Given to the Earth

by Mindy McGinnis

  “Because she trusts you,” I say, resting my hand on her curls. “Thank you, Unda.”

  She colors a little at my touch, then bounds off into the distance to gather her hatchet and strip the remaining timbers that lie by the edge of the shore. I glance around, then open the note.

  Donil—Library

  I feel a flush at the two words and quickly crush the note in my hand, letting it leave my fist in a breath of wind to be taken out to sea. That room is the only place inside the castle walls where we allowed ourselves any measure of freedom with each other, and I feel both a powerful lust for Khosa and the deep pull of loyalty for Vincent at her asking me to meet her there again.

  Still, I know which one will prove stronger.

  I wait until others are busy with their food, children come to pester their fathers in a few stolen moments. Then I make my way to the castle, raising my hand in greeting to those I meet upon the way. I have worked hard for each smile I get in return; an Indiri in Stille has never had the easiest path. But of late the smiles have come easier. Dara and I fighting the Feneen for our adopted city and standing on the beach to face down the Pietran army has earned me a place among them. Those smiles would turn to sneers, the hands that slap me on the shoulder would hold daggers if they knew I go to bed their queen.

  And I do not go slowly.

  My pace quickens once I’m in the halls, and I pull open the library door—unguarded, I note—to find Khosa alone, arms crossed, pacing. All thoughts of pleasure leave when I see the tears on her face, how she turns from me in shame when I go to her, yet leans into my strength when I open my arms. Her head rests on my chest, our bodies pressed tightly together. And I feel a flicker of life from her that has not been there before.

  “Khosa,” I say, pushing her to arm’s length as I run my eyes over her. “You are . . .”

  I cannot finish, my heart in my mouth as her eyes meet mine, the happiness there bright enough to burn away the tears. She nods, and I sweep her up in my arms, all decorum lost, a cry of pure joy escaping my throat as I think of this woman I love harboring the revival of my race. It is short-lived, for when her feet are on the ground again, I remember she is queen, and I am not king.

  “What will we do?” I ask, pressing her forehead to mine.

  “I will have your child, Donil,” she answers, curling her hands into my hair. “Beyond that, I do not know.”

  “Beyond that is of no matter,” I say, wrapping my arms around her and resting my chin on her hair. “I have made you a boat, Khosa, and it is for the living.”

  “You will come with us?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I say, my hands sliding down to rest on her belly. “I will go with you both.”

  CHAPTER 64

  Ank

  The Mason reacts much as I had expected: with anger.

  “I’ll not see them sail, not while I have blood in me,” Hadduk yells, his voice thick with emotion. “Is this what you would have done, my Lithos? Let the enemies of Pietra go beyond where a spear can be thrown?”

  “It’s only a suggestion, Hadduk,” Witt says, one hand to his Mason, palm outward, begging for calm.

  “To the depths with the Feneen and his suggestions,” Hadduk says, slamming the table hard enough to make Nilana jump beside him. “He says the Indiri must not be harmed and that we should let the Stilleans go. Who did you ally with, truly?” He turns on me, dark eyes burning. I sigh, looking to Nilana and Witt, but cooler heads cannot prevail when they both hang low, heavy with care.

  “I am allied with Pietra,” I say, for the first time fervently wishing it were not so. “And the advice I give is for your benefit. I know you wish to see the Indiri dead, but if what passed in the dungeons the other night did not convince you this is folly, I do not know what will. Depths, man, you were nearly brained by the ceiling, and yet you persist!”

  “My Lithos—” Hadduk would say more, but emotion has the best of him, his throat closing beneath it.

  “I hear, Mason,” Witt says, a decision in his voice.

  I felt the despair inside him the other night, swimming in wine, but floating above was heat and purpose, grown stronger since our last exchange. I know Hadduk must be appeased and what the Lithos is willing to sacrifice to do so, and what he is not.

