After two days at sea, Lilette was so thirsty and wet that her mother would have called it a paradox. At the thought, she ached for her eyes to fill with the tears her parched body was unable to produce. Her tongue felt like a dried-up worm in her mouth. Her pale skin had gone bright red and was painful to the touch.
Suddenly, she had a disorienting sense that she wasn't alone. Shifting, she had a vague impression of a man standing in a boat above her. She struggled to free the knife she'd stabbed into the flotsam, but her movement disrupted the delicate balance, and she ended up underwater. She came up gasping, her knife clenched in her hand.
The man stared down at her, a stunned expression on his weathered face. "So this is what they wished me to find."
Lilette translated the words into her native tongue and still didn't understand. "What?" Her voice sounded as thin as onionskin.
He glanced at the knife, his lips tightening before he offered her his hand. She studied the calluses, wrinkles, and age spots and knew this was not an imperial soldier. She reached for him. He towed her closer to his small boat before he lifted her with one smooth movement and set her on a deck that smelled strongly of fish. Her legs refused to support her weight, and she promptly collapsed. She got a good look at her feet-pale as the underside of a fish and as wrinkled as her nightdress. She clutched the knife against her chest like a shield.
He glanced at it, then twisted around to lift a round rock and tug out a rag that had been stuffed in the top. He held the rock out to her. When she hesitated, he shook it. Liquid sloshed gently. She snatched the rock from him, careful to keep her knife in place. Tipping it back, she let the water trickle into her mouth. It tasted nutty and sweet, and she realized what she'd thought was a rock was actually a very large nut filled with water.
"Slowly," the man said.
Lilette was too thirsty to listen. She finished the last of the sweet water. She didn't speak Harshen as well as she understood it, so she had to think how to form the unfamiliar word. "More."
He tipped his head. "Not yet."
She recognized the authority in his voice. He reminded her of Griz. At the thought, she squeezed her eyes shut tight.
"Your ship?" he said softly.
She pointed into the depths of the brilliant blue water. "Burned and sank." It was a paradox. Her mother would be proud she remembered the word.
"Your family?"
Lilette could still feel the impression of her father's knuckle on her cheek and her mother's lips on her forehead. The pain in her chest made it impossible to speak. She met the old man's gaze and was surprised to find a consuming grief mirrored back at her. The sadness between them felt like a physical thing-like an animal that continued to ravage them both.
"I'm Fa."
Lilette let the knife fall to her side. "Lilette."
He tried to repeat it back to her, but most Harshens seemed incapable of pronouncing her name. "Li," she said. It's what the other Harshens had eventually called her.
Fa nodded, seeming relieved to have something easier for his mouth to form. He hefted a loosely braided mat and propped it up with two sticks to create a sort of lean-to. He motioned for Lilette to go inside. Shakily, she shuffled forward and caught sight of a small, green island in the distance.
She lay on a mat in the shade while Fa rowed a little farther, cast his net, and drew it back loaded with fish. At the sight of their silver, squirming bodies, the sweet water Lilette had drunk came back up. After she'd spit the last of it into the sea, she looked to see if the man would reprimand her, but he only rowed a little farther out and cast his net again.
After a while, he handed her a sealed nut. "Slowly," he said again. This time she listened, taking small sips every so often.
"Home," she said in Harshen, the word awkward on her tongue.
Fa handed her a bit of rice bread. "Where?"
Nibbling, she pointed northwest. He nodded as if she'd confirmed something. "You are a Keeper."
Somehow, it was not a question. Again, she didn't say anything. She was certain he wasn't an imperial soldier, but he was still a Harshen.
He studied her. "Who are you running from?"
She refused to meet his gaze. This old man held her life in his hands. If he turned her into the imperial soldiers, surely they would reward him. "Pirates."
He let out a long breath. "This morning, I pray to the Sun Dragon, asking him for a sign. I find you. Then I take very, very many fish. You bring good luck."
He drew in his nets for the last time, filling the baskets to overflowing before tacking into the wind to head back to shore. As they came closer, Lilette made out a village carved into the place between jungle and shore. The huts on stilts had woven palm-leaf roofs and lashed-together bamboo walls.
