Given to the Sea

by Mindy McGinnis

  “And if they outnumber you seven to one?”

  “Then it’s their blood flowing ankle deep,” Witt growls.

  “But they’re the only ones left standing,” Ank answers. “Even the strength of your cliffs is eroded by the sea, and the Stilleans are as many as the sea is endless.”

  Pravin and Witt exchange a glance, a lifetime spent together making their communication as easy as speech.

  “What are you offering?” Witt finally asks.

  “Feneen to fight for you. First on the field and last off of it. Send us headlong into terror, put us against the best of the Stilleans. Three Feneen to fall for every Pietra who even crosses blades with the enemy.”

  “In exchange for?”

  “When the dust is settled and the blood dry, the Feneen who are left accepted as Pietra, equal in measure.”

  It was cleverly done, and Witt knew it. If he were to send Ank away, the Pietran soldiers who were returned would let their people know the Lithos rejected a Feneen offer of lives willingly given in battle, lives spent before Pietran soldiers were even endangered. With many already grumbling against him for the wandering sheep and buds of green grain, Witt could hardly afford more voices lending to their volume.

  The offer was generous, but the price higher than the Feneen knew. The barb from before had hit harder than intended; Pietran pride ran deep, and not only in Witt. His people disliked the inclusion of the Hyllenians—and as Pravin had pointed out, they were pleasing enough to look at, and provided them with food and livestock, as well. Their customs were different, but the Pietra knew work when they saw it, and the Hyllenians labored as hard as any.

  But what Ank asked was something more. If Witt put the unable and truly monstrous alongside those who got into boats once they could no longer contribute, he’d have more than a few turn against him. But as Ank had said, that would come when the battle was over, when there might not be many Feneen left to accept.

  “What makes you think my men would even fight with yours?”

  “They’ll adjust to the men. It’s the women who will take getting used to,” Ank says.

  “Your women . . . fight?” Witt is not able to keep the incredulity from his voice.

  “Fierce as the men and some even more so. Why not let them have a weapon if they’re willing to wield it?”

  “Because it’s unseemly,” Pravin says.

  Ank’s affable nature slides away like rain from a downturned Hadundun leaf. “Don’t speak to me of unseemly, when you put the old in boats, sending lifetimes of knowledge to the bottom of the sea.”

  Pravin leans toward the Feneen across the table, his color high. “And don’t you lecture me about respect for elders, with that smooth face of yours. You’re not much older than the Lithos, and I a lifetime of suffering behind.”

  “I’ve seen more than you know, and have more years than you can guess,” Ank says easily. “I was there when you brought us your son.”

  Pravin freezes, and Witt’s hand goes to his advisor’s elbow, aware that with this man, the calm usually comes before the storm.

  “Impossible,” Witt says, to which the Feneen only raises an eyebrow and pushes his sleeves up, resting his hands on the table between them. They are old and twisted, marked with the spots of time and the swelling of joints.

  “I am Feneen,” Ank says evenly. “Anything is possible.”

  Words desert Witt, and he feels Pravin’s arm go loose in surprise under his hand.

  “What is this deception?” the Mason asks.

  “No deception.” Ank slides his hands back under his sleeves. “Only myself, as I was born. Some years before you imagine.”

  “We’ll need some time to consider, of course.” Witt finds his voice, though his tongue is dry in his mouth, the image of Ank’s hands still before his eyes, though they are no longer in sight.

  Ank nods in agreement, but his words hold a warning. “Do not wait overly long to make your decision. That was your mistake years ago,” he adds to Pravin. “If you’d brought the babe a day earlier, we could have saved it.”

  Witt expects a lunge, and his hands tighten, but Pravin remains still.

  “I’ve driven much harder bargains,” Witt says, striving to keep his tone light. “Dead Feneen in exchange for living Pietra? I won’t take overly long to decide.”

  “There is one more condition,” Ank says. “You must take a Feneen wife.”