  “Burn their ships,” he says to me.

  * * *

  I go alone, as before. The movement of many would attract attention and turn suspicious heads, and there are few among the Feneen who can pass as anything other than what they are. My silhouette has only as many heads, arms, and legs as any Stillean, and while my face may be known there, I intend to keep it in the dark. Witt suffers no argument, giving me a sharp blade and a fast horse. He would see their escape cut off and all of Stille fall, if Hadduk insists, to keep the Indiri alive.

  The ground shakes only because of the hooves of my mount, and I cover the distance in three suns, there to fire the ships before I have quite convinced myself it is the right thing to do. To not act as the Lithos has instructed would mark me traitor, and my people guilty by association with me. I have no great power in strength or beauty, but only the quickness of my mind and might of my given word. If I betray my pledge to the Pietra, I become as low as Varrick, Stille’s former king, who gave no promise he did not break, and kept faith with no one. I will not cast myself in the same mold as someone I despise. I leave the horse tethered in the forest’s evening light and make my way on foot to the nearest tunnel entrance, descending once more into that tangle of death and decay.

  And if I am to do it, I have not yet decided how it is to be done. Fire draws eyes, something I have noticed over my many years, whether it be a campfire or a stone flue. Fellow Feneen, Indiri, Pietra, and Stilleans, all are entranced by flame. I think the sconcelighters know this too, for I have seen the girls and women who work in the dark halls of the castle, bringing light. They have plain faces, and few would be called pretty, yet none ever lack companionship, lovestruck men (and the occasional woman) trailing behind them.

  I watch one such girl at work now, the planes of her unremarkable face set alight by the fire she carries, leaving warmth behind her and spreading light as she goes. Fallen victim to that which I contemplate, I spend too long observing her, the shadows I would use to move freely banished as she works. Cursing myself for an old fool, I have to rely on my ears—still sharp—and my eyes, with their best days behind them.

  Madda’s tower remains unlit, as the Seer has little need to see the steps she does not use. I make my way to her rounded stairs with care, tapping out our knock on her door. There is a flutter of movement inside at my unlooked-for arrival, and then she pulls it open, the hinges protesting. My mother has aged since I saw her last, lines that were only traceable now furrows, worry taking up a residence in her brow and weighing heavily over her eyes.

  Always I have felt that I came to her for comfort, though my adulthood was reached long ago and my childhood a distant memory. Yet now it is she who comes to me, folded into my arms before I have even crossed the threshold.

  “All is undone,” she whispers into my clothes. “The past is made clear to others as the future is to me.”

  “Nonsense,” I say to her, pulling the door closed behind me. I squeeze the word past the lump in my throat, the panic in my chest. Never have I seen her in despair; always I have been the one to bring fear to her round table and have it assuaged. We sit, I helping her to a chair with exaggerated care.

  “What has happened?” I ask.

  “I ask the same,” she says, waving away my question as guile surfaces even in her depths. “A mother should rejoice to see her son, yet I fear nothing good has brought you to my door.”

  “The ships must burn to spare the Indiri,” I tell her. “The Lithos’s grip on his people weakens if he does not move with strength, for it is all they respect. He allowed many shepherds of Hyllen to live, saw his army bru
talized by the Stillean sea, and now shelters an Indiri by his own hand. He must strike now to retain his place, for should he lose it, then there is none to speak for Dara, and she would join the dirt with her ancestors in Dunkai before the sun set on his last day as Lithos.”

  “You stand by your claim that the Lithos is a good man?”

  “I do.” I nod. “But he is only a ruler, and the people he reigns over have been made hard over time, the man who sits at his stoneward the most unbending of all. To retain his position—and he must if my people are to find any fairness in this life—the Lithos must acquiesce in the matter of the ships.”

  “And you are here to see it done,” Madda concludes. “Is this fairness, that a mother must watch a son thwart his homeland?”

