Reign the Earth

by A. C. Gaughen

  “My honored queen,” said a voice breezing into the room. A woman in blue came before me, taller than Danae, but not by much, with hair a lovely light brown color that I’d never seen before. She had a round face and big cheeks that reminded me of a baby.

  She bowed so deep she was nearly cowering before me, but there was arrogance there, a calculated knowledge I saw mirrored in her father’s smug gaze.

  I felt Calix’s eyes on me, and I looked to him, his stony face unreadable.

  “If my king thinks it proper,” I said after a long moment.

  “Surely the whole kingdom will breathlessly wait upon you, my love,” Calix said. “So why not let Domina Viato be the first?”

  The high vestai smiled like he had won some sort of victory.

  “So you see,” Calix said sharply. “She is soft spoken and beautiful—she will be an excellent queen.”

  The high vestai met Calix’s eyes. “Yes. Now perhaps you can turn your gaze to the problems brewing in the city.”

  Calix waved a hand. “Tomorrow shall put all your fears to rest, Vestai.”

  He smiled, but it was thin and tight. “I certainly hope so, my king.”

  “Yes,” Calix said. “The Three-Faced God does not tolerate much doubt.”

  This made the high vestai’s face lose a little color, but neither party retracted their words.

  “Excellent,” the vestai said. “My queen, I look forward to your presentation tomorrow.”

  He bowed to me again, and I nodded to him, then looked to the girl still at my feet. “Adria,” I said, and she looked up, and though her face was serene, I saw the same smugness of her father in her eyes. “You may attend me beginning tomorrow morning,” I told her.

  She bowed again, smiling at the floor.

  We rode back to the castles in silence. Calix was tense, his movements sharp, and he wouldn’t meet my gaze. When we arrived, Calix made an excuse to leave me, and I returned to my chambers. My ishru appeared with food, and I ate a little as they brushed my hair, braided it back, and offered me a garment like the fur-lined one that was only a thin, flimsy fabric that tied in front.

  “For bed?” I asked her.

  She nodded.

  I took off my clothes, trying to slip into it quickly, but they stopped me, washing me with fragrant, warm cloths. Then they pulled the gown on, tying it carefully in front in little bows.

  “Thank you,” I said, nodding to them.

  They disappeared.

  With a sigh, I went out onto my balcony. The wind was stronger, kicking the bottom of the robe back. I shivered, returning inside to take the coat I’d worn earlier and wrap it around me again. Then I walked to the point of the balcony and stood, letting the wind ruffle my braid, kiss my face, lick at my clothing. The crash of the waves so far below was hypnotic, and I shut my eyes, leaning into it.

  An arm came around my waist, and I yelped, jerking away from the edge. I turned and my husband smiled at me, holding me still. “I scared you?” he asked.

  My heart was pounding, and I nodded.

  He plucked strands of hair away from my face, and he kept looking at me, taking me in as he drew a deep breath and let it go. “You did well today. I’m looking forward to tomorrow,” he told me, letting his finger run down my cheek. “You have no idea the hope that you’ll give my people. Our people.”

  I swallowed, wishing I could calm my heart just by wanting it. “Tell me more of your people,” I asked.

  He smiled like this pleased him. “Things have been difficult,” he confided. “Since my father. Since his reign, and his death. We were torn apart by war with the islanders for much of his reign, and it devastated us. We spent all our money on defenses, ships, weapons. And during a war effort, that is glorious and righteous, but then it ends.” His shoulders lifted. “I inherited my country at a time when the people were broken. We had won the war, but at a steep cost. We were weak, and vulnerable. The Saroccans across the sea came and raided Liatos, pillaging and devastating us further.”

  With a sigh, I slid away from him, sitting on a bench. He followed me, straddling the bench so his legs caged me in and his hands wandered on me, touching my shoulder, my arm, my back. I always thought I had an affectionate family, but I wasn’t used to being touched like this—frequently, possessively, in a way that made me unsure if it was a display of warmth or a display of power. “What happened after the Saroccans raided?”