  It is so unexpected that Witt bursts out laughing, the sound startling Pravin back to life.

  “The Lithos has sworn off women,” he objects.

  “That’s his mistake,” Ank says. “One to be rectified. I’ve lived a long life with no expectation to see the waters rise much farther. You striking a bargain with me is all well and good, but who is to say that you will honor it once I am gone? A Feneen wife for the Lithos would show your people that we can be accepted.”

  “And ensure my death by her hand or one of my own guards for abandoning our traditions,” Witt says. “A Lithos taking a wife is as ludicrous as . . . as . . .”

  “As a soldier who is one with a Tangata? As a man with the face of a child and the hands of experience?” Ank asks, one eyebrow raised. “We are the Feneen. We change as necessary to survive. The Pietra could take a lesson from us.”

  Witt rises to signal the meeting is over, choking back angry words that will only degenerate the debate to an exchange of insults. Ank makes him uneasy, his responses coming so quick on the heels of anything they say, as if he anticipates their every word and has answers for them all.

  “We’ll speak in three days’ time.” Witt offers his hand across the table as bond.

  Ank’s withered hand emerges, pressing against Witt’s. The Feneen’s skin feels like paper too often handled, thin and on the verge of tearing. Witt grinds his teeth to keep from gagging, and inexplicably, a true smile breaks across Ank’s face, the youth there shining, despite the broken teeth that his lips reveal.

  Taken aback, Witt’s words slip out before he can weigh whether they should be spoken. “Why do you smile, when you offer your people to die for my own?”

  The old hand squeezes his, a pulse of unmistakable affection buried there. “Because this world is endlessly amusing when the Lithos of Pietra is a better man than the king of Stille.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Vincent

  MY LORD.” THE SCONCELIGHTER SLIDES TO A HALT IN front of me, cap askew, her torch long extinguished in her rush to find me. Smoke floats in her wake, and I choke on it before questioning her.

  “What is it? Is Khosa—”

  She shakes her head, draws a shaky breath. “No, my lord, all is well with the Given. It’s the Seer who sent me for you.”

  “Madda?” I turn, headed back the way the girl came. “Is she unwell?”

  “I . . .” A polite hesitancy edges her voice, and I call back over my shoulder.

  “More unwell than usual?”

  “That’s what sent me at such a pace, my lord,” she says, pulling her skirts up past her ankles to keep up with me. “She’s on a bit of a tear . . .”

  Madda on a tear is not a sight I’ve ever seen, and is certainly not one for a servant. “You’re excused,” I say tersely, leaving her no choice but to return to her work, cut off from choice gossip.

  I charge up the circular staircase to find Madda pacing in her tower room, sending tendrils of incense smoke swirling behind her. She’s muttering under her breath, hands wringing each other in search of comfort.

  “Madda?” I say softly, pulling a torch from the wall to light what the sconcelighter had left untouched. “What troubles you?”

  She turns at my voice, errant steps finally halted. “Much, young prince,” she says. “Much and more. Sit.”

  Gone is the teasing Seer I know, who laughs at my romantic predicaments and finds the future of only m
ild interest. I take my familiar stool and offer her my hand. Her mouth quirks as she sees something there, and she falls into a routine, massaging the tiny bones in my hands, touching the slight webbing between my fingers.

  She hums to herself softly, a Stillean lullaby that Mother still falls into out of habit when she works on her bridal pillow. It permeates the room, easing some of the tension from the air, and setting even my heart into a more normal rhythm, my mind onto paths it has traveled much of late.

  Dara has not spoken to me in days, a flush rising in her skin and her eyes avoiding mine when we meet in the halls, reluctant to be near me after her confession of desire, met by my own and no release for either of us. I know that I appear much the same to Donil. My words to him are stilted and carefully selected, with an undertone of anger he identifies without knowing what he’s done to deserve it.

