Reign the Earth

by A. C. Gaughen

  A moment later the world seemed to calm, and the guests all looked at one another, murmuring about what had caused the tremor. My husband took my hand again.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  I shook my head, mute. I had no idea.

  He looked past me to Cael. “Is the bridge still stable?” he asked, shouting over the water’s roar.

  “Mountains break and move,” Cael said. “Jitra is eternal.”

  My husband’s eyebrows lifted, looking at me. I opened my mouth to start speaking the words, but he spoke before I did.

  “Come,” he repeated. “Meet your husband.”

  He pulled me along the bridge as my heart stopped. Meet him? Hadn’t I just …

  But no. It couldn’t be.

  The one with the broken nose brought me to the apex of the Teorainn and easily stepped around his brother. Behind him, as Cael did for me. His brother’s witness, and not my husband.

  I couldn’t help but shake. They had done it all wrong—it was my husband who was supposed to remove the covering, who was supposed to have that magic moment of unveiling. No one else. Not a brother. Not a charlatan!

  How could he have not known this error? My mother had schooled me for weeks on every moment of what would happen at this ceremony—had no one told the same things to him?

  My true husband really was the handsome one I had first seen, first wished for, his green eyes bright and captivating, staring at me like he was waiting for something.

  He squeezed my hand, and I realized I was supposed to speak. “We’ve come to the ends of the earth so that we may journey back together,” I said, so soft it was little more than a whisper. “Here I leave the maiden, the daughter, the child. Here I become a wife, one part with my husband.”

  I saw his lips move, saying a version of the same, but I couldn’t hear him over the river water and the violent rush of blood in my ears. Wrong. It was all wrong.

  I turned to Cael, and he handed me the bunch of flowers in his hand. I tore off the heads, filling my hands with multilayered blooms, and turned back to my husband. Husband.

  My husband held out his hand, and I put some of the blooms into it. He looked at me, and we spoke the final words together, words my cousins made me practice late into the night until I knew them by heart.

  “Today we release our former selves like flowers unto the wind. Today we become one.”

  I opened my hand and he did the same, letting the flower petals drop a little before they caught the wind and swirled up, a few coming back toward us and the rest flying out into the air.

  Then his hands were on my waist and he pulled me closer. I turned back to him and sucked in a gasp. He paused for a moment, and his warm breath ran over my lips before he pressed forward, kissing me. His lips were dry, and I stood still, wondering if I was meant to do something else. He let me go all at once, and despite Cael’s words earlier, I did feel alone.

  No one in my family told the Tri King that his brother had made a grave blunder, but it was all I could think of. We were taken to the great hall of Jitra, and the raucous celebration that usually followed a wedding was delayed as my father and husband sat at a long table, and the families were introduced. My father shook hands with my husband’s brother, and he bowed his head respectfully, saying his name—“Galen.” Galen straightened and swept his arm behind his sister, saying her name—“Danae.” They stood stiffly as all my siblings save Rian were introduced to them, and my husband watched, his chin raised, staring at them coolly.

  Then the families parted like water, the desert to one side, the Trifectate to the other.

  “My siblings and I are the Three-Faced God incarnate, the Holy Rulers of the Bone Lands and the vastness of the Trifectate, and we have taken your daughter as one of our own,” my husband said. He looked at me, standing with my siblings behind the table, and his eyes held mine for a moment in a way that made me smile and stand straighter. I had done it—I had said the words, and this was my reward. Peace. “And I will care for her as family should. And in so doing, I pledge to lay down my arms and leave the desert unmolested.”

  “We promise to do the same,” my father said. “We will keep our borders and leave the Bone Lands free from any retaliation from our people, and we will welcome the Bone Lands into the desert. We will be at peace.”

  “Peace,” my husband echoed, and he raised his cup to me as documents were brought forth. They drank from a shared cup and signed the papers, and then my husband quit the table, coming to me. Great feast tables were brought out, the remnants of the treaty signing removed, and music played. His hands slipped over my waist and everything else was forgotten, my heart stuttering with nerves. “Come with me?” he asked.

