Dara smiles, but her eyes are serious. “So you know our thoughts?”
“No, I can’t see what’s in your mind for the good or the bad. But when I put my hands on you, I can be sure which you are, no matter how hard you try to be the other.”
“A useful trick,” I say. “Though I can’t see how much it’s worth when you’re in the woods alone.”
“But I’m not alone, am I?” Ank says.
“You were following us,” Donil says.
“I’ve got business in Stille. What better path there than following a Stillean royal?” His hand goes back to the pouch at his neck, the smile gone.
“You said that was your weapon?” I prompt, hoping he’ll elaborate.
“My caul, withered and old, though it kept my face young a good long while.” He answers me, eyes on the fire. “I was left out still wearing my veil, for what use is it to uncover a face that will not look long on the world? The Feneen have had a few caul-bearers amongst them. They believe the longer we wear our mask, the greater our power grows, so they did not cut it away. I wore my veil until my thirtieth Arrival Day, and it protected me from sun, wind, and rain. So here I am with the task of a man and the face of a boy, hoping he who sits the throne will hear me out.”
“What task?”
His eyes, carrying all the weight of his years, despite the lack of wrinkles around them, land heavily on me. “Our world is dying. You know, Indiri,” he says to Dara. “Your magic fades as the earth around us gasps for last breaths. And the animals know. They won’t bring their own young to bear because it’s futile.”
“You were coming to warn Stille?” I ask.
“Nay, for there’s no forewarning can save anyone. The cats have shown me there’s no escape. They go into the trees and come back down, prowling the earth only to attack what they can find of the sea. It’s futile, but they’ve always been the violent type. Like you,” he adds, eyes cutting back to Dara.
“Don’t forget it,” she says darkly, but he only chuckles.
“Not much of a bedtime story, I’m afraid,” he says, rolling onto his side and pulling his cloak tight about him. “But it’s rest I need, and the castle tomorrow, perhaps a glimpse of she who is given to the sea, though I don’t know that Stillean superstition can save us.”
I tense, and I can see the lines of laughter in his shoulders as his words land right where he wanted them to.
“What do you know of Khosa?” My voice is harsh, more defensive than I meant it to be.
“Khosa?” he asks. “Of her, nothing. But I knew much of her Feneen father.”
CHAPTER 16
Khosa
THE WRONGNESS FLOWS STRONG THROUGH MY VEINS today, weighing down my blood and dragging my mind into dark corners. I can hear the tide through the castle walls, but my feet are not itching to feel the sand beneath them again. So it is not my mother’s curse I feel in this moment, but my father’s. And though Sona’s will be the one to kill me, it is his that makes my life a misery.
The servants tend to me, something I cannot adjust to with ease. They are on my steps, following my shadow, whispering in my wake. I dismiss them, not anxious to have anyone at my elbow as I make my way to the library. The discovery of its book-lined walls has been my saving grace; it is the only place I can go where others do not follow out of curiosity. My not-quite-right smile and the slightly wrong angle of my head as I try to appear curious when spoken to have not gone unnoticed. I am no longer paraded about for the public to rejoice in, their savior come, though a bit off in her timing.
The king has given me permission to wander the castle as I please, hoping, no doubt, for me to have a chance encounter with a male I find pleasing. But it is here as it was in Hyllen; I take comfort only in the ink-stained pages in front of me. The castle library is well-lit so that I can read as early as the sun rises, but the sound of the surf finds its way to me through the high windows, and my guards cannot rest easy.
The sea always calls me, a dull throb like a headache biding its time, though I never know when it will spike into the blindness of the dance, and have found no precursor that brings it on. My dance is not like the tide, with predictable ebbs and flows. It is a fever in my veins, abaiting at will and surging forth when it wants, bringing twin spots of desire to my cheeks as I spin to my death.
