Her chin rose a little higher. “I suppose so, my queen.”
“Besides,” I told her with a smile, “these military men are all the same. They need clear, direct orders, or else they’re completely helpless. Isn’t that right, Zeph?”
He bowed his head. “My queen is wise beyond contradiction,” he said with a smile.
Adria nodded. “Quite so, my queen.” She met my eyes, a begrudging gratitude in her gaze, and it felt like a small measure of kinship between us.
After the boys finished their training, Galen offered to escort us back to the Tri Castles. When we got outside, he caught sight of one horse, and he turned sharply to the young man standing beside it.
“Where is the queen’s carriage?” he asked the groom.
“We didn’t take one,” Zeph told him.
“We walked,” Adria huffed. Galen looked to her, and she looked away from him.
Galen frowned. “You are aware you were attacked yesterday, my queen?”
I raised my chin. “Are you not confident in the abilities of your Saepia to protect me, Commander? I rather thought that was the point.”
“The point was not to use them to take unnecessary risks.”
“Precisely!” Adria said.
“Domina Viato,” Galen said. “You can take my horse back to the Tri Castles, and I will escort the queen.”
“But—” she protested, looking to me.
“I will manage without your services,” I told her. “And thank you for your assistance today. Now I know not to cut my hair.”
She smiled. “I would not recommend it. It was my pleasure, my queen. Shall I wait to attend to you at the Tri Castles?”
“No need. Thank you,” I told her.
She stood and mounted the horse, and Galen looked thoroughly confused as she rode out of sight. “You were thinking of cutting your hair?” he asked, walking down the steps.
I walked with him with a grin, and Zeph lumbered behind us. “No, of course not.”
Confused, Galen looked to Zeph, who shrugged.
I waited a moment, then opened my mouth and drew a breath. “Galen, may I ask you a question?”
He thought for a moment. “I can’t guarantee I’ll answer it, but yes, you may ask.”
“Calix mentioned a few strange things to me last night. One was something he’s mentioned before about a prophecy and now a trivatis. Do you know what that means?”
Slowly, Galen nodded. “Yes. There was a trivatis my mother favored—a holy man,” he explained at my look. “Like the man who crowned you. This trivatis received visions, he claimed from the Three-Faced God, and my mother put a lot of faith in them. Just before she died, he had a vision that Calix would meet his death at the hands of an Elementa. Calix called his powers sorcery and convinced my father to put him to death. That was the start of the powers being illegal in this country.”
“Calix started that?” I asked. “But I thought it was your father who hated the Elementae.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “My father was at war with them. They were a powerful enemy, and we were losing the war. He hated the Vis Islands, but not the Elementae specifically.” His shoulders rose. “When we heard the prophecy, my father thought it meant Calix would die in the war. It made him fight harder, but no, I don’t believe he ever hated them the way Calix does. He feared them.”
“Then why did he murder them?” I asked hotly. “You expect me to believe it was just a war dispute, and he wiped out an entire race? That was an act of hate.”
“Shalia,” he said firmly, stopping in the road. “You have to stop. Stop talking like this, stop questioning these things. You won’t like the answers or the consequences.”
“The answers?” My thoughts started rushing faster. Calix hated the Elementae. Murdering them, burning them alive, while the only remaining child of their leader had to watch—these were acts of hate. If their father hadn’t been the one who hated the Elementae— “No,” I breathed, shaking my head. I staggered back. Everything Kata said—it had been Calix who had done that to her? “No. Calix—Calix couldn’t be responsible for the islands. It was your father. Everyone knows that.”
His eyes were locked on mine, holding me as sure as a physical touch. “Everyone knows what he wants them to know,” he said. “And that’s it.”
“No.” I pulled away from him. “No. How could that be? He wasn’t even king.”
Galen nodded slowly. “Do you know much of what happened before?”
“The war?” I asked. “Some.”
“The islanders were incredibly powerful. The gifts they had—they could control the natural world. And for a long time, they were content. They ruled the seas; they were the wealthiest country in the known world. But they didn’t have much land, and the high priestess decided she wanted more. She wanted the Trifectate.”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t so simple. Your father was threatening her, setting up trade embargoes—” I sighed. “War is never so simple as a single person’s greed.”
His eyes were on me for a long time. “No,” he said. “And to be very honest, I don’t know what changed. Calix wanted peace. He spent months convincing my father that he could end this war with the islanders peacefully, if only he could negotiate. I think there was even talk of a marriage. Father granted him a fleet of new ships to negotiate peace, but within days, Calix had murdered every one of them he could find. And when he came back, he told everyone my father had issued the order. He convinced everyone my father was insane. And then Calix became king.”
“That makes no sense,” I said, shaking my head. I started walking faster, like the motion could push my mind to work faster. “How could he lie so completely? How could he petition for peace and then turn around and commit genocide?”
“Something changed,” Galen said. “I’ve just never known what it was. And he won’t tell me. At this point, I’m not sure it matters.”
“Of course it matters,” I snapped at him.