  “We had to defend our people. We used the last of our resources to turn them away. That winter, our people starved, and froze, and died. It was my first year as king,” he told me, and his hand fell away. “I felt responsible for my people’s suffering.”

  I turned a little toward him. “What did you do?”

  His mouth crooked up, and his hand rose. He dragged his thumb over my jaw in a bemused way. “I studied, mostly. My thought was that we needed food before anything else—what good was defending the country if everyone in it starved? I looked at our crops and why they weren’t producing reliably. I found ways to irrigate better. We found that there were ways to get more minerals in the ground and grow stronger crops. But then, of course, as we grew the crops, our roads were insufficient, washing away—always more problems. Problems with logical answers, all of them.” His eyes drifted over me.

  I rubbed my hand on his arm. “You took care of your people,” I realized.

  He nodded, rustling my hair with his nose. “I fed my people for years. And yet recently, the past year or more, the God is displeased. Droughts cause crops to die; frost sweeps in early to take what we have. We had a tornado decimate half the fields in Kyrikatos.” He sighed. “And this insidious abomination of sorcery.” He shook his head slowly. “For everything else, I have discovered solutions—ways to fix these problems and heal my people.”

  “That’s why you’re looking for that elixir,” I said, and my heart suddenly beat faster—I had almost forgotten there was something that took away elemental powers. If I could help him find it—if I could use it—I would be safe. “Have your men found anything yet?”

  “No,” he said. “They’re searching the desert, but there are few places to hide something of this nature. I believe it would have to be in the mountains. Can you think of any place that would make sense?”

  The lake. But I didn’t say it—it was too precious, too complicated to lead him there. If he found the lake, whether or not that contained his elixir, he would have considerable power over the clans. Without that water reserve, our survival would be at the whims of the spirits.

  And what if I didn’t have this power, and the elixir was there? He would have the ability to take Kata’s power away from her, and I would be responsible for leaving her powerless before the Trifectate—again.

  “There is the cave of our ancestors,” I said. “Where we honor our dead. But it’s all hard ground—I don’t know where anything could be hidden.”

  He nodded sharply. “I will send word to my quaesitori.”

  “I will help however I can,” I told him. I wasn’t sure if I meant it or not, but whether I needed the elixir found or wanted to prevent him from ever finding it, I wanted to know what he knew.

  He kissed my neck. “Good,” he said.

  I asked, “Will you tell me more about tomorrow’s ceremony?”

  His fingers touched my chin, applying light pressure until I lowered my head a little, ducking to be closer to his mouth. “The Three-Faced God appreciates pageantry,” he said. “It’s a grand performance. Everything must be perfect. The crowd must be vast and eager; you must be raised up on a stage for all to see.” His fingers trailed over my skin. “You must wear the perfect costume to look the part of a queen. And then the play will begin—the trivatis will speak the holy words, a tradition that is both ancient and eternal. And you will dazzle the crowd, and the people will cheer, and they will remember how powerful their king can be.”

  “Powerful?” I asked.

  His fingers ran over my neck, brushing my pulse, his
hand spreading out over my throat and moving before I could say anything about the strange gesture. “The Three-Faced God is powerful,” he said, bringing his mouth closer to my ear. “And he grants us his power. He wants the people to stand in awe of us, to kneel at our feet and remember that we brought them up from nothing. We stand between them and oblivion.”

  I shivered, unable to speak, and he pulled my head down and pressed his lips to mine.

  Three Silver Branches

  The day dawned cool and beautiful. The sun on the water had all the dangerous beauty of a desert mirage, sparkling and twinkling and making the water look like a living thing.

  The ishru dressed me in a silvery, shimmering swath of fabric, and an older woman came and adjusted the dress, suiting it better to my frame. She then put a blue dress the color of night sky over my head, laying it along the silver one so it was edged with the bright, metallic color. Dark blue ribbon was next, and she knotted it carefully so that it outlined my breasts, hugged my hips, made me feel somehow taller, if still incredibly exposed.

