By the Sea of Sand Read online

  “What does that mean?”

  She gave the screen a sideways glance. It would also irritate him that she wasn’t giving him her full and direct attention. “It means that he’s improving. As they all do. Slowly. It takes time.”

  “His memory?”

  “He remembers plenty,” Teila said. “But only the bad things. Much of the time, he thinks he’s dreaming this place. Me. That he’s still being held by the Wirthera.”

  The Rav Aluf muttered angrily. “I thought being here would be best! That he’d return to his own mind sooner, but now I see I was wrong. I should’ve taken him home.”

  “This is his home!” Teila put down the carved blade and turned to the screen with her hands on her hips. “This was his home for years before you played upon his guilt and made him a soldier!”

  “He was my son and an excellent soldier!”

  “Yes,” Teila said. “And he was also an excellent husband. My husband. And he’d have been an excellent father, had he been given the chance.”

  The Rav Aluf looked suddenly so much older. Defeated. He rubbed a hand across his eyes. “Would that he be given the chance now, daughter. For that, we can both ask the Mothers.”

  “My hands are tied,” she said after a minute. “I can’t tell him his real name or who I am to him. All I can do is be a wife to him as best I can, even though he doesn’t know me. I told you to take him. You didn’t want to.”

  “Do you still want me to?”

  She hesitated, then shook her head. As her husband’s nightmares had eased, she’d seen more and more glimpses of the man she’d married. In fact, Teila was ashamed to have even suggested his father remove him—though she’d never have admitted it to him.

  “Do your best.” His tone made it clear he didn’t think it would be good enough.

  It was futile to retort. He would never soften toward her. Still, her anger manifested itself in words she had no time to say before he’d ended the call, and Teila had to satisfy herself with working out her anger on the milka pellet. It was in shards by the time she was finished. Ruined for anything but pudding.

  Stephin was the only one who liked milka pudding—everyone else took theirs solid or not at all. So after the treat had set and was ready to be eaten, Teila climbed the stairs to look for him. At this time of the day he was supposed to be taking lessons from his teachbot under the watchful tutelage of his amira, who was skeptical about the benefits of trying to educate a child so young. She often tried to sneak him out of the lessons, claiming there was plenty of time in adulthood for him to learn different languages or career skill sets, so it was no surprise to Teila when she found her son missing from the study room, though the ‘bot was operational and droning the first one hundred useful words in Fendalese.

  It was a little more disconcerting when she couldn’t find him in his bedroom, or the living space they shared. Nor could she see him from any of the room’s three glass walls, overlooking most of the lighthouse property. Amira Densi was supposed to know better than to allow the boy to play along the sea unattended. Fenda children were born knowing how to swim, but Stephin was not Fenda. He could so easily step out to a depth over his head and be swept away.

  “Stephin?” Teila moved through their shared quarters, but her boy was nowhere to be found.

  Amira Densi she found dozing in a patch of sun at the end of the corridor. For an instant, Teila was furious, but when the amira let out a small snore that vibrated her whiskers, she reminded herself that Densi was an old, old fenda. The Sheir natives lived so many more cycles than the homesteaders who’d come to populate the world. A nap in the sun was probably unavoidable for her.

  That understanding did nothing to stave off Teila’s growing unease. But before she could shake Amira Densi awake, she heard her boy’s familiar lilting laughter from down the hall. From Jodah’s room.

  Teila set off at a run—Stephin didn’t sound like he was in distress, but she wasn’t going to take a chance. Slipping through the doorway, she stopped short at the sight of Jodah sitting upright, Stephin on his lap. Both heads of identically messy dark hair bent over the tablet in Stephin’s hands. The boy was showing Jodah some of his favorite animations.

  Teila had watched them all a dozen or more times, could’ve recited them word for word, and her son had watched them far more often than that. He pointed excitedly at the screen, bouncing on Jodah’s lap. Jodah looked puzzled, but he was looking at the screen from a normal distance. Almost as though he could see it.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “Why do they have to catch the colored balls with those straws?”

  “Because it’s an excuse for them to dance around singing silly songs,” Teila said.

  Jodah looked up. He definitely saw her. His eyes widened and his lips parted, just a little. He looked . . . ashamed.

  “Your eyes?”

  “I can see,” he told her. “Everything was blurry when I woke up. But then this little one came in with this tablet, and at first everything was still unclear. But then as I watched, I noticed I could see the figures on the screen, not just fuzzy blobs.”

  “That means you’re healing.”

  He looked at her, his pale gray eyes narrowed. Despite the scabs and bruising still so prominent, it was a look she’d seen many times. Calculating. Working through the pieces of a puzzle. “Where am I?”

  “Adarat vi Apheera. The lighthouse.”

  His lips curved and his head tilted. “A lighthouse. I’m in a lighthouse.”

  “Yes. By the Sea of Sand.” She’d told him this before, but kept her voice carefully light, her expression neutral, trying to see if there was any sign of recognition. This had been his home for ten years. The place where he’d met and married her. It was the place his father had chosen to bring him so he could find his way back to himself.

  Jodah’s gaze grew shuttered. He shifted Stephin off his lap. “I’m tired now.”

  “Stephin, come.” Teila held out her hand for the boy, who reluctantly did as he’d been bid. “We’ll let you rest. I’ll be back with something for you to eat—”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You should eat,” she said gently. “I’ll bring a tray.”

  “I said I’m not hungry!”

  His shout startled the boy, who began to cry. Teila gathered him close, but Jodah was already on his feet, advancing on them both. She hadn’t forgotten how tall he was, or how broad. But she’d never seen him this way. Menacing and dangerous. She’d never seen him as a soldier.

  Instinctively, she pushed her son behind her and held up a hand. “You’re scaring the boy! Stop it!”

  Jodah moved fast and was on her in two long strides. One arm reached for her and he closed on her throat. Not squeezing or hurting, not yet, but the promise of it was there.

  Teila kept her voice steady. “Stephin. Go find Amira Densi. Now.”

  Her boy was so good, so obedient. He went at once, yelling for the amira. Teila met Jodah’s gaze without flinching or showing the fear rising in her.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Teila. I’m the—” His fingers squeezed a little, still not hurting, but the pressure gave her pause. “Lighthouse keeper.”

  “Why am I here?”

  “To rest and recover.”

  “Why a lighthouse?” Jodah’s pale eyes went dark from the wideness of his pupils. “Why not a medica?”

  She had no easy answer for that question. Why were any of them sent here to recover instead of a medica, other than they all had injuries that mere medicines and surgery couldn’t cure? That there were too many soldiers who came back and not enough places for them to recover? Before she could answer, Jodah moved closer, his hand still at her throat, the other moving to fist in her hair and tip her head back a little. His breath gusted over her face as he muttered into her ear.

  “You aren’t real.”

  Teila closed her eyes. He could kill her in a heartbeat. Snap her neck. Throttle her. If she gave