  I smiled brightly at him and nodded.

  The sky was dark and had taken all the heat of the day with it, and as soon as we stepped outside, I shivered.

  “You’re cold,” he realized. “Take my jacket.” He started unbuttoning what I’d thought was a shirt. It never occurred to me in all the time I’d seen Trifectate men that they might have more clothes under the black. He put it around my shoulders, and it was warm from his body.

  “You must have been so warm today,” I said, pulling it around me.

  He shrugged. “I’m certainly not used to desert heat.” He tugged the jacket straighter on me, then let his hands settle on my waist. It was the closest I’d ever been to a boy not my brother. I knew I was staring at him. He was … beautiful. He had a wide jaw, a sharp, short nose, and black hair that fell rakishly over his forehead.

  His handsome face almost made up for his brother removing the veil. Almost.

  I reached up and smoothed his hair back, and he smiled. His thumbs stroked my waist, but it felt oddly ticklish.

  “Are you pleased by this match?” he asked. “By our marriage?”

  “Of course,” I said quickly.

  “Are you pleased by me?”

  I met his eyes. They were direct, forceful, like staring into the sun. “I think so,” I said.

  He nodded. “Your happiness is important to me.”

  “It is?”

  His hand touched my cheek, stroking it gently and nudging my chin down. His thumb touched my lower lip, and then his mouth followed it. I waited, patiently, to feel the things my cousins spoke of—heat, and electricity such as a summer storm had never seen.

  But they never came.

  But they would. He was handsome, and we were married now—it was simply a matter of getting used to each other.

  He pulled back. “I am yours,” he said. “Entirely.”

  I smiled at him because I knew this was supposed to please me, but I wasn’t even sure what that meant. I was devoted and committed to this marriage, and him, and the cause they both represented, but was that the same thing as being his? I didn’t know.

  “Do you know what’s strange?” he asked, touching my cheek again. “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Shalia,” I said, stunned. He had never asked? Never once, in all of this?

  But then, I hadn’t asked for his name either. This marriage had never been about us.

  “And I’m Calix,” he told me. He smiled. “I’m sorry to have kissed you without knowing your name, Shalia.”

  It sounded … silly. This whole thing was silly. I smiled at him, putting my hand on his chest carefully, wondering what it would take to lay claim to the heart beneath my palm. “The past doesn’t matter,” I assured him. “Our future together does.”

  He nodded, kissing me again, and I pressed my mouth against his, wondering if I was supposed to push harder to feel something. Or maybe this was just what kissing felt like, and my cousins simply exaggerated?

  He broke off, smiling. “We will have a grand future together, wife.”

  “Come!” Kairos said, striding to me with a wild grin on his face, his shoulder missing a hawk. “Shy, bring your husband for a dance!” he ordered. “And, Your Highness, please convince your sister to dance with me!�
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  I looked around him to see Danae slipping away into the crowd.

  “Calix?” I asked hesitantly.

  “I’d be honored,” he said, smiling.

  I drew him into the crowd of dancers, and I let go of his hand to hold up fistfuls of my robes. The dances of my people were fast, complex, and intoxicating, stomping and jumping, twisting to brush against the person you were dancing with. We barely entered the crowd when I was overcome with cousins and brothers and even my sweet little Catryn, swinging me around and laughing, pulling me away from my husband.

  I saw a flash of silver-blond hair, and I turned away from Aiden, finding it again and going toward it. Kata’s hood had only fallen for a moment, but I saw her face in the crowd and pushed my way toward her.

  By the time I got to where I’d seen her, she was gone. I looked through the crush of people, but I couldn’t see her.

  My husband came to my side, catching my arm. “Who was that?” he asked.

  “Who?” I asked.

  He squeezed my arm. “I saw someone. A girl who looked like an islander. You were walking toward her.”

