
Selene couldn’t believe he was finally offering information. “So you’re not fully hidden from the world. The Okosians must know you’re here.”
“They know, and they allow us our privacy.”
“Was that how it was before? When you lived in Perean, I mean.”
A spot beneath his brown eye twitched. “No, we lived among the people. That was a very different time.”
“How so?”
He paused at the edge of the village near a towering cliff, where a structure of polished stone blended into the natural surroundings. The roof wasthatched with layers of palm fronds, and vines adorned with tiny blue flowers climbed the walls.
“We’ll have to continue this conversation another time,” he said, leading her inside.
The spacious interior was cool and smelled of damp earth and herbs. Animal hides lined the floor, and lanterns made from woven reeds illuminated the room.
Selene half-expected to find the Llinunae Stone here, though a part of her sensed it elsewhere. Deep inside the cliffs themselves, maybe.
Instead, she found herself in someone’s home. Furs draped the carved wooden furniture, and bookshelves were made from twisted tree branches. Tapestries hung from the walls, a few faded by centuries long past—the Kirrane Mountains set the background in some.
Standing several feet away, a woman who couldn’t be more than a decade older than Selene stood from a chair. Her skin was a shade darker than Roman’s—almost black—and her eyes—one brown, one blue—narrowed on Selene. She was a very thin woman, even more so than Selene had been during her years as a slave.
The woman was outfitted in a tan linen dress with a red scarf wound around her neck several times. Her long, tightly coiled brown hair looked windblown.
Selene thought she should recognize this woman—feel some sort of familiarity—but all she felt was a dark, hollow feeling that made her want to take many steps back.
A squawking sound startled Selene, and she spun toward the familiar sound of a dronsian. But it wasn’t him, her nameless friend.
The black-scaled dronsian was chained at the ankle atop a wooden perch. The slack of his shackles likely gave him three feet, at most.
Any disappointment she might have felt was quickly overridden by anger.
Selene shot over to him, and his big brown eyes stared longingly up at her. Unlike her dronsian, he didn’t smile with his tongue flopping out. There was nothing carefree in his overall aura. Sadness drenched the air around him.
“Hello there,” she said and cupped underneath his warm snout. His head nuzzled into her palm, and a purr vibrated through him. And his name came to her like a sudden thought. A whisper. A gift. “Turos?”
She knew this to be his name as well as she knew he longed to fly free. He wanted to see the island, and the next one, and the next. He wanted to skim the seawater with his underbelly. To rise, spin, and dive again until the clouds swirled behind him in dizzying circles.
“Hello, Turos.” Selene offered him a smile. “I’m Selene.”
“How do you know his name?” the Mother asked.
Selene whirled on the woman, furious. “Why do you keep him like this?”
The woman—Mother—flashed her teeth. “Who are you to question me?”
Roman stepped between them, hands raised. “Mother, please. Eva doesn’t remember our way.”
Selene’s patience snapped. “Don’t make excuses for me, and stop calling me that.” She turned her ire on the woman. “And what am I to call you?”
“I am the Mother.”
“No. Your name.” She wouldn’t use an honorific she’d already determined was undeserved. “Names seem important to you, and I want to know yours.”
