Reign the Earth

by A. C. Gaughen

  “Wife?” he asked.

  “It means a great deal to me that Kairos is here. You know that. You don’t need to threaten him.”

  He shifted a little. “I did not threaten him.”

  “ ‘Outlasting his welcome’?” I repeated. “You—you just gouged out the eyes of a man for less.”

  “I’m sure his eyes haven’t been gouged out just yet.”

  I shook my head, though it was dark enough that he couldn’t see. “I cannot watch you be so casually cruel with an easy heart, Calix. I can’t.”

  There was a long silence in which I could feel my heart beating, the risk of displeasing my husband rushing in my veins.

  Then he sighed heavily. “He can stay a little longer,” he allowed. I felt his hand cover my stomach, his touch possessive, caging me. “After all, hopefully he will be an uncle soon enough.” His lips brushed over my temple, his body curling around me. “I’m not cruel, Shalia.”

  “You terrorize people,” I whispered to him.

  “Sometimes I have to,” he said. “A ruler cannot be emotional about life—every day I have to choose a path that will save the most lives. But I will never be able to save every life. It is a terrible burden.” He was silent a long while. “Is this just about the guard, Shalia?”

  “Who did maiming that guard protect?” I asked, avoiding his question, certain I did not want to confront him about his past and what I knew here, in such an enclosed space.

  “Him,” Calix said. “I was protecting his life. Every time he glanced at you, I would see it in his eyes—his memory, his desire. And before long, he would force my hand. Men are animals of nature, my love. I could see his heart like I see my own.”

  I shook my head, anger making me resolute. “Perhaps that has made you a good king, Calix, but I cannot think such ruthlessness will make you a good father.”

  “The only ruthlessness my children will ever see is the swift death of anyone who tries to hurt them. Or you.” His hand tightened on my stomach, gripping me until I made a noise, and he sucked in a breath. “Forgive me, my sweet, forgive me,” he murmured close to my ear, his fingers skimming over me. “The thought—I don’t know what I would do if I were to fail as a father. The thought chills me. But I have to trust that this is your purpose—to show me what it means to love, so that I can love our children. I can’t wait for the day you carry my child, Shalia. It is my every hope.”

  “It’s so very important to you,” I whispered, looking toward him.

  “A man is nothing—his legacy nothing, his lifetime nothing—until he has someone to continue on in his stead. All I achieve is useless without you.”

  Warmth curled around my heart as the carriage moved, rolling gently into motion to carry us south. “I want to have many children,” I admitted to him.

  His mouth kissed my cheek, slipping closer to my lips, and it made the warmth travel to my bones. “I will give them to you. I will give them all to you.” His fingers spread on my belly, like he was willing life into being there.

  I covered his hand.

  “A son to start,” he whispered. “My heir. I will grow him up in my image and teach him how to rule. Then perhaps a little sister, someone for him to protect and care for. A girl with your beautiful face. And then another girl—she’ll be the mischievous one.”

  I leaned my head on his shoulder, touching his fingers on my stomach, wanting to believe this man was more real than the vengeful ruler who blinded a guard for a moment’s mistake. The warmth of his hand was soothing. “Will she?” I asked. “We’ll have to watch out for her.”

  “Zeno will watch out for her,” he said.

  “Zeno?”

  “Our son,” he said. “And then we’ll need another boy—Zeno will need someone to command the armies.”

  “Was it so with you?” I asked. “Did you three know the roles you would play at birth?”

  “Mostly,” he said. “I would be king, of course. For Galen, he could either vie for the military or the trivatii—a religious appointment.”

  “And Danae?”

  “She is the hidden face,” he said. “She has always been unpredictable.”

  “And did your father teach you in such a way?”

  He was silent for a long while, and I was about to speak, say something else. “There’s another piece of the vision,” he told me softly. “The one that foretold my death. There was a book full of his visions that was discovered after his death. In it, he said I would not see my first child born into this world.”

