Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 Galvin, Aaron (classic fiction txt) 📖

extended it in offer to Chidi. Come, child. It would seem this gift is meant for you.

Why me? Chidi asked.

I know not, said Atsidi. It is but a simple tooth from my own mouth. One lost among countless others that I have shed in my life. He opened his hand to reveal the tooth and seaweed string. And now this meaningless gift belongs to you.

It’s not meaningless though, Chidi knew, even as she swam toward him to accept. If it was just a simple tooth, then why would Marisa want it?

Chidi said nothing of her own questions, however, as the Hammer chieftain draped the necklace over her seal neck. For a moment, Chidi feared that the tooth, like Marisa, might have some mystical quality to it. A curse upon it, or else a further means of entrapment like the Silkie skin that Henry had both forced her to wear and used to enslave Chidi.

When the necklace fell against her skin, Chidi felt nothing of warmth or chill or curse. Nothing even of weight as Atsidi Darksnout drifted away from her with his son’s body still in his arms.

Chidi sagged in the water, not knowing what to do or say. Thank you, she said finally. For the gift.

And you, Chidi, said the Hammer chieftain. For befriending my son and bringing him here to meet with me.

Chidi stared at him awhile longer, his lingering silence urging her to leave. Still, she could not bring herself to swim away, knowing that to do so would mean to leave Allambee behind. Never to see him again.

Atsidi stirred. Why do you stay, child?

I-I don’t want to say goodbye to him, she replied, the hurt carrying in her voice. I’m tired of saying goodbye to people I care about.

Atsidi nodded, his face a mask of solemnity. The Salt gives and takes, child. A lesson I too have been loathe to learn and heed, despite my age. In truth, I never desired a child. In my youth, I thought a warrior’s way was to deal death, not nurture life. The Salt stole the honor of a warrior’s death from me too when my own people betrayed me to our enemies. I thought it yet another curse too when my enemies removed me from this world and placed me in their glass prisons. They carried me ashore, moving me from one of their cities to the next like a prized trophy for others to see and relish in their conquest. And yet for all my hate, all my loathing of them, I found the furthest opposite of their cruelty upon the shore also. He smiled in looking down upon Allambee’s face. Some precious moments of love and joy that I had never known before, all shown to me when this boy’s mother came to tend the many wounds blighting my mind and soul. Aye . . . some small moment of peace before the Salt and my enemies came to steal that life from me too.

You didn’t leave Allambee and his mother, then? Chidi dared to ask. You didn’t abandon them to protect them from your enemies?

Not by my own choices, no, said Atsidi. I think now it were a lie she gave him. A small kindness meant for an elsewise orphaned boy with no hope of ever meeting his father and learning of my true nature.

But she taught him your language, said Chidi, trying to offer him some bit of cheer among the darkness. Attempting to bring some light to herself as well. A few words, at least. And meeting you was all he ever talked about. ‘Helping you’, he always said.

Aye, helping me, Atsidi said bitterly. To see the continuing error of my ways, no doubt. The continued lies I cling to still. He looked up and away from Chidi as a slew of other Nomads swam toward them. Between them, the Nomads bore a bound, but writhing hostage, his skin two-toned in color, his face and body littered with wounds of his own. Each deep enough to hurt, yet not enough to kill, nor allow the Salt to suck his body dry of lifeblood.

Chidi’s seal lip curled at the sight of Allambee’s killer, Arsen.

The other Nomads brought the writhing Orc all the way to their leader, holding him steady in the face of Atsidi Darksnout. Where Chidi had feared the Nomad chieftain before, she recognized now that any notion of fright she once felt in his presence paled in compare to that which lived in the Orc hostage.

Arsen’s eyes rounded at the sight of Allambee in his father’s arms, the Orcinian made to look upon the death that he had caused. Worse, the one who would serve his fate also.

Chidi swore that Atsidi’s stare would bore two holes through Arsen’s person, the anger emanating off the Hammer chieftain enough to cow the Orc into weeping submission. Only then did Atsidi glance away, looking to Chidi instead. Is this the one? He asked of her. Is this the savage who slew my son?

The grim faces of the Nomad warriors around Chidi warned they would never allow the Orc to leave with his life. And when she met the stare of Atsidi Darksnout a final time, she understood the hurt in him would not allow the Hammer chieftain to grant such tender mercy either.

Is this Orc the one who killed my son? Atsidi asked of her again, his tone rising.

Yes, said Chidi quietly.

Atsidi grimaced. Then, I think it best you leave us now, child. I would spare you from such a sight as I mean to cause this wretched thing that swims before me.

Chidi nodded, her gaze falling on Allambee’s peaceful face once more. Without thought, she darted across the water between them, swimming near enough to look down upon her fallen friend. In keeping with Watawa’s message to her, Chidi burned the image of Allambee in her mind that she might never forget what his sacrifice had meant for her. Goodbye, she thought to herself, closing