Insects’ buzzing had become a constant drone, day and night, and Aralim forgot what silence sounded like. He spent an hour each morning, aboard their small rowboat, with his legs crossed, forcing a bubble of peace around himself. He was not greatly bothered, simply challenged to assert his position on the Path to create a breath of air from incessant noise. He swatted a mosquito that had landed on the back of his sweaty neck and smiled. It had been a long time since he’d done that.
It was midday, and they navigated their riverboat through the fringe of shadows at the side of the wide current.
“There it is,” said Devran, “The East Run.”
Ahead of them was a slowly moving ford, where the gentle river was joined by one of its arms and both continued down toward the distant ocean. Another craft was crossing the ford in the opposite direction, coming around the bend from the east and heading toward Rema. As Aralim and his boat gently passed them along the river, he noticed an assortment of bare-chested guards, a merchant garbed in thin silk, and a handful of other passengers. A few of them waved. Shirtless, Devran raised one of his skinny arms and waved back. Aralim watched the taller river boat slowly pull through the water on oars and guiding poles, as his was pulled further along by the current.
Dullah stirred the stillness of their boat a moment later, but their iron-clad guards kept the boat balanced easily enough. It was a sturdy craft, paid for by the Emperor’s coin. The retired Selected only looked a little phased by their week on the Ake’ma—her ebony skin glistened with sweat where her arms poked out of her tunic and her normally smooth hair was faintly frazzled and stuck to the corners of her forehead. “Aralim,” she said, quietly.
“Dullah,” he returned. “Still happy with your choice to accompany?”
She smiled. Once, she’d attempted to tease a negative reaction out of him, but now he was playing that game with her. “Not at all,” she said. “I’ve made this voyage many times.”
“Oh, of course,” Aralim replied. Was Devran asleep? He laid against the side of the boat, shirtless, with his eyes closed. What a strange man. The Aura remained silently watching the river ahead, while their soldiers used the oars to guide them. Aralim had learned that Lerela was known as ‘the Silver-eyed’ because of her hawk-faced helmet. Though she’d removed the visor for the day-to-day voyage, its eyes had been made of silver coins. Grendar of Ras’sa was the sergeant of their group.
Dullah cleared her throat. “Wanted to ask you something.”
Aralim looked back at her and smiled. “Then ask it.”
“How professional should we be?” Dullah asked. Aralim wasn’t certain why she was asking. Tal’lashar was many miles off. “I mean when we’re travelling. No one knows we’re the party of the ambassador anyway.”
“I guess that depends on how much Devran plans to write about you,” Aralim said. “But I have no intention of acting differently than I ever do.”
Dullah nodded. She bobbed her head back, toward Devran’s shirtless torso, then smiled. When Aralim still didn’t catch on, she said, “And what about the soldiers? They’ve trained for environmentally rigorous activities, but we hardly need them fully armoured on the waves, do we?”
“They’re soldiers,” Aralim said. “I trust their judgement. I don’t give them orders.”
Awkwardly, Dullah shook her head. “You don’t make it easy,” she muttered under her breath, though she said it with an expression of mirth on her face. As she clambered back toward the front of the boat, she unbuttoned her tunic and pulled it over her head. Aralim had never noticed she had a small tattoo just below the back of her neck, a bright blue crescent moon angled upward. “Grendar,” she said, as she picked up a book she had been reading. “You and your men don’t need to wear your armour when we’re on the waves. It’s your call.”
Before long, Aralim’s weather-resistant cloak was the thickest garb being worn, it seemed. It is a hot day, he thought, though that didn’t mean a thing to him. He inhaled and exhaled into his rhythm of meditation once more.
After a moment, he dropped his left hand into the cool water of the river, over the side of their wide rowboat. The rushing water pleased him—he missed feeling this connected to the world. The city was too full of people, all trying to gain attention and concern from someone further on the Path who need not give it. Maybe that was why Devran appeared to be sleeping, maybe he was feeling it too. Aralim tried closing his eyes too, but moving through the world again made him feel so alive he couldn’t keep them shut.