“Why?” he demanded, keeping pace with me. “Is there anything that you could discover about those days that would change what happened? That would lessen the things he did?”
“I don’t know!” I returned. “How do you live with it? Knowing what he’s done?”
“Because he was eighteen. And as far as I can tell, scared and foolish. It was a terrible act, but he’s been a good king for years. He’s protected me whenever I needed it.”
“He’s a murderer,” I snapped back.
Galen stopped, his face flat, and I turned in a fury to meet his gaze. “So am I,” he said.
This drew a sharp breath into my chest.
“Me too,” Zeph called brightly from a few feet away, though he didn’t sound ashamed like Galen did. I scowled at him.
“You’re supposed to pretend you can’t hear us, Zeph,” Galen told him.
“Right,” he said, nodding.
Galen’s throat worked. “Does taking a life make a man irredeemable in your eyes, Shalia?”
“There’s a difference between taking a life and a genocide.”
He shook his head. “There shouldn’t be. A life is a life.”
“I don’t think Calix would agree with you,” I told him. “And that’s the difference.”
Galen’s eyes swept around us as he grimaced. “It’s getting dark,” he said. “We need to get back to the castles.”
I looked up at them, looming ahead of us in the distance. The thought of Calix kissing me, touching me—it turned my stomach. Those hands had tortured my dearest friend. They’d tied her up to watch her family burn, and Rian beside her.
“Shalia.”
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
“One decision doesn’t make a man a monster,” he said. “You choose your fate with every decision. And he’s listening to you. So help him make better decisions.”
My eyes closed. I wanted to be more to a man than just something to improve him, but this was my fate. This marriage had been my ch
oice, and there was no turning back.
“You should tell him,” Galen said. “That you know. See what he says about it.”
I opened my eyes, surprised. “Telling him I know does not seem wise.”
“Everyone wants to know they can be loved even in consideration of their most monstrous parts,” he said.
I didn’t voice it as we walked forward, but there was a flaw in Galen’s logic: it would require me to love my husband, and I wasn’t sure I could do that.
Seemingly to spite the churning recesses of my mind, it was a peaceful walk. The sun began its slow dive below the edge of the world, sending out lovely, desperate colors as it clung to its last moment. As we neared the castles, it made the three white structures look like some kind of deity indeed must live there, shrouded in the most beautiful colors of the world. As we rose on the Royal Causeway, the colors caught on the moving, shifting surface of the ocean.
I stopped, staring at it. “Skies Above,” I breathed.
We were high enough on the rise of the causeway that I could look out over the low parts of the city, and I could see people moving in the streets, and the winding lines still trailing from the grain mill. The place was long closed, yet they stayed there, waiting for food.
I looked back to the beauty of the Three Castles. Perhaps Galen was right—perhaps the past couldn’t possibly matter. Perhaps it was only this, the things that I could change for the future, helping to create a day when more people would live than die. Maybe that’s all I could ever do. Maybe it was enough.
Call to Service
Galen escorted me into the castle and to the large hall, but kissed my hand and told me he couldn’t stay for the meal. He lingered for a long moment like he wanted to say something else, but then he turned and left.
I went into the hall alone; Calix wasn’t there, and Danae and I sat on the raised dais. I saw Kairos, and when our eyes met, I looked to the hallway and back to him, and he nodded once, raising his wine to me.
“Are you well?” I asked Danae. Her posture was straight and careful, her muscles tense like she was waiting for something.
She leaned back, but she still seemed watchful. “Yes. Court makes me … edgy.”
I nodded, taking a bite of stew that thankfully didn’t seem to have fish in it.
Her eyes swept over me. “And you? How are you finding the City of Three?”
My shoulders lifted, unsure how to answer the question. There were so many things crowding my mind—I needed to ask Calix about his past, and I could only imagine it would be an ugly conversation. But I also wanted to do something about the grain mill that I had seen, and the nagging feeling that I could be doing far more as queen. “Foreign, of course. But there are problems that plague all people.”
“Oh?” she asked, turning slightly toward me.
“Hunger,” I said. “Safety. The need to protect your children. Everyone does it in different ways, but the Tri people and the clans are not so different.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Are we not?”
“We know hunger well,” I told her. “Not as much recently—my brother Aiden has become a tremendously skilled hunter, and it seems he could always make food appear for us—but as a nomadic people, we have few steady sources of food and water. The people here face hunger on a larger scale, of course.”
Danae propped her chin in her palm and covered her mouth with her fingers, but she nodded. “Yes.”
“I wonder if I can help,” I told her softly. “I wonder if I could ask Calix to allow the women to work in the mill. To work to feed their families.”
She was very still for long moments, and then her eyes shifted over me, and she rubbed her mouth before dropping her hands into her lap. “It is an excellent thought,” she said. “But it would not be Calix’s decision. The Three-Faced God must make such a declaration.” Her eyes met mine.
“How … how do I get a God to make a declaration?” I asked. “Is that something you can do?”
