Given to the Earth

by Mindy McGinnis

  And in that same memory I have seen the Lithos astride a horse, watching as my mother is killed. And this is what I cannot bear to look upon again, for I have looked upon him now as a man who would fight at my side against cats ready to shred our skins, and protect my body with his own when the very ceiling came down around us.

  “Piss on a dead sea-spine,” I say, and kick the wall.

  “An odd pastime,” the Lithos’s voice says, and I come to my feet, wondering if my mind has wandered farther than it ought. Then I hear the sound of a key in the door and know that he is real.

  What I do not know is which I prefer.

  The hinges of the door creak slightly, then pause. “I’ll have to request that you not kill me, should I come in.”

  “I’m unarmed,” I tell him. “Hadduk even took the chains from my hands so I cannot strangle you.”

  “You could kill me, if you wish,” he says. There is a strike of flint, and then the torch he carries is ablaze. He speaks truth. In that moment I could rush him, send the fire to his hair or clothes, rip what’s left of his ear from his head and jam it down his throat. Yet it would be no easy battle, I think, as I watch him set the torch in a sconce, not quite turning his back to me. Faja was right to say she did not know if she could have bested this man even in her younger days.

  “I could kill you,” I agree, though I am not so confident of it as I once was. “You take a great risk.”

  I watch as he settles against the opposite wall. We stare at each other in the light, each of us sitting like a huddled child, knees drawn to chest, hands locked around ankles.

  “These days I see great risks down all paths,” he says. “And so I choose this one.”

  “Men have been begging me to kill them lately,” I observe, and the Lithos laughs.

  “You gave the Indiri a good, clean death,” he says, nodding to me. “Better than what Hadduk would have given him. It was a deserved death, for his bravery. I would not have—” He breaks off, eyes leaving the dirt to find mine, so that I may know he speaks truth. “I would not have harmed you.”

  “No, you would have ordered Hadduk to.”

  “No.” He shakes his head. “I would not.”

  We stare each other down, and I see nothing but honesty in him.

  “You could have said as much before I took my own skin off,” I say.

  “That was a bold move,” he answers.

  “A bold move that saved you having to not harm me,” I shoot back, wondering indeed what would have passed had the Lithos refused to put the blade to me.

  “And I thank you for it,” he says. “How do you heal?”

  “Better in the daylight,” I say, glancing at my bandage. I have the odd thought that mine was probably cut from the same bolt as the one that binds his head, and a smile twists my face as I fight it.

  “What?” he asks.

  “How did this come to be?” I share my thought. “The Lithos and an Indiri sitting in a cell, our wounds bound by the same cloth?”

  His hand goes to his own wound, touching the stump of his ear through the bandage. “How did Dara and Witt come to stand side by side, fighting Tangata in the woods?”

  He uses our names, and I think of that moment, our enemies falling under our swords. This is a memory that would go to my children, should I have any. My gut roils at the thought that they should know their mother fought beside the Lithos of Pietra. Yet he did not say it as such, only that he was Witt and I was Dara.

  “And we fought well together,” I finish, knowing it to be true, come shame or pride.

  “Yes, we did,” he agrees, leaning his head against the stone.

  I rest my own, feeling my spine unclench, my muscles relax as they would in the company of a friend.

  “Chance,” I say, answering his question. “You and I here, us together there. It’s all chance. Any thought we had each day, every leaf that turned in our path, they sent us that way.”

  “I’ve always thought chance rather a hard thing,” he says, watching me. “Perhaps I’ll revise my thought.”

  I raise my hands to the walls around us, the door that will close upon my cell, the torch that will go with him when he leaves.

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t.”

  CHAPTER 59

  Khosa

  The queen opens her eyes to the sound of axes against trees, a dull, thudding repetition that has lulled her long past her usual waking hour. She rolls to her side to see that her husband is gone, his pillow cold with the length of his absence. Khosa’s hand lingers there for a moment as she smiles to herself, imagining Vincent rising, tiptoeing around the bed, easing the door open, dressing in another room, all in the name of allowing her a few more moment’s rest.

  You are lucky in your husband, a Stillean noblewoman had said to her at her wedding, making no pretense as her eyes slid over Vincent, the level of wine in the glass she raised to her lips quite low. A wave of irritation that a guest would be so bold in her glances while Khosa looked on had fired in her belly, and it retraces the path as she remembers that moment.

  The woman had been right, though, in more than what she meant. Khosa did not need the hidden histories piled around her to know that it is the rare husband who would spare his wife the duties of the wedding bed, let alone keep his best friend alongside him, knowing his wife harbors an attraction, and that it is returned.

  Now that desire has been spurred into action, and Khosa closes her eyes against the duel in her body that comes with the thought each time: the rush of her heart for the want of Donil, and the sinking of her stomach for the deception of Vincent. She was lucky in her husband, more so than the Stillean noblewoman could ever have guessed. He should be lucky in his wife as well.

  Khosa’s fists clench as she stares at the ceiling above her bed. Since returning home, she has oscillated between coming to Vincent with the truth of what she has done and asking to be relieved of her station as his wife, or swearing off any further deceptions of the flesh with Donil. Though she cannot control how she feels about him, she can control what she does with him.

