Reign the Earth

by A. C. Gaughen

  Calix turned and smiled at me, and something inside me broke a little more.

  I stopped, and Calix came to me, sliding his hand on my hip and kissing my cheek. I turned away.

  He sighed and stepped back. “I know you’re angry with me, my love.”

  “I’m not angry,” I told him. “I’m bruised, and betrayed, and furious. I’m confused and wondering if you’re even the kind of man I can allow near my child.”

  His throat worked. “Don’t joke about that, Shalia.”

  “Calix, you struck me,” I told him. “Why would I let you do that to our child? Or let our child see you do such to me?”

  “I’m sorry, Shalia. That’s why I did all this,” he said, sweeping his arms out over the table. “To show you I’m sorry. What I did—it won’t happen again. Never.”

  Chills ran over me, and I knew the words I was about to say would anger him, but they had to be said. “Another promise. I don’t believe you, Calix,” I told him.

  He stepped forward, but I skittered back. “Shalia,” he said with a sigh. “I know. I know you can’t trust my words right now, but I will make it right with you. This child is everything to me. You are everything to me, and the thought that you have been away from me—hating me for what I did to you—I’ve been sick. I can’t bear to think that I could lose you.”

  There was bitterness on my tongue. “You can’t lose me. You know that I can’t leave you or turn from you. This whole apology is yet another show, another act—” I halted.

  “My love,” he murmured, coming close to me and rubbing my arms, chafing warmth into my cold skin.

  I pulled away from him, feeling sick at his touch.

  “Shalia,” he said. “Please.”

  “I don’t want you to touch me right now, Calix,” I whispered.

  He stepped away, shaking his head. “Punish me all you like, my love. I more than deserve it.”

  A wild hiccup rose in my chest. “Punish you?” I repeated. “Calix, I feel sick when you touch me. Because I’m afraid of you, and ashamed, and terrified for our child. And I can’t just pretend that away.”

  “Striking you—letting my temper overrule my judgment—that was a grave mistake. It will never happen again. And I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you, Shalia. I promise you that.” He sighed, walking closer, and I cringed, but he went into the room.

  I drew a shaky breath, trying to calm my heart, but it was short lived. He reappeared a moment later, putting a coat around my shoulders. “You’re cold, love.”

  His fingers lingered long enough for me to shudder, but he pulled away before I could open my mouth. I slipped my arms into the sleeves of the coat, turning around. “Thank you.”

  He stepped back. “Come. The cooks have prepared a special meal for us, and I want to prove to you that I do care for you. You’re my wife and the mother of my child, and that means something to me.”

  I looked at the table, crossing my arms. “How will you do that, Calix?”

  He glanced around. “All of this is for you, my love. All of it.”

  “And it’s a lovely gesture. But it proves nothing.”

  He reached toward my hand, but I pulled away, shaking my head.

  “I know I was wrong to say that your family was the reason … well. I was wrong. I know now, that as long as you have family on this earth, you’ll love them as much as I want you to love me. It’s only natural, and more than that, it’s part of why I think you will be an amazing mother. And, well, I wanted to wait to surprise you, but I did hear you when you told me how important it was to you to go to the desert. I know there are many problems between us, and chief among them is that you think I don’t hear you, and I don’t listen to you. But I do, my love. So I think we should go to Jitra. If it means so much to you to have the baby blessed by your clan, they can gather there and bless him, yes?”

  I blinked, looking up at him. “What?”

  He nodded, his mouth twitching toward a smile. “Would that please you?”

  My mother, pressing her hands to my stomach and smiling at me. My father, glowering at Calix and protecting me. My brothers, standing beside me always. Catryn, crawling into my bed to sleep curled against me. Little Gavan, hearing that he would be an uncle. All of us, dancing until the cavern shook to welcome my baby with joy.

  I couldn’t breathe, covering my heart, relief racking me so hard it felt like pain. Calix stepped forward and halted. “It doesn’t please you,” he said.

