Safe? The word leaped out at me and I frowned. Then again, was I surprised that a man who thought nothing of kidnapping a maiden from her home, changing her to suit his own desires, and forcing her to become his wife didn’t see a need to maintain a royal city that was safe for the women under his rule?
Tianzi jiao xia. At the very foot of his rule, so to speak, and I wondered if things were better in more far flung towns or worse.
Perhaps he was even the sort of ruler to insist upon the droit du seignur, the supposed deity given right of a lord to claim the virginity of any maiden under his control on her wedding night. Worse still, I could see him allowing those under him to claim the right for those he didn’t deem worthy of his interest.
I drew in a deep breath and held myself stiff, stilling the shudder that wanted to tremble through my bones. I had no reason to believe such terrible things were done.
No reason at all.
My stomach turned. No reason except my own treatment at his hands.
Then we were through the city gates and pounding down the packed dirt avenue, leaving the miasma of bitterness behind. Mostly.
I kept an eye on the scenery as it raced by, using my father’s training to keep in mind landmarks and the direction of the sun as we traveled.
The stifling atmosphere may have lessened out of the city, but my chest tightened the further we went. Earth was sad, air disgruntled, and water evasive. Fire, however, fire was eager.
“Are you cold, my darling?”
I shook my head against his chest. “No. I am enjoying the air. I’ve never quite smelled anything quite like this before.”
“It’s the smell of death. Leaves rotting and farmers burning the last of what is in the fields. Delicious, isn’t it?”
I arched a brow, unable to resist since I knew he couldn’t see. Trust him to turn everything to death. He was right, however. Death was in the air. An unnatural decay.
Water and air told me that for all the other lies he told me, he was at least honest about our distance from the sea. There was no hint at all of the ocean, no salt in the air that I could taste, no scent, nothing that I could cling to.
Water reassured me, whispering tenderly in my ear. Tomorrow, water soothed. Tomorrow, the men would arrive and he would see for himself what it meant to enrage a princess of dragonry.
“All this you see and more is mine.” His voice was redolent with smug triumph and I felt his gaze upon me, knowing what he saw and claimed as his.”
I smiled at him. Not for very much longer. Tomorrow, water sang. Another tomorrow for hope to unfurl.
“Your land is very lovely,” I said. It would be more beautiful still under a better ruler. The thought startled me. A wave of numbness swept over my cheekbones and brow and all the fine hairs on my nape rose. There was power in that thought. Power I would be foolish to ignore.
“A beautiful land with a beautiful queen.” He turned the horse, “We should return now.”
What could I do but nod? There was no more to be gained from staying out further, and I didn’t trust him not to lose his affability if I protested.
Soon, soon, water said.
And in the back of my mind, Xin raged.
He left me on the bed, near tears and almost blind with pain. I had to play the pretty and thank him for the ride, that too brief glimpse of the world.
He’d requested, a small smile on his lips, for me to walk from the bed to join him on the lounging chaise. From the chaise to the dining table he placed deliberately as far away as possible. From the garderobe back to the bed. His eyes carefully noted every wince, every flinch, every small gasp of pain. I didn’t hide the pain, knowing that every single grimace not only excited him, but lowered his guard.
There were some terrible moments when I thought he was going to force himself on me, but then his groping hand encountered smooth flesh between my legs and he flung himself away with rabid curses.
He left, finally, threatening words about carving out the chalice between my legs hanging in the air behind him like storm clouds.
What could I do but sing? I poured my soul into song for melody to hold safe. Soothing myself. Smoothing out the snarls. Resonating my body to the tune of the world.
Along with clarity came new questions.
What was Fate weaving? Why me? Why this king and why now? Why here?
I’d drifted, not thinking much beyond my rage and need for revenge and I was abashed. I was a daughter of the West Sea, an immortal in my own right. I should have known better. Fate sometimes eddied around us celestial immortals, inviting us to enter the world, to change it with our presence. Unlike the mortals, she couldn’t shove us into place, but she could nudge. This was a moon-loved spring tide of a nudge, however.
If I chose to believe that everything happened for a reason, then I had to start thinking about the reasons why.
A small bubble traveled down the connection. Reassurance. Worry. And so much love.
Love was where it all started. Or so I thought. What if it was merely one of the gods’ tools?
Unable to answer, I sank deeper into melody and the tender clasp of the sea.
Shivers and daybreak. Aches and starshatter. Quivers of fine hair rising against the press of reality.
What is truth what is real what is intent and what is a heart lightly given over into another’s hands?
Trust and worth and pain and grief and the gentle lapping of the sea that never faded even in the deepest depths of the dark. Who was I, to be ruled by past pain? Who was he to attempt to chart my course for me? Who was my King-father and queenmother to decide for me what was true and right and good?
We were form shifters, after all, sleek and dark and lovely. Fluidity in one aspect, rigidity in another? Dragon scales and shining pearls. Woken kelp and knitted shells. They say Fate wove a tangled skein, but was it their doing or ours?
Love begin it all and love would end it all. Or not.
Would love end it, or would it still end with love?
