My hands scrabbled to hold on to hers. “Kata, no. Kata, Kata, he won’t.”
“If he knows what you are? He’ll kill you.”
I caught her hands tight. “He won’t get the chance. I will never trust him.”
This seemed to calm her a little, and she breathed, nodding.
“But there was a trivatis who had visions,” I told her urgently. “He wrote them in a book. The book said there was more of the elixir in the desert, in a sacred place. Calix destroyed the book, but it’s the only clue he has to go on. He’s sending Danae to find it, but you know the lake, at least better than she does. I think it’s submerged somewhere in there. You’ll be able to find it where she can’t. And you have to do it before her.”
She nodded, and then stopped. “A book?” she repeated. “It was meant to be burned, right?”
“I don’t know, but that sounds like a good way to destroy a book.”
“We have it,” she said. “I think the Resistance has it.”
“How is that possible?” I asked.
“Because. The Resistance has all sorts of things the king wishes didn’t exist, and one of those is a large cache of books that were supposed to be burned. One of our faithful saved them.”
“But this was years ago,” I said. “Before the islands.”
She nodded. “And this girl held on to them. I can’t be sure, but I suspect we have that book.” She met my eyes. “Maybe we have a clue he doesn’t.”
I clutched her hands. “Then find it. And get the elixir before Danae does.”
“What about you?” she asked. “You almost died.”
“But I didn’t,” I told her. “Because of my power. I won’t deny it again, I swear it. I’ll practice as often as I’m able.”
“Good,” she said. “When I come back, I’ll bring news of your family.”
The breath rushed out of my lungs as I thought of her hugging my mother, joking with my brothers, playing tricks with water to delight Catryn. “Skies,” I said, nodding and fighting back the swell of emotion I felt at the thought. “I’ll look forward to that.”
She hugged me fiercely. “You should go,” she told me. “I don’t want your guard suspicious.”
I nodded, burying my face against her neck, and it struck me how lucky I was. Rian told me I wasn’t alone in the castle, and though often it felt like it, he was right. There were people in the world who I trusted beyond every shadow of doubt, and Kata was one of them. “I love you,” I breathed into her hair.
“I love you too,” she said.
Hero
My husband returned later that day, but true to his promise, Galen did not. Then word came that the Resistance had attacked the Summer Palace, and Calix demanded Galen not return until they figured out how the Resistance had discovered their operations there. Smugly, in private, he told me it would be months before I saw Galen again, and I didn’t like the ache that created in my chest.
I took a walk one morning, and Kairos was waiting in the courtyard. “Morning, sister,” Kairos called, and Osmost clacked out some version of the same.
Zeph sighed beside me.
“Morning,” I called, smiling.
“Well, if you insist, I will join you on your walk,” he told me. “Where are we headed?”
“I was heading to the Royal Garden.”
“Very well,” he said. “Zeph, I can escort her back to her chambers if you wish.”
“Just don’t leave the palace without me,” he said, waving us forward.
I laughed, shaking my head as I joined Kairos, and Zeph turned around. “Can I revise our destination?” Kai asked.
I glanced back at the castle thoughtfully. “As long as we don’t leave the palace.”
“We won’t.”
“Then certainly.”
“Good,” he said, offering his arm in the Trifectate way. I took it. “Osmost brought a letter from home,” he told me softly.
“He did?”
He nodded. “From Mother and Father. Cael is to be married to a d’Skorpios girl,” he said.
“Soon?” I asked. Traditionally, desert weddings were very fast—it was only mine that had been planned so far in advance.
His mouth turned down a little. “It’s probably already happened.”
My heart ached. I didn’t like to think of them living their lives when I couldn’t be there with them. “Oh,” I said softly.
“And Aiden is living in Jitra. Courting some Tri girl over the land bridge,” he said to me. “Can you imagine?”
I shook my head. “I can’t imagine the land bridge as a thoroughfare instead of a boundary,” I told him softly. “What else?”
He shook his head, and I nodded. There was so much more, of course, and I mourned the small things I would never hear about because they couldn’t be communicated in a precious, secret letter.
“Have you heard from Rian? We all heard that they raided the Summer Palace.”
He looked at me. “He said he didn’t find any prisoners.”
I drew a breath, nodding. “That doesn’t really mean Calix kept his word, of course.”
“No.”
“But it’s something,” I allowed.
Kairos lifted a shoulder, and I understood. He would never approve of Calix or this marriage, and even if I needed to cling to the hope that my husband still had a shred of humanity left, he didn’t.
“But that’s not why I came here today,” he said.
“It isn’t?”
“No,” he said. “You need to practice.”
We had just discussed our brother’s treason and a secret letter from my family, and yet at the thought of someone overhearing about my ability, I looked around us. There was no one in sight, except guards in the courtyard we were leaving behind to go down the road past the garden.
“No one can hear,” he whispered. “And no one can know. But you still need to do it.”
Nervously, I nodded.
Up ahead, I could see the entrance to the garden, with guards standing there, and they bowed to us as we walked past, not speaking.