  I pulled my arm away from him. “There are no islanders,” I said sharply. Too sharply, perhaps, but his father had eradicated Kata’s people.

  His eyes cut to mine. He drew a deep breath, and the edge in his eyes faded. “Forgive me,” he said. “It must have been the light. Would you care for a drink?”

  I tried to force myself to smile, but it felt like a flicker of fire over my face, barely there and gone again. “Yes. Come; we’ll drink together.”

  He nodded.

  When I took him to the tables of wine, I saw his brother at the tables ahead of us. Smiling, I opened my mouth to call to him, but his eyes flicked over both of us with quick efficiency, and he turned away.

  “So this isn’t made from grapes?” my husband asked.

  Shaking my head to try to forget his brother’s slight, I told him about the ilayi wine and cactus wine from the desert plants and offered him a glass of each to drink. Rather than sip as I expected, he upended each, much to the encouragement of the other men drinking.

  I smiled and laughed, and he put the cup down, smiling back. “Your people are easy to impress,” he said to me, looking at the other men raising their glasses to him.

  That stung a little, but I ignored it—surely he meant it as a compliment, and even if he didn’t, all the resentment between the Trifectate and the desert would not be erased in a single night. “They are far more impressed by dancing,” I told him, offering him my hand in invitation.

  He hesitated and opened his mouth, but my family interceded, Catryn tugging me into the fray as my brothers pulled Calix, showing him how to dance. I even saw my cousins trying to force Calix’s stone-faced brother onto the floor, and the rock floor rumbled as we pounded it with our feet. I watched my father and mother dancing close in each other’s arms, and my heart swelled with joy—my husband and I were married, my people were safe, and it wouldn’t be long before my husband looked at me in the way my father had always looked at my mother. We would be safe, and I would be loved.

  Heavens and Stars

  I danced until I couldn’t breathe, and my whole body was hot and damp with sweat. I saw my sister sitting on a bench to the side of the hall, and I went to her with a laugh, sitting down beside her. “My feet are going to fall off,” I told her.

  She kicked her own feet up. “Liar. Our feet will never fail us.”

  “Maybe they will after a wedding. Are you having fun?”

  She gave me a bright smile. “I like the dancing.”

  I grinned back. “I like it too.” It struck me suddenly that tomorrow I would leave her, and I wouldn’t see her for a long time. Tugging her closer to me, I pressed kisses into her hair.

  She tried to twist away. “Shy!” she whined. “What are you doing!”

  “Kissing you,” I told her. “I’m going to miss you.”

  This stilled her. “You’re really going away tomorrow?”

  I nodded.

  “But you’ll be back, won’t you? As soon as you have babies, they’ll need to be blessed here.”

  Babies. Stupid, foolish idiot that I was—I’d forgotten about the night, where he would put his hands on me in a way no one ever had. In a way no one else ever would. I’d been so nervous about everything else I’d forgotten to be nervous about that.

  Suddenly I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “Yes,” I said softly. “They’ll need to be blessed here.”

  “Then you’ll be back soon. And you won’t treat me like a baby when you return,” she told me, wriggling away and pecking my cheek before she ran off to join the dancers.

  My head spun, and I stood, going outside the hall.

  The desert night was brutally cold, but it was the only thing that kept me from heaving. My blood seemed to pound so heavily behind my eyes that it hurt.

  I gasped for breath, drinking in the cold, trying to soothe some part of myself.

  “Rough night?” Kairos drawled, appearing from the darkness like a wraith. My brother had that strange way, always sliding about the world like he knew of secret passageways the rest of us couldn’t see.

  I jumped, but he grinned at me and tucked my hair behind my ear. “What are you doing out here?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Didn’t feel much like dancing.”

  “Even with that pretty Tri Princess?” I asked.

  He gave a wry laugh that I didn’t quite understand. “She’s not for me, Shy.”

