Reign the Earth

by A. C. Gaughen

  “You’re a daughter of the desert, Shalia. You have always had the ability to pierce and sting.”

  “It’s getting close to dawn; do you want to take a walk with me?”

  He grunted. “No. I’m exhausted. But I will if you want to.”

  I nodded. “I won’t tax you. I just want to see the world outside.”

  He went and opened the door. “After you, Shy.”

  I walked through the door, and we went down the hallway side by side. The hallway led to a huge room and the platform at the top of the city beyond that, and the areas were deserted. “Maybe it’s earlier than I thought,” I murmured to him.

  “It definitely is,” he grumbled.

  We went outside, and a wind immediately whipped around us. It was still dark, in the shadow of the mountain, but at the edge of the world a pale blue light spread over the sky, and I had my first look at the deep valley and the city we had come up through. The city dropped sharply downward into green grass coating the bottom of the valley, cresting up into gray-blue mountains and trees, rolling out like the ocean made green and immobile.

  Kai stood beside me, looking out. “I need to say something, and I don’t know what to say about it,” Kai said, pushing out a breath. With his hands clasped behind his back, he looked so much like Father that it stole my breath for a moment. “I want to ask if I should be worried about Galen. He chose this place to comfort you, and that … means something, Shalia.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but he shook his head.

  “And then I thought, maybe I should speak to him—play the big brother like Cael or Rian would. Threaten him, accuse him, poke his chest or something. Or maybe speak to you and warn you of the way he looks at you. But I think you know, don’t you?” My mouth was dry, but as I glanced down, heat didn’t just fill my cheeks—I felt it rush around my chest and heart, and flutter in my stomach. Yes, I knew what Kairos meant. I nodded.

  “And you look at him too.”

  Slower now, I nodded again. I still wasn’t sure what it meant, but yes, I had looked at Galen in the same manner he’d looked at me.

  “And that’s as far as it’s gone.”

  Nod.

  He sighed. “I should do all those things. But instead I’ll just say that I want you to be happy, and I want you to be safe. Unfortunately, I don’t know that you can have both at the same time right now.”

  I looked down. “I don’t know that I can have either, Kai.”

  He put his arm around me. “One day. One day.”

  Leaning against him, I watched as the sky grew brighter, slowly illuminating the mountain around us. Soaked in new light, I felt the threads against my hands, tingling and strong.

  I pulled away from Kairos, going to the back of the flattened platform. There was an outcrop in the rocks maybe fifty feet up, and I desperately wanted to climb.

  I put my hands to the rock, searching for a handhold, and it felt warm, like it moved against me to feel my touch. The threads were weaving together, tight and substantial enough to be fabric.

  “Shalia,” Kairos said, grabbing my waist. “Do I need to remind you you’re with child?”

  I slapped his hands, and he let me go. “I don’t think I could hurt myself here if I tried,” I told him, gazing up rather wondrously at the rock. “I feel … tied to it somehow.”

  He lifted an eyebrow, watching me go. The climb was quick and easy—everywhere I put my hand or foot, the rock responded, giving me a hold on it.

  “Shy!” Kairos protested.

  I stopped, glancing down at him. I looked at the space between us curiously.

  “I wonder,” I said softly. I curled the threads around my fingers and tugged through them gently.

  The rock shook a little, and Kai shouted my name again, but the mountain was already moving. Small pieces falling and breaking, pushing back and jutting forward, as the stone shifted and changed beneath me—until a perfect staircase was cut into the mountain face, connecting me and my brother.

  I was breathing heavily, stunned and a little winded.

  “Great Skies,” Kairos murmured, stepping up tentatively.

  The staircase went all the way to the outcrop. I climbed the stairs, sitting on the flat rock while Kairos came up behind me. He squatted down. “That was incredible,” he said. “I’ve known what Kata was for a long time, but I never saw her use her power like that.”