When the boat beached on the white sand, Fa gripped the gunwales, his body straining to pull the vessel farther ashore. As he tied off, several dark-haired children with almond-shaped eyes came running to stare at Lilette with open mouths.
Fa helped her out of the boat. Her legs shook like leaves in a storm, but she forced them to hold her as she faced the other children.
"Salfe, tell your father I wish to speak with him tonight." A dark-eyed boy nodded eagerly and took off.
Fa's gaze landed on a girl about Lilette's age. Her clothes were neat and by far the finest of all the children, but her mouth seemed to be forever downturned. She stepped forward to touch Lilette's matted hair. Lilette wasn't sure why, but she let her.
"You smell like bad wine," the girl whispered.
Lilette turned her head to sniff her hair-it still reeked of vinegar. Her brow furrowed as she searched for the words. "Pickles," she said in her native language, for she didn't know the translation in Harshen. "They taste better than they smell."
Fa nodded as if that was the right thing to say. "Pan, you will help her wash up." The girl beside her darted away.
Fa motioned for Lilette to follow him. She kept close as they wove between homes full of people with darker skin and solemn eyes. At one of the huts set slightly apart from the others, he motioned for her to climb the ladder to the door.
Inside, there were gaps in the bamboo floor, and she feared it wouldn't hold her weight. Fa strode inside. She tensed, but the floor didn't so much as creak.
At the far side of the room, he knelt beside a collection of baskets stacked neatly beside a battered sleeping mat. After pawing through the contents, he lifted some clothes from within. He gently deposited them in Lilette's arms. She let them fall open-a well-worn pair of loose trousers and a long tunic, far too small for him. They were soft and faded to a uniform gray from salt and sun. Judging by how wrinkled and musty they were, they'd been stored for a long time.
She looked up to see Fa unroll a sleeping mat on the other side of the hut. Three more mats lay tightly rolled. Suddenly she understood. "They died." It was not a question, more like an apology.
Fa's sad eyes met hers. She remembered the emptiness in her mother's outstretched arms, felt the hollow place inside her where the anguish was threatening to eat her alive.
Hugging the clothes to her, she stepped forward and buried her face in his chest-he was much shorter than her father. "Thank you," she said. She was crying hard, her insides aching.
Fa's body went stiff before slowly relaxing. With one hand resting on her back, he patted her and murmured, "The moment they were mine, I knew I would lose them."
She shook her head. "Then why have them?"
"If I had not, they never would have been born. And I wouldn't have had them at all."
She didn't understand half of the things he said. But she decided then that she would never let someone come close enough to hurt her again. The only person that mattered was her sister.
When Lilette's sobs quieted, Fa held her arms and squatted before her. "Pan will come soon. I go sell the fish. When I return, I cook."
Sniffing, Lilette nodded. She wondered what the Harshen word for "tired" was.
Fa
latched the door with a simple loop over a notch carved into the wood and climbed down the ladder.
Through the spaces around the door and between the walls, Lilette saw movement. The girl she'd met at the docks set a large pitcher on the porch before climbing up and pushing the door open. She picked the pitcher back up and stepped inside. "He gave you new clothes-well, sort of. That will help."
"Help with what?" Lilette asked.
"Impressing the village Lord." Pan set the pitcher next to a bowl of strong-smelling paste. "Wash up."
Lilette stripped off her nightdress, which was still damp under her arms. The fabric was stiff with salt. She dipped her fingers into the paste and brought it to her nose. It smelled fresh, like some kind of ground-up plant. When she hesitated, Pan picked up a glob and began working it into Lilette's scalp. Lilette took a handful and rubbed it on her face.
Once Lilette had been thoroughly scrubbed with paste, the girl helped her rinse her hair and body by pouring water over her, which fell through the spaces in the floor and into the sand beneath. When they finally finished, she smelled fresh and her skin tingled.
Pan poured a few drops of oil into Lilette's palm and showed her how to rub it into her skin and hair. The oil soothed her burned skin and smelled rich and exotic.
When Lilette was dressed, Pan surveyed her. "Much better. You're ready to meet with my father, at least."
