Laavi smiled. “No,” ve said. “I guess you haven’t. I guess I’ll just tell myself things you’ve said. Ariah, I hope you remember things I’ve said. Will you?”

I held vim close, wrapped up tight against me, my face in vis hair. I held vim for a long time while the obstinate fire cracked and popped and would not die. “I have remembered things you said long before I ever met you. Yes, I will remember. I’ll remember every single word.”

Chapter 37

CHAPTER 37

The Kivvni did not like me much, but they were short-handed, so they accepted me anyway. I was put to work as soon as I stepped into their camp. I learned to herd goats, which is not as easy as one would think. I milked yaks until my knuckles ached. Life with the Kivvni was different from with the Avolayla or the Allunga. The clan had around fifty people in it, the youngest of whom was around forty. They did not bother to give me a sibling name because there were only six or so others my age. There were a handful of pairs, but most were unpaired, and likely waiting until the clan dissolved for good before looking for a pair in earnest. There was more work than could get done, which led alternately to days of frenzied exertion followed by dull, meandering days where nothing seemed to happen.

I could see the Kivvni had been a flourishing, grand clan long ago. Some of their older yurt skins bore intricate, beautiful needlework. Some of the firestones were large and made of stone from the far northeast. I asked a Kivvni person about it once. We sat side-by-side milking an endless stream of yaks. Ve was a few years younger than me, and ve shrugged when I asked. “We’ve always been this way ever since I can remember. Bad luck. This clan is only bad luck, settler. We had good luck once, but all luck turns just like the seasons.”

The Kivvni moved camps frequently. The pasture in the south is thin, and it drives you to keep moving. It felt like we only had days between setting up our yurts and tearing them down again. The further south we went, the faster the herds ate what little pasture there was. The soil grew sandy and thin. The water did, indeed, turn brackish. Near the southern coasts, a finger of the Mother Desert slides along the far edge of the grasslands. I had thought that they would take me to the edge of the desert and no farther, but the Kivvni pressed on, farther and farther south, and they moved then with a sense of strange purpose. We walked with camp strapped to our thin yaks for several days, and then we hit a pirate outpost.