There is a soft knock on the door, and my mother enters, needlework in hand. “Father,” she says, looking to Gammal. “You called for me?”
“Sit down, Dissa,” the king says. “Young Vincent has acted rashly, but he assures me there was reason at work.”
I tell them of meeting Ank, of Khosa’s reaction to the ancient pictures on the cave wall, ending with the Given’s prediction that we are all going to the sea, though she will undoubtedly be first.
The king sits quietly, face as unreadable as Khosa’s often is. Mother’s needle dangles from the thread, long dropped from her fingers.
“What are your thoughts?” Gammal turns to my mother, who shakes her head as if to clear it.
“Call the Scribes,” she says. “If the sea rises, we must know how quickly. The histories go deep, and may hold some clues.”
“Khosa should be included as well,” I tell them. “She is as well versed as our own Scribes as to what our library holds, and without her keen eyes, we’d be none the wiser.”
Gammal nods, his fingers going to his beard to twist the white hairs there, as he does when in thought. “The Indiri could be of use as well,” he says. “If their ancestors noted such a thing, the twins will remember it. As for the cave, I’ll see these paintings myself.”
He rises to his feet, joints popping.
“Is that wise, Father?” Mother asks, rising also, her needlework falling from her lap.
He waves his hand. “Wise. Unwise. What does it matter? Will I have it said that the Given walks in the surf while the king sits idly by?”
Gammal is already calling for his horse to be saddled as the doors to the meeting room close behind him, leaving us alone. Mother bends to retrieve her needlework, and I recognize her bridal pillow, corners darkened from years of resting on her forearm while she worked.
“Still?” I ask, nodding toward it.
“Still,” she agrees, smoothing out the embroidered top, decorated with symbols only she can decipher, one chosen carefully for each year of her marriage.
What each picture represents only she knows, but some are easier to decipher than others; the blossoming salium at the time of Purcell’s birth, and the same, cast in dying shades twelve years later. I count backward now, finding the two deep red fiverberries that surely stand for the twins, near what I believe is my own symbol—a pale green bud, newly opened. Mother’s pillow begins well enough, with oderbirds and their young, the royals from a set of ridking, side by side. But later there are Tangata with teeth out, the scratching leaf of a barbar weed, and the prickly back of a sea-spine.
“Vincent,” Mother says, drawing her pillow back into her lap and reeling in the needle at the end of the swaying string. “Your grandfather may have been stirred to action by your story, but I still wonder why you would risk exposing the Given in a night ride by the sea.”
I cannot tell her that I wanted to give her the freedom of fresh air, this girl who spends her life waiting for an end she doesn’t want, as do I. My eyes go to what Mother works on now, the symbol for this year. A rankflower, opening to spread its stench.
“The Feneen that Grandfather met with said he knew Khosa’s father,” I tell her. “Once I shared this with her, she insisted upon seeing him.”
It’s a version of the truth, one I can tell with a straight face.
Mother rolls the needle between her fingers, the deep purple thread she’s using for the rankflower twisting as she does. “It would explain much, if she were part Feneen,” she muses. “I cannot pretend that she isn’t . . .”
The needle stops as she searches for a word, one that can encapsulate the oddities of this girl whom I have lately found much in my thoughts.
“There is nothing wrong with Khosa,” I say too quickly, and Mother’s eyes go to me, suddenly bright.
“You would do well, Vincent, to call her the Given,” she says quietly. “So that you remember what she is. Not a girl, but a sacrifice.”
She unthreads the needle, ripping out the rankflower with a few practiced tugs.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “You were nearly finished.”
“I think I’ll call for the weavers to dye some blue thread,” she says. “This year is surely one for the sea.”
CHAPTER 28
Dara
DARA FINDS VINCENT ON A CASTLE PARAPET, HIS SLUMPED shoulders in contrast to the Horns, visible in the low tide of evening. She joins him to lean against the rock, their arms close together but not touching.
“You truly think Khosa is mad?” he asks.
“I think a life spent knowing it is meant to be ended soon would make a meal of anyone’s mind.”
“A lovely way to avoid the question.”
Dara sighs, her own eyes drawn to the Horns. “My answer is twofold, and I don’t like saying either half of it.”
Vincent turns to her, taking in the irregularities of her skin in the glare of sunset. On another face, he might have found it garish, but he’d grown up drinking in the sight of the Indiri. Others might shy from them, but for Vincent, the twins were both beauties, their skin bringing back memories from a simple time when swords were used only for practice and the revolutions of the tide meant the next day was nearer, but no one was counting.
“Dara of the Indiri, not speaking her mind?” Vincent teases. “Toss the maps. This is all I need to know that truly the world is coming to an end.”
His words draw forth her smile. “I’ll toss you, and right over the edge. Royal blood be damned,” she says, a gust of wind turning her hair into a storm around her face. She wrestles with it for a second, the dark strands finally acquiescing to be tied at the nape of her neck.
“Go on, then. Tell me the things I don’t want to hear and you don’t want to say,” Vincent says.
