Eye of the Ocean Book 3 Ji'jin Station

Eye of the Ocean – Book 3: Ji’Jin Station
“Damn it, Ulanda...”
“Then talk sense,” she countered to stop him. His voice was getting louder and
out of all this, she thought she still might be embarrassed. “What the hell is 'flies'
supposed to mean?”
“Maybe you want to go home then?”
Home? She bent her head over the scroll, her fingers still working at the tear -
she must be trying to make it larger, she certainly couldn't make it smaller. How
many people were crowded into this Audience? At least fifty without counting
servants. Two dozen or so at the table, the rest standing. And the ti'Linn guards,
those stuck in her mind. Some weren't ti'Linn, the ones from the ride last night.
Bolda tugged one of the longer hair braids. “Are you a horse?” he growled as
though he had read her mind. She had to look. A Camerat - she'd known that
already, they were familiar to her from her visions. Lin was close to where the
tass'alt was standing. She must have known that as well, there was no shock at
seeing him, and her eyes went back to Niv as Bolda whispered a translation.
“Yes,” Ca'mit said to Niv in Hegemony and she looked at him.
A song? Choices for her? In trying to hide - or it had been a last attempt at
privacy - she hadn't looked at the people other than the few near her. Anga and
the Clan Zimmer. Cayse. Those she had noticed. And the woman with the
Overpriest, his tass'alt. She had forgotten her name. No, her name was Lanasi.
She straightened away from Bolda, looking at the woman. “His song?” she said.
“What?” Bolda said, his voice rising further out of a whisper.
Lanasi moved, her whole body answering with more of the grace that Mirwin
had. “As you said, we are holding this open...”
“To the spiral.”
She bowed. “There will be no binding there. You'll have the same choices, if
not the same chances, as any candidate.”
Chances? She wondered where the forcing stopped and the chances began.
Had the binding really stopped? “And it's offered freely?” she asked and got the
positive answer she expected.
Notes in a song. Turning her head away, Ulanda looked around. One man near
the door at the back she recognized. Market day in the plaza just outside the
outer gates. She had waited behind him at a farm stall as he bought a small
basket of cherries, and on a whim, she'd done the same instead of the cheaper
winter apples. He gathered the stems and pits in the palm of one hand as he ate
them and rubbed his sticky palm against his pants when he was finished. Dust
stained clothes and boots; he'd had a horse, she remembered. There was a young
man waiting for him, holding the reins of two animals. Had she followed him to
see that? And did he remember her from then? He had appeared absorbed in
eating, his steps hesitant as though not sure where his feet might end up. Did he
have the same look now? And what would it mean, if anything?
Laurel Hickey www.2morrow.bc.ca