  She snapped her fingers and the ishru brought out another coat, this one a matching blue and lined with white fur, knotted with silver threads that made me ache for the desert.

  “The princess advised me that you are used to much warmer climes,” she said. “Will this be too warm?”

  She slid the coat onto my shoulders, and I looked down. There was a stiff collar around my neck, and this one didn’t close but cut away to show the dress underneath. It was the softest thing I’d ever had on my body, and I sighed with pleasure. “This is … exquisite,” I told her. “Can I have more like these?”

  She smiled like a kind old mother and bowed her head. “My queen.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked her.

  “Zova, my queen.”

  I pressed my hand to hers. “Thank you. This is lovely.”

  She bowed again and dipped away from me. She picked up another stretch of the silver film and let it flutter down over my head, wrapping it back so it wasn’t tied but held still.

  The guard opened the door to let Adria in, and I scowled at him, steeling myself to deal with her.

  She bowed, and I noticed she looked resplendent in a dress of green and gold. “You may stand,” I told her. “I dislike people bowing to me.”

  Her eyebrows rose, and I wondered if this was something she would report to her father. Then she looked me over, her mouth pursing.

  “You look very beautiful, my queen,” she allowed. She didn’t sound very pleased.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Would you lead me to the presentation?”

  She bowed her head. “Yes, my queen,” she said, and the guard opened the door as she led me out of the room, down the hall, and to the front of the castle.

  In darkness, held back from the wide arch, I could see thousands of people, and the platform, and everything Calix described. The people were noisy like the ocean, moving in the same restless, relentless way.

  Adria stopped and I kept moving, seeing Calix coming forward to me. He took my hand, raising it to his lips to kiss, as I struggled to find my breath. “Don’t be nervous, my love,” he said.

  Men stood behind him, all dressed in a version of Calix’s clothing, the same style he wore to our wedding. I had seen enough guards to figure this was a military dress of some sort. Yet today he glinted with shiny silver details, a brightly handled sword and a jeweled knife that looked like a treasure from the islands. A crown on his head, three silver branches woven together to form a circle, shimmered in the sun.

  A small boy shot through the ranks, tangling in the knees of one of the men as he bent over. I recognized High Vestai Thessaly and went over to him.

  “My queen,” he greeted me, giving me the formal triple bow. “May I present my son, Aero Thessaly?”

  Aero gave me his own version of the triple bow, which wasn’t quite as sharp in his small body. “Three blessings,” he mumbled quickly, like it should have all been a single word.

  “Thank you,” I told him, crouching down. “How old are you?”

  He held up three chubby little fingers. A fourth started to lift, and he tucked it down with the other hand.

  “Oh, you look at least five. Are you very brave?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “And very noble, I suspect.”

  He nodded again.

  “Will you—”

  “Shalia,” Calix said sharply, standing before me and putting his hand in front of my face. I put my hand in his, and he pulled me to my feet. “High Vestai,” Calix said, nodding.

  Thessaly bowed to him with his hands on his son’s shoulders. “Aero, go find your mother,” he said. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

  “Adria, you may follow your brother,” Calix told her. Calix nodded once to me and guided me away from Thessaly without another word.

  The other men began walking forward, progressing by twos down the walkway. We settled into line behind them and I lost sight of Thessaly as my heart tripped faster in my chest.

  As we crested the archway, I looked down to see the vast pool beneath us, reflecting the sunlight and flickering like it was on fire. Drummers around the pool pounded out our footsteps, and the crowd fell very silent. I saw Thessaly on a wide platform with two other men behind him, and a beautiful woman holding Aero, with Adria beside her.

  The wind went still, and I barely breathed as we marched, dipping down behind the height of the platform before climbing the staircase up to it.

  I stepped onto the platform, and the people cheered. My heart swelled as their joyous noise overtook the drums.