Kairos led me farther, under a stone archway. “That leads out from the castle to a walkway in the cliffs,” he said. “We’ll go there next time.”
The path was growing steeper, and we walked down to another stone arch with a heavy iron gate in it, and yet another guard. “My queen,” he greeted me, bowing.
Kairos nodded, and I asked the guard, “Please unlock the gate.”
He obeyed, and we walked out past a small dock with two oared crafts and onto a long, rocky beach that lay in the shadow of the massive cliff the castles stood on.
Far down the beach, Kairos stopped me. “Here will work,” he told me.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.
“Use your gift,” he said. “Use it the way you were always meant to. Use it so it won’t control you.”
It wasn’t the same as the desert, but I took my soft slippers off to dig my feet into the cold gray sand and I felt the threads leaping against my hands at the touch of so much stone. We were up on the dry part of the beach, and yet I felt the tide as if it were rushing over my skin, dragging on the rocks, taking smaller bits of sand, and curling it into the gentle, rolling wave in this protected cove.
With a deep breath, I stretched out farther along the threads, to the distant rocks that the violent ocean gnashed against.
“You don’t need to reshape the earth,” Kairos told me, following my gaze with a smile. “See what small things you can do.”
I pulled the silver comb out of my pocket and held it up, curling one tine at a time and straightening them out. “I’ve been doing this,” I told him.
He nodded. “Rake the sand,” he said, pointing down.
I followed where he pointed and looked at the bands of color. There was a dark line that didn’t feel like rock—perhaps it was a shell of some kind, ground up into the sand. There was glittery white, and that was rich and vibrant against my hands. T
he thick bands of wet gray were heavier, like they were sleeping and didn’t have any interest in being woken.
Sweeping my hand, I watched as the white rock pulled against itself, forming a blob and sliding up the beach.
Smiling, I left it there, and then nudged at the gray sand. It was almost like it sighed against my power, and it let me move it, scooping it up the beach to join the small pile with the white sand.
I saw a series of small stones in the surf, and experimentally I pushed against them. My power felt like it ended by trying to pass through the water, but I remembered being submerged in the communes, and I knew it wasn’t quite so simple.
I reached my power along the sand, under the water, and I connected with the small rocks.
First one, then two, and three, they leaped out of the water. I caught the first and second, and with a grin, Kairos caught the third before it hit my hand. “Good,” he told me.
Laughing, I sprayed him with sand.
It seemed like I was getting stronger. My power wasn’t wrestling me for control—it was there for me to use, in small, secret ways, and despite not having the power himself, Kairos was as good a teacher as he had always been with weapons, or fighting, or even teaching Catryn how to win an argument.
I spent my days at the mill or at the Erudium, where they wanted me to preside over their Consecutio, the day of contests when boys would claim they were men and fight to be eligible to join the army and pick brides.
I heard of the Resistance, in murmurs and mentions that weren’t meant for my ears. Actions here and there in the country; stealing money or crops, distributing it to the people. Protecting the Elementae, and building an army of them.
Calix and I had settled into being married over the past few months. I couldn’t love him, knowing what he’d done, but we were peaceful together, and it felt like enough to build our future on. I had bled once, right after I returned from the communes, and though I tried to explain that my cycles had never been very regular, he didn’t speak to me for days. I dreaded the day that my blood would return, and wondered if it was something he could frighten out of me.
For the most part, I walked. Sometimes in the Royal Garden, sometimes on the cliff walkway that was secluded and lovely and made entirely of stone, which Kairos urged me to manipulate. When we went out in the city, I pressed my attendants to walk farther each day, but I still felt like something was being lost, like I would never be able to return to the long days of walking in the desert.
Yet now walking served a new purpose. I had not forgotten those moments beneath the water—this power was part of me, and if nothing else, I needed to know how to use it. It might be my damnation, but it might also be my salvation, and I wouldn’t know which until it was far too late.
As Theron, Adria, and I left the mill one day, Adria turned to me. She had ceased to complain so much about walking, and I wondered sometimes, in moments like this, if I could ever come to consider her a friend.
“Ismene is with child,” she told me.
“Who is Ismene?”
“Domina Abydos,” she told me. “Her husband’s father is one of the higher vestai beneath my father.” She sighed. “I hate her.”
I laughed. “That’s a little stark.”
“I do,” she said, shrugging. “We were the same year in the Erudium. She was married after me, and yet that little show-off has a baby, and I will never have one. And of course, her mother is acting like the Three-Faced God blessed her specifically.” She rolled her eyes. “She’s requested an audience with you. Must I allow it?”
I smiled, but my smile faded. “I suppose so. But will you never have a child?”
Her head turned down. “No. As soon as I married, the king sent my husband to the south and demanded I stay here. My father is the most powerful vestai, and the king doesn’t want me having a child before you do. It would threaten his reign.”
I watched her. “And if I have a baby?” I asked.
Her shoulders lifted. “I hold little hope. I can’t presume to imagine what it will take for the king to feel secure in his legacy.”
Stepping closer to her, I threaded my fingers through hers and held her hand tight. “Then no, she can’t have an audience with me.”