Dara’s eyes are back on the Horns, the dull tops as wide as their hands, even from this distance. “I think she’s right.”
“The king’s advisors say the same,” Vincent admits. “After I reported Khosa’s discovery to them this morning, they went to the caves themselves. The maps are not dated, but the existence of certain outposts, the size of the city, all of these things can give us a rough idea of when they were made. Everyone agrees. As the maps march forward, the Horns diminish, so the sea rises.”
“How long do we have?”
“The Scribes will try to discover exactly that. It would be a great help if you could search your memories, anything your ancestors may have known about the sea.”
“We have nothing to do with it,” Dara says dismissively. “Indiri take to the sea as well as a Tangata cat.”
“But a Tangata can’t remember its seven-times-grandmother’s face, or what her home looked like. I remember the game you and Donil played as children, each of you reaching as far as possible, daring the other to go farther and see something new. Why not do it now, when it could save people?”
“It’s not that easy!” Dara shouts, her words cutting across the air, sending panicked birds from the treetops. “It’s not easy, and it is not a game. In order to go back, we have to see, Vincent. We watch lives unspool in reverse, gray hair to tufted baby crowns, starting with our predecessor’s dying moment. And the last thing our mother saw before her head was parted from her shoulders was a line of Pietra children brought to watch a hated race dispatched.
“My mother could fell any man with her sword, and she’d brought many low that day until she saw those children . . . and one of them—” Dara’s breath catches, her eyes closed against the memory and her mother’s feelings as they sweep over her. “One of them sat unmoved, not blinking against the sight of children as young and younger than him, skulls crushed open under Pietra hooves.”
“Dara,” Vincent says softly, hands reaching for her as guilt blooms in his stomach.
“Khosa isn’t the only one who dances, you know,” Dara goes on. “
The Indiri know the dance of death, and perform it well. My mother’s sword sang songs that day, but that boy . . . his stone face broke her rhythm, and she faltered for one moment, one misstep that should have been a parry. And her life was gone.”
Dara’s eyes open, the memory seeping from her. “I have to see that first, Vincent, every time.”
“I was wrong to ask it of you.” His hands are still caught midair, as if he’d rethought touching her. As if she were Khosa, not this girl he’d known his whole life, whose dark head had rested next to his fair one in sleep time and time again.
“You were wrong, yes.” Dara swipes at a tear. “But I’ll do it.”
The air between them is tense as a bowstring, the last errant tear slipping down her face unnoticed. Again, Vincent moves to touch her, and again finds himself stopping. Their ever-fought argument over Dara’s Indiri pride has led to something he’d never known his childhood friend harbored inside of her: her mother’s death and the destruction of her people as the terrible precursor to any further mining of memory. They look away from each other, back to the Horns and the ever-biding sea, the rocks beneath their hands cooling as the day’s heat is released.
“You said your answer was twofold,” Vincent breaks the silence. “As to whether or not Khosa is mad—you must not think she is, because you agree with her about the rising tides. So what’s the second part?”
Dara’s hands flatten against the stones. “That being right doesn’t mean she isn’t mad, a taint of her father’s blood running free in her veins. And even if she is, it won’t matter to you or Donil. You’re both taken with her—don’t bother denying it.”
“I don’t know that I am taken with her,” Vincent argues, but his words carry more of a question than Dara wishes to hear.
“She’s beautiful, I know,” Dara goes on. “Beautiful and damned and tragic, born to breed and die. An enticement, I’m sure.”
Vincent closes his eyes against the cut of her tone.
“You’re beautiful too, you know,” he says.
But she is already gone.
CHAPTER 29
Khosa
I STEP INTO THE LIBRARY TO FIND MY FORMERLY QUIET REFUGE a hive of activity, robed Scribes pilfering stacks that I had organized according to my liking. I feel a wave of irritation, then remind myself that the books are no more mine than the dress I wear on my back. Everything belongs to Stille, including me. My guard Merryl senses my discomfort and pulls a stool into a corner.
“Have a seat, my lady. I’ll discover what the fuss is about.”
“Thank you,” I say, climbing onto the stool.
I hear my name spoken in a voice that has become familiar, as Vincent comes into the room. The Scribes pause in their work to nod to him, as do the guards, but he waves to them to continue with their work.
“I’d hoped to arrive before you, to apologize in advance for this disruption,” the prince says, as he pulls a stool next to my own.
“You and I have made a habit of apologizing to each other,” I say, meaning only to state fact, but a smile has bloomed on my face at Vincent’s appearance, and the words come out with a lilt that is almost teasing.
It draws an answering smile from him, and a light in his eyes that I’d not spotted there before. I drop my own gaze quickly, aware that nothing between us could end well. My lips may have turned upward at the sight of him, but my arms have wrapped tightly around myself to escape accidentally brushing against his.
“The Scribes are gathering a few volumes, but I’ve instructed them to work elsewhere. I know that you find some solace here from . . .” His words fall away, not able to find the appropriate description from that which I wish to escape.
“Everyone?” I supply, damning my face for still smiling even as the word escapes with an intonation that invites more.
