Eye of the Ocean Book 3 Ji'jin Station

Eye of the Ocean – Book 3: Ji’Jin Station
drum of the shattered pieces falling to earth. Be'ell knelt at one side of the tent,
her two by her, her head bowed and she held theirs down. Each time the mother
struck, she pulled them tighter, one under each arm.
“The old mother wants her feather back,” he said to Oimit after a very close hit
that came near morning. The tent had shaken with the impact of boulders landing
near them. A shower of gravel hit the cloth. He had taken the bandage off her
injured hand to clean the wound and with his words, she had taken the shaft of
the feather to lay across the palm, a perfect match of cuts and spines.
Be'ell looked up, her eyes wide, then ducked as fast but not before he saw
them clearly in the new light. Oimit had as well, he got a smile from her, a
chuckle forming in her throat that didn't quite make it out. She had been
watching the children when she didn't think he was looking. He didn't think Oimit
had really noticed the woman beyond the few orders she'd given.
“Little brother, does Sourrin freehold have that breeding?” Oimit asked with
the lilt of High Formal for all she continued to speak common Zimmer. He shook
his head, showing points, as amused as she was without quite knowing why. He'd
never seen red eyes in a Zimmer.
Oimit managed to sit up without help and to handle the water pouch on her
own. She'll live, he thought. Or survive the wounds, rather. It might be a long
way home yet. Not just a mirsasitin hunt now.
“Perhaps a'Vqui has an interest there,” he said. “Are you something they're
breeding?”
He repeated the question with the woman's face held in his hands. Spurs
pressed her cheeks, his ra-fingers prominent. He could smell the l'blatin, she had
to as well.
“Lord,” she whispered, moving her lips as little as possible. “For fear of them, I
came here. They raid our crops, for sport...”
Oimit laughed lightly, he heard the water in her throat from drinking. “Where
are you from?” she asked.
“Lady, please. Sourrin...”
“I meant what world. I like your accent as much as your eyes. And that you
are still coherent. I find you interesting. Are you interesting, Be'ell?”
Tu'pin let her go. “Is our intelligence so poor that a'Genn doesn't know this?”
“Or my little brother isn't privy to it.”
A possibility. “And you?”
Oimit shook her head, frowning. “What world are you from?” she asked Be'ell
again but in a soft tone that had his breath freeze in his throat.
He thought the freeborn would collapse. Her strange eyes were open wide and
staring at Oimit. By all he knew of freeborn, she should have collapsed, but
instead whispered, “Alisim.”
Oimit smiled lazily. “Very interesting. I do like you.”
Laurel Hickey www.2morrow.bc.ca