  “Is this fairness, that I must burn ships that my mother could escape upon, in order to save the people who raised me?” I shoot back, anger edging my voice. It is an old wound, deep in my body. Though I call her Mother, I know too well that Madda gave me up.

  Madda turns her back to me, my bitterness blending with hers in the air between us. “No,” she says quietly, hunched shoulders tight with grief. “People find little that is fair in life, be they raised in a castle or a cave. I’ve brought two sons into the world, given one to each, and raised neither as my own.”

  I watch her carefully, the truth of her despair having leaked from her mouth. She turns to me, eyes so bright that I have to shade my own against them, sinking into a chair.

  “Who knows?” I ask, mind already spinning the complexities, should Vincent’s parentage be discovered.

  “Only the Given, may she go to the depths,” Madda spits. “I have no care for her.”

  “Because she is as crafty as you,” I say. “And it is hard to see the young relishing gifts going cold in old minds.”

  “Mmmphh.” Madda has no argument, only pulls her shawl closer over her shoulders.

  “There is no guile in her,” I assure my mother. “The Given will not use this knowledge for harm.”

  “Harm is done by her knowing it,” the Seer insists. “And an old woman finds her evenings darker than they should be.”

  “Then let your son light the shores for you,” I say, rising. “I wanted only to warn you of my duty, that you may not be frightened when flames rise.”

  “It is not the fire you set that scares me, son,” Madda says, voice suddenly gentle. “Your brother’s fingers will strike another.”

  She rises, reaching to place a hand on my head. “Walk carefully, Ank, my son,” she says. I hold her to me once more, feeling the frailty of the bones beneath her skin, like an oderbird cracked too early from her egg, or lying for the last nights in her nest.

  * * *

  The sconcelighter whose progress I had watched earlier with an admiring eye left a hall lined with weapons behind her. I take a torch from the wall with a silent apology that her good work shall be used for ill means. With a light in my hands, I cannot pass in shadow and so instead go boldly, for a man who walks with his head up and a clear eye is rarely interfered with. I pass a dairymaid, a pretty thing who tosses me an odd look, which I settle with a smile and a bid for a good evening.

  Still, I feel her eyes upon me as I turn the corner, and quicken my steps.

  The boats rise above me on the shore, two of them skeletons only, the third nearly finished. Out to sea I hear the sails of another snapping, but it is far beyond my reach. My eyes pass over the unfinished work, and I think again of an oderbird come too early, small bones unprotected, eyes unseeing. I cannot bring myself to burn what has not yet become, and so I leave the unfinished ships alone, casting the sconcelighter’s torch high above my head and onto the deck of the nearly finished ship.

  A rope catches first, and the fire travels up it almost tentatively until it becomes a vein of flame, which reaches a sail. That catches with a whoosh that is both beautiful and horrific. Heat dances above me, small flecks of fire falling toward my face through the night. The beauty has held me too long; I can hear voices in the distance, and scattered, panicked calls.

  I run not away from them, but toward, my hands in the air, calling for help, screaming that the boats are on fire. I grab the first soldier I see by the shoulders and tell him to fetch buckets. I send another to wake the sleeping castle guard, pushing my appearance of innocence nearly so far that I am hindering my goal. Once inside the walls I find a shadowy corner to slouch in as the would-be heroes run past, others running back inside, smelling deeply of smoke.

  Corner from corner, corridor to corridor, I make my way slowly until I am in the tunnels, all hint of heat lost in the dank and the dark. I move more quickly now that I am unseen, hoping that my horse has not smelled char on the wind and panicked. He is as I left him, but alert, ears pricked toward the city walls and the glow that has risen beyond. Any traitorous hope I had of the fire not catching is lost when I see billows of ash, thick as clouds, rising above the city.

  I ride into the dark, hoping the wind will clean my clothes of the smoke that has taken the place of my mother’s nilflower.