  I tried to pull back from him, but he held me tight. “What?” I asked. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

  “It’s not true,” he said softly. “It can’t be. And you will be my way to prove that. We will have many children together. We have to.”

  “What do you mean, we have to?”

  There was another stretch of quiet. “The Concilium of Vestai knows of this prophecy also. They trapped my father—either we were the Three-Faced God incarnate, as he claimed, and I could thwart such a prophecy, or we weren’t, and that made him a liar and our reign invalid. If I don’t pass my crown on to a son or daughter, it will fall to the Concilium. And I can’t imagine they’ll allow my siblings to survive such a shift in power.”

  I gripped his hand. “Do Galen and Danae know this?”

  “Yes,” he said softly.

  Pale light peeked into the carriage, and the gray haze lit his face enough for me to see deep worry etched there. “We’ll have many children, Calix. I promise.”

  Then he drew me closer, holding my hand on his heart. “You are my salvation, Shalia,” he whispered to me.

  Watch the Skies

  It was a short carriage ride to an ocean port. The sky was dark, full of ropy, bulbous clouds that were barely catching the light of the coming dawn, and the wind was picking up as guards ushered us down a long wooden pier. Theron walked in front of me, getting into what I assumed was a boat despite never having been near a body of water larger than the lake at Jitra until recently. It was long and wide and staffed with men at oars. I hesitated at the edge of the pier, glancing at Calix, but he was speaking to a guard.

  Unsure, I looked back to Theron, and he nodded sharply, holding out his hands. Sucking in a breath, I put my hands in his.

  “Jump here,” he said, tapping a raised board with his feet.

  I closed my eyes and obeyed. My feet hit something solid and I wobbled, my knees going weak, but Theron held me until I was steady and opened my eyes. He smirked at me.

  “Well done, my queen.”

  I huffed at him, but he pointed me forward, and I pried my fingers away from him slowly.

  The boat was a living thing. It rocked under my feet, and I gasped, tipping forward to find something to grab onto. Theron came to me, offering his arm, and I gripped it. “Sit, my queen,” he said, pointing to some kind of narrow wooden bench in the center.

  I nodded, sinking down. My husband stepped on the boat and it pitched again, and I yelped, gripping the wood.

  Calix sat beside me, chuckling. “We must work on your sea legs, wife!” he said, patting my knee.

  The wind blew through me, but I couldn’t figure out how to hug my coat tight around me and hold on to the bench at the same time. I shivered, but I refused to let go of the bench.

  Theron sat on the left side of me, and he blocked some of the wind, but then the oarsmen pushed away from the pier and the boat lurched again with the effort. I kept from crying out, but fear shot through me and I found my fingers on the bench shaking with the effort to hold on.

  Calix stood, shifting the boat again, moving closer to the pointed front of it.

  I could feel Theron’s eyes on me, but I couldn’t even look at him. He coughed. “The boat is very safe, my queen,” he said. He spread his hands, explaining, “It’s a wide, low boat. It means it’s difficult to tip over.”

  I managed to nod.

  “We will only be on the water for a few hours,” he said. “Th
is is the fastest way to Liatos, the southernmost of the Bone Lands.”

  I shivered at the thought, and a fierce wind rushed under my clothes.

  “Let me see if I can find something warmer in your things,” he told me, standing.

  He moved, and I shuddered at the rocking of the boat and a sharp gust of wind. My husband sat down again beside me, and I clutched his arm.

  “Oh, my sweet,” he chuckled. “The ocean is nothing to be frightened of. We have conquered it the same way we have conquered the land. You!” he said, shouting at Theron, his voice close to my ear. “Sit. You are disturbing the queen.”

  Theron scowled but obeyed before he could find me something warmer. I shivered, and Calix put his arm around me.

  It was warm and comforting, and as the boat rocked and moved, I wondered if this was what marriage was meant to be—slowly finding ways to need each other and comfort each other. Perhaps this was how it had been for my parents at the start—perhaps love was something that grew, not something that was determined by who removed my veil.

