Another ripple of murmurs crosses the table, followed by a fewscattered grins from the other Baseans. I snap back to the conversation around me.
“Hm,” Mr. Oyano is grunting at the end of the table, casting glances at Red. “So what if he’s a prisoner of war?” he says aloud in Basean, shutting my Striker mates out of the conversation. “Doesn’t make him less of a Karensan. Besides, why aren’t these Strikers all at their mess hall inside the city? Who wants to spend a night out here?”
My mother glares at him. “Is it strange to you that my daughter wants to see us on the first night of Midwinter, before they set off to the warfront?”
“I think it’s strange that the rest of them are here, yes.”
“They’re here all the time,” his wife intercedes, shooting me an apologetic look.
“So?” The man shrugs and leans toward us, pointing his flatbread at me. “What kind of Basean is allowed to become a Striker?”
“Pa,” Decaine mutters, his face turning beet red. “Stop.”
“What?” Mr. Oyano ignores his son and continues. “They don’t even permit us past the walls, let alone into some prestigious uniform. But I’ll tell you this. Last week some guards came and took my neighbor Pason for questioning. Thought he was hiding tax money behind his business in the markets and confiscated a canister of cash he’d buried under his doormat. How would they know that?”
“What’s going on?” Adena signs to Jeran as she nudges him.
“They think we’re spies,” Jeran signs back to her.
Mr. Oyano narrows his eyes at them. “And stop doing that,” he snaps, pointing at their hands. “Using that spy language of yours. Speak to us. I knowyoucan,” he adds to Jeran.
Nana Yagerri rolls her eyes at him. “Maybe you should just learn theirs,” she says to him as she signs the same words.
“Talin isn’t a spy from the Inner City,” Kattee speaks up, in Maranso that we can all understand, and I feel guilty for being annoyed at her interest in Red. “Can’t we just enjoy their company? I never get to see so many Strikers up close.”
Mr. Oyano doesn’t pay her any attention. He just grabs another slice of flatbread and dips it in his stew. “It doesn’t matter much anyway now, does it?” he grumbles, although now he switches to Maran too. “We’re all going to be under his rule soon.” He glances at Red as he says this, but seems too intimidated to keep his eyes locked.
“If you don’t feel comfortable at this table,” my mother says stiffly to the man, “you’re welcome to leave.”
The silence settles over us as we all wait for Mr. Oyano’s answer. He stares at each of us in turn. Decaine looks like he wants to disappear. I glance at Adena, who’s currently leaning her head close to Jeran as he whispers translations for her about everything happening at the table. Red has stopped eating, and even though he doesn’t know exactly what’s been said, he senses enough of the tension hanging between everyone to know we aren’t exactly celebrating. He looks uncertainly at me.
I nod back, then reach for his hand under the table. Our fingers touch, his skin always warmer than mine.Thank my mother for her cooking, I tell him.She’ll appreciate it.Then I pronounce the words in Basean to him.
He listens through our link, ignoring the others at the table who watch him communicate in silence with me, and then turns to my mother.
“Thank you for our food,” he says to her in halting Basean.
Everyone at the table murmurs at the sight of this former Karensan soldier speaking our language.
My mother gives him a tight smile back. “You’re welcome,” she replies.
“His accent sounds funny,” Kattee’s mother says before Katteenudges her into silence, but it’s enough to make a couple of the others at the table chuckle.
Nana Yagerri leans forward on her elbows and puckers her lips slightly at Red. “Thank you for ourfood,” she says for him, emphasizing the correct pronunciation.
Red tries again, getting it a little closer, but his enunciation is so exaggerated that now everyone laughs. He blinks, startled at the sound, and smiles. I nudge him teasingly under the table for it, and this time, he reaches for my hand and laces his fingers with mine. I try not to react, but heat creeps into my cheeks at the intimacy of his touch, and I realize that we’re sitting so close that my body presses slightly against his.
“I could do better than that,” Adena says with a raised eyebrow, and then goes on to completely butcher the Basean intonations. Everyone groans.
“Marans always make ther’s too heavy,” Kattee says to her. “You have to roll your tongue.”
Adena tries again, this time with different phrases that everyone throws at her and Red.
“Merry Midwinter to all.”
“Toall. You say it like that and it’ll sound like you’re saying, ‘tohit a wall.’”
“Have a good night.”
