Chapter 40

  Day 24

  Fiora and Rosma swam together deep under the surface of the Wave Moon. Fiora could hold her breath for a long time, but she couldn’t go all the way down to the bottom like Rosma could, so they stayed in the bright warm shallows. The clouds washed the clear water in golden-pink light, and sometimes an island passing overhead shadowed them as they swam.

  Fiora summoned all kinds of fish and the strange creatures of her moon for Rosma to look at and enjoy. Rosma loved seeing the fish, touching them and marveling at their grace and beauty. What Fiora loved seeing was Rosma’s smile.

  Their angels, shark and frog, played together below, ready to warn the two heroes if the danger lurking in the depths arose too close to the surface. Sometimes Fiora swam up for a breath of air. That was how she saw that it had begun raining. Fiora loved the rain on her moon, because it fell from the luminous clouds, so it shined and shimmered in pastel curtains that filled the sky.

  She dove back down to find Rosma, who was following a squid with many blue and green tentacles, as long and thin as jellyfish strands, that danced with light. Rosma’s spear hung loose in her hand. She carried it everywhere, even if she didn’t plan on using it. She was just like that.

  Fiora touched Rosma on the back and pointed up with a smile. They rose to the surface, and Rosma’s scales let her slice through the water even faster than Fiora, who was a fast swimmer. They watched the rain as it fell upon the rolling waves that stretched like hills forever into the distance. They bobbed way up and way down in a long, slow rhythm with the passing waves, and they caught a small island when it drifted by.

  Fiora’s moon was a huge freshwater ocean full of waves. Sometimes the waves were as small as little hills, and sometimes the waves were like mountain ranges that crawled across the face of Quelk, the Wave Moon. Only the poles of her moon were calm and still. Her moon was lit by clouds, and it was full of islands that were made entirely of dense, matted vegetation. The islands drifted like verdant lilypads on the water, carried by the waves. Some islands were just little patches no bigger than a bed, and some were so big that they carried thriving and varied ecosystems on top of themselves. Fiora had been on a vast island once, so big that she couldn’t see the ocean on the other side even when she stood on the crest of a wave as it moved beneath. Only when a really huge set of waves had come along and buckled the landscape of the island into rolling mountains hundreds of meters high had she seen the far side.

  Her home was on a medium-sized island, and she could see all sides of it from the top of her treehouse. The island that she and Rosma caught in the bright rain was comparatively small. A copse of fruit trees grew in the midst of a green grassy field. She and Rosma fell upon the grass and watched the beautiful clouds and the tickling rain and felt the pitch and roll of the island beneath as it conformed to the broad, gradual waves.

  “Thy moon is beautiful,” said Rosma after they had lain there for a while.

  Green lizards, playful and curious, skittered in the grass nearby. Fiora coaxed one into her hand and smiled as she replied. “It is! But your moon is…interesting, too!” Fiora regretted saying that at once. Rosma didn’t like her moon, and she didn’t like talking about her moon. She had spent the last few weeks mainly killing everything on the Coral Moon, including what Fiora thought were probably people she should have been friends with. Fiora had tried to talk sense into her, back at the beginning, but it hadn’t worked. ‘Justice,’ and everything.

  “Thou art close, yes?” Rosma continued as though she hadn’t heard Fiora’s slip-up. “To completing thy quest.”

  “Well…maybe. But it’s so hard.” According to Derxis, it was supposed to be hard. But Fiora could not be expected to just let people suffer, not if she could help it. She wouldn’t do it. Not even to be a ‘Champion,’ whatever that meant.

  But Rosma still wouldn’t let Fiora heal her, even though her disease was getting worse and worse and it was killing her. Fiora tried not to think about that. She tried to believe Derxis when he said that everything was going to be okay.

  “Stop,” said Rosma out of nowhere. “Thou cannot help me, Fiora. Thou can only hurt thyself. Knowing this, your persistent efforts to heal me are foolishness. I shall not concede.”