  I sighed, feeling the weariness in my bones. “Honestly, it was a little more exhausting than I expected.”

  “Stay up here. I’ll get you something to drink,” he told me.

  I nodded.

  He went down the stairs quickly, trotting inside.

  Rolling my shoulders, I rubbed my neck a little. It helped my discomfort, my weakness, but as that eased, there was something else. My power was humming, tense, alive—and insistent.

  Curling the threads around my fingers, I felt a tightness to it, like the threads had all been interwoven to form a dense, strong fabric. Following it upward with my gaze, I saw a small opening in the rock.

  Osmost screamed and sailed past my head, landing on the lip of the opening. He stood there and shook his wings out at me, calling me forward.

  Slowly, I got to my feet. Rather than climb this time, I called up a set of stairs first—narrow and steep, but leading straight to the mouth. Drawing a deep breath and feeling the rocks buzzing back at me, I started up the steps.

  I was breathing hard by the time I reached the lip. There was an arch carved out of the rock and it went straight through, leaving a small chamber within. The carving was too smooth and perfect to have been made by man or nature—it was an Elementae dwelling.

  The threads felt thickened, pulsing with life and energy and making my breath rush faster. The wind swept through the open space powerfully, and I felt like it was trying to push me away. I pressed on against it, seeing two bowls on pedestals the height of my waist on either side of the room. One, I could see from several paces away, was full of fire, still burning, despite the wind and the fact that there was no evidence of a way someone other than me had been there—or could have even breached such a place.

  I went toward the other bowl. It was full of liquid, but it was too shadowed and still to tell what it was.

  “Water,” I realized, walking toward the middle of the space. I could see for miles in either direction, out into the bluish darkness of uninhabitable mountains and back over the lightening blush of the valley. The wind pushed at my skirts and my hair, cooling my skin. “Wind. Fire. Earth.”

  The second I stepped in the center, the nexus of the four elements, the threads around me snapped. I felt my power like a growing thing, rising from the rock and weaving through my skin. The rush—the power—was unlike anything I had ever known, like it was wrapping me and seeping into me at the same moment.

  Like this place was the source. Like it was the fount of my power.

  Drawing a deep breath, I pulled myself out of the center, and it was only then that I noticed the dark stain where I had stood. It was old, months old at least. Perhaps because of my awareness of this place, I knew what it was without explaining it—blood. And more than that, I suspected I knew who it belonged to.

  Kata had been here. This was the Earth Aede. This was the place she had visited, the place where my power had retreated when harm had been done to it, when my husband sought to wipe it from the face of the earth. It had been waiting for Kata to come and align it with the other elements, waiting to be free.

  Without knowing it, Galen had brought me to the source of my strength. The source of my power.

  I held up my hands. This power coursing through me was eternal, indestructible, but I was not. I only had a finite amount of time with this gift, and I was wasting it, watching as others with my power were tortured, experimented upon, hunted, and killed.

  I would not stand idly by anymore.

  My heart beating hard, rushing my blood fast and powerfully through my veins, making me both shiv
er and feel superhuman in the same intoxicating moment, I went back to the mouth of the cave and looked out.

  My hands rested over my stomach. I couldn’t feel her in there yet, but I knew in that moment she would never be raised by Calix. Maybe I would have to wait until she was born, or maybe Kairos and I could find a way to stand with the Resistance before then, but I would not let her come into a world where she watched her mother stand passively to the side.

  I was trembling with the frightening clarity of my thoughts, but slowly I walked down the stairs back to the outcrop Kairos had left me on. With barely a thought, the staircase to the site shifted and faded back into rock, and pressing my hand to my heart, I sat down on the outcrop.

  It was only moments later that Zeph, Theron, and two other guards came racing out, Galen shouting orders at them to search the city.

  “What’s going on?” I called.

  Galen halted, spinning around and taking long moments before looking up enough to see my perch.

