Before She Ignites (Fallen Isles Trilogy #1)(46)

Ominous. ::How did he do that?::

::He took her life.::

A chill swept through me. I wanted to ask about the sin of sound—what exactly that meant and why it was punishable by death—but my hands were rooted to my knees and my throat closed against my voice, like it had heard about Ramla’s sentence and didn’t want to take the risk.

::Sometimes, we tell how the god of silence pulled away from the others even before the Great Fall, or the eternal struggle against Damyan and Darina, or the trouble of Harta.::

My tutors liked to remind me that all the holy books were written two thousand years ago, when our ancestors came here from the mainland. They were from the perspective of each god, written by the men and women of those times, but sometimes it seemed like nothing had changed.

It was true that Idris and Damina sometimes clashed. Still, that was two thousand years ago. Or centuries and centuries before that, even, if you took into account that many stories took place before the Great Fall.

::I’m from Damina,:: I said. ::Are you and I at odds?::

That was a bold question, out before I realized. Which meant my quiet code was improving, but also that I could run away with that as quickly as I could with my mouth. I’d have to be careful.

::You and I are not at odds.:: There was a faint shuffling around on his side of the wall. ::Because of the treaty, we’re not supposed to tell those stories as much, but of course they’re passed down. They’re part of the texts.::

I wanted to ask if he believed Damina and Idris were in constant struggle. The Book of Love said very little on the subject. Mostly, Darina and Damyan seemed baffled by the continued snubbing they received from Idris, no matter how they tried to befriend him.

But of course the god of silence didn’t want to be friends with the charismatic and earnest god and goddess of love.

And what about their trouble with Harta? I couldn’t imagine anyone disliking the Daughter’s people. Gifted Hartans brought life to the land. That was the (entirely cruel) reason other islands had occupied Harta for so long: they wanted ownership of the bounty Harta and her people provided.

I didn’t ask. We were treading too close to uncomfortable territory.

::The Mira Treaty,:: he said. ::Were you named after it?::

::Mira is a common name on Damina.:: It was the truth, just not an answer to his question. ::What about plays? Music? Do you have those on Idris?::

::No.:: He was quiet a moment. ::Not like you do, I think.::

“Will you show me sometime? I miss music.” The off-key singing that came from the end of the cellblock notwithstanding.

“Will try.” His voice came soft. Rough. It was a nice voice. A kind voice.

He started to tap something else, but Gerel groaned and rolled onto her back. “Stop the percussion. You’re making me lose track of my repetitions.”

On the other side of the wall, Aaru fell silent. I imagined him slumped, head hanging down, hands motionless on his knees. But that image was probably wrong. That was what I’d do, and I didn’t know Aaru well enough to guess how he’d move in the face of such admonishment.

“You’re on three hundred and five.” I wanted to scold her for being mean to him, but I couldn’t make the words come. That would have been confrontational and I was nothing if not a coward, as Altan’s threats earlier had proven.

“How do you know?” she asked. “Were you counting?”

“Yes.” Had she guessed about my numbers? Or had the question been sarcastic? I didn’t know how to tell the difference when it came to her, so I took my cowardly ways and scrambled under the bed. I’d talk with Aaru through the hole.

“Fine.” Her body thumped on the floor as she rolled over again.

I turned toward the hole and pulled my pillow under my head, eager to muffle the noise of Gerel exercising, but still glad to have her back.

Aaru was waiting for me. He was pressed close to the hole, his long fingers stretched through to my side. His hand blocked his face and muffled his whisper: “You count.”

“What?”

He switched to quiet code. ::All the time. You count everything.::

My heart stumbled. He knew, and he wasn’t being sarcastic about it. He knew. “How could you tell?”

He made a deep, pleased noise in the back of his throat. ::You learned the quiet code fast. That is unusual.::

My chest and throat and cheeks flamed. That was it? The quiet code? I wasn’t even good at it, but it had given me away. My traitorous need to have a secret language with someone had revealed my deepest shame.

Mother would never have let me get to this point, if she’d been here. She’d have warned me about trying to make friends with a boy from Idris. She’d have warned me about trying too hard to use the Daminan gifts when I clearly had no talent for them. Some people had strong gifts while others had weak ones, but Darina and Damyan had skipped over me completely.

::You count in your sleep,:: Aaru went on. ::I hear you most nights.::

And I kept my silent neighbor awake, on top of everything else. I was rude. Inconsiderate. Noisy. Lacking in all charm and manners.

A sob choked out of me. “Sorry.” The word sounded thick and forced. “I didn’t mean to.” What could I do to muffle not the noise of everyone else, but my own blasted mind?

Humiliation burned in me, a fire that roared through my ears and thoughts. No one was supposed to know about the counting. It was embarrassing, not just for me, but for my entire family. How could anyone possibly respect us if they knew Mira Minkoba—the Hopebearer—couldn’t control her own thoughts? That she counted because of the anxiety attacks?