  Twice she has settled upon the second course as the best action, and both times a glimpse of Donil from the parapets, a broken strain of his voice brought to her on the breeze, has reversed her decision. Yet lying with Vincent, having her husband near his treacherous wife, she wishes only that her affection for him should grow into love, that she may be the wife he deserves.

  Khosa lets out a frustrated breath. “You are the Given,” she reminds herself aloud, eyes on the bars of her window. Her body goes to Donil as hungrily as to the sea, though her mind knows the outcome of both destinations. If the confines of her room can keep her from drowning, then so can they can be counted upon to keep her from drowning in life. Decision made, Khosa sits up in bed to tell the maidservants she will be spending the rest of the day in her rooms, and possibly many more days to come.

  And promptly vomits.

  * * *

  “You took your time coming to your Seer,” Madda says, as she opens her door for the queen. “I may not have told you what you wished to hear at our first meeting, but that does not mean there isn’t a good word or two here in my round room for you.”

  “Yes, I . . .” Khosa’s words slip away, her knees still weak from the vomiting spell that gripped her upon waking.

  “Have a seat, then,” Madda says, pulling a stool away from the table. “I’m too old to stand, and you’re too . . . ill.” She chooses the last word carefully, eyes roaming over Khosa’s face.

  Khosa nods her thanks as she sits, hands going to her cheeks to feel the sheen of perspiration there, though a cool breeze sifts through Madda’s tower. She wipes it away on her skirts, glad at least that her face can still keep a secret, and reminds herself that Madda has more ways of reading people than only their skin.

  “I wished to speak with you,” she sa
ys.

  “The first step being that you put yourself in front of me,” Madda answers.

  “Quite so,” Khosa says smoothly. “And my hands.”

  Madda leans forward, motioning for Khosa to put her palms faceup on the table. A small sigh escapes her as the Seer takes her hands, flesh to flesh, and Khosa’s already rolling stomach takes another turn as Madda’s thumb passes over the flat of her hand. Madda turns the queen’s palm in the sunlight, following a line that extends from her palm down onto her wrist.

  “You husband visits me often,” Madda says, glancing up at Khosa. “But rarely with a question. Even as a boy, Vincent knew the wisdom in letting things come to him rather than pursuing, and often the purpose of his visit would make itself known through the course of our words. But you . . .”

  She sets Khosa’s hand back onto the table and—to Khosa’s surprise—wipes her own clean as if to rid them of the queen’s touch.

  “You are a woman of purpose,” Madda finishes, eyes clinched tight against the rays of light that find their way into her dark room. “You seek out answers, even when they are writ in ink best left in shadows. So tell me, Given, why did you come here today?”

  “How many children shall I have?” Khosa blurts, hoping that words in her throat can take the place of the vomit wanting to fill it.

  Madda leans back in her chair, eyes calm. “Counting the one in your belly now?”

  Khosa swallows, holding the Seer’s gaze. “Yes.”

  “Three, if the lines you have now hold true,” Madda answers. “Though I think your real question is already answered, and came not from a royal to her Seer, but from a motherless girl to an older woman. Will you allow me a question of my own?”

  A cat jumps into Khosa’s lap, and she curls her hands around it, her fingers buried in the soft fur, the warmth of the animal soaking into her body a comfort. “Yes,” she says quietly.

  “Why come to me with it? It’s not the children of the next days that concern you, but the one in you now. I’m a childless old woman—”

  “You’re not,” Khosa interrupts, jerking in her chair and sending the cat into the rushes of nilflower.

  The Seer sits as still as stone, even the dust in the air around her seeming to be held in place before she speaks. “What is this you say to me? Would you strike my heart quiet, with these words?”

  “I found it in the histories, locked away,” Khosa reassures her. “No one knows.”

  “Except you,” Madda adds, nodding her understanding as a dark smile twists her mouth. “So the queen of Stille comes to me with knowledge I’d have remain secret, seeking confirmation of a child in her belly—a question best put to her husband’s mother. But you didn’t go to Dissa, did you, child?”

  “No,” Khosa says, eyes boring into the Seer. “I came to Vincent’s mother.”

  Madda is shocked into silence, her mouth open and tongue moving, but no words to be found. Khosa reaches into a pocket and offers a page of the histories, blank except for one line, the ink too dark to speak of any other Seer than Madda.

  The Seer has given birth to a male child, and claims the king as father.

  The Seer waves it away weakly. “I remember well enough. I do not need to see it written. It should never have been.”

  “Was his brother yours as well?” Khosa asks.

  “No.” The Seer shakes her head. “Purcell was Dissa’s, but the birth was a hard one and damaged her in ways no healer could see to. She knew Varrick took his pleasure with others and that Stille needed more than one heir during the long wait for the throne.”

  “That was wise,” Khosa says. “Her own child was lost early.”

  “Wise, perhaps, but giving Varrick permission to do as he would made him even bolder. I was not young, or pretty, but what brought him to me was what he desired most.” The Seer levels her gaze at Khosa, eyes more alive than the queen has ever seen them before.