  “What in three hells are you doing!” he roared, his hands on his hips.

  I folded my hands in my lap. “I couldn’t sleep. I came out here.”

  I saw Zeph lean in, and from the scowl that Galen returned to him, I wondered if Zeph had previously offered a similar explanation.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “What are you looking for?”

  “You,” he said crossly. “You weren’t there, your brother wasn’t there, I thought you …” He trailed off.

  “Ran away?” Kairos asked, coming from another exit with a skin of liquid. Osmost swooped and landed on his shoulder, and he walked past Galen without looking concerned. “I tried to convince her to.”

  This made Galen’s glare worse. “Well, what on earth are you doing up there?” he demanded. “You’re climbing? In your condition?”

  Kairos raised an eyebrow as he stepped onto the stairs.

  I saw color in Galen’s cheeks. “Oh, hells,” Galen said, turning away. “Do whatever you want.”

  Zeph chuckled.

  Kairos climbed up and handed me the skin. “It’s some kind of juice they make from flowers,” he told me.

  “Thank you,” I said as he sat beside me, letting his legs hang off the edge. “Why don’t you all come up here?” I called. “The sun will rise any minute.”

  Zeph and Theron seemed to take this as an order from me and immediately started trotting up the staircase. Galen crossed his arms and drew a long breath, making his chest rise under his arms. He looked up at me, and even at such a distance, meeting his eyes hit me hard.

  I wondered if he would come with me if I joined the Resistance.

  He let out the breath and climbed the stairs.

  Zeph and Theron crested the outcrop, and Zeph sprawled out on the rock beside me, while Theron stood behind us. Galen was slow climbing the stairs, and I turned to see where he was. He was stopped, a few stairs below the top, and he was looking at all of us, at the rock, at the sky. His throat worked, and his eyes skittered around again as he took another step.

  Was he scared of heights? Surely calling attention to it wouldn’t soothe his pride. I met his gaze, questioning, and his throat bobbed again, but he came to the top of the stairs, and stood beside Theron. Galen clasped his hands behind his back, and we all waited in silence as the blue blushed to pink, then to a bright orange, then the whole sky burned with the raging color and light that matched my traitorous heart, and the true, full beauty of Trizala was revealed.

  Control

  The vestai’s wife took us on a tour of the city that lasted most of the day. With little sleep and after the exertions of the day and night before, my strength wasn’t what it should have been. It worked to my advantage, though, when I was allowed to rest and their people came to greet me, bringing me babies and children to kiss like it was a blessing.

  I kept my purple hood off. Everyone asked me the questions with or without it, and after the first time or two of issuing the lie, Galen answered for me, telling curious folk that the Resistance had staged a rebellious act and soldiers had had to put it down while I was caught in the middle of it. I was grateful. The words turned to ash on my tongue.

  That afternoon, I ate a little and promptly vomited it back up. Thoroughly exhausted, I went to lie down in my chamber, not expecting to sleep.

  My baby seemed to have other ideas, however, and I woke to Galen gently shaking my shoulder. The big windows showed nothing but darkness, and I yawned.

  “I missed the sunset,” I said.

  His eyebrows pulled together. “You fell asleep,” he told me.

  Sitting up in the bed, I saw he had a plate of food in one hand. “What’s that?”

  “The vestai’s wife made these,” he said, pointing to pale, hard-looking squares. “They’re baked ground grains. She said they were the only thing she could eat when she was in her first few months with her sons.”

  I took one, biting into the crisp edge. It didn’t have much flavor at all, and I could see why they would be easy to stomach. I nodded, taking another bite.

  “We shouldn’t have ridden like that yesterday,” he said. “That was irresponsible of me.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I needed that far more than I needed not to.”

  “Still.”

  I finished the first and took another crisp square.

  “Why didn’t you leave?” he asked me, not looking at me. “This morning, when I thought you were gone—I was a little relieved,” he admitted, his voice soft.