  I sighed. “You’re so picky. You can have your choice of women; you always could.”

  His shoulders lifted. “There are many people who you’ll care about in your life, little sister. But there will only be one who moves the heavens and stars for you. And that’s what I’m looking for. What we all deserve. And I haven’t found that yet. But I’ll know it when I do.”

  I tipped my head back to take in the stars, thinking of all our ancestors who lived up there. “What we all deserve—except me, you mean.”

  I looked to him and his eyes met mine, but he didn’t move. Thinking. Trying to double back on his words. “You could love him. You only just met him.”

  “How long do you think it takes?” I asked. “Until you know you’re in love?”

  He laughed. “I’m not sure there’s a standard measure.”

  Could I ever love my husband so much? Did I even know how?

  He sighed again, putting his arm around my shoulders and squeezing. He kissed my temple and whispered, “None of us knows what fate has in store, little sister. There’s love for you yet.”

  I leaned against him, nodding.

  “Besides,” he told me, “I’m going to find a way to come with you.”

  My heart leaped, but the thrill faded fast. “You can’t,” I said. “You’re needed here.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m not the strongest brother, or the oldest, and I have no desire to marry anytime soon.”

  “Father will want you for his Shadow,” I said.

  Kairos lifted a shoulder. “If Father wants me as his clever little spy, I won’t say no. But even if that’s my destiny, I will learn a great deal more in the arms of the Trifectate than in the desert.”

  A shadow swooped by us, and I heard Osmost call out a warning scream.

  Kairos grinned wolfishly. “And Osmost thinks the Tri City has rats for him to hunt.”

  I shook my head. “Father asked if he could send attendants with me. The king said no.”

  He waved this away. “You’ll see,” Kairos said. “I’ll figure out a way to be there. To protect you.”

  My mouth opened, with the same protest I’d had for years with five older brothers—I don’t need to be protected. But despite my brave words, tomorrow was full of everything unknown and all I wanted was to feel a tiny bit as safe as I had my entire life.

  “I hope so,” I told him with a sigh. “I should find my husband.”

  He nodded to me, and I went i
nside.

  Calix met my eyes across the hall, but he didn’t have a chance to come to me. My family swarmed around me, all the women fluttering cloths of light blue, hiding me from the men. They huddled me out of the hall like a secret and took me to the rooms we had been given.

  They started to take my threads off my neck, then open my robes, and I pulled away. “Stop, stop, please,” I begged, and Cora caught my hands.

  She met my eyes. “Women have much to fear in a world like ours, cousin. But the bedroom is yours to rule.”

  She pulled at my robes then, and tears gathered in my eyes as they took my clothes, pushing me into the prepared bed with soft blankets and many pillows. They lit wax candles all around the chamber as I clung to the bedding, trying not to cry.

  My mother touched my hand, and I jumped. She smiled gently. “I know it’s frightening,” she told me. “But soon it will be wondrous, the most loving, intimate act two people can share with each other.”

  I nodded at her, but at that moment, I didn’t believe her. Cora and a few of my other cousins kissed my face and my hands, and then they were gone.

  The room was warm with so much fire, but I was shivering. It wasn’t long until I heard the noise of men climbing the stairs.

  I watched in terror as the door swung open and my husband was pushed inside before the door shut sharply.

  He looked at me for many moments. “You’re making the sheets tremble,” he said.

  I clutched them harder.

  He came closer to me. The men had pulled at his clothing so it was askew, but still on his body. He sat on the bed, and I refused to let myself move away from him.

  He drew a slow breath and didn’t touch me. “You’re nervous,” he said softly.

  I wanted to tell him that “nervous” utterly failed to describe the feelings inside me, but words didn’t come out of my mouth.

  His eyes rose and looked at me, and I blinked, staring back. “You’re young by any measure, and close to ten years younger than me. Tonight will be painful. I wish that weren’t so, but it is.”

  I hugged my knees, willing myself not to cry.