  “It does,” I told him. “It does, it does.” Drawing in a slow breath, I looked at him and nodded. “Thank you, Calix. This means the world to me.”

  “I know,” he said. “I want to give you the world. I want to make you happy, Shalia, and I’ll give you all the time you need until you’re happy with me. So, will you please eat dinner with me?”

  I drew a shaky breath, but I nodded. I still didn’t want his hands on me, I still didn’t trust him, but it was certainly a start.

  When I woke early and alone, Zeph was at my door to take me for a walk.

  Kairos was waiting for me at the cliff walk, and I smiled, shaking my head. “How do you know when I’ll be here?” I asked, delighted.

  He kissed my uninjured cheek. “My sister. Always with the silly questions,” he said. “Zeph?”

  Zeph sat on the step and waved us forward, relaxing in a beam of weak morning sun like a gigantic cat.

  The path was just wide enough for us to walk side by side. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  My shoulders lifted. “I slept well. I just feel … worn. Tired.”

  “You weren’t eating much in Trizala.”

  I touched my stomach. “I don’t quite understand why some things make me ill and others don’t.”

  “We will find things you can eat. My niece will be well fed,” he said, nodding once.

  I smiled. “It won’t always be like this. I remember Mother was usually terribly ill for the first few months, and then she was very healthy.”

  “Did you have problems with him last night?” Kairos asked, glancing back toward the castle.

  “No,” I said. “I told him I don’t want him near me. He said he would respect that, for now.”

  “You did?” he asked, his eyebrows shooting up.

  I nodded. “I can’t stand the thought of him right now, much less the idea of him touching me, kissing me.” I shuddered.

  “With someone like him, that’s a dangerous choice,” he told me.

  “At this point, it isn’t something I can choose differently.” I sighed.

  “You weren’t at dinner last night,” Kairos said. “I heard Calix made some sort of gesture for you.”

  “The court knows of that?” I asked. “They know what he … was making up for?”

  “No,” Kai said. “They were all whispering that he was showering you with presents, that he’s so madly in love with you.”

  I crossed my arms, remembering the chill of the night before. “He’s allowing me to go to the desert for the blessing.”

  Kairos grunted. “Allowing you.”

  My shoulders shrugged up. “It’s an opportunity, Kai.”

  His eyebrow arched, questioning.

  I stopped on the path, taking a deep breath and looking at him. “I won’t see my daughter raised here,” I told him. “We need to speak to Rian and figure out the best plan to get away from here. To leave without hiding, without endangering the desert.”

  His chest swelled with a deep breath. “You want to fight.”

  I nodded.

  He let the breath out. “Good. I’ll contact Kata, and Rian. We’ll figure out a plan.”

  I sighed. “I confess, the thought of seeing Mother, and Father, and everyone again is soothing to me.”

  He looked me over and nodded. “I know. It’s strange being away from them for so long, isn’t it? And it’s only been a few months.”

  “If that isn’t the right opportunity for me to leave, I want you to stay with the
clans,” I told him.

  He chuckled. “Not a chance. No matter what, our brothers will know of his treatment of you, and you will have a new, desert-born Saepia. I would write to them of it already, but they would invade the damn city.”

  The thought felt warmer than my coat. To have family around again, to feel protected and safe—I’d grown up itching to get away from the protection of my brothers, and now it was all I wanted. “They can’t come. They have their own lives, Kai. You know that.”

  He put his arm around me. “And they would leave everything to defend their sister. Even Gavan will try to come.”

  I nodded. “A few more weeks, then. We can last a few more weeks, can’t we?”

  He kissed my temple. “You can last through anything, sister. Don’t ever think otherwise. You’re much stronger than he is.”

  I covered his hand on my shoulder. “At least now we know what that awful feeling you had was about,” I told him. “Certainly things can’t get much worse than they are.”

  He didn’t move.

  “Kai?” I asked, turning to him. “It was about Calix hitting me, wasn’t it?”