  CHAPTER 65

  Vincent

  The first cries reach Vincent as he settles in for a meeting with Sallin to learn of progress with the ships and to inform Sallin of the state of the army. Panicked voices carry a tone that needs no clarity, and they both rush to the hall to stop the first person they see, a sconcelighter, color high in her cheeks.

  “What’s happening?” Vincent demands.

  “The ships, my king! They’re afire!”

  “Fire! Depths . . .” Sallin grabs Vincent’s elbow, in full command of the situation. “Go to the kitchens. Get anything that can hold water.”

  The king goes, shouting at everyone he passes to follow. There’s a trail of sconcelighters, dairymaids, message boys, bleary-eyed servants in their sleepshirts, and guards in full armor behind him when he reaches the kitchens. Daisy is there, already turning cupboards inside out, tossing jars, bowls, mugs, and buckets into outstretched hands. She gives him a pitcher, one that would normally rest on his nightstand to see him through a dry evening.

  “I’m sorry I don’t have anything more—”

  Vincent doesn’t hear the rest of her apology, racing for the beach and what has already become a conflagaration. His people—Stilleans—stand in the sea up to their knees, filling whatever they have in their hands and running to extinguish the burning ship. He does the same, meeting a wall of heat before he’s close to the flaming boards, and the water he throws turns to steam before it has the chance to land.

  Winlan joins him, adding Hygodean faces to those that rush past in a futile effort to bring the sea to land, something that would have only spelled terror for Stilleans before. The air Vincent pulls into his lungs is thick with smoke, and he gasps for breath on his third trip to the sea, saltwater running down his arms as he ducks his pitcher below the tide.

  “Vincent!” Donil’s voice carries, even over the tumult, but Vincent ignores his friend’s call and rushes back toward the ship, though he knows all is lost. Each board is alive with light, the decks Donil and others have built with steady hands now visible as they crumble one into the next. A hand grabs his arm, dragging him back. Vincent loses the pitcher and it breaks, shards of glass and seawater spilling over his boots. Donil knocks Vincent onto the ground, and hands are suddenly all over him, tearing his clothes, dumping water over him, throwing sand in his hair.

  “You’re on fire!” Donil screams as Vincent swings at his attackers indiscriminately. Pain has found him, a searing scream that tears through his skin and melts his insides like candle wax. He lands a blow on a guard and is shocked to see that his fist leaves a trail of smoke behind it; his sleeve is alight with flame.

  He’s pinned suddenly, Donil above him, Hygodeans and Stilleans alike pouring water and sand upon his body. They mix together, bringing a third element of ash. It flows down his face and
into his mouth; sea and sand and smoke flow into his throat until he fights it, drawing a deep breath and spewing it all back into the faces of his rescuers.

  “I’m all right,” he croaks, though he feels his lips blistering even as he speaks.

  Donil reaches for his hands and pulls him to his feet, smoke still rising from his clothes.

  “I’m all right,” he says again, and Donil yanks him into an embrace, the impact of his affection sending a cough from his strained lungs.

  “You weren’t, brother,” Donil says, pushing Vincent back again to arms’ length as if to confirm he truly stands. One critical eye passes over his friend and a smile quirks his face. “You’ve lost your eyebrows.”

  “Good thing I don’t have a beard,” Vincent says.

  “Not that you could grow one,” Donil shoots back, and they lean into each other, laughing as they cry and the fate of both their peoples burns.

  * * *

  One ship is lost. Of the two that were merely outlines of what they would become, one has taken enough damage that Winlan declares it a waste of time and timber to continue the effort. It is left to stand and rot, though Vincent doubts the Stilleans who walk today will live to see the sight.

  “The other can be saved,” the Hygodean shipwright says, but his voice carries little of what the king would term hope.

  “There is time to finish it,” Vincent assures him. “With three crews working, it will go quickly.” Winlan nods, unwilling to argue, but Vincent knows what words he would say even if he does not voice them.