King Gammal has a guard set at all times, ready to stop any mad dashes like the one Vincent saved me from. I do not share with the king that a few hours of rustling paper tends to send them into deep sleeps from which they wake, opening their eyes to find me where I was before.
They always look guilty. My bloated corpse will be on their hands if I lose control on their watch. The younger ones smile at me sheepishly, and I feel a rush of forgiveness inside, a warm wave that rises from my gut but fails to illuminate my body. I want to reassure them, but I know my face looks as blankly at them as at the paper under my fingers.
The king has been patient in his questions, Prince Varrick less so. They know I carry nothing within me; my mate is not yet chosen, and no seed has been planted. The Scribes have reasserted that the Given is a willing sacrifice, the sea placated by my subservience. To drag a thrashing, wailing girl to her death could agitate it. I assure them the same holds true in other aspects, keeping my eyes on theirs without flinching, daring any one of them to cross my bedroom threshold without my consent. Only Varrick holds my gaze.
I always return to the books, because they do not mind my imperviousness.
Today it is the annals of the castle that leap to my hands. I found it quite by accident, a heavy book toward the bottom of the pile, one I had to wrestle free in order to inspect. The cover was wordless, the date entry on the first page the only indication that I had discovered an intimate history of my new home. With nothing to do and the light snoring of my guards filling the air, I searched for mention of Sona, my mother.
Her name was not recorded. She was called only the Given, as I must be in a book with newer ink and fresher pages that someone here in the castle is likely writing this very moment. Yesterday I read of my birth, and the celebration that followed, culminating with the waves closing over my mother’s head. Mention was made of my Keepers carrying me from Stille, and now my fingers run over those words, recalling faces that did not light with affection exactly, but at least with recognition.
The next page tells of Vincent’s birth, the story taking up fewer lines than my own. My arrival saved the kingdom, while his only reiterated that his blood would fill the throne one day. I feel a kinship with him as I see our stories set side by side in this book, lives recorded in facing pages.
Two good years followed Vincent’s Arrival Day, with healthy herds, full grain bins, traps brimming with food from the sea. Even on my stone stool, I feel the comfort rolling from these pages, the contentment of an age past. I turn the page to find the same hand at work, but the letters are ragged, now, written in haste or anger. The word Indiri catches my eye, and I am instantly lost.
The Indiri have come, tiny feet leaving bloodied footsteps behind them. Their infant mouths speak words as they lie in the arms of Princess Dissa, and she tends to these as if she shares their abominable speckled skin. They tell their stories, small bodies sitting upright on the table to address the king, quick eyes darting not in the surprise of babes but with the cold calculation of warriors.
The Pietra came for them, why they do not know. The Indiri have shared a border with the people of the Stone Shore since deep into their memories, and while they would not be called friendly, a tenuous peace held. And so the Indiri, though stronger and more able, were caught by surprise when battle came to them.
The female child tells a hideous tale of their mother, heavily pregnant with the two of them, running into the fray, sword in hand. She spoke of her arms entwined with her brother’s, safe inside the womb, even when their mother’s head was struck from her shoulders. Dissa cr
ied openly, her own arms shielding them when the boy spoke of their mother’s body being dragged into a pit, where they lay surrounded by the dead, waiting for the invaders to leave and for their mother’s body to cool before they birthed themselves and clawed their way through filth and blood.
Even this unnaturalness will not draw the princess’s affection from them, though the king and Prince Varrick wear heavy faces, brows drawn together as they find themselves interrogating infants. These babes now share a cradle with Stillean blood, their ableness in stark contrast to the infant Vincent, who gurgles and taps at their faces while they carry on discussions, one on either side of him, their foreign words filling the air while their spots rub against his unblemished skin.
I shiver, pulling the worn cloak I keep here in the library tighter around me.
“Would you like me to set a fire, my lady?” one of the guards asks.
“No,” I say quickly, as always. The thought of crackling flames in this room of brittle paper makes me more uneasy than the tides coming in at night. “I thank you, though,” I add, willing my eyes to soften, my lips to form the small twist that my female Keeper wore when placating me.
