Eye of the Ocean Book 3 Ji'jin Station

Eye of the Ocean – Book 3: Ji’Jin Station
blue flowers, darker than the sky, and with the silver of the river at the throat of
each individual bloom. Were they native, Rit wondered but couldn't remember if
they were identical to ones he'd seen before. Wilni Province, not Endica if they
were, but like the pine trees in the garden Ulanda had created, his memory was
too vague for an accurate comparison.
The walk was helping to work the kinks out of his body from the ride and some
of the anger from his mind. The bathhouse was at the end of the corridor, more
windows, all open to a terrace lined by potted trees and beyond, to the river. The
molded walls were the colors of an oyster shell, and with the crackle-glaze of
porcelain that said the room had been fired. A one-color mosaic of tiny blue tiles
made the floor look like a reflection of the sky. If you looked more carefully, the
tiles made a wave pattern and they weren't all the same color after all. Greens
and blues, frosted as though there was foam on the water. The shape of the
ti'Linn eye of the ocean pattern.
If he stared too long, the waves moved, the eyes blinked. Going to stand by
the windows, he watched Alicia instead. The tiny blue flowers surrounded him;
the vines framed the windows, scenting the air with their perfume. He picked the
end of a cluster, meaning to put it in her hair, then hesitated with the tiny blooms
crushed between his fingers. The kitchen in their suite at Ji'jinlini Temple. Eunni
and the bowl of pink squash soup. The tiles and then the flowers.
“Are you going to stand there all day?” Alicia said, breaking into his thoughts.
There were attendants here, their eyes carefully to the floor. He tossed the
crushed flowers out the window. “Why not just tell me the rest of what's going
on.” Their Net was ignoring him.
“A bath first, then talk.” Some of the softness was gone from her voice, she
sounded amused but it was brittle. Both her voice and the whisper of laughter
that was all he got from the Net as he pushed deeper in. “You look as though
you're about to fall apart. Was it that bad?”
He had never gotten used to casually treating servants as though they couldn't
hear and was deliberately vague. “Bad enough,” he said as he gave up trying for
the spins. He could break her locks, but might break more than he wanted to.
Easier to let her have her game.
“Care to elaborate?”
As they had made their way past the Firstgate Speakerhouse, an old Zimmer
had stepped out of the door to stand in a swirl of smoke from the altar. Warding
had crackled around them, he couldn't tell who had set it. Immediately Temple
Guard pushed forward, mixing with the City men. The old man was flat against
the wall, held there by the warding. Blood streamed from of his mouth as blue
sheets of light flared around him.
Bolda's horse crushed his, the man had a handful of Rit's sleeve. “Kori's got it,”
Bolda shouted over the roar. Kori was in the Command Net like a winter storm.
Laurel Hickey www.2morrow.bc.ca