Basuin’s nostrils flare. If they weren’t on a ship sailing toward new land left to conquer—if they were still on the front lines of the war—he would say, Perhaps you should try praying one day. Instead, he kicks off the bulwark, still staring out into the ocean where they sail west.
The gods might even talk back to Kensy. How lucky he should be to not bear the silence Basuin does. But Basuin isn’t supposed to believe in gods anyway. Kensy only allows it because of their history. Years at war together makes for twisted bonds.
Now, as the sky begins to lighten, more soldiers and sailors alike shuffle on deck to start their morning duties. It smells faintly of bitter coffee that wafts from their tin mugs. He begins to walk off, leaving Kensy behind to watch the sun continue its ascent, but the call of his rank makes him stop.
“Captain.” Kensy stares at him, all pretenses dropped. He gestures with a nod of his head out into the distance, toward where the ship sails, an empty horizon. “When we arrive, I hope you and your gods will not cause too much trouble.”
It’s spoken with an edge, with more teeth than when Kensy flashes his own. As if he knows there are gods in this land—and Kensy wouldn’t know that to be true. Even Basuin wouldn’t know that to be true.
Basuin stares back at him, mouth set in a firm line. A soldier’s smile. “The gods don’t belong to me. I’m a soldier, Commander. But the gods—they are gods. And these are their lands. Their waters.”
Kensy’s eyes narrow into sharp slits, jaw tightening almost imperceptibly.
“Then maybe you should pray to them again,” Kensy says. He smiles, lips thin, and looks off to the point on the horizon they’ve traveled toward for many nights now. “Warn them that we are coming.”
Chapter 2
They arrive three days later, but Basuin has been watching the forest amass on the line where the sky and the water meet for two nights at least. The island makes him uneasy; the stone he wears around his neck creating indents in his skin from how tightly he holds it in his fist. It makes him nervous.
But it’s better than going back to a country he can no longer call home.
Once they lower the boats and begin to row toward shore, the men all cheer at the sight of land and jeer that they were certain they would never make it here. After so long on water, solid ground seems precious.
“I could cry!” a soldier from the fifth squad shouts, wading through shallow water and onto the beach. He falls to his knees, running palms over the dip and crest of the rocky shoreline.
“And Cap’n Mitros would have you scrubbing latrines if you did. Quit with yer sniveling!” another yells back, laughing, tossing a handful of stones to pelt upon his comrade’s back.
Basuin rows himself and his lieutenant toward the new land, grunting with every stroke of the oars as they drag through the water. Here, the foam is snow white as it glimmers under the sunlight. He could strip off his clothes and jump in, lay out in the pebbled sand and feel the earth against his back again. But it would look shameful.
Across from him, her tanned, golden skin radiant in the warm sunshine, Tehali grins.
“Lighten up!” Unlike him, she’s already stripped out of her shirt, wearing nothing but a black band that runs tight around her chest and shows off the muscles rippling through her shoulders and arms. “You still look like you want to die, Captain.”
He grunts again. They’re close enough to jump out and wade further in. “I wonder why that is.”
Tehali laughs, full and just, the golden rings lining each of her ears twinkling as she shakes. Seeing her look so free makes the corner of Basuin’s lip quirk up in something that could maybe be a smile.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re dramatic?” Her fingers drag through the water, creating soft lines and ripples.
“Tehali,” he warns, but she twists her wrist and flicks water toward him. Flecks meet the sun-warmed skin of his cheeks and he hates that it feels like such relief. He hates that she looks so pleased with herself, because when glee stretches across her mouth like that and boisterous, booming laughs escape her, it’s always harder for Basuin to frown at her.
“I said it before, Captain. Lighten up!” Tehali throws her arms up in the air, gesturing to the land behind her, the land Basuin has been staring at for many nights now. “Aren’t you happy to see land again? My feet ache for mud and dirt.”
After forty nights spent on the Ha’ria Drokha, he should be. But he can’t look at the rocky shore they approach by rowboat and feel anything but dread and shame. Basuin tried to pray, but the gods have yet to answer him the way they would’ve answered his mother.
“No,” he says. Not if it’s land that doesn’t belong to them. A new island to conquer and colonize in the name of the queen, may she be well.
Tehali lets them fall into silence instead of pushing him. The gentle waves, lapping against their boat as Basuin rows through them with a grunt, don’t help to carry them toward land. It almost feels like Ithika and her oceans are trying to keep him away from the island. Basuin would rather be anywhere but here, his mother’s stone heavy around his neck.
Tehali jumps out of their boat first, her breeches turning heavy and dark with water. She gestures to Basuin to do the same, offering an outstretched hand for him to take. It’s a simple, kind gesture, and one he should take. When he stands, the boat beneath him rocks unsteadily, threatening to tip him over.
He refuses her hand and misjudges the depth between the boat and the ocean as he hops out. It nearly lands him and his pack of supplies in the shallow water. Graceless. Frustration fills his chest like molten metal, tangy and searing hot.
Tehali is kind enough not to say anything.
They wade through the water, waves catching his legs and pulling him back. He’s slower than Tehali, who forces her way through the shallow seas like a knife cuts through flesh.
Ithika, he prays to himself as they make their way onto the new island. Thank you for your guidance and safekeeping.