  I’ve taken lives, seen the friends of my youth covered in blood and reveling in it. The very pulses of our bodies are at odds with each other these days, disturbing childhood ties. Donil’s blood calls to every woman who walks by, Dara’s yearns for me, and mine is confused even as it flows from heart to mind—Khosa fills one and Dara the other. At times, the two change places and send me into a spiral that I can only call despair.

  Madda’s lullaby arcs, breaking into my reverie and drawing my thoughts to her, and her soft touch upon me.

  “What has put you in such a state?” I ask.

  She finishes the song before answering, the last bars threading off into nothing.

  “I know when time is spent,” she says, finally. “It’s not only the royals who come to me, you know. I may have books with the inkprints of your line’s palms back to the time of the wave, but in the past few years, the hands of the shepherds and curriers have said more than your ancestors, for all their importance.”

  “How so?”

  “Their lines unwind, like spools of thread cut too soon. Many and more as time goes. The lines in the hands of Stilleans grow short. This morning a mother brought her baby to me. One whose palms were as smooth as his cheeks.”

  “How is that possible?” I ask, a spike of fear rising in my belly.

  “Ask the Given,” Madda spouts. “Ask the last of the Indiri, with no mates to be found. Ask them about a life with no future.”

  Madda releases my hands, and I put them in my lap, curled into each other like frightened Tangata kits. “And what of mine?”

  It’s her turn to sigh, the exhalation of nilflower filling my nose. “Young prince,” she says, “I cannot speak for the Given, for I have never seen her hands. But I can say that you are surely headed for the sea.”

  CHAPTER 43

  Vincent

  IT’S ALL ROT. DON’T LET IT FESTER YOUR MIND,” DONIL TELLS me as he slings his sword across his shoulders, a runnel of sweat streaking down his nose.

  We’ve spent an entire day at training with no time for words. Our sword arms as we demonstrated simple attacks and parries for the men provided a familiarity we fell into from habit, though I admit that my sword may have fallen more heavily than necessary. The thought of his Indiri blood calling more loudly to Khosa than mine lent some violence to my actions. But it is spent now and words came easily afterward, as I confess that Madda’s words scared me badly.

  I sheathe my own sword. “It’s not all rot, though. Madda’s told me things before that—”

  “Like what?” Donil interrupts, returning the waves of a few men as they leave the field, his place among them more assured since he has bested them all at swordplay. The Indiri sits on an upturned log used for archery practice, kicking another onto its side for me. I sit, about to answer his question.

  “Wait—let me guess.” Donil grabs my hand and turns it over, brow furrowed in mock concentration. “You’re . . . destined for great things. You may even be king.”

  “Go jump in the sea,” I say, jerking my hand away.

  “I didn’t get to the good part yet. You’re going to marry a girl and have children. You may own horses. You’ll never go swimming.”

  Donil’s laugh is infectious, even more so when I kick his seat out from under him, sending him rolling onto the ground, his shirt pushed up to show his speckled torso.

  “Hey Donil, how far down do your spots go?” a kitchen girl calls as she passes by, a plucked chicken in each hand.

  “Ask Daisy, if you want to know,” he yells back, still laughing.

  My own laughter dies as the girl smiles at Donil, eyes bright with invitation. When they slip to me she dips a quick curtsy, but that is all. By the time Donil rights his seat and is on it again, I am troubled once more.

  “Madda,” I reiterate. “She’s told me things—admittedly vague, but accurate enough that her saying I’m headed for the sea made me dream of waves, and I woke with the taste of salt water in my throat.”

  Donil lays his sword across his knees, finally serious. “Your ways aren’t mine, brother. The Indiri know the past because it is a thing already done. To lay claim to what lies ahead implies it is already decided, the actions only waiting to be fulfilled and you powerless to do nothing but.”

  “Am I not?” I ask. “I don’t need my palms to see a line pointing to the throne, and me on it.”

  “So leave. If you don’t want to be king, don’t become one.”

  “And what shall I do? Leave my people on the brink of war for what purpose?”