  Calix stepped forward, and my hands fell to my sides. The people quieted. “My people, we have known war, and fear, and hunger,” he said. “We have been in an age of terror and pain. That age is over.”

  The people cheered for this, and my stomach felt shivery and nervous. Calix waited, collecting their approval.

  “Today I give you a queen, born of the desert, foreign to our city, our country, our home. Knotted together in the most eternal of bonds, together, we give you peace.” He looked back to me, giving me a brilliant smile that at once felt stunning, and intimate, and utterly new. “Together, we bring you love.”

  The people cheered at this anew, and I stood silent.

  Calix stepped back, moving behind me to gather up the silver filmy material that covered my face. “My people, meet my wife, Shalia!” he yelled, right in my ear, and he stepped forward and took the fabric and pulled.

  It was as shocking as when Galen stole my first veil from me, and I gasped and blinked as the force of their cheers hit me like a blast. Women and children and men were jumping, heaving, pushing at the guards, their faces open and eager and screaming their approval. I felt like the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, the force of them churning against me, sweeping me away.

  I sensed motion on the platform, and a small man in a black coat with a length and style similar to mine appeared beside me. He held up my crown, a thinner, daintier version of my husband’s, and the crowd went quiet again.

  “By the might, the power, the right of the Three-Faced God,” he boomed, “I crown Shalia of the Desert Peoples the queen of the Bone Lands by holy appointment. She will live in the service of the Three-Faced God, she will reign in the glory of the Three-Faced God, and she will die in honor of the Three-Faced God.”

  The crown settled on my hair as a sudden panic clutched my heart at those last words.

  I looked at my husband, but his expression was unchanged as the people cheered again, louder, wild, pushing forward so I felt a jolt at the platform.

  “Calix?” I said, my hand reaching for his as the platform swayed. The guards pushed the people back, rough and forceful, but I didn’t find his hand. I looked at him, and his head was turned, his eyes behind me.

  I followed his gaze. The pool of water that extended beneath the archways looked strange, like it was forming a white crust.

  People screamed, and
my focus whipped away from the water to see them pointing behind me. When I looked back to the pool again, it was too late. Huge vines of ice were twining up out of the pool, curling forward like they were reaching for something.

  They were reaching for me.

  “Calix!” I cried, leaping and straining to get to him. He met my eyes, but it happened so quickly he didn’t even get the chance to save me. The ice caught me, freezing, shimmering vines wrapping my feet and pushing me up, up, up into the air as fear strangled a scream in my chest.

  Ropes of ice as thick as tree branches formed a cage around me, and then the ropes grew spikes, pushing Galen and Kairos with their hacking swords away.

  It was cold inside the cage, and quieter, my own breath magnified, rattling around inside the ice. There were wide gaps between the ice branches that meant I could see out, but in a limited way, the light refracting and bending as it came through the glass-like ice. I was nearly twenty feet above the platform, far enough that if the ice broke, it would be a long way to fall.

  The ice wrapping my feet pulsed like there was energy rolling through it, and my fingertips tingled and itched. The air around me felt thick, tangible, like it was full of fine threads that breathed and rushed with energy.

  No, not energy—magic. Something in the ice was calling to me, making my blood rush and beat, making power thicken around my fingertips.

  The ice around my feet loosened, and I gasped, stepping out of it, but the power didn’t calm, rushing so fast it made me dizzy. It was an Elementa who was controlling the ice, and being so close to it made my power tremble frighteningly close to the surface. With every terrified heartbeat, my power drummed closer.

  There was no denying what I was, not now, not with the feeling so intense beneath my hands. I was Elementa, and in a moment, my husband and his whole court would see me completely unmasked if I couldn’t control the threads weaving wildly around my hands.

  “We have been in an age of terror and pain!” a voice yelled. “But it is NOT over!”

  The voice seemed to move, changing locations in the middle of a word, a syllable, a breath. I tried to track it, but I couldn’t see enough around me to even begin to follow the source of the sound.