  He shook his head. “No,” he said. “If anything, the feeling has grown worse. And I can’t explain it, but it’s not simply about you or me; we are at the crux of it, but it’s like an anthill. There is a center, and something dark is streaming away from that center. Growing over the earth.”

  My mouth fell into a grim line. I shook my head. “No. We will make it a few more weeks, and get to the desert, and all will be well.”

  He didn’t lie to me. He didn’t say anything.

  Yellow Powder

  The procession to Jitra was slow. It was far slower than our first trip from the desert—what had been a four-day journey to the City of Three took us more than a week.

  Everywhere we went, people lined the roads, desperate to see us, to touch me, to throw flowers at my feet. We seemed to go out of our way to stop at several castles and cities—mostly so I could be fed only to retch my food back up, but also so that the army could go ahead of us and ensure the safety of our route.

  My husband was in a startlingly good mood. In the weeks since he’d struck me, Calix was considerate, kind, nearly affectionate with me, and still respectful of the distance I asked him to keep. He oversaw all the preparations for our journey with a zeal that disarmed me.

  “Maybe there’s hope,” I told Kairos on the fourth day. We were riding together, the carriage just ahead, and Galen and my guards on horses behind us.

  “He was attentive to you at dinner,” Kairos allowed. “That doesn’t mean he’s a different man, Shalia.”

  “I know,” I told him. “I know that. But it gives me hope that he could be. That isn’t so wrong, is it?”

  He looked at me fondly, but it made me feel foolish. “No. It isn’t wrong. But does it mean that we won’t be leaving in the desert? All the arrangements have been made.”

  I sighed. “I don’t know. Every time I imagine it, I feel uneasy. I think Kata’s plan to wait until after the baby is born is smarter, but we will never have so many men as we do in the desert. I feel like the moment I see Mother and Father, I’ll know what to do.”

  He nodded. “They’re ready to eject the Trifectate. They can do that after we leave, if you prefer.”

  He looked weary. “You aren’t sleeping well?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No. I thought it would be better once we left the capital, but the feeling grows far worse. When I do sleep, I dream of being buried alive. Being choked on dirt and earth and ash.”

  Shivers ran over me. “You don’t think—my power—”

  “No,” he said quickly. “No, the whole thing—it tastes of hate. And hate is not something in your heart, Shalia. Certainly not in your gift.”

  “What can we do?” I asked him. “How can we stop it?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m hoping the visions will show me how to stop it, but I can’t control them. I can’t make them show me anything.”

  I nudged my horse closer to his so I could take his hand. “And trying means you’re not sleeping.”

  His shoulders lifted, and he squeezed his hand in mine. “I have to try.”

  He let my hand go. “I wish we would move faster. I’m so desperate just to be there. It seems so long since we’ve been home,” I said.

  Kairos’s smile was weak. “We’re nomadic, Shalia. We don’t really have a home.”

  I grinned at him. “You know what I mean. Family. The whole clan gathered to celebrate.”

  He nodded. “It will be wonderful.”

  His expression fell quickly, though, and I could tell he was weary to the point of pain. Whatever these visions were, they were taking an awful toll on him.

  By the seventh day, we were climbing higher into the mountains, and the air was growing dry and warm. We had eaten at the castle we’d stayed at during the night, but barely an hour into the ride my stomach twisted hard.

  “Oh,” I yelped, dropping from my horse fast enough that I almost fell, voiding my stomach on the side of the road. The dirt was packed hard, and the mess splashed onto my dress and coat, and I even got a little in my hair.

  “Shy?” Kairos said, helping me up.

  I was staring at my hair. “I can’t—I thought we would make the desert by nightfall.” I felt suddenly and stupidly close to tears. “I don’t want them to see me with vomit in my hair. And on my dress,” I told him. “I hate being sick all the time.”

  “I know,” he told me, putting his arm around my back.

  “Ugh,” I said, bending over as I retched again. There wasn’t much more to come up, but it hurt, my body trying hard to expel things that weren’t there.

