Free Tempest by Cari Z.

washed ashore there. It’s a special place, the cove, and not one that many people outside our family know about.” He laid a hand on Colm’s shoulder. “So it’s only right that your dad should go there, since you’re family,” Nichol said comfortingly.
    â€œI appreciate that,” Colm managed, too focused on the feel of Nichol’s hand through the thin layer of cotton that separated their skin to really care if he was comprehensible. Gods, what was wrong with him? It was like he had never been touched before. He felt his face grow warm and looked away. Nichol let go and continued to eat and tease his grandmother, and Colm was grateful for the respite. Just listening to Nichol, just being at the same table as him, made Colm feel more alive than he had for weeks. Months, perhaps, and yet Colm barely knew him.
    â€œWell then, finish your bowls and head on out to the bathing house, then see what you can do about a boat,” Megg said, and Colm realized he’d missed out on a lot of conversation just then. “And buy some smudge sticks for me while you’re out, and a large sugarglass bowl, and a beeswax votive. We’ll need them tonight.”
    The votive and the smudge sticks—Colm thought they might be a kind of incense—were familiar parts of burial rituals under the Four, but a sugarglass bowl? His confusion must have shown, because Nichol said, “It’s a bowl actually made from sugar, we put the ashes and the votive into it and float them out into the water. If the bowl heads out to sea against the current, then you know that the spirit is resting easily. Eventually the sugarglass melts and the ashes sink, and that’s when the spirit fully moves on to the next world.”
    â€œI see.” That was a lot more complicated than tilling the ashes into the deceased’s field.
    â€œWill that be all right?” Megg asked with concern, and on impulse, Colm reached out and took her hand.
    â€œI think that will be perfect,” he assured her, because as he considered it, Colm realized that Honored Gherek might have actually had a good point about his father. Ger Weathercliff had been a reluctant farmer, pouring all his love into the loch, and the priest would never have consented to releasing his ashes there.
    â€œGood, love.” Megg smiled, all her wrinkles moving with her and turning up like smiles of their own. “That’s good.”
    They left Megg to her tea and people-watching, and Nichol led the way back through the kitchen, only pausing to drop their bowls in the sink and compliment the cook before striding out into the courtyard. Colm followed in his wake like a bit of flotsam. It was funny to be able to look down at Nichol—Colm had nearly half a head of height on him—and yet still feel smaller by comparison, as though the young man’s body was actually as outsized as his personality.
    â€œCalling it the bathing house might be a bit much,” Nichol said as he took the wooden cover off the top of the well in the corner of the courtyard. “A bathing slab is more accurate, since it’s really just a smooth stone laid out back next to the latrines that’s not quite so much in the public eye, but it’s where you and I get to bathe. Gran has a tub, because if she doesn’t use hot water, she gets chilled straight through to her bones, but it’s too much trouble for the rest of us.” Nichol’s arms strained with the weight of the bucket he drew out of the well, filled to the brim with fresh, icy water. He grabbed at a lump of brown soap that rested beneath the eaves and headed into a small corridor between the stable and the family quarters. The corridor led into an alley that was partitioned into sections, with a stone-lined gutter running the length of them. There were three simple latrines set above the gutter, and a slick slab of rock on the other side.
    Nichol put down the bucket