It does not work. I see it in his face as he resumes his position at the door. In time, my guards may become as practiced at keeping their thoughts from showing as I am. But for now I spot every subtlety, the tiniest flicker of muscles around the mouth, the precise sheen of moisture in the eyes, all declaring that I am as much of an outsider as the Indiri twins.
Unlike the Scribe who penned these pages, their Indiri skin is not what sends the blood pounding in my veins, though I can’t help but notice it. Their gazes have burned through me whenever we meet, and so I have taken steps to ensure our paths do not cross. The girl especially overwhelms me if I stare too long into her light eyes, where emotions flicker like flame. Each one wars with the next, and I’ve found myself dizzy in her presence, a leaf caught up in a storm that it did not foresee.
The boy, Donil, is more cautious, but burns just as brightly, if not more so. In Hyllen the act between men and women was never hindered or wrapped in embarrassment. I know what desire looks like, and saw it in his bright eyes when they met mine at the banquet. Keeping my path from his has not been easy, as my limbs ache to run not toward the sea but to find him.
It is not fear of his desire that sends me away from Donil, but fear that I might acquiesce to my own. It’s not his broad shoulders or easy smile, or even curiosity about his skin that casts my handmaids into simpering smiles whenever he is in their sight. There is a tenderness in him that carries with it an echo of Abna’s hand pressed into mine, a touch that I could bear, one that might have led to more if not interrupted by the march of an approaching army. Abna’s hand, undoubtedly cold now, perhaps in a pit not unlike the one Donil’s Indiri mother was thrown into.
I shiver once more, and the same guard opens his mouth, undoubtedly about to suggest a fire again. He catches himself in time, and our eyes meet, an unhampered smile spreading across my face as I guess his intent at the same moment that he stilled it. His own smile answers mine, reaching to his earlobes so that he looks less like a soldier and more like the child he once was, caught in some shared joke.
“No fire, I assume?” he says.
I look to the walls, the ancient maps that have stared down at me while I stared back, memorizing the lines of coast, wondering which might represent the place where my feet will cross from land into sea.
“I would never risk it,” I answer, gesturing toward their crumbled edges, yellowed with age.
“Very good, my lady,” he says, eyes holding mine for a moment longer than necessary.
I look to his partner, slumped in a deep sleep on the other side of the door. “Speak freely, if you wish.”
He clears his throat, awkward in the moment where I change from being more than a duty. “I was wanting to say that you should smile more, is all. It might . . . help.”
There is much truth in what he says. My happiness, when it does come, is pure and unpracticed. If I knew how to conjure its ghost, the fake twist of lips I see worn on the court faces, it would help. Help to find a mate, help to build friendships, help ease the guilt of the young prince whose hands I still have bruises from, now faded to yellow.
Vincent wears his court-appointed mask well, but I have spent years mimicking emotions and read them as easily as the books that line these walls. His gaze may have registered the cut of my dress or the shape of my face, but it was the idea of both rotting in the sea that filled his mind, not lifting the hem or touching my lips. He looks at me and thinks of my death, guilt fast on the heels of that because for his throne not to float in water, my body must.
Why should I work to assuage that guilt? What use in making friendly with him or any other when it would be a short-lived friendship indeed? Nine moonchanges at the most, should I find my mate—whom I hardly need to care for in order for the deed to be done.
A wave crashes in the distance, the impact carrying into the library, the sea invading even this place as its scent billows through the window, wiping away the last traces of mirth from my lips.
“What would be the use?” I say to my guard.
CHAPTER 17
Khosa
THE WALK BACK TO MY CHAMBERS IS NOT LONG, AND I manage to convince my guards that I will be safe in the company of the sconcelighter who precedes me, her flame lighting the way. The younger guard bows his head as if I’d given an order, but I hear his footsteps turn the corner as mine do and know that he shadows me. The sconcelighter walks alongside me without speaking, pausing to light the wicks as she goes. We are a silent and odd group, our footfalls stopping together and picking up again.
