ILLICIT AFFAIRS- NETEYAM

1. relentless revenge

—RELENTLESS REVENGE

               ALEYNAIA WAKES TO the sound of the sea. It is gentle, and it nearly lulls her back to sleep. Fear, however, burrows into her heart like the head of an unyielding arrow, promising her a future of restless nights and ever-lasting trepidation.

She will sleep no longer.

She is supposed to be dead, but she has no delusions that she is; she is in far too much pain for that to be true. Her lungs burn with every pull of air she dares to take in, and her muscles are so sore and tense that she is not sure her limbs will move if she tries. She does not feel the wound on her leg, but she knows that it is there.

She will never forget the feeling of the foreign material slicing into her skin and making its home in the space between her bones and muscles and tainting her. She is forever marked, and it is only a taste of what she knows is to come. Revenge is a generous provider until all blood runs dry. Then it begins to seize all that it is owed with greedy, unforgiving hands.

And she will not fight it—she cannot because it has plucked her will from the depths of her soul and discarded it where the seas became murky and dark. The boy who saved her, with his steady voice and demanding hands, seems to have enough will for the both of them.

She wonders where he is now. She wonders where she is now. A mauri, a tent like structure above water that is not at all like the home she once knew, is what surrounds her. She is not of the water people, and, truthfully, she does not think she can stomach the sight of water any longer, nor the sound, nor the smell. She does not know how she considered it gentle mere moments ago.

Some time during the spiraling of her thoughts, it had become an incessant grating in her ears. She suddenly wants to scream—to escape—but she lacks the energy and the ability to do either, let alone both.

"You are sore," a quiet voice points out from beside her. Her eyes dart to the presence she was, at first, too distracted to notice. Aleynaia remembers the woman vaguely, and she knows immediately that the woman is Tsahìk of this water tribe. Her Tsahìk knife is visible above the adornments on her chest. Her blue skin is pale and covered in permanent markings of what Aleynaia assumes is her own making, or her tribe's. Her blue eyes are serious and unyielding. "Drink this."

The woman holds out a tiny vial, and Aleynaia knows to take it because if this woman wanted her dead, she certainly would be by now, and it would be quite disrespectful to ignore the offer.

With shaking limbs, Aleynaia sits up. When she is leaning on the heels of her hands, she thinks she may go unconscious once more. There is sweat on her forehead, and the exertion is almost too much. The Tsahìk makes a small noise that she cannot decipher, and brings the vial to her lips, forcing her to drink.

It is bitter then sweet then bitter once more. She gags but refuses to wretch. In the next moment, her soreness fades into something dull and tolerable. The ache in her throat gradually soothes. It is relief in a way that she has never known.

She makes a gesture with her left hand instead, jerkily bringing her fingers to her forehead and away.

I see you.

The woman huffs. "What is your name, child?"

The truth is that she has not been a child for over six turns around the sun, but this woman remains her elder, and she may be made up of vengeance, but it is not for the innocent. She can muster up some semblance of normalcy for someone who has saved her life. Whether or not she deserves saving is an entirely different conversation.