Roiven starts climbing down before me, giving me a chance to look around. The drop is only some fifteen or twenty feet, so theground below must be close to sea level. The two cliff-walls of the ravine are ten feet or so apart, and from here I can already see signs of life down below. Doors in the base of the rock. Neatly-kept pathways. Potted plants, even though the sun must only shine down there at noon when it’s right overhead. A group of children running, one holding a ball.
Roiven reaches the bottom and gestures for me to catch up.
25
Thechildren are waiting when I reach the bottom. Four of them, the oldest perhaps thirteen, the youngest nine. None of them look related. A golden pickfisher, the small, shrill-voiced birds that like to scavenge from washed-up carcasses, flutters after them. A rat hops along the stone ground. My lips curl down.
Familiars, if I had to guess.
“Avreen says she’s a knight,” the oldest child says, giving me a grim, accusing look. He’s got big ears. His eyes burn with dark green fire.
“She’s also my guest,” Roiven answers, so diplomatically it's hard to remember he despises me.
“Will she go away soon? Hesfus doesn’t like knights,” one of the younger ones says. The rat reaches her and climbs up her side. The girl scoops it off her hip with comfortable familiarity and settles the creature on her shoulder. I try not to shudder.
The fucking rat looks right at me and squeaks, baring its teeth.
“Cai and I have things to discuss,” Roiven says. “Get on. We’ll talk later.”
The children hesitate. Roiven raises his eyebrows and the younger ones jog off, headed away from the ocean and deeper into the ravine. The oldest takes a second longer to glare at me before he follows.
A moment later the ball skips past us, bouncing as it rolls.
“You were supposed tocatchthat!” the oldest child yells to the one with the rat.
They remind me of the children on Amkrieg.
I jog forward and stop the ball with my foot, then pick it up. When I turn around Roiven is watching me closely, and the children stare from a distance, looking horrified. With my luck, if I throw it I’ll knock one of them over. I hesitate, eyes flicking to Roiven, then roll it towards the children along the ground.
Roiven starts walking slowly down the road that lines the crevasse, the other way from the children. I follow wordlessly, feeling uneasy. I don’t want to find these people relatable.
So many children on this island, and Roiven seems to care about them. It’s hard to reconcile that with the image I’ve always had of witches as bloodthirsty, soulless bastards willing to do anything for power.
“If you didn’t sacrifice anything for your bond…” I start.
“I didn’t.”
“Then how did it happen?”
“She chose me.”
I raise my left eyebrow. “You’re a terrible storyteller.”
A faint smile shadows Roiven’s lips, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“You want to know? Fine. I was twelve, late to not be bonded yet. We were thirsty, so I scaled up a cliff hoping for freshwater on the other side. A sea titan must have had its nest at the top, because it attacked when I was about thirty feet up.”
I whistle. Titans are dumb, but they’re ferocious.
The homes we’re walking past are sort of charming, with circular glass windows cut into the ravine and bundles of dried flowershanging above the doors. Each home’s entrance is up a few feet off the ground, with steps, ramps, or ladders, as if it sometimes floods here.
“I couldn’t let go without falling, but it raked its talons into my back and was about to knock me off the rock. Savasaeirn saw. She’d just lost her bonded, so she saved me.”
I frown. Something about the story doesn’t make sense to me.
“Why did you have to look so hard for water in the first place? Drought?”
“Our village was destroyed,” he says flatly, his voice without emotion. “It wasn’t hidden, like this one. I had to figure out how to take care of my little sister.”