A choice to be made. A choice to be made. But in what? In love in fear in chagrin in revenge for actions past?
What was right and what was good and what was true?
Would I be able to stand by what I chose?
I thought the journey towards adulthood would be one I chose to embark upon. Eager or not. Prepared or not.
But it had snuck upon me and I had to make a choice.
Xin.
Melody knew him. The sea had held him as it did me. I would have to make the choice without knowing what he thought, not truly. I would have to make the choice for all the others I could hear, could see, could feel trembling in the scales of Fate raised against the night sky, silhouetted against the cold sharp light of the moon.
It was unfair to think of them, to consider that I could perhaps make a choice for them, even with all the best of intentions upon their behalf. But if this was the journey given to me, I would walk it as befit a princess of the West Seas.
Xin. I allowed myself to remember. Playing with the octopi in the shining caves, lined with treasures lost from a thousand ships.
Hiding and seeking amidst the gently swaying dark of the kelp forest.
Weaving in and out of the coral reefs, fluttering our hands against the tiny ones to see them bloom and tremble or shiver and hide in our wake.
How much worth a memory? How much worth love? How much more worth honor and duty?
Could I be happy upon land? Could I remain steadfast in the face of loss?
Sometimes the gods relented, eventually. The journey was never meant to be the end.
To think of the man was to summon his thoughts fully into me. Knowing reverberated through melody, chiming deep in my bones.
Xin’s thoughts flooded into me, a drowntide of anxious nights and broken days, shattered further by creeping dread.
Regret and chagrin and rising certainty of heart’s death tempered by faith.
Faith in Eldest.
Faith born
of blood-stained seas, shark skin scraping across bone, and marrow-deep knowledge of his own ability to bend mortality just enough.
Faith. Faith in Fate. Faith that the seas would somehow protect me as they had protected him.
Pain spilled from him, shivered between us, drew his muscles taut and brittle, sapped the blood from his spirit.
Broken days, fractured further with knowledge, barnacle-sharp and jagged.
Nights sung to sleep by Eldest, lulled by his pain and grief and undeserved guilt. Lulled by the other man’s rage, knowing his back was covered, knowing here was another life ready to lay itself down to bridge the distance.
Sound screamed, scent roared, and endless dust dried a throat sore with apprehension.
I pulled back, grateful in my ability to do so, pushing aside the guilt that I could when Xin suffered under the weight. I thought I understood how land-dwellers drowned. Excess. So much excess as to drive a person mad. How much worse or how much easier the physical excess? I could, just barely, think around the crashing thunder of his heart.
To love was to bind. He knew this before I did.
A choice for them, a choice for him, and a choice for myself.
A choice, despite the inevitable gravity of it all.
My reprieve ended somewhat earlier and later than I thought. The king wasn’t a patient man, I’d known it, but I’d somehow convinced myself that he would at least have some reservations around magic.
No. He clearly wasn’t that clever.
“It has been three days. Three full days when she promised me a bride upon the fishing of you from the sea. I have ordered the witch to attend to you.” His eyes flickered, “I will be otherwise occupied with state business, but I will witness her efforts tonight. If she has not delivered, she will know my displeasure.”
I didn’t bother to remind him that he had mentioned granting her a full week to work her magic.
“Please, no.” I caught his sleeve, a last-tentacled grasp at a fleeing change, “Please, no, for my sake.”
My sake? What sake? I disdained the words I forced from my lips even as I gave voice to them, but it was necessary. Eldest was close, Xin even closer. Most of their men were in place. All I needed was time.
Time enough for the unknown witch serving as a handmaiden of Fate to release me so I could fight on my own behalf. She bound me. Now she had to unbind me. She must.
Something passed through his eyes, twisted his lips. “Perhaps I will give her a reprieve. For your sake, my darling. But even you cannot persuade me to continue to be patient forever.”
“Until the wedding. Please. I cannot bear to have our love tainted by violence. Did you not mention there are preparations yet to be done?”
Something about a silken gown, of jewels to complement my fine eyes, flowers to adorn my long hair, and a feast so that all knew the bounty of his kingdom. In my estimation, it was so all knew to envy the riches he held.
Crass and back-breaking for his people, but it served my purposes for the nonce. Anything to delay the rising cruelty in his gaze.
The king smiled, a cold thing that didn’t reach his eyes. “Until the wedding then, my lovely. The serving women will fit you tonight and we will be wed upon the new moon. A new moon, for new beginnings.”
For new beginnings, or did he believe witches were bound by the moon’s sleep? My people married by the full moon, the vows made upon the name of the goddess, concluding with pleas for blessings of love without end, flawless as the circle our promises centered upon. Stories brought from the above told of wrists bound and names tied under the harvest moon, of fullest light falling upon a new union and I’d always felt a certain peace in knowing our peoples were not so dissimilar.
Yet here he was, with another arrow in the eye of tradition. True, the budding moon was for building wishes and establishing prayers, but that was after the moon started its slow wink.
I breathed out a sigh of relief when the door shut behind him, sliding from the chair and folding in a boneless heap upon the floor.
