Page 34 of Sheltered in the Storm

“Why Iosa?” I asked as Vos meticulously sliced the meat and vegetables. “There are lots of other planets and moons that are sparsely populated and have beautiful oceans. Why live here?”

“The answer is not as profound as you might expect.” He smiled over his shoulder, then went back to dicing. “I visited Jakora several times during my time with the Guard. The transports often flew past Iosa on their way to the planet. I believe I was the only passenger who found Iosa beautiful, or even paid it any attention. Long before I thought about where I might go if I survived my years of service, I felt drawn to this moon. And so when I left the Guard, I came here and purchased this home with the thought that I would live here for one year, and if I did not find it to my liking, I would leave.”

“So obviously you like it.” I gazed out the window. “I wish I’d gotten to see Iosa from space the way you did. I might have thought it was beautiful if I hadn’t seen it as my probable grave.”

The rhythm of his chopping missed a beat and his tentacles quivered. I winced. I might have been a littletooblunt.

“What about Poe?” I asked, hoping to distract him. “How did you meet Poe?”

He finished cutting up the soup ingredients and began adding them to the pot. “A few weeks after I settled into this home, I started work on the wall. I was rushing to finish both the wall and the bathroom expansion before the arrival of the rainy season. One morning, as I was laying bricks, Poe emerged from the swamp and approached, limping. One of her legs was fractured, I believe from a fall. She asked for help.”

“Oh, poor Poe,” I said, grimacing. My right leg twinged, as if in sympathy.

Vos seasoned the soup, covered the pot, and left it to simmer while he took out a loaf of bread. “I put a cast on her leg so the bone could heal,” he said, slicing the bread. “And I built her a nest in my home so she did not have to fear predators. In return, she helped me with my wall, and then with my bathroom and other construction. I told her she was welcome to stay once she had healed, and so she did.”

I pictured Vos only weeks or months after leaving the Guard, making his home on an utterly unfamiliar moon he’d only seen in passing. An assassin building a wall one brick at a time, adding onto the little bathroom so he could have an enormous bathtub, crafting a nest for an injured creature with deadly claws and welcoming her into his house.

Making soup from scratch with vegetables he’d grown himself and meat taken from animals he’d hunted. Baking bread and watching Poe in the garden through the kitchen window.

Could this be a life I would want? Would it soothe my hurts like it soothed Vos? Could I grow to love the quiet and even the never-ending rain?

Despite my hunger, the fire’s warmth and Vos’s humming had made me drowsy by the time he brought the tray of food. He set the tray aside, scooped me up, sat on the sofa, and settled me on his lap before he picked up the tray again, resting it on his tentacle.

“Soup and toasted bread, as requested,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “And fresh vinefruit for dessert.”

We ate in companionable silence. The soup was much richer than earlier versions, and more seasoned. Even the kaory meat had a more savory taste. I couldn’t tell if he’d changed how he made the soup or if I felt less pain and that made everything seem better.

The real treat was the vinefruit, which I’d never tried. He’d taken it from the tree next to the sofa, removed the rind, and sliced it neatly onto a plate. The fruit’s flesh was purple and its seeds were plump and white.

“Are the seeds okay to eat?” I asked.

“Yes.” He picked up a slice of fruit. “The fruit is very sweet and the seeds are tart.”

He watched me take a bite, smiling as my eyes widened. “This is delicious,” I said before I chewed. When I bit into the seed, though, its tartness made me grimace.

“I did warn you.” He chuckled. “I suppose it is an acquired taste.”

I ended up eating more of the vinefruit than he did, seeds and all. He rested his chin on top of my head as I ate the last piece. With a towel, he wiped the juice off my hands and his, set the tray aside, and rewrapped my blankets before tucking me against his chest.

I slipped my hand out of the blankets and rested it on my lap. He covered my hand with his much-larger one. Gods, I looked forward to the day I’d healed enough that simply eating and talking didn’t leave me exhausted.

A few quiet minutes later, with a full stomach, warm and secure, I decided to take a chance.

I didn’t really know how to start telling this story, so I said the hardest part first. “Keela was my sister,” I said.

Vos didn’t coo, which surprised me a little, and he didn’t flinch as if he’d had to suppress the urge to do so. Maybe hisinstincts told him to let me tell my tale how I wanted to tell it, with all the emotions involved.

“I was three and a half when our mother sold us,” I continued. Even with Vos’s tentacles around me, every word felt as difficult to say as climbing up a steep hill. Had Vos felt the same while telling his story? “Keela was a year older than me. We went into differenttarjas—training groups—because of our ages. Ourtarjastrained in facilities twenty kilometers from each other. I didn’t see her, or have any contact with her, for almost seven years.”

I didn’t need to tell Vos about my training; his was probably not all that different from mine. I was taught to kill. So was he. What else was there to say?

“I fought in the arena for the first time when I was five.” This part wasn’t as bad as talking about Keela. “From ages five to seven, our bouts were not to the death. Winners were declared based on points. You might know that.”

“I do.” His voice was kind. “I know some things about the arenas and fights. Some who completed Guard training became scouts and buying agents for keepers, before the arenas closed. We had access to the information.”

That made it easier to talk about my years in the arena. I wouldn’t have to explain what took place there, or who benefited from our suffering, or what my life had been like.

But talking about Keela wasn’t easy, or anything close to it.

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