  But then I thought of the man who even now was probably having his eyes taken away. I was capable of caring about Calix, I knew that was true. I could live with him and I would love our children with every bit of my heart. But as I shuddered against the cold, I sent a dark wish out over the sea that I would never grow to love my husband.

  The skies grew dangerous with heavy, rain-filled clouds as a new shore came into sight. Even the smudge on the horizon was an incredible relief to me.

  Calix stood, going to the front again and shouting orders at the oarsmen. Two rocky jetties came out into the ocean, curling around the harbor to allow for only a narrow passage that no more than a single boat could go through at a time.

  The rock walls were thick and rough, with huge columns jutting above them to support a narrow ledge. I could see guards walking the length of it, illuminated along the way with bowls full of fire, and at uneven intervals, I saw something trailing from the ledge, swaying in the wind like a banner.

  As the boat slid through the narrow passage, I saw that the banners were bodies.

  I gasped, covering my mouth, looking at Theron. He leaned closer to me. “Punishment,” he said. “For disobedience in the communes.”

  There must have been thirty bodies hanging along the length of the wall. From what I could see, some had been there for a very long time. In some places there was an empty rope, moving in the breeze, and I imagined there had been bodies there, swinging until the wind broke the ropes and let them fall onto the rocks.

  I stared as long as I could. It felt like the only way to honor them.

  The oarsmen brought us deep into the wide harbor. It looked like a bustling city; there were many ships in the harbor, more still at a complicated network of floating piers and docks. The boat brought us swiftly to a dock with no other boats on it. Soldiers were flooding down the planks, and they all fell into place at the precise moment that the boat sidled up alongside the dock. Calix made a gesture that I thought meant for me to stand, and I did, on stiff and shaky legs.

  Calix moved with confidence, stepping on the side of the boat and grabbing a soldier’s hand to jump onto the dock. The boat pitched hard and I yelped, my legs twisting weakly underneath me. Theron caught me, pushing me up off the boat and into Calix’s arms.

  The motion was too much, and I gripped his arm for a long moment, trying to steady myself. Even though I could see the dock was still and unmoving, I felt like the ground was shifting and rocking beneath me.

  “You’ll be unsteady for a while. Come,” Calix said, tucking my hand in his arm, leading me down the walkway with a tug. My legs were weak and watery, and I found myself clinging to his arm, and my husband never looked so pleased.

  The army led us to a horse, which I mounted to sit in front of Calix, and as we rode slowly through the city, I saw the people first. There were long lines of men walking in slow, even paces, like a ghostly version of the soldiers’ march. These men wore torn clothes that all had a chalky white on them. They were emaciated, their bodies looking bent and stooped, if not entirely broken. And they were marching down into the ground.

  When the road turned again, I saw where they went. The ground was hollowed out, hundreds of feet deep, a stone cavern that was filled with men and the unfinished bones of a huge warship.

  A crack and a boom sounded, so loud I jumped, but no one else reacted. Everyone just kept on working, blind to the others around them, and I wondered if nothing had actually happened, or if it simply didn’t matter.

  “We have the best shipbuilders in the world,” Calix told me, his voice in my ear. “Our workers have unparalleled skill and dedication. The results are extraordinary.”

  I nodded, struck mute by the sight of it. As the road turned again, I could see two more stone caverns, and yet somehow, my eyes caught on a pair of very worn men’s shoes, askew and abandoned by the side of the road.

  The city was laid out in a tight, confined grid. It seemed that there were enclosures, their walls high and impenetrable, and around each large enclosure were spaces where only the soldiers could go. Above it all, I saw a tall tower, and Calix went on straight, heading toward a hill above the flat area extending out from the bay.

  There was a grand palace set in the hills, white stone like the Tri City but low and wide, with looming white gates that stood open for our approach. Calix rode slowly through the guarded gates and into a wide expanse of garden that stood before the palace itself, full of archways and breezy courtyards.