She left a small wooden comb beside Lilette, who began working through the snarls in her hair. Her scalp hurt from the sunburn. "Your father?"
Pan gathered up her bowls. "He's the Lord of the Fiefdom. He'll decide if you can stay."
Lilette's mouth felt suddenly dry. "And if he says I can't?"
Pan looked her up and down with an almost sad expression. "He won't." She looked away as if uncomfortable and left without another word.
The imperial soldiers thought Lilette was dead. For the first time in four days, she felt safe enough to sleep.
When she finally awoke again, a gentle breeze was blowing through the gaps in the walls and floor. It felt wonderful against her skin, and she realized that what she'd seen as a poor structure was actually clever craftsmanship.
She heard people speaking and pushed herself up. She peered past the gaps in the bamboo walls and made out Fa's gray head. He was speaking to a man with a rope of dark hair gathered at the nape of his neck.
"Why? She's none of your concern," said the dark-haired man.
"The Sun Dragons sent her to me, Bian. She is good luck."
Bian seemed to consider this. "And if her luck turns, will you still want her then?"
"Her luck will not turn," Fa said, "whether she wishes it to or not."
Bian shook his head. "If she was so lucky, her ship would not have wrecked."
"She survived when none else did. And she drifted here." Fa paused. "I'm not wrong about these things."
"You were wrong when your family died."
Fa stiffened. "I knew I would lose them the moment they became mine. Just as I know this child is meant to live with me until her calling comes for her."
Bian was silent. "Pirates would not have burned the ship-they would have captured it."
"Perhaps it was an accident."
Bian crossed his arms over his chest. "She cannot stay. My decision is final. Give her provisions and a boat and set her loose."
"I will not." Fa's voice changed from gentle to steel with those three words.
"Then I'll do it for you."
Lilette scrambled to her feet as Bian came up the ladder and threw open the door. He was about her father's age-a handsome man with a strong build and creases around his eyes.
His gaze narrowed, and a dark cunning settled in his eyes. Lilette no longer felt safe. She backed up until she bumped against the far wall. Bian's eyes roamed over her soft skin, the waves of pale hair, her turquoise eyes-Lilette resembled her mother, whom men had always hungered after. Lately, a speculative expression would cross their faces when they'd looked at Lilette. Her mother had told her to be careful of such men. And Lilette knew instinctively that Bian was one of the ones her mother had warned her about.
Fa stepped into the room, putting himself between her and Bian. Her chest started to move again. She hadn't realized she'd stopped breathing. She no longer believed anyone could keep her safe, but she felt less lonely with a friend on her side.
Bian wet his lips. "Very well, Fa. I can see you will not be dissuaded. She stays."
He backed slowly from the room, casting a final glance at Lilette before jumping from the porch. She sagged in relief.
Fa's shoulders relaxed. "He's already plotting to take you as his wife when you come of age."
Pan's father? "Does he not already have a wife?"
"Three."
Lilette shuddered. Men's scheming is what had put her in this mess in the first place. "No."
Fa chuckled darkly. "Do not worry. You will be his undoing, not the other way around."
Lilette looked up at him. He'd said she and Pan would be friends. That she was to stay with him. And now this. "You know things?"
A shadow crossed the older man's face. "Oh, yes."
She wondered if he was deluded or simply deranged-another word her mother would be impressed she remembered. "Does the Sun Dragon speak to you?"
Fa stared at the planks. "No. Sometimes I see the end of things. That's all."
Her breath hitched in her throat. "What end?"
He knelt before her, his expression earnest. "You must never sing while you are here, Li. Bad things will happen if you do. Promise me this, or I cannot allow you to remain."
Lilette remembered the beast her song had awakened-the burning screams-and she trembled. "I'm not a witch anymore."
He pressed his palm to her forehead. "The Sun Dragon has hidden you here, in this safe place."
Tears welled in her eyes. "I want to go home. I want to see my sister."
Fa made a sound low in his throat. "You will see both again, but not today. Today ends with food and sleep. It is a good end."
Lilette considered this strange man who had taken her in and fought for her to stay. She didn't know him, not really. But somehow she felt connected to him.
He'd said she would see her sister, find a way home. She held tight to that promise.
***
Eight Years Later