Her fingers squeezed mine, and she gave me a small smile.
I turned forward, saw people on the Royal Causeway ahead of us, and my breath caught; I was not sure why there were so many there.
Theron saw it too and put his hand on my arm. “Stay close, my queen,” he told me.
I tucked close to him and pulled Adria against me, keeping our fingers together.
The guards were blocking off the road, so when they saw Theron with me they let us through to walk in the open center of the causeway. People started screaming and crying at us in delirious excitement when they saw me and realized who I was, and I flinched.
“Come quickly,” Theron said, walking behind me, sweeping his eyes over the crowd as we hurried up the hill.
We crested the hill and saw what the fuss was. A military regiment had returned, and people were cheering. The soldiers were off their horses, and I could see hands waving at the crowds but nothing else.
Theron growled at the stableboys to get the horses out of the way, but I just led him and Adria to skirt around them. That was when I saw Galen, and my breath caught, halting me for a moment.
I started moving again, quicker, admonishing myself. I was simply surprised—it had been months since he’d been at the palace, and I hadn’t expected to see him. That was all.
The people began cheering louder again, and Galen looked in my direction. Our eyes met and I felt it, every pulse of blood in my body, the million fine strings at my fingertips.
I didn’t dare move. The threads were alive, stronger than I’d ever felt, sparking with heat and light and lightning. I’d been using my ability in small ways here and there, trying to learn to control it in secret, but I hadn’t ever felt my power like this, so bright in my hands.
Adria made a noise, and I jolted forward, walking toward my husband’s brother with my chin raised, trying to summon the cold and the stillness I’d known while he was gone.
He came to me and knelt, dropping his head, and everyone quieted to hear our exchange. “My queen,” he said.
I nodded to him. “Commander. You’ve defended us well, but we are happy to welcome you home.”
“Thank you, my queen.”
“You must rise,” I told him. “As our valiant hero.”
The people burst into cheers at this proclamation, and I started to move away as they quieted.
He stood, calling out to me. “My queen, I’ve heard you’ve been busy here, as well.” I looked back at him, and his eyes made me flush. He took a step closer. “Feeding our people. Protecting our women. Perhaps it is you who should be called a hero,” he said.
“Don’t be silly,” I denied, but he caught my hand and kissed it.
For something that Calix did so often and made me feel nothing, the radiating heat of his lips on my skin took me utterly by surprise.
Warmth rushed over me, and before I could tamp the feeling down, the heat burned out of my skin and over the threads. The threads burst, and all around us the white stone squares of the courtyard suddenly shattered beneath our feet, dissolving into sand.
Adria screamed. I fell back, pulling away from Galen as I landed in the sand.
“My queen!” Theron called, pulling me behind him like it was an attack.
When my eyes found Galen, his sword was drawn, turning as he shouted orders to defend the queen. Theron hurried me inside, and I saw Calix standing on the step, his face twisted in a dark snarl.
Calix met my gaze, and the threads, and the power at my fingertips, vanished. I didn’t look back to the courtyard.
I couldn’t leave my room. I knew that Calix would come, and avoiding him would only make it worse. He knew—he’d seen what I was, I was sure of it. What I could do.
But I still cou
ldn’t leave. I stayed on the balcony until the sun set. And then I came in from the balcony, sitting on the floor, holding myself tight and shaking. I skipped dinner, waiting for Calix to return.
The door didn’t open until very late. I was sitting on the bed, wrapped in a coat with my arms twined tight around my body. I had stopped shaking, but there was still something shivering deep within me.
“Wife?” he asked. I looked up, and his face was folded in a frown. “Why are you still awake?”
My heart started pounding again. “Today …,” I tried, but my courage failed me.
There was a knock on the door before I could finish my sentence, and Calix called out for it to open.
Theron opened it. “Princess Danae?” he asked.
“Yes,” Calix said, his face lightening.
Danae came in and went to her brother. “I just returned,” she said. “You wanted an immediate report.”
He drew in a sharp breath. “You found it,” he said, his eyes gleaming.
Danae shook her head. “We couldn’t find it. We found a lake. The quaesitori need further instructions if you want them to search other caverns.” She looked to me. “Shalia, we need your help.”
I hesitated. “It’s sacred to us,” I told her. “But it wasn’t there?”
She shook her head.
“Calix, what else do you remember of the vision?” I asked. “Perhaps there’s something we missed.”
He shook his head. “No. The vision spoke of a sacred body, a desert lake. It could not be describing anything else.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this, Calix?” I asked him.
He didn’t meet my gaze. “Why didn’t you tell us about the lake?” he said. He turned to Danae. “Were you able to drain it?”
“Drain it?” I gasped.
He shot a glare at me.
“No,” she said. “It’s not possible; there’s nowhere for the water to go. And we mapped much of the bottom, but there are crags and outlets that we can’t get into.”
“Then take more men,” he said. “Take the yellow powder and burst it open.”
She shook her head. “That is neither safe nor possible, Calix. You can’t burn the powder underwater, and it’s as likely to collapse the whole place as to reveal the elixir.”