—from chapter 17 ofThe Great History of Sayon
Yassen watched the sea glide past him as he sank into its murky depths, past driftwood and other detritus and into darker waters. The sub shuddered as it neared the mouth of a cave along the rocky grade.
Yassen barely got to study the cave before the sub shot forward at a breakneck speed, throwing Yassen back into his seat. He realized then that the cave was a tunnel, and that it glinted with blue light. Up and up they went until Yassen saw a small opening, a shining patch of water shaped like a silver coin. The vessel bolted out and the sky opened above him with mountains jutting on the horizon.
Yassen let out a shaky breath, his stomach queasy. The sub bobbed gently as the glass covering slid back. He was in the middle of a quiet lake surrounded by the soaring white peaks of the Sona Range. On the shore, a figure stood, waving.
Yassen recognized the set of his broad shoulders and chest, the wide-legged stance and bowed knees that befit a warrior, or a man who rode his horses hard. As the vessel glided closer, the man lowered his hand, and Yassen saw something flash on his smallest finger.
After all this time, he still wore his family crest.
“Welcome, Yassen,” the man said. His voice was deeper now, a steady rumble like that of a waterfall. It expanded and lingered in the air long after he had spoken. The voice of a Sesharian who had never forgotten his island home.
The sub docked, and Yassen hopped on shore. “Hey, Sam.”
Samson Kytuu was taller than Yassen, straight-backed with a high forehead and an aquiline nose. When he smiled at Yassen, it was a wide grin that reached the corners of his eyes—the same one he had given when they had been scrawny boys crouched outside a Ravani bakery many suns ago. Back then, the smile had promised a distracted baker’s daughter and three loaves of honeyed bread. Now—Yassen wasn’t sure what it promised.
Yassen held up the metal feather, and it glinted in the sun.
“Why this?”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t see it,” Samson said, and Yassen squinted, studying the seal. Here, under the dancing gleams of the sun, he saw that it was not a feather after all, but a single, flickering flame.
“Of course,” he murmured.
He had met Samson in Rani. They had been orphans, hungry and stranded. While Yassen scoured the desert for castaway trinkets to sell, Samson pickpocketed. They would pool their money to buy food, and when they had too little, they stole. Together, they had survived.
Yassen could feel Samson watching him, studying him, possibly experiencing the same shocks that came when meeting a childhood friend after a very long time.
The physical distance between them wasn’t far, but the awkward silence seemed to stretch endlessly.
Suddenly, the sub gave a loud hiss, releasing a burst of steam; as one, Yassen and Samson jumped and drew their guns, gazes locked on the innocent vessel.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. Then Samson’s lips twitched. They looked at each other and then the vessel, and the next thing Yassen knew they were both laughing so hard their bodies shook—a laugh that warmed the arid silence and melted guarded fronts, a laugh that they had shared as boys.
Samson holstered his pulse gun with a grin. He kissed his three fingers and pressed them against Yassen’s forehead, the customary Ravani greeting given to friends and family.
“It’s been too long, Cassian.”
Yassen blinked.Cassian.It had been his code name when he and Samson were in the Arohassin, before Samson had escaped. It hadn’t felt right to continue using that name when the person he had loved most was no longer there to whisper it.
“You remembered,” he said.
“I still remember many things about you.”
They took a stone path that curved along the mountainside. Retherin pines, their velvet trunks and tawny orange leaves shining in the sunlight, covered the grade. A mountain lark flitted above them, giving its three-note call of peace. The Jantari were known to mine these mountains, yet Yassen did not see the telltale ugly metal hulls of the rigs.
“I’ve bought the entire land from here to the next summit,” Samson said, as if to answer his thoughts.
Yassen stared at him. “And they just… let you?”
“Of course not, Cass, you know better. In exchange, my soldiers protect the mines on the northern range,” Samson said. “Easy work, though. I even made a small base in the middle—a training ground of sorts. Perhaps I’ll show you sometime.”
“There has to be more to it,” Yassen said, eyeing him. “I’ve never heard of King Farin being the generous type.”
Samson smiled slowly, though he stared straight ahead. “Always the observant one.”
The path grew steeper. Yassen felt his calves begin to burn when they finally crested the hill, and the house suddenly rose above him as if to stun him with all its glory.
