Her fingers fell away. “What?”

“If someone here is trying to hurt you, you should go.”

“I cannot.”

“Yenni—”

“I cannot, Weh-sheh. I am on Orire N’jem.”

“O-reer . . . come again?”

She went silent, and when she finally spoke again Weysh sensed a weight to her words, as if she was revealing something secret, judging him worthy of it. “Orire N’jem is a sacred journey, undertaken to honor the Sha—our gods. I must complete the task they assign, and in return my tribe will receive their blessings.”

“Ah, and what task is that?”

“I came to Cresh to seek knowledge of Creshen magic, in the hope that the Sha would heal my father. I have pleased them, it seems, as they have revealed the cause of my father’s illness, but I pledged them a year of study in Cresh, and I cannot leave until that year is complete, or I will have broken my vow, insulting and angering them.”

“Oh,” said Weysh. Simply “Oh.” He pushed down his first instinctive reaction—that Creshen notion that Islanders were notoriously superstitious. He knew for a fact that Yenni was neither ignorant nor uneducated, and truth be told her father had made a recovery. Perhaps he should be challenging her harder, but he didn’t particularly want her to leave.

“Very well, if you won’t go home then you will live here with me, and I won’t hear otherwise.” He steeled himself to do verbal battle, but to his surprise she agreed.

“Yes,” she said. “I must be close by to make sure you are safe.”

“En? Erm, all right, then. Good. I’m glad that’s settled.”

“Weh-sheh,” she said softly. “I had a terrible dream that you were dying. I watched you fall from the sky. I worry that this attack came from the Gunzu—the tribe I am meant to marry into. I don’t know how it can be possible, but they may know about you. I could never leave you behind, at the mercy of Gunzu assassins.”

“Is this other tribe why you haven’t yet told your family about me?”

She turned away. “Partially, yes.”

Partially. Hmph.

“Yenni, we need to figure out what we’re going to do once the year ends. Would this prince really wage war if you rejected him?”

“If he could convince his mother and father, and rally other tribes to his cause, it is possible. Never underestimate the pride of a prince.”

Weysh fit his chin in the crook between her neck and shoulder, far too aware of how good she didn’t smell, and kissed her cheek.

“I can’t fully blame him. I wouldn’t kill thousands of innocent people, but I’d at least want to land one good blow on the man who stole you from me. If I let him get in a free punch, right in the gut, do you think that would appease him?”

“Oh, Weh-sheh,” Yenni sighed.