AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Anything to report?” I asked him, taking off my glasses. “Anything unusual?”
He grinned at me. “Oh, you should’ve seen the waves off The Claws last night at high tide. Fan-fucking-tastic riding. Never seen them so strong.”
“You know what I mean, Kai,” I said.
“Everything’s fine. I haven’t had an incident since that time at Grandma’s birthday. And I’ve been very consistent with the medicine since then. Never missed a single dose. Visir gets on my ass when I forget.”
I jotted more notes onto the long parchment recording all of our routine examinations, just one scroll of many for each year of Kai’s life. The first several carried my father’s handwriting, then changed to my own as I completed my apprenticeship and took over as the Blue Fin clan’s resident healer. Kai was my first and still most important patient. According to lore and tradition, he was set to be the clan’s next great chief, and since his engagement to the forest dragon Visir, he had finally started taking on that responsibility.
Kai had always beenmyresponsibility, and it felt like I’d spent my entire adult life keeping him in check—or trying to.
“Good,” I said to him. “Maybe now that you have a mate, I won’t have to deal with you so much anymore.”
“Nah, you’re not getting rid of me so easily, Ari. I know you could never let me go.”
I snorted. “Unfortunately, you’re probably right. You’re still planning on living on the south side of the island? If you, Makoa, and Leo are going to do your Guardians project, why not move back to the family compound? It’s central to town, where you’d need to be if you’re going to be looking after T’Wanu Na. There’s plenty of room here for that and a future family. Have you and Visir spoken about children?”
“I’m glad to have worked things out with Grandma,” he said. “But I’m not moving back here. I like the South. The water is good there, and I like having my own space. I’m going to be spending more time here and in Maintown, you know I’ll need that more than ever, yeah? And, no. No kids, not yet.”
Not planning on having children, I jotted onto the parchment.
Kai tilted his head to read it. “I thought we were just having a conversation.”
“We are,” I said. “Like you said. You can’t get rid of me so easily. I’m still your healer.”
“Always taking things so seriously,” he said and shook his head.
I rolled up the scroll and dropped it into the box next to the others. “Alright, there,” I said. “Done.”
“Can you imagine me raising whelplings?” Kai said, laughing. “That would be a fucking disaster.”
“Why do you say that?”
Kai raised his eyebrow and spread his hands wide. “Really? I think you know the answer to that better than anyone else. I’m too all over the place. I don’t have the right attitude to be a father.”
“You look out for people. And you’ve got a lot of love to give, cousin. I think that’s a pretty important quality in a father.”
“Wow, a compliment?”
“It’s true,” I said.
He shrugged. “Nah, I’d make an amazing uncle. I wouldn’t know how to say no to my kid. They’d be out of control. But you, yeah? I can imagine you being a father really easily.” Kai saw the look on my face. “I’m being serious.”
“Moving on. Are you ready for tonight? Nervous?”
“It’s just a ceremony,” he said. “Visir and I have practically been mated for a month already.”
“Yes, but still. It’s not just any ceremony, it’s your matingahevamai.”
“I’m just looking forward to seeing you get loose, Ari,” Kai said. “You’re way more fun when you’re drunk.”
“Not happening, I’m afraid,” I said. “I’ll be practicing moderation tonight.”
“Uh-huh. That’s what you always say.”
I had an embarrassing tendency to do things I normally wouldn’t when drinking too muchluyu, and Blue Fin celebrations always made it far too easy to go overboard. I had an important day tomorrow—Maintown was expecting two transit ships to arrive in port filled with visitors from the mainland, and that meant healers would be needed for health inspections. It was my job to make sure it all went smoothly and to take care of any cases of extreme illness contracted during the voyage.
We left my office and walked the bright hallways of the Blue Fin estate’s main house, the hardwood floor thumping like a heartbeat beneath our bare feet. It’d been a tradition for the entire clan to live within the estate grounds, but these days only the elders remained—and me. Everyone else had moved to different parts of the island to live their lives, but I had responsibilities here. This was where the clan healer conducted the family business, as my father had before me, and this was where our matriarch, my grandmother, resided. Since I was young, even before I’d begun my healer’s training, I’d been close by her side, acting as her errand-runner, assistant, and eventually her proxy. Kai’s prowess riding waves on his wakka longboard might’ve fulfilled an ancient prophecy, but I was the one actually making things happen.