Raucous laughter echoes from around the corner, and the sconce-lighter yelps as two men collide with her, one of them rescuing her torch and flame before it falls to the ground. Too late I see the fingers that have caught it are speckled. The fire reflected in Donil’s eyes is brighter than his companion’s.
“Careful, Reah,” one of them says, taking the torch from Donil and offering it to the sconcelighter. “You’ll light your skirts on fire, and the castle too.”
She snatches it back with an annoyed huff, but can’t hide a smile. “And what are my skirts to you, Rook? I hear you like the way the kennel master’s daughter’s breeches look.”
“I like the look of them on my floor, anyway. And would offer the same spot to your skirts should you be so inclined,” Rook answers her, and in Reah’s torchlight, I can see two bright spots of drunkenness in his cheeks. A sideways glance at Donil shows the same; the sound of steps drawing near tells me my guard has noticed as well.
“I’ll not drop my skirts for you when your bed’s still warm from her,” Reah chides Rook, but by her voice, I think she would be happy to once it cools.
“Would you consider lifting them, though?”
“Excuse me,” I say, trying to slip past.
“Hello, there,” Rook says, tipping an invisible hat to me. “Who is your fine-looking friend, Reah?”
“She is the Given,” Donil says. I feel his gaze on me, a weight heavier than the sea. My chest tightens, what little breath left smoldering within.
“Given to the Sea?” Rook steps back to look at me better. “That’s a waste, then.”
“Rook,” comes a warning voice, my guard closing the distance between us, “we know you well, and that you jest. The Given may not be inclined to laugh along with you.”
“Merryl.” Rook nods at my guard as he comes in the light. “Good to know you’re here, keeping the young lady safe from a good, thorough . . . laugh.”
At his words, I feel exactly that—a bubble of humor coming from inside of me, a place I thought could be filled only with sadness after I arrived in Stille. My laugh takes everyone by surprise, weak as it is, a light thing in this dark corner lit only by Reah’s flame.
&n
bsp; “See, Merryl, she’s the Given, but a girl no less,” Rook says, lacing an arm around the sconcelighter’s waist. “We’re headed to the tower. I’ve got a bit of water to add to the sea if you take my meaning.”
“I hear you’re not likely to reach it,” Reah teases, and they head back the way we came, ducking into a stairwell.
“Would you like to go to your quarters, my lady?” Merryl, my guard, offers.
I would not like to, but I don’t know how to say as much without sounding brash, sending him away to be alone with Donil. I can see the tips of the Indiri’s boots as I stare at the floor, too embarrassed to raise my gaze.
“Come with us, Merryl.” Donil neatly saves me, his hand cupping my elbow. My body tenses, but the shudder I’m expecting does not come.
“It’s a clear night, and the moon is on the rise,” Donil continues. “Fresh air is best for what ails you.”
“All that ails me is duty, and mine is to see the Given to her bed,” my guard says.
It’s a poor choice of words, and one that Donil leaps on.
“Oh, is it?” he exclaims with mock incredulity, dropping his hand from where it had rested at my elbow. I miss the pressure immediately. “By all means, don’t let me stop you,” Donil says, motioning us forward with a sweeping bow and a wink for me.
“That’s not—” Merryl chokes on outraged words, his face flushing bright red. “My lady, I meant nothing—”
“I know it,” I say, raising my hands to tide his embarrassment. “And some air would be welcome.”
I head for the stairwell to follow Rook and Reah, only to have Donil’s hand fall on my arm once again, our skin separated only by the light fabric of my dress. “You might give it a moment, first,” he says.
“Oh . . .” I glance down at his hand, unfamiliar with the feel of warmth that spreads from him to me, no revulsion alongside it. “Do they need privacy?”
Given to the Sea Page 7