  “Come with Dara and me. We always find adventure wherever the king sends us, no matter how idle the task. Whether collecting tariffs or hunting bandits, a ride is a cure for restlessness. And, between you and me and where we sit, Dara’s more restless than is safe lately.”

  My gaze goes to the wall that has been raised around the field after the Feneen attack, Dara bringing down trees day after day to make a safe place for the Stilleans to drill. I can see her moving among the men in the distance, hauling the last of the logs into place alongside them, her strength welcome even if they still shy away from her skin.

  “What do you mean, restless?” I ask.

  Donil scrapes some mud away from his ankle. “I mean that we need to find her an Indiri male, and then everyone can sleep more easily. Her included. Or, perhaps not.” He rolls the mud into a ball and flicks it at my nose.

  I bat it out of the air more violently than necessary. “There aren’t any Indiri males left besides yourself. And I don’t think you do much sleeping in your own nights, brother.”

  Our banter is the same as ever, but Donil catches my tone.

  “Is that it, then? Daisy said that you’d excused Milda. Do you want me to say something to Anna or one of the kitchen girls? I’m sure any of them would be happy to—”

  “No,” I say, loudly enough to turn heads at the archery range.

  “Depths, brother. Lower your voice unless you want the whole of the kingdom to know their prince needs a tumble.”

  “If that is in fact what I need, I think I can manage it on my own,” I spit. “I may not be able to quicken a girl’s liking by my very nature, but I do have a thing or two to offer, one of them being the throne.”

  “Which you were lamenting a moment ago,” Donil reminds me.

  “Not that it’s ever helped,” I tear on. “I could be wearing the crown, but with you beside me, their eyes will always land there, drawn by . . . by . . .”

  “Ah . . .” Donil drops his eyes. “Dara must have told you.”

  “Dara says many things to me,” I say.

  “What does that mean?” Donil’s head jerks up. “She’s meant for an Indiri, Vincent, and if you ever—”

  “There are no more Indiri!”

  Donil comes to his feet, and I rise with him. “Even if that were true, Dara will settle for nothing less than a throne for her children.”

  “I can’t marry Dara,” I yell, ignoring the glances we’re attracting. “Stille wouldn
’t have it.”

  “Then you can’t have her,” Donil seethes, closing the distance between us.

  We grew up as brothers, and fights that began with small fists flying ended with arms slung about shoulders, black eyes forgiven as scrapes healed. But now we know how to throw punches that draw blood, and the words that pass between us aren’t easily forgotten during a game of ridking.

  “I believe I’ll decide who can or cannot have me, brother.” Dara’s voice breaks over us, and we turn to find her watching, arms crossed.

  “And as for there being no more Indiri,” she says to me, “I’ll not rest until I know. And after that . . .” Her lips twist into a hard smile I’ve only seen on the battlefield when she’s about to deal a killing blow.

  “I can have the Stillean throne without you in my bed.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Khosa

  I REACH FOR THE INKWELL TOO QUICKLY AS A LINE FROM the histories catches my eye, and a little gasp escapes as pain shoots across my chest. Merryl is at my elbow in a moment.

  “Are you well?” he asks.

  “Fine, Merryl, thank you,” I say, the pain giving my words more inflection than usual. “I forget sometimes that I’m still wounded.” I don’t add that I had healed almost entirely before rolling around on this very floor with Donil loosened my stitches.

  “Mmm . . .” is all he says, his eyes going to the bandage on my chest, where a fresh spot of red blooms.

  “Your fellow guard did only what he thought was best,” I remind him.

  “Perhaps,” Merryl’s eyes lingering on my wound, lit only with concern and no hint of lechery. “Yet I worry that a man who would shoot a girl would not hesitate to . . .”

  My eyebrows raise. “To?”

  “To harm her otherwise,” he finishes.

  “I appreciate your concern, Merryl. But the Given has always chosen her mate, and if the next child for the sea is born from force, who knows what the waves would make of it?”