The cook was bringing out a huge vat of stew, and Kai waited for her to set it up before requesting a bowl. I couldn’t hear what was said, but I saw the cook smile and angle her spoon at Kairos until he laughed. My brother, ever the charmer.
He brought it over to me, but I smelled it a foot away and stood up. He halted, looking at me curiously. “Skies, that’s the fish, isn’t it?” I asked.
He looked at it. “Yes. Has it offended you? I think it already lost its head, but I’m sure we can cook up some kind of revenge.” He grinned. “Cook up?” he repeated with a wink.
I backed away, but it was like the smell was a thick, physical presence in my nostrils, clawing down my throat.
“Oh,” I cried, and barely made it to the edge of the courtyard, the grassy patch that led down toward the garden and the ocean, before my stomach wretched up its meager contents.
Kairos was beside me, twisting my hair back and holding my crown steady. “Very well,” he said. “No more fish.”
My stomach heaved again, but nothing came up. “Water!” he called, and I heard someone offer it to him.
I straightened up, and he let my hair go to rub my back, passing me a skin of water. I drank a little, but it made my stomach feel tight and angry, and I passed it back to him, shaking my head.
I turned around. Adria and Kairos were there, but the guards had formed a blockade around us, their backs to me, affording me some strange level of privacy. “Here,” Adria offered, handing me a piece of bread. “Try that. My mother said that’s all she could eat with Aero.”
I didn’t take it. “Aero?” I repeated.
Skies Above, she thought I was with child. But I couldn’t be—I had last bled—
Months ago, I realized.
I had been exhausted for days. My mother had been so tired with Gavan, especially for the first few months.
My head was pounding. “Skies,” I breathed. “I think I need to sit for a minute.”
“Yes, we established that,” Kai told me. “Theron, bring that stool here.”
A moment later it materialized, and I sat. Kairos stayed right beside me, handing me first the water and then the bread. “Try to eat something,” he said. “And then we’ll get you back to your chambers to rest.”
I nodded, nibbling at the bread. I looked up. “What a scene this must be causing,” I said, shaking my head.
“I think it’s the best sort of scene,” Adria said with a smile. “The king will be beside himself. My queen, you’re with child!”
People heard her, and the murmuring voices around us started to pitch to yells.
I searched the soldiers’ backs, thinking of Galen. It was difficult to tell, but I was nearly certain he wasn’t one of the men standing there. Admonishing myself, I shut my eyes. I was expecting his brother’s child—I couldn’t think of Galen anymore. Not that I ever truly could.
When I finished the piece of bread, I stood, and Kairos put his arm around me. “Easy,” he told me.
I flapped my hand. “Skies, Mother could walk for days in the hot sun when her belly was heavy with child,” I told him. “I’m fine, I just needed a moment to rest. Please let us pass,” I said to the guards.
“My queen—” Adria started.
The guards separated, and I instantly felt the weight of hundreds of eyes upon me.
I took a deep breath, smiling at the gathered crowds, and they leaped forward, shouting, calling my name and offering me congratulations, blessings, praise of the God.
I jumped back, and the guards immediately fended them off.
“You’re going to start a riot,” Galen told me. He put his arm on my back, steering me up the walkway as Kairos and Theron blocked people from following us.
“Thank you,” I told him, glancing back over my shoulder to see people pushing at the guards for my attention—and more than that, the line of informants that stretched down the road and into the city itself. “Where’s Calix now?” I asked.
“In the tower,” he told me, glancing up. “I’ll call for him.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “Take me to him?”
“It’s a few flights of stairs,” he warned.
I waved my hand. “This is important.”
Galen led me inside to the central tower of the main castle. I’d never been in it before; I’d been told there were battlements and barracks, that it was largely a soldiers’ post, not unlike the Oculus in the communes. “So it’s true, then?” he asked. “You’re with child?”
We started up a staircase with a soldier always in sight. “I believe so,” I told him.
His face was stern. “Almost as if he threatened it into existence.”
I raised my chin as we turned up another stair. “Yes, well, none of that matters now,” I told him.
“It doesn’t?” he asked. His voice was low, careful, but he said, “I could have killed him for saying those things to you.”
This made fire burn in my cheeks, but I ignored it. “All along, he has wanted a child. A child will make him more powerful with the vestai, it will prove the prophecy wrong, and I know he hopes that it will at least quell some of the violence from the Resistance.”
“He said it himself: Rian d’Dragyn isn’t the leader of the Resistance,” Galen told me, turning another corner. “Why should it matter?”
“If it didn’t matter, why did he marry me?” I returned. “Once he knows about the baby, he’ll stop all this information gathering that’s threatening to turn the city against itself. It isn’t necessary, and it actively threatens the peace.”
He stopped me. “Shalia, what if he doesn’t want peace?” he asked.
“He does,” I insisted. “That’s what all of this has been for. That’s why I married him. Perhaps it would not serve your purposes, Commander, but Calix believes in peace.”
He blinked, leaning away from me. I sighed. That wasn’t fair. Galen wasn’t some kind of warmonger—from what I could tell, he spent far more of his time trying to lessen the harm of Calix’s orders. I opened my mouth to say so, but he said, “Peace is a noble goal. But there is a difference between peace and submission.”