  He called a servant over and helped me down into the man’s arms before dismounting behind me. “Welcome to the Summer Palace, my love,” he told me. “This was a favorite retreat of my mother’s, and the current home of the quaesitori’s inquest.”

  A man in a long black coat came out and bowed, which made his hair flop over his face. “My king, welcome. My queen. We have much to show you.”

  “Excellent,” Calix said, his arm around my back. “There is no time to lose. Show us your work, Quaesitor.”

  The man bowed again, and then turned, leading us into the palace as his coat flapped out behind him. He led us through a long room paneled with ornate wood, and into a room that must have been, at one point, a grand reception chamber. It shone, panels of metal and mirrors lining the walls to make the whole place glitter. There were two chairs set in the center and, in front of them, a table with liquids and glass containers upon it.

  Calix’s arms left me the moment we neared the table. “Is this it?” he asked, picking up a glass bowl with a liquid so dark red it looked black until the liquid moved.

  It looked like blood.

  “No,” the quaesitor said, going to a stoppered glass bottle. “This is.”

  This liquid was dark green, and Calix frowned. “It didn’t look like this the first time.”

  “In my experience, we can never replicate nature’s exact formula,” he said. “Something is always different, even in a small measure, but the result is the same.”

  Calix nodded sharply. “Show me.” He took my hand, kissing it and drawing me over to the chairs. I sat beside him, holding on to his hand, nervous as the quaesitor walked out of the room.

  When he returned, it was with three guards, two women, and a young man, and my eyes jumped to Calix, but he was impassive. They looked tortured—there were bruises and cuts on their skin, and their eyes were sunken and smudged with darkness. The smaller woman was limping hard—her leg looked like it had been broken and never healed properly.

  “Calix?” I breathed, but he held up a hand and didn’t look at me.

  “What is the risk?” he asked the quaesitor.

  “Minimal, my king. We have done frequent studies about how weak they need to be to prevent being a threat, while still being strong enough to make their powers present in some small way. It is quite an exact balance.”

  Calix nodded sharply.

  The man was first. Barely older than Kairos, he let himself be led
, and the quaesitor directed him to a spot in the room. The young man stopped there, and the quaesitor took up another bowl.

  “Water, my king,” he said, and poured it out in front of the man. To the young man, he said, “Do it.”

  I held my breath as the young man raised his hand, and slowly the water lifted, trembling a little, betraying the weakness of either the man or his ability. I gasped, looking to my husband.

  But instead of anger, there was a hungry greed on Calix’s face.

  “And now,” the quaesitor said, reaching for the bottle. He unstoppered it, holding it out toward the young man expectantly.

  The water stayed aloft, and the young man looked at the quaesitor, unsure of himself.

  The quaesitor tilted his head and splashed some of the green liquid on the young man. He gasped, recoiling, and the water fell.

  Calix pushed forward in his seat. “Raise the water again,” he ordered the young man.

  The green liquid seemed to have only scared him; he was unharmed, but he shook his head. “I can’t,” I heard him whisper.

  “Can’t or won’t?” Calix asked, standing from his chair. “Motivate him, Quaesitor.”

  The Elementa man hurriedly held up his hand, and it shook visibly, but nothing happened.

  “You see?” the quaesitor crowed.

  The young man looked at me, and I felt the threads push up at my hands and skin, choking my throat, demanding I do something.

  I shoved them away, trembling. I would not be exposed, not here, not now, not ever. Not if this was the result.

  Not unless I knew that elixir worked, and I could get some for myself.

  “Again!” Calix shouted, clasping his hands behind his back.

  A girl was brought forward, the one with the bad leg, and her lip curled in fury as they pushed her. “Don’t touch me,” she snarled, but her eyes were locked on my husband.

  “Stay back, my king,” the quaesitor said. “She was part of the Resistance.”

  “I am part of the Resistance,” she corrected. “And you just put me in a room with the king.”