  “My love?” I heard Calix ask behind me. “Are you all right?”

  “She will be in a moment,” Kairos said, braiding my hair fast away from my face.

  My stomach heaved again, and I straightened afterward, nodding. I rinsed my mouth with some water, staying close to Kairos like I might fall over. “I want to walk for a little while,” I told Calix.

  “Love, you look like you’re about to pass out as it is,” he told me gently. “You should ride in the carriage.”

  I clutched my stomach at the thought. “No, I think that will make it worse.”

  He sighed, but nodded. “Very well.” He turned and shouted orders to his guards, that we would travel only as fast as I was walking. He kissed my temple, but he didn’t stay beside me, going instead to his carriage, calling one of his quaesitori to ride with him. Kairos stayed off his horse, and Galen and Zeph appeared behind me.

  “Shouldn’t you be riding?” I asked, glancing at them.

  Zeph stretched. “I feel like a walk. Don’t you, Commander?”

  “Damned relief, if you ask me,” Galen said.

  I shook my head, but smiled at them.

  “Besides, I protect the Princess-in-Progress,” Zeph said, looking at my belly.

  I covered the bump with my hands. “We don’t know it’s a girl,” I said, casting a wary glance at the carriage ahead. I didn’t think my husband would be pleased at the thought. “And that is not a real title.”

  “It should be,” Zeph insisted.

  “I’m very excited to see Zeph as the Baby Guard,” Kairos said. “I’ve never seen him frightened of something.”

  Zeph looked offended. “I’m excellent with children,” he grumbled.

  “You look like you’re excellent at eating children,” Kairos told him.

  Galen laughed at this. “Children, maybe. But a baby? I can’t think you’d have any idea what to do with it.”

  Zeph cast around as if taking on challengers. “I will be a formidable Baby Guard. This is not up for debate. And besides, the baby is a part of the queen, and I protect the queen. And I’m good at that, so I’ll be good at protecting the baby.”

  I giggled. “I have no doubt, Zeph. You’ll probably be the first to give her a sword.”

&nb
sp; Zeph lit up at this, but Galen shook his head. “Now, wait a moment, no sharp objects until she’s at least … thirteen.”

  Laughing, I smiled at Galen. It felt forbidden and strange—we hadn’t been alone since Trizala, and though I thought of our kiss constantly, the pain from the argument that followed seemed more real, a heavy weight in my chest. Being able to speak with him and laugh with him now when it had happened so rarely since Trizala felt suddenly intimate. “Thirteen?” I asked. “That’s a little specific.”

  He crossed his arms. “Well, I want her to know how to wield a weapon before boys start coming around.”

  Kairos smiled. “What boys? They’ll have to go through all of us and half the Dragyn clan to get to her.”

  Galen smiled and nodded at Kairos. “I like that line of thought.”

  “Great Skies,” I said, shaking my head. “You all know so little. This girl will have you all in knots before she’s a year.”

  “When you say ‘Great Skies,’ ” Galen asked, lacing his arms behind his back and stepping closer to me, “is that a god?”

  I felt the threads shiver closer to my fingers at the nearness of him. “We don’t have gods,” I told him. “We have spirits. But we consider the sky to be a sort of deity, I suppose. There are people who can tell the future in the clouds, and we live and die by what we see above us. Our lives are very dependent on the weather and climate.”

  He nodded. “Do you pray to the skies?”

  “We talk to the skies. Thank the skies for bounties—when we go to the desert, the ceremony to bless the baby is asking the skies for good fortune.”

  “Does the sky ever respond?”

  I laughed at this. “Of course! We speak to the sky, and the sky always speaks back in his own way. Rain, sun, clouds, lightning—these are the sky’s way of talking.”

  Galen glanced up. “What is the sky saying now?”

  There were few clouds, a gentle heat, and a bright, round sun. “The sky wants us to get to the desert,” I told him. “He’s making it easy for us.”