“Hopefully not everyone,” Vincent says.
“No,” I have to admit. “Not quite.”
“Good,” he says, but leaves it at that, not taking the opening as an excuse to put his hand on my own, as another boy might have.
“What is their work?” I ask, moving the conversation from us to the Scribes who bustle around the library.
“The sea,” Vincent says. “Our history is long, but the written record deep. This library holds writings from many generations of Stilleans, and they hope to find references to the tide among them. Where it reached. The depth of it in spots.”
I grasp their goal, appreciating the endless days of work ahead of them. “And when,” I add. “If you could find references to those three things, you could create a timeline, and some idea of how quickly the sea rises.”
“Precisely,” Vincent says. “Your mind is quick. Which is why—”
“You would ask my assistance,” I finish for him.
He nods. “I told the king you know these shelves as well as the Scribes, maybe better. I’d wager you’ve read lines that haven’t been seen since they were penned.”
And while this is true, I can’t help but feel the bitter taste of irony behind it all. “So I’m asked to save Stille from a wave and the tide? My body for one, my brain for the other?”
Vincent’s smile falls, the light in his eyes gone as quickly as if the very water we speak of had extinguished it. I slide from being a pretty girl back to being the Given in that moment, and regret my words.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and he raises a finger to my lips as if to touch them, but leaves a breath of space.
“No more apologies, remember?” he says, and though his tone is light, it is also full of sadness. “There are many minds at work on this, and it need not tax yours. My grandfather suggested the Indiri memories may be an aid, and so they will be working with the Scribes.”
“Will they?”
Though I’ve tried to tell myself my fingers have sought books at random here in the castle library, it cannot be denied that often they’ve alighted on those that mention the Indiri. Since his skin brushed against mine, Donil has been present in my thoughts, the only person whose touch I wish to revisit. And I have, often, my imagination lengthening and embroidering upon that innocent moment until it becomes something less than decent that brings a blush to my face even as I think of it now.
I could bear Donil’s touch, even welcome it. Now that it has happened I understand the young Hyllenians who wait for the long winter to be over, bringing spring and trips to the high meadow with whomever they choose. And for the first time, having to make my own choice feels not like a burden to bear, but something to celebrate before I go.
“I will help,” I tell Vincent. “Send the Indiri to me.”
CHAPTER 30
Vincent
THERE IS MUCH WORK TO BE DONE. THOUGH THE KING and my father chose to toss aside Feneen aid, that doesn’t mean they don’t believe the Pietra pose a threat. Meeting after meeting I’ve sat through, looking over notched pieces of wood meant to be our soldiers as they are knocked over with little effort.
Gammal believes that even if a battle were not imminent, the city walls need fortification, and our men could use some real training—something Dara has been saying loudly and often since she was to their knees. As I walk the martial field with Donil, I know she’d rather be here with us than inside the castle, where I sent her to work with Khosa in the library. I ignore the rising emotion that has begun in my head whenever Khosa is mentioned, and tell myself that I sent Dara to her instead of Donil only because he can do more good at my side, rather than by hers.
Two different types of battles are being fought; the bodies here on the field strive for physical dominance against enemies who can bleed, while in the castle ink is spilled and calculations made to judge how fast the sea devours the land. Gammal sat with Mother and me late into the night, suddenly aware that our army must ready itself not only against an attack, but prepare for an invasion as well. Our seaside perch is picturesque
and easy to defend—but now we know there is an enemy behind us too. We can only hope there is time to build an army that can stand against the Pietra, and claim good land so Stilleans can move inward.
Men mill around Donil and me on the field, gathering in groups, their excited conversation rising above the grounds.
“The smith hasn’t made a real blade since a faded memory,” Donil scoffs. “Everything that’s come from that forge since your grandfather’s time was meant to be worn in a parade, not used in battle.”
“He’ll learn,” I say.
“Quickly, I hope. Till then we have only these poor excuses to train with,” he says, spinning a blade in his hand. “Doubt this could cut air.”
He makes a sudden lunge toward an invisible enemy, sword halted midswing. “Nope.” He shakes his head. “Stuck.”
Finally, he gets the laugh he’s been angling for. “Point taken,” I say. “I’ll have a talk with the smith myself if you think it might put a keener edge on a blade or two.”
“As long as a good sword lands in your hands. One less back for me to watch so closely,” Donil says, as we pass a team of men headed to the forest, saws in hand. “But I can tell you there’s an easier way to take a tree down, and being of the earth makes all the difference. You’ll need my sister, though—she’s the one with the magic.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” calls a kitchen girl, cheeks rosy and smiling for Donil even as she hauls a massive stew pot, empty at the moment. “You’ve got a bit of magic in you, to hear Daisy’s stories.”
Donil’s smile changes in a second, from the easy one that rides the air between us to one that quirks too far in the corners, bringing a glint to his eye I’ve never been able to compete with, royal blood or not.
“And what does Daisy say?” Donil asks, changing direction as easily as a leaf in the wind, his sword now sheathed and his hand on the stew pot.