The men and women on the fishing boats raised their hands in greeting as Kiela and Larran rode by. Larran waved back. She didn’t dare release the mane, but she smiled as they passed.
Soon, they were beyond the last of the boats. Only blue was around them. Waves swelled gently, and the horse-fish slowed. They swam side by side, and Kiela caught her breath. On their sail in the library boat, she and Caz had been surrounded by as much blue, but somehow this was different. She felt a part of it, linked to the sea.
Her dress was soaked, and her skin was saturated. She had goose bumps all over from the chill of the wind, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want this to ever end.
“You like it?” he asked, almost shyly.
Kiela turned to him with a smile that felt like a laugh. “Oh, yes!”
“Not everyone does.”
“I guess I’m not everyone.”
He smiled. “You’re not.”
It was the first time such a sentiment felt like a compliment.
At a leisurely pace, they rode in companionable silence back toward shore. Halfway there, she remembered the question she wanted to ask: “Why hasn’t Sian foaled?”
“None of them have,” he said with a sigh. “Not for five years.”
Five years? “Not one in five years?”
“A merhorse doesn’t foal easily. They aren’t as fertile as other creatures, and their birthing . . . It’s difficult, and often fatal for the foal. Sometimes for the mother as well. It used to be the sorcerers would visit twice a year, once to help them conceive and once to help with the birthing. We’d have new foals every single year, at least five or six. Sian’s herd . . . It used to be triple in size.”
As Bryn had said, the herd was dwindling, which meant the fisherfolk would catch less, which meant the islanders would have less to eat and less to trade. Kiela thought of how run-down the village had looked and the hint of desperation, of flat-out poverty, she’d seen in the people. Behind the friendly smiles, there was a lot of struggling going on. It might not have been visible to Kiela as a child—and indeed, it might not have been true when she was a child, since the emperor had only just begun to tighten the laws and withdraw the sorcerers—but it was clear now.
She rode the rest of the way deep in thought.
When they reached the rocks, Larran helped her dismount. She thanked Sian and also Larran. “That was magnificent,” she said sincerely.
He smiled, again a bit shyly. “I’ll take you whenever you want.”
“I’d love that.”
“If you’d like to join me for a meal . . . and to dry off . . .”
Her blouse stuck to her skin, her blue hair was plastered to her neck, and she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. But there was an idea that had dug its talons into her mind and wouldn’t let go. “I have to check on my garden. And Caz. There’s a lot to be done around the house.”
Larran’s smile dipped, and for an instant, she wished she’d said yes. “I understand.”
She wanted to tell him that it wasn’t him. Not this time. She wasn’t just making up excuses to leave. Pulling on her socks and boots over her wet feet, she said, “Another time?”
He brightened. “Another time,” he agreed.
With a wave to the merhorse, Kiela hurried up the cliff stairs. She wrung out her wet blue hair as she walked back through the greenery. The villagers needed help; she needed a way to earn a living. There could be a way for them to make one another’s lives better.
Seeing the cottage, Kiela picked up her pace. “Caz?” she called.
The spider plant bounded out the front door, using his tendrils to propel himself. “Kiela! Come see!”
“See what?”
But he didn’t answer. Instead, he led the way through the house, out the back door to the garden. She dripped seawater in a trail but didn’t pause to mop it up. His leaves were vibrating with excitement.
In the New Studies and Treaties section, a dozen new tomato plants grew tall, unfurling fresh leaves and unfolding blossoms. The blossoms swelled into fruit that shifted from green to a deep, brilliant red as she watched. The plump tomatoes became so heavy that the plants drooped onto the ground, but that didn’t seem to slow their growth at all. Mouth dropped open, Kiela stared at them. When she was able to get her voice to function again, she shouted, “It worked!”
Caz cheered with his leaves. “You did it!”
