I dreamed his death at night thousands of different ways. A fall from the crow’s nest. Accidentally knocked over the railing of a ship. Purposefully knocked over the railing of a ship. Adrift in a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. Knife wounds. Bad water. Garrote. Shipwreck. I woke in the mornings fatalistic and aimless. I woke late, always very late, and milked the yaks. The milk and butter and cheese I sold to the pirates. Fahmi or one of the others always managed to coax me into an endless game of djah by afternoon. Sometimes my mood improved, and sometimes it didn’t. At night, by the light of a fire in the firestone the Kivvni had given me, in a Droma yurt planted permanently just outside the pirate outpost, I wrote down every song I’d ever heard Halaavi sing. I fell asleep every night alone, in an empty bed, wondering about vim. I missed vim with a ferocity; I still do. But it was fresh in those days, and I could not help but think perhaps I’d given up what I had with vim for nothing. I could not ignore the chance that Sorcha might never come searching for me.

If Vathorem had been there, he would have scolded me for ruminating too much. I kept a journal. I wrote about Dirva and Nuri. I wrote about the guilt I felt for letting them both down as falo. I wrote about my parents, who surely thought me dead. Dirva probably thought me dead, too; any sensible person would have drawn that conclusion. I wrote unsendable letters to them that were nothing but long, mournful apologies. I’d fall asleep, wake late the next morning, and milk my yaks. The seasons turned and turned and turned again. The yaks grew shaggy and warm, and I spun yarn from the downy undercoat they’d shed in the heat of the spring and summer. I had no loom, so I turned to knitting instead, and to do that, I had to whittle needles from discarded pieces of wood I won playing djah. The pirates chided me for doing woman’s work. Fahmi sometimes came to my yurt for tea, which I brewed and poured for him. “Sorcha said you were his husband, which…” Fahmi touched his forehead and waved his hand away, palm towards me, a Chalir gesture of good faith and good fortune.

I am certain I blushed; I know I sat up very tall and glanced to where I’d hidden a knife within arm’s reach. I did not trust these partially Qin men to do anything good with that particular piece of knowledge. I had hoped Sorcha would’ve kept that to himself. I don’t know why I thought that he would.

“He said husband, but I look around, and it looks more like you’re his wife. When he finds you, are you going to do the cooking and cleaning?”