  “I hated him,” she says. “He’d taken me once before by force, when he first married Dissa and came to my tower as the king. Varrick’s only claim to the throne was through his marriage to Dissa; he held no real power. So he looked to gain some the ways many men do—kill it or rape it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Khosa says, a tremor passing over her as she thinks of Cathon, long rotting.

  Madda glances around the room and calls for her cat with a low clicking noise. It jumps to her lap, kneading, and she returns the favor on its back.

  “He was a low man,” Madda goes on. “Most of his pleasure was found in pain, and when his wife told him to get another with child, he chose me, knowing that I would hate every moment and saddle his wife with the knowledge every time she came to me when once I had been a refuge for her.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Khosa says again, the words sorely short of all she holds inside of her as she watches Madda’s eyes glaze over, lost in a painful past.

  “So that’s how Vincent came to be,” Madda says, shrugging off the memories. “One good thing, in the end. When I knew I was with child, Dissa padded her waist along with mine, and the baby was brought to her the moment I delivered.”

  “And so you’ve watched him grow from afar,” Khosa says, hands going to her belly once again.

  “Not always easily, and not always with happiness. But I am a part of his life, yes.” Madda nods.

  Khosa runs a thumb along her still-flat waistline, knowing her own child could never be passed off as sired by another.

  “I can make it cease to be, you know.” Madda nods to the plants that hang above the table. “An easy path for the woman who should bear no children other than the king’s.”

  “Yes, but . . .” Khosa raises her eyes to Madda’s. “Vincent’s claim to the throne passed to him through Dissa. If she is not his mother, then . . .”

  Madda smiles a sad smile. “True, child. Vincent has no claim to be the king of Stille.”

  Khosa shakes, muscles giving way in a spasm that has nothing to do with the sea. “But if I tell him of the child . . .” She breaks off, tears running down her face.

  “Then the wife he loves and the friend he cares for have deceived him. Stille is all he will have left, and it does not belong to him. Truth does not always bring illumination, girl. Sometimes it lets loose the dark.”

  CHAPTER 60

  Donil

  I know the feel of an ax, the shudder of a tree beneath my blow. I also know the touch of a blade, my skin opening beneath it. I feel the same in equal measure as I toil in the forest, the woodland creatures fleeing at the sound of our work peering over their shoulders at me as they run, betrayed. I watch them go, knowing they are not the only ones I have wronged.

  Guilt weighs on me so heavily that it hurts more than my arms day after day, though I hoped hard labor might drive thoughts of both Vincent and Khosa away. It doesn’t, and the pain only serves to remind me that, whatever I suffer, surely my sister bears up under the same, much and more. The thought of Dara in pain makes me swing my ax more savagely, though it is a tree that falls beneath the blade and not a Pietran neck.

  Winlan and the Hygodeans work at my side, Pand and many of the children following along with hatchets, stripping away limbs with quick movements. Work may not ease my mind, but it does make the days pass quickly, and I rest as the sun makes its descent, the chilly air of evening settling on my sweaty skin.

  “Ah, there’s a nice one to look at,” Winlan says, pointing to Daisy as she moves among us, a dipper and bucket of water hanging from her elbow.

  “I’ll be sure to tell your wife you say so,” I snap at him. Khosa may have my heart, but I don’t like Daisy falling under another’s eyes, nevertheless.

  Winlan shrugs, his heavy shoulders moving against the bark of the tree we both rest against. “As long as you tell her my true words, I’ve nothing to worry about. I said the girl is a nice one to look at, nothing more. My wi
fe knows that I’ve got eyes in my head, but my hands will always only go to her.”

  “Apologies,” I mutter. I can hardly take Winlan to task over having eyes when my own are on Daisy as well. I spit, realizing I couldn’t have taken him to task for wandering outside of the marriage bed, either, if that had been his meaning.

  “Thank you, lass,” Winlan says, when Daisy comes our way, offering a full dipper. He takes his drink, then hands it back, his eyes not leaving her face. She refills it and passes it to me, her fingers brushing mine.

  “Haven’t seen you in a while, Donil,” she says pointedly, to which I nod toward the felled trees behind her.

  “Been busy.”

  “If you feel like doing something more entertaining with wood, you know where I am.” She tips me a wink as she leaves, and Winlan drives an elbow into my side as she walks away, which hurts more than I care to admit.

  “Is she your girl, then?”

  “Once,” I admit.

  “Erhmm . . . maybe twice?” he asks, as she looks back at me, swaying her hips suggestively.

  I clear my throat. “How many boats has Vincent called for?”

  Winlan rolls his eyes at my sudden—and obvious—redirection of the conversation, but answers regardless. “He asked for four, and if you don’t mind my saying so, I think your king is being generous with himself concerning how many Stilleans have been swayed by his argument for leaving land behind.”

  “How so?” I ask.

  “Lad,” Winlan clamps a hand onto my shoulder, “I could fit all of Hygoden on my own ship—and their goats.”

  “Agreed,” I nod. “But there are ten Stilleans for each one of you. Four ships wouldn’t carry even half of them.”

  “I know,” Winlan says solemnly. “And I doubt we’ll need that many.”

  * * *