I started up the stairs again. Of course there was a difference. Calix wanted peace—we had discussed it many times. In his worst moments, he acted out of fear and anger, but he wanted peace. And this child would be a balm to those fears—this child would give him the ability to act for peace alone.
We didn’t say anything further, even as I felt Galen’s watchful gaze on me. We crested a platform, and Galen headed toward a door that was flanked by guards.
The guards opened the door when they saw us, revealing Calix bent over a table layered with maps and documents. He straightened with a frown. “Wife?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said, smiling. “I have good news, actually.”
His eyebrows rose. “I like good news.”
“I couldn’t eat fish,” I told him. He looked confused. “Not that I’ve ever been fond of it, but when I smelled it, I felt so ill that I was sick, and I’ve been so tired lately, and it’s been several months since I bled—”
He strode around the table, catching me in his arms with a bright smile. “You’re with child? Are you sure?”
I laughed. “I think so. As sure as I can be, I suppose.”
He kissed me. “Oh, wife, this is the most incredible news,” he said, holding me tight to him. I closed my eyes for a moment, letting warmth rush through me.
“There was nearly a riot in the courtyard when they realized why she was ill,” Galen told him.
Calix kissed my temple. “Of course there was! Our people need this hope. Galen, we’ll have to plan a grand tour—the whole country will want to see my wife carrying my son!” Galen nodded to him, and Calix stroked my cheek. “Does that please you, wife?”
“I’m happy to do whatever you two think is best,” I told him.
He kissed me once more and let me go, pointing to Galen. “We’ll need a whole ches
t full of jewels,” he said. “And clothing and furs—whatever my wife desires. It will be a glorious spectacle.”
Galen nodded. “I’ll see that it’s done.”
“Make sure the whole court knows by tonight,” Calix said.
“That won’t be a problem; every woman in the court has already heard,” Galen said.
“Calix, what about the informants?” I asked. He turned to me, confused. “You’ll stop collecting information now, won’t you?”
He crossed his arms. “Well, no,” he said. I looked at Galen, but he avoided my gaze. “I cannot just reverse an order I gave this morning. Not only would it be damaging to my reign, it would be disrespectful to Thessaly. This was an answer he called for. It isn’t as simple as stopping.”
“But you won’t act on it,” I insisted. “You won’t do anything with the information you collect, right? Whether it’s persecuting the Elementae or targeting the Resistance—you don’t need to do that anymore.”
His gaze narrowed. “You think I’m persecuting them?”
“Calix,” I said, coming closer to him and tugging his hand. “This child proves that you’ll have an heir, and the prophecy is merely the prattle of some misguided fool. I just want to make sure you’re not resorting to violence when you don’t have to. Not when we’re starting a new age of peace.”
He drew a long breath, but his fingers entwined with mine and he lifted my hand for a kiss. “How can I argue with that?” he said. “Very well. We won’t act on the information. We’ll keep collecting it for a few days, if only so people can have their coin.”
I nodded, but it didn’t feel right, not after Calix’s rabid need to get information on the Resistance. In agreeing, he was silencing my concerns, but could I trust him not to act on the information?
He pulled me close for another kiss. “Why don’t you go rest?” he said. “I’m sure dinner will be a theater of supplicants tonight, so you may want to prepare for it.”
I shrugged—I was tired. “Very well,” I told him.
“I’ll escort you,” Galen offered.
“No, Galen, we have far too much to do,” Calix said. “Unless you need an escort, my love?”
I shook my head, even as Galen frowned at his brother. I was only halfway down the staircases when I heard voices and saw Kairos making a guard bend with laughter.
Grinning, I joined them. “Oh, Kairos,” I said, shaking my head.
He chuckled, putting an arm around my shoulders and kissing my cheek. He nodded to the guard and led me away. “How did he take it? Is he building a white stone sculpture in your image?”
I elbowed him. “He’s very happy.”
“And you, little sister?” he asked. “Are you happy?”
I smiled. “Of course. I can’t wait to be a mother.” A sudden realization made joy bubble up inside me. “And we’ll have to bring the baby to the desert to be blessed. Kai, we’ll get to see everyone.”
“See them?” he scoffed. “Father’s going to be so smitten with his grandbaby he’ll probably give up the desert altogether. The whole d’Dragyn clan will have to leave the desert for the Trifectate.”
I laughed happily at the vision—that was truly what peace meant. Not just the day when my brothers would stop dying at my husband’s sword, but the day when they would all be welcomed in the Tri City. When everyone gathered around my child, working together to make a better world so that he or she could inhabit it.
“And when we go to the desert,” he said, hugging my shoulders gleefully, “the clans will celebrate until the mountains shake.”
Foolishness
“Absolutely not,” Calix said. Rather than attend court dinner, Calix insisted we stay in our reception chamber so that the court could come to us. “Go to the desert? With my unborn child? No. Never.”
“It’s tradition,” I told him. “The baby needs to be blessed in the desert, or it won’t be healthy and strong. I could even show you the lake, and we could look for the elixir.”
