Eight years is a long time to pretend something does not ache.
I learned how.
I learned how to ride harder. How to train longer. How to stand beside others without letting anyone stand beside me.
The Reef moved on.
I did not.
The hunt takes me farther than usual that day. The wind is high, cutting clean across the open water. My skimwing slices low over the surface, spray catching against my skin.
That is when I see them.
High against the sun.
Shapes I know too well.
Gondolas.
Wind Trader craft, suspended and gliding like pale ghosts against the sky.
My breath leaves me all at once.
For a moment I do not move.
Then I turn hard toward shore.
Sand sprays beneath my landing. I barely secure the reins before I am already moving.
They are circling for descent.
They have not come in eight years.
Eight.
They were barred from our waters. I learned that later. Learned that my father ensured they would not pass near the reef again.
He did not only send her away.
He erased the path back.
I run.
He is already waiting near the marui when I reach him, as if he sensed it too.
“You will not go to them,” Tonowari says.
Not angry.
Certain.
I stop only long enough to face him.
“It has been eight years.”
“That changes nothing.”
“It changes everything.”
The wind shifts between us.
“She left under your order,” I say evenly. “She did not leave by choice.”
“I did what was necessary.”
“You did what was convenient.”
His jaw tightens.
“You were a boy.”
“I am not.”
The gondolas lower slowly, ropes dropping, sails catching the wind.
“You will not board that craft,” he repeats.
I step around him.
He moves to block me.
“She has built a life with her own kind,” he says. “You do not know what she is now.”
“I know who Säli'weh is.”
“You were children.”
“I stood beside her every morning.”
“You said goodbye.”
“And you barred the Reef from ever seeing her again.”
His silence confirms it.
“What if she has forgotten you?” he asks, quieter now.
The words strike, but they do not land.
I shake my head.
“I know my Blind Wind.”
He exhales sharply.
“You think feeling is enough to sustain a future?”
“I have not stood beside anyone else,” I answer. “Not once.”
The truth of it hangs heavy.
“You expect me to believe you have waited eight years for a childhood attachment?”
“I did not wait,” I say. “I endured.”
The gondolas are almost down.
“If the reef is no place for her,” I continue, voice steady now, “then it has no place for me.”
The wind catches hard, snapping sailcloth.
“You would abandon your home?”
“I would not abandon what I chose.”
“You speak like a man who believes he is owed something.”
“I am not owed anything,” I reply. “But I will not be told again who I may stand beside.”
He studies me—longer this time.
“You are no longer a boy,” he says slowly.
“No,” I answer.
The first gondola touches sand.
Ropes tighten. Wind hums through fabric and wood.
My pulse hammers in my ears.
“You cannot stop this,” I say quietly.
“And if she walks past you?” he asks. “If she has found someone who walks more easily beside her?”
I meet his gaze without hesitation.
“She will hear me.”
The certainty surprises even him.
“I know her breath,” I say. “And she knows mine.”
The second gondola lowers.
Voices drift across the shore.
Wind Traders preparing to disembark.
“You may regret this,” he warns.
“I already regret eight years.”
For a moment, neither of us moves.
Then I step past him.
He does not grab me.
He does not command.
He lets me go.
The sand is firm beneath my feet as I run.
The gondola settles fully against the shore, wood creaking under tension. Ropes slacken. The sail shifts.
My heart is loud enough to drown the tide.
Eight years.
And Säli'weh is here.
I do not slow as I reach the hull.
I do not hesitate.
If she has changed, I will learn it.
If she has forgotten, I will accept it.
But I will not stand still again.
I reach the gondola as it settles, breath sharp in my lungs—
And I am done waiting.