“I hope he got a thrashing for that.”
The wryness of his tone made me smile. “Finlei gave him extra chores.”
We laughed, and I rested my head on the crook of his arm, calmer now. “Do you ever miss your brothers?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” he admitted. “I wish I’d known them as well as you knew yours. I like to think they’re living their next lives now, with full stomachs and full hearts. Better lives than the ones we led.”
“Their next lives?”
“In Nelronat, we believed that this life is only the beginning. That our souls are reborn into the next life and the next, and that those we love are tethered to us so we may find each other.”
“We have something similar in A’landi.” I propped myself up on one elbow and fished around in my pouch for the spool of dull red thread Ammi had given me back at the inn.
“My mother believed in fate.” I unwound the thread, wrapping it around his wrist. “She told me there was an invisible thread tying me to someone else.” I looked up to meet his eyes. “Someone I was destined to meet and would be bound to all my life.”
I pressed my palms against his, studying his hands—the palms once stained with the blood of stars. They weren’t a noble’s hands. Rough along the sides with calluses like mine, but his fingers were long and graceful.
Slowly, I tied the thread around his wrist, knotted it.
“You said that I am your oath now,” I whispered, “so I bind you to me. No matter what happens, come back on the ninth day of the ninth month. Every year, I will wait for you—by the sea where I grew up, back home in Port Kamalan.”
Edan drew me close, wrapping his arms so tightly around me that his heart pounded against my ear. He kissed me, the warmth of his breath melting me. “I won’t let him have you.”
“It isn’t up to you. It’s up to me.” I held out my wrist for Edan to tie a thread around.
As he knotted it, he said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear, “I’ve been thinking about what Master Tsring said. If we destroyed Lapzur.”
“I’ve been thinking about it too,” I admitted. “Bandur would be no more…but my pledge to him would still stand.”
“Yes, but you would not be bound to the isles.”
I could see a plan unspooling in Edan’s mind, hope springing from despair. Did I dare to hope as well?
“It can’t be easy to destroy Lapzur,” I reasoned. “If it were, someone else would have done it long ago.”
“Bandur is a formidable guardian,” Edan agreed, “and his army of ghosts is strong. But I’m willing to take the risk.”
I looked at him, then at the matching red threads on our wrists. A protest died on my lips.
Edan spoke again: “Master Tsring says I will never recover all the magic I had while under oath, but some will come back to me.” Edan raised his hand, and the threads around our wrists grew warm, the ends stretching for each other. “The magic I had when I was a boy.”
His forehead was moist with perspiration, a thin watery line gliding down his temples. “I fear it won’t be enough to save you from Bandur. Or A’landi from the shansen’s greed and Khanujin’s pride.”
“You’ve done enough to protect A’landi for a hundred lifetimes,” I said. “The battle against Bandur isn’t yours to fight. It’s mine.”
I held his cheek so our eyes were level. “You told me once that Amana’s dresses were not meant for this world. Their power is in me now. If that isn’t enough to defeat Bandur and save A’landi, then I don’t know what is.”
“You sound like you don’t need me at all,” he teased gently.
“You’re wrong,” I whispered. I needed him more than ever. It wasn’t the dresses that compelled me to cling to who I was, but Edan—and my family. “Without you, I’d be lost.”
I rested my head on his arm again. “Sing for me,” I said softly. “I want to hear that little tune you always played on the flute when we were traveling.”
“This one?” Edan started to hum, his throat vibrating that simple song I’d grown to love so much.
“What’s it called?”
“It doesn’t have a name,” he replied. “My mother used to sing it to me when I was a boy. I sang it to remember home when I was in the monastery, then to calm the horses when I was taken to war. It’s been with me a long, long time.”