The wedding would be in three days then. The waning moon tugged on me, sang to my blood, and I closed my eyes against despair, fisting my hands against the urge to scream my terror to the walls. The always listening walls now. Kateri had not appeared that morning. In her stead, two new guards stood at the door instead of the one, and a maid bustled through every so often. Ostensibly to freshen my water and see to my needs, but her eyes were dull with fear and flat with the need to save herself at any cost. The thought of the maid coming in to find me on the floor stung like a shuimu’s kiss and I dragged myself back up the chair, putting as little pressure on my feet as possible, and folded my hands in my lap, plastering a smile on my lips.
It would be all right. Even if I had to be rescued, it would be all right. I would take solace in wetting my feet in his blood if I could not be the one to kill him myself.
~~*~~*~~
A knock came at the door, then it swung open, admitting a hooded figure. This must be the witch the king had mentioned, but it was rare that a land dweller female would be quite that tall. Even under the cloak I could tell that the witch had a lean, lithe figure and moved with an athletic grace I didn’t expect.
Was this the witch that Kateri mentioned? The one Xin had called old?
Then something in the air whispered to my heart, the sudden rush of waves in my ears pushing everything out. The brown cloak was embroidered with leaves and vines, the deep hood obscuring everything but the very tip of their chin. An oddly familiar chin.
I didn’t move, couldn’t, hobbled by hope and left boneless by relief.
The door closed, leaving us alone in the room. Fine-boned hands reached out of the folds of the cloak, pushed back the hood and I stared at the face revealed, my hands coming up to cover my mouth.
“Elle.” He breathed out my name, a tender caress I feared I’d never hear again.
Tears stung my eyes, blurring my vision with nacre and I fought to keep them in check, unwilling to let a single one fall.
Warm hands cupped my face and silken lips brushed my eyelids, kissing away my tears, swallowing the unformed pearls so there would be no trace to betray me.
I turned my face into his hand, relief washing over me like the tide. “Xin. You’ve come.”
His hand tensed, sliding down to grasp my chin and tilt my face to his. “Your voice. What has he done to you?”
My hand slid to my neck, where the hated necklace rested, but I didn’t dare touch it. It was pain to touch it with my hands, even the slightest brush of a fingertip felt as if someone was shredding my throat with blunt knives. “The necklace.”
Xin’s eyes hardened, deep green icing over with frost. “The witch told me, but nothing could have prepared me for this.” He stroked my throat gently. “I will kill him for this. Slowly and with great pleasure.”
“I thought you understood: he is mine.” Rage sharpened my tone, almost giving me enough to speak at a normal volume.
I would have my revenge. I had dreamed about it for too long to let someone else have it. Even if that someone else held my heart and soul within his hands.
He stared at me for long seconds, rage battling with reason.
“He did this to me. I will be the one to kill him.” I insisted, pinning his gaze with mine. I wasn’t going to relent until he gave me his promise he wouldn’t deprive me of my vengeance.
“Could we perhaps discuss how we are to slay the king rather than who is to wield the knife?”
I jolted at the sound, glancing around to see who was speaking, but there was no one. No one visible, that was, as the drift of water Xin carried around him spoke of another presence.
Xin sighed. “Show yourself, witch.”
A slender form stepped out of the shadows in the darkest corner of the room. “Tsk tsk. Is this how they teach manners nowadays? You can call me Ai, or Ai-zi, if you please.”
She walked up to me, amber eyes measuring, lips curved in a small smile.
>
I blinked. “What are you doing here?”
She threw her hands open, “To save you, of course. What else?”
I shook my head. “No. What is someone of our descent doing here? No wonder they call you a witch. It can’t be safe for you.”
She was clearly from one of the lands over the seas. Her hair was so black it gleamed blue in the candlelight, her eyes tip tilted like those of a phoenix, her skin the tint of finest ivory, and the rest of her features were equally out of place in this land of angular, sharp-featured people with hair no darker than the lustrous dark brown of the sea lion and skin pale as wave caps.
Ai was also clearly magical. Otherness pulsed from her as blood from an open wound. That, more than her achingly familiar features, made me wonder what her story was.
Her face softened, knowing amber eyes gentling as her smile deepened. “I am here because there is a need for me.”
She indicated the necklace. “May I?”
She didn’t wait for a response, simply set her small hands upon the necklace and broke it with one decisive yank.
Power shimmered through the air, reverberated through my bones, and then dissipated with a pop.
I blinked. “That was much easier than expected.”
“It ought to be. I made it, after all.”
Xin’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
She flapped her hand at him, as if to shoo away an irritating pest. “Go guard the door. I need to speak with your princess.”
His mouth tightened, a muscle at the corner of his jaw jumping. Shattered shell fragments and bitter-sour fear shivered down the bond.
I placed a hand over his, reaching up with my other to turn his face toward me. “Please, Xin. She seems to mean no harm.” My voice flowed out between us, rich and full as before and I swallowed my shudder of relief.
Xin opened his mouth as if to retort, shut it, brushed a shaking hand over my cheek, and stalked toward the door.
Ai nodded. “Thank you.” She sat on thin air, clasping her hands in front of her. “I wish to make you a proposition.”
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