  “Relieved?” I repeated. My heart lurched in my chest, thinking of my bold thoughts this morning.

  He was looking at the stone walls. “That you weren’t going back to him.”

  I shook my head. “There are too many people at risk,” I told him. “I have to go back.” For now. Until I can figure out how to leave him safely.

  He glanced at me, then away, opening his mouth.

  “Are you afraid of heights?” I asked quickly, spitting out crumbs to try to speak before he could.

  He looked at me, offended and confused. “What? No.”

  “You can tell me if you are. This morning, on the rock, you looked …” Scared. “Uneasy.”

  His head whipped away from me. “I’m not afraid of heights,” he snapped, going closer to the window.

  “What was it, then?” I asked. “It’s all right if you are.”

  “Three hells, Shalia, I’m not afraid of heights,” he growled. “I think I’m a little afraid of you.”

  My eyes blinked wide at this.

  He looked at me, leaning against the window ledge and crossing his arms. “You just—you don’t realize what you do. Zeph and Theron—they’re hardened killers, but they’re puppies for you. And Kairos loves you. You just—you make people love you, Shalia. And I’m not talking about—about other sorts of love. It just looked—it felt—it looked like a family. Like a family is supposed to feel.”

  I pushed the food away, putting my legs off the side of the bed slowly, like he was an animal and might spook. Things tumbled through my mind, about his sister, his brother, his father. “Family frightens you,” I said softly.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head, resolutely looking at the ground. “Wanting family frightens me.”

  I stood, staying close to the bed. “Why?”

  A dark red color flushed through his cheeks, even as the muscles in his jaw rolled and bunched. “I’ve committed a lot of sins in the name of family,” he said, his voice low and harsh, like the sound was caught in his throat.

  “But it’s different, isn’t it?” I asked.

  He looked at me, and I felt like I was standing too close to him suddenly, because there was something open and raw in his eyes. “Wanting a woman?” he asked. “Children? It’s different.”

  Imagining him with some other woman and with some other children felt different—and sharp—too. “But still frightening.”

  His eyes shut, and every muscle in his face looked tense. “Yes. I c
an’t want that, Shalia.”

  I waited. I knew I didn’t have to say the word for him to know that I was waiting to hear why.

  His throat worked, and his voice was rougher when he spoke. “I’m no good at caring about people.” His eyes opened, and the openness there betrayed something new, a wound inside him that he’d never let me see before.

  My skin prickled a warning, but I stepped closer. My heart ached for him, for his loneliness, for his pain. I reached for his hand, to reassure him with a touch like I would my brothers, but I couldn’t. It would be different, and more. I cleared my throat and let my hand fall, trying to sound steady and strong. “I think you’re wrong. But your believing that matters much more.”

  For long heartbeats, I looked at him, and he stared into my eyes. His mouth opened and closed, and whatever more there was to say, neither of us could find the words to say it.

  I stepped back. “I assume you came to get me for the feast?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Give me a moment to change.”

  He stood still for a moment, then bowed his head and left.

  The feast was served on a wide platform at the top of the mountain, a beautiful scene lit by flickering torchlight. The vestai’s wife was kind enough to make a few more items she thought I could stomach, and I ate my first full meal in days by virtue of it. When musicians started to play, the city folk immediately jumped up to dance. Within moments I saw a pretty girl teaching Kairos the dance.

  It wasn’t terribly hard—it seemed like a slightly slower version of the dances we did in the desert. There was a lot of jumping and swinging, but instead of a group, this was done with just two people, turning each other around while you held on to your partner.

  “Does the queen know our dances?” Vestai Nikan asked, bowing in front of me.

  “I don’t,” I told him.

  “May I have the honor of teaching you?” he said, straightening up and extending his hand.

  “Be gentle, Niki!” his wife warned.

  “Yes, please!” I said with a careful smile that didn’t push my cheeks up as I put my hand in his.