Her mouth twisted into something that was too bitter to be a smile. “No, I cannot. Calix feels he alone is the true conduit for the God’s voice. But the call of the Three-Faced God—particularly a call to service—is very, very powerful,” she said, raising her chin.
Drawing a breath, I nodded. “How do these calls to service usually present themselves?” I asked her.
She waved a hand. “They can come in many ways. Dreams, visions—but the most powerful is in response to prayer. Asking the God for an answer.”
I nodded. “And he will listen?” I asked.
“The God?” she asked, and her smile lifted with amusement. “Or Calix?”
“Who is more important?”
“Calix,” she said, looking forward. “And I cannot know his mind, but yes. He likes solutions—if it solves a problem, he may listen.”
Curling my hands around the arms of the chair, I sat up straighter, feeling hope rush through me. I could do this. I could be the queen they needed, and in finding peace for this country, protect Rian and Kairos and all the desert clans.
As soon as I stood at the end of the meal, Kairos appeared, bowing to the dais. “Sister,” he greeted me. “Let me escort you back to your chambers.”
I smiled. “Of course,” I said, and took his offered arm. “Good night, Danae.”
“Good night, my queen.”
Kairos led me down the steps and out of the hall, and Zeph was waiting. He inclined his head and let us go several feet in front of him, but I still didn’t dare tell Kairos of what Calix had let slip the night before until we were truly alone. Kairos filled my nervous silence with chatter and, when we got to my chamber, led me out onto the balcony as Zeph shut the door behind us.
“Now,” Kairos said, glancing around us on the empty balcony. “What did you want to tell me?”
I leaned closer to him. “The king said that he has a spy in Rian’s ranks. His name is Tassos.”
“He told you his name?” Kairos asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Yes,” I said. “It was an accident. We were arguing.”
Kairos shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t think it was, little sister. The king is far too calculating to tell you something like that by accident. He’s testing you. Trying to see if you’ll tell Rian. Or perhaps if I will.”
“But doesn’t Rian need to know there’s a spy in his camp?”
Kairos crossed his arms. “I would hope Rian always assumes there’s a spy in his camp and acts accordingly. It’s what I would do. And it’s the only way they keep the leader so well protected.”
I watched my brother. “Is the leader Kata?” I breathed.
He considered it but shook his head. “Doubtful. Whoever the leader is, they are exceedingly careful. Kata shares Rian’s reckless streak, in my opinion.”
“Do you know who it is?”
His eyes flicked to me and away, and I gasped. “No, I’m not certain,” he said quickly. “I have my suspicions. But I can’t share them, especially since they’re unconfirmed. And not with you.”
That stung, but I thought of my husband questioning me the night before, and I nodded. “I understand.” And I did. I couldn’t tell Kairos that Calix had been the one to kill the islanders, and Kairos couldn’t share this with me. Not only were we fighting to keep each other safe, but marriage had also fractured my loyalty. “You should probably go, before my husband returns.”
Kairos nodded with a sigh, kissing the top of my head before going back into my chamber and out.
Calix didn’t return soon. I spent a long time on the balcony, thinking about my conversations with Galen and then Danae.
Calix had been the one to murder the islanders. He had killed Kata’s family, and he nearly killed Rian, who had been in the islands during the massacre.
I wanted to confront him about it. I wanted to tell him I knew, to demand an explanation.
But more than that, I wanted to do something good. I wanted to do something meaningful, and I knew that if I could just
make him see that it was an easy solution, I could get him to agree with me about the mill.
The sound of the door closing drew my attention, and I saw Calix, smiling at me. “I was trying to surprise you,” he said.
I didn’t stand from the bench, the one I liked, closest to the edge so I could see out over the strange and moving water. He came to me, sitting on it, tugging my chin to him, but I pulled away.
“Wife?” he asked.
I shook my head, still unsure, still hesitating between what I wanted to say.
“Galen said things went well at the Erudium.”
“Yes,” I said quietly.
“You should go back there tomorrow. It’s a good place for you to be seen.”
“No,” I said, and then shook my head again, but this time I had made my decision. “I saw the grain mill, and the women and children waiting for food behind it. It’s wrong,” I said, looking at him. “Those women who stand in line for days—this is not the life they want.”
He opened his mouth with a scowl, but I remembered what Danae had told me.
“They want to serve the God,” I continued. “They want to serve their country. The God has been trying to show us what he wants—he wants women to feed their families and serve. And I believe he wants me to lead them to it.”
Calix watched me suspiciously. “You wish to pound grain?” he asked.
I looked at my hands. “If I must. But I believe the Three-Faced God wants me to serve by helping women serve their country.”
“So you want women to work.”
“Yes.”
“And the Three-Faced God told you this?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
I drew a breath. “I can’t claim to know,” I said. “But this idea came to me when I thought of how I might serve.”
“But you don’t believe in the Three-Faced God.”
This stopped me. I didn’t; could I lie outright about such a thing? “How else could I come by such an idea?” I asked, my voice hushed.
He scowled, standing. “I suppose that’s true. The women work in the factories—and we pay them?”
“Paying the women would mean they have money to spend. And money for tax,” I added.