He waved his hand. “Foolishness. Trifectate babies are perfectly healthy without setting foot in the desert. It’s unnecessary.”
“It’s necessary to me,” I told him. “The whole clan gathers, and there are songs and dances. Light and love. I want my family to bless the baby, Calix. I want that for my child.”
“Your family is here,” he told me. “Now, we must speak of more important things. I’m sure we should wait for the tour until your belly grows—everyone will want to see my child growing in truth.” His hand covered my stomach, warm and gentle. “I wonder how long that will be.”
“Not long,” I said. “I haven’t bled for more than two months.”
He nodded, pleased. “Excellent. We will tour you around the country as soon as arrangements can be made.”
“What about the Consecutio? They are eager for us to attend.”
He lifted an unrepentant shoulder. “They will manage their disappointment. It’s not nearly as important as allowing the country to fawn over you.” He kissed my forehead. “My precious wife,” he said. He grinned. “Wait until you see the jewels I’ve commissioned!”
I shook my head. “I don’t need any of that. I just want to go to the desert, Calix. Let my family come and bless the child. It will be good luck.” I tugged his hand. “Please. We needn’t go into the desert; they could all gather in Jitra and meet us.”
He kissed me again. “No,” he said, smiling at me.
Zeph opened the door. “My queen, there are vestai who wish to pay their respects,” he told me.
“Send them in!” Calix crowed.
Two men entered, bowing low. “My queen, we came to offer gifts for you and your child,” one said. He handed me a basket of strange, brightly colored fruit. “These were brought from my estates in the south,” he told me. “Only the most delicious food for the future king.”
Calix beamed at this.
“A necklace, my queen,” said the other man, holding a stone as green as Galen’s eyes on a leather cord. Calix took it in delight, lifting it from the tiny wooden chest it was in to string it around my neck.
“Lovely,” Calix told me. “A stunning jewel for my own priceless gem. Vestai, you please me.”
They bowed at this. “Thank you, my king!”
Calix grinned as they heaped honors upon him. I smiled and sat there while courtiers kept coming with gifts that seemed to have materialized out of the air. Or maybe not—maybe they had all been waiting for this, for the child who would change everything.
While courtiers fawned over Calix far more than they did me, I took a moment to go out to the balcony. The wind was strong, and I found myself staring at the narrow bridges that connected the castle to Galen and Danae. I couldn’t see any activity at Danae’s castle, but I wasn’t sure if she had left to return to the desert yet.
When I turned to the other bridge, Galen was standing on his balcony.
Glancing over my shoulder to see Calix still quite occupied, I went toward Galen’s side. The bridge reminded me of the one I was married upon at Jitra; it was white stone and a little wider, but it didn’t have sides or handholds of any kind. Taking a breath, I stepped up onto it, walking a few feet forward.
The wind pushed me so hard I swayed, and I froze, looking down the hundreds of feet to the churning ocean water.
“Shalia!” Galen called, seeing me. He didn’t hesitate, striding across the bridge, his hand meeting my waist and gently pushing me back. “It’s not safe up here. Certainly not in your condition.”
I stepped onto the balcony, and his hands left me as he glanced at the large windows. “You must be aching to remind me you were right,” I told him. “About the information. That he doesn’t want peace at all—he wants submission.”
“Maybe I wasn’t,” he said, but his eyes moved away from mine. “He said he won’t pursue the information.”
“But he still has it,” I said. “It seems like a very careful distinction.”
“You are queen,”
he told me. “Your life is full of careful distinctions.”
It almost felt like an encouragement, and my mouth lifted a little. “You’ll be an uncle,” I said, looking at him.
His shoulders curled forward a little, his head inclined, and when he looked at me, it was with such sharp pain that I felt it inside my chest. “Yes,” he said.
“Galen,” I breathed, raising my hand toward him, but there was nothing I could say, or do.
“I should just leave,” he told me, his voice soft, the wind pulling the sound away as it ruffled through his dark hair. “But I can’t just leave. I can’t leave you here with him. I can’t leave the city to his caprices.”
My mouth was dry. “Galen,” I whispered.
He stepped forward and kissed my cheek, his mouth hovering there, warming my skin, making my whole body tingle and throb. “I have nothing, Shalia, nothing of worth to make promises. And maybe I can’t even keep such a promise, but I will protect you and your children. I’ll protect you until I die.”
In my heart, I knew what he was speaking of. I knew why he should leave, why I shouldn’t say his name, or touch him, or fight with him. Like the power I wanted to hide, the way he made me feel hovered just beneath the surface, stronger for having never seen the light. “I don’t want protection.”
He pulled away and his green eyes met mine. “That’s all I have. That’s all I am.”
I stared at him so long my world drowned in green. “That’s not all you are, Galen.”
The corner of his mouth turned up, but the ghost of a smile held no amusement. “You don’t really know me.”
I crossed my arms around myself, nodded. “Good,” I said, shutting my eyes.
“Good?” he asked, his voice too close.
I kept my eyes closed, desperate to open them, to move closer, to run my fingers over the scars on his face. “Yes. It’s easier to think that I don’t know who you are at all, that I’m imagining this.”
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