  Fiora sighed. She shared the lizard with Rosma, even though Rosma wasn’t as keen on terrestrial animals. Fiora held up a hand against the rose-and-honey clouds and called out to the birds in the trees. They came, trailing long furry feathers that they wrapped around themselves like scarves when they landed on stilt legs in the grass nearby. These birds called to each other with weird laughing noises. A group of them together sounded like a bunch of people forcing themselves to laugh loudly and awkwardly at something that was only a little bit funny.

  “Hey Rosma,” said Fiora.

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  “Thou art intending to inquire as to my romantic interests,” said Rosma. “Desist.”

  Fiora looked over at Rosma with wide eyes. “How did you know!?”

  “Thy tone of voice betrays thee.” Rosma lay on the grass, eyes closed. The wetness of the rain glittered on the blue crystal scales all over her body. Some of the raindrops were crusting into little flakes of frost. The green lizard had decided that her bare stomach was a good place to enjoy the coolness and rain.

  “Okay, but why ‘desist?’“

  “Thy indiscretion knows no bounds.”

  “My…hey!” Fiora sat up, startling some of the guffawing birds. “Does that mean there is someone you like?!”

  Rosma remained unmoved, her face a mask. “No. But if there was, I would not disclose of it to thee.”

  “Even if I tell you…” Fiora swallowed. “Who I like?”

  “Thou may do so if thou wishest.”

  Fiora’s heart raced, but she mustered her courage, took a deep breath. “It is…Jeronimy.” Fiora squeezed her eyes shut as though anticipating an explosion. But nothing happened. She let out her breath, feeling cold and drained as though a weight had been lifted from her.

  “Hmm,” said Rosma.

  “That’s it?”

  “Shall I pretend that it is a revelation to me?”

  Fiora didn’t know what to say to that. It recalled to her mind one of her secret dread fears: that Jeronimy knew. That everyone knew, including him. That would be just too embarrassing. She had to change the subject!

  “So,” she said, “uh, Rasmus and Anthea.”

  “Hm?” Rosma finally peeked one eye open to look at Fiora. Aha! Interest! And just as importantly, not much anger! Rosma’s grudge against Rasmus had been fading lately, maybe because Rasmus had done so much to protect Fiora, or maybe because all of Rosma’s judgmental wrath was focused on Akkama. Or maybe she was just too sad about having missed the bells. Rosma didn’t want anyone to know, but she cried about that a lot.

  Fiora nodded at Rosma conspiratorially. “They have been spending a lot of time together! They have.”

  “It is of no account,” said Rosma. She shut her eye again. “She has no Song. Naught can come of it.” The lizard on her belly at last decided that maybe it was a little too cool there. It stepped off in the direction that was, for the moment, uphill.

  “Well, I still think it is sweet,” said Fiora. She felt the need to defend both Rasmus and Anthea. “Hmm…what else?” She tried to think of any other potential romantic entanglements in their group. There wasn’t much, sadly. Emmius and Akkama were together a lot, and Emmius still liked her, which was weird because she was only ever mean to him, but maybe something was going on there that Fiora didn’t know about. She knew better than to bring up Akkama around Rosma, though. Rosma had not forgotten her blood oath. By her blood and her stars and her arda, she had promised to kill Akkama. Fiora found herself biting her wrist painfully, like she was doing right now, whenever she thought about that. It made her angry, too, and that was a new thing. She was angry—yes, angry—at Akkama and Rosma for their behavior.

  “There really isn’t anyone,” said Rosma softly. “For myself, Fiora. No one.”

  Fiora hugged Rosma, so swiftly and suddenly that Rosma reached for her spear in surprise. It was awkward hugging her on the ground, and her skin was rough and cold, but Fiora held on tight. “Do not be sad, Rosma,” she said. “You will always have me, okay?”

  Fiora didn’t expect Rosma to respond to that, or to return the hug, and her eyes widened in shock when Rosma did both. “I know,” said Rosma as she reciprocated Fiora’s embrace with brief ferocity.

  A really big wave came after that, so tall that it brushed the clouds, and at its peak they could see beyond into to the starry skies of the Narrative.