The musicians on deck gaped at him, as the seagulls reacted with raucous and joyous screeches that nearly drowned out the drumbeats. Marin grinned.
“Is he…” Dax began.
“He likes birds and flying cats,” Marin told him. “He thinks of them as cousins of the sky.”
“How do you know that?”
Marin shrugged. “Guesswork. Also, I anthropomorphize the shit out of him.” She didn’t speak sea serpent, and he didn’t speak island standard, but they’d found ways to communicate. There was, admittedly, a lot she just made up. She liked to think, though, that they understood one another.
From across the waves, a drum sounded, an echo of Shiare’s rhythm. Marin couldn’t tell where it was coming from—it didn’t sound like it was from the village nestled in the harbor. She thought it emanated from one of the many peaks of the islands.
“Do you always drum when you come into the harbor?” Ree asked, curious.
“It’s tradition, unique to Eventrid,” Shiare said. “See all the peaks? Years ago, our people turned to drums to communicate across them. It developed into a language and a way of life.”
“Shiare has been recording as much of the language and culture of the Eventrid drummers as she can for the conservatory archives,” Dax said, his pride in his friend clear in his voice. “It’s remarkably complex.”
“The speed and the rhythm convey emotion, as well as information,” the drummer explained. She repeated the pattern from before, the drumbeats traveling across the water.
“Plus there are the rituals,” Dax said eagerly. “Tell them about those.”
“We use drumming to welcome new life into the world,” Shiare said, “a special rhythm for the agony and joy of childbirth, and there are drums to guide the dying out of this world as well. We use drums in our marriage rituals, when a child comes of age, when you catch your first fish—any milestone, really.”
Dax sighed. “I think it’s beautiful.”
“One of the beautiful things is that it’s a language that can be spoken by all,” Shiare said. “Our leader is deaf, and she ‘hears’ the drums through the vibrations in the floor. She speaks exclusively in the language of drums.”
Marin listened to the drumbeats coming from the island more closely. She could tell it was a language, even if she didn’t speak it. She strained, trying to match the rhythms to words, and then wondered if that was how it worked—was it a one-to-one relation, or was it more like how she and Perri talked, where emotion conveyed intent? She guessed it was the latter.
Joining her by the helm, Dax said, “It’s fascinating, isn’t it? I’ve been begging Shiare to teach me when she has time, but she has been working on her third-level thesis.”
“Maybe she’ll have time while you’re on Eventrid,” Marin said. “I don’t know how long it will be before it’s safe to return to Alyssium.” She thought of the corpse in the canal. Certainly it was goingto be a long while before she was ready to return. She sent a silent apology to the gardener of Belde for failing to deliver his letter. She prided herself on never missing a delivery, but in this case…He’ll understand.Besides, chances were the recipients were no longer in the city, and she had no idea how to track them down if they’d fled. She hoped they were safe and was grateful yet again that her family was nowhere near the chaos.
He leaned closer to her. “I want to talk to you about that.” She noticed he smelled a bit like sandalwood, the same kind of wood as his tri-lute. It was a nice smell. It almost made her miss what he’d said.
“About learning drums?” She didn’t have any opinion on that. It sounded fun. And Shiare seemed very nice, as well as very attractive. She thought they’d make a lovely couple, which she wasn’t jealous about because she never wanted to be a part of a couple again, given how spectacularly it had failed the last time. If he wanted to trust his heart and future to another person when it was clear you could never know if you were seeing their true self until it was too late and the snake was inside the house, then that was his business.Yes, he smells like sandalwood and a little like cinnamon.He must have gotten into her spices.
“Uh, no.” He raked his hand through his hair. In a low voice that didn’t carry across the boat, he said, confession-like, “I don’t want to stay on Eventrid.”
That was a surprise. Marin glanced at Shiare and wondered how the drummer with the glorious golden hair was going to feel about that.Not at all my business.“I can take you to whatever island you want.”
He shot her a rueful grin. “I want you to take me to all of them. I want—” Cutting himself off, he swallowed and broke eye contact with her, as if he was embarrassed. She eyed him curiously, wondering what he was trying to say. In a rush, he asked, “Can I join your crew? Like Ree? I don’t know anything about sailing, but I can learn. I like to learn. I’m a good listener, one of my defining characteristics.”
Marin gawked at him. “You want to be a sailor?”
“Honestly? No. But I want to sail with you.”
She continued to gawk at him.
He tried to explain. “Shiare has family here, and the others have all visited before. They want to be here, whereas I have no ties to this place. There’s no reason for me to stay.”
“You don’t want to stay with your friends?”
He dropped his voice lower. “They lied to me. I know, it wasn’t their idea. I don’t blame them. But I also… I don’t want to be with them right now. I trusted them, and they all conspired to keep me in the dark, taking away my ability to choose for myself.”
Thatshe could very much understand. She wasn’t sure, though, how she felt about his solution. “So you want to come with me instead?” OnSilver. With her. For an unspecified amount of time. Underfoot and always here, talking to her, smiling at her, being with her.That could be a recipe for disaster.He wasn’t a cute little shrub; he was a full-size, absurdly attractive human who smelled of sandalwood and cinnamon. It was an enormous difference.
He was looking at her with so much hope in his beautiful eyes.
