“I’m not sure you do,” she says, eyes dragging over my expressionless face.
She leaves me as the flame drowns itself, and I find myself alone in the dark with the lingering smell of smoke and thoughts of her brother.
CHAPTER 32
Vincent
I LOOK AT THE NOTE IN MY HAND, THE HANDWRITING UNFAMILIAR but the hand that wrote it intimate with me as no other.
My Deer Prince—
You have not visitted me in some time, and so I rite instead of saying thees words to you. The word of the riseing sea has father thinking of the blod of his line. He wishes me to mary and get with childe, and I hav a man in mind. I wood ask you to release me of my servises to you, that I may mary him, though I ad that I will mis you.
Milda
I quickly pen a letter of my own, granting Milda her release to marry and telling her truthfully that I will miss her as well. My failure to visit was out of respect for her and not disinterest. With both Khosa and Dara swirling in my mind, I felt it would be unfair to bed Milda and think of another.
“My lord?” A servant knocks politely on my open door, a Stillean dress uniform in hand. “The queen sent this for you, and asks that you be in the great hall after breakfast.”
“Tides, I’d forgotten.” I say under my breath, as she lays the court uniform across my bed, curtsies, and leaves.
In my years, little has been demanded of me as a Stillean royal, but what tradition asks for I must see done. And today is a farce indeed, a passing of hours that will require nobility on full display, the truth of my thoughts buried deeply. I dress and make my way to the great hall, hoping to intercept Khosa so that I may explain before another does so, with less delicacy.
But I am too late. I find her already there, face inscrutable but tension visible in her spine, stiff as a sword in a white dress. She watches the servants placing chairs around the throne, softening them with pillows and following the instructions of the painter, whose canvas for now remains blessedly blank.
“Khosa,” I say as I go her side, reminding myself not to touch her bare shoulders, though I want to.
“Vincent.” She smiles, her face transformed as she turns to me. “What is all of this?”
“I should have mentioned it, but I forgot. I apolo—”
“Ah.” She raises a finger.
“In that case I retract all of my regrets,” I say, earning a smile. “Except one,” I go on, and she stills at my tone.
“It’s a rather morbid tradition,” I tell her, leading her away from the others and into a corner where we may talk in private. “The Given is as honored as the royal line, and it is customary to accord her the honor of wearing the crown alongside the blood of the line in portraiture.”
Though her face does not change, I have grown to know Khosa well enough to see the light in her eyes go out at my words, yet another insult disguised as a compliment delivered to her, and this one from my own mouth.
“So I’m to wear the crown of the kingdom that I drown for?”
“All rulers die for their kingdoms,” I say, the throne’s shadow reaching for me even now. “Though it kills some of us more slowly than others.”
“There you are, my dear. You’re looking quite lovely, but the finishing touch awaits.” My mother’s lady’s maid crosses to us, the queen’s crown resting on a pillow in her arms. Khosa’s eyes remain on mine as the maid places the crown on her head, keeping up a constant stream of chatter.
Yet I hear nothing; I’m transfixed by the girl in front of me. The crown of Stille rests on her head as if it belongs there; the white dress outlines her body in ways that send my thoughts to places best kept private. This moment could be my wedding, this girl my wife.
Stilted words over our first meeting have become real conversations, her place in my life sliding from a sacrifice for our kingdom to an attractive, intelligent girl whose death would be a pity. And now my mother’s crown on her head has transformed her once again, and I am at a loss.
This must be how love feels, I think as I take my place at her side, the artist arranging my mother and father as they arrive in the great hall. It is not the stab of desire that I felt when I realized that Dara had gone from child to woman, or the warm affection I hold for Milda. Those are already outstripped by the sudden conflagration in my heart at the sight of Khosa wearing Stille’s crown.
This is all-consuming, penetrating so deeply I feel it throughout, both my body and mind suffused by a need for her so great I wish to tear out my father’s eyes as he runs them casually over Khosa. And it is useless, even more so than passing thoughts of Dara, another girl who is not meant for me.
For Khosa is married to one thing only, and that is the sea.
I stand as I am told, take direction, and fulfill my duty as the painter’s brush moves over the canvas, each brush stroke filling one more moment of the very few left in the life of the girl I have fallen in love with.
CHAPTER 33
Witt
I HAVE MADE A BOAT, MY LITHOS.”
The people wind down from the cliffs in a silent line, the only sound in the early morning air of Culling Day the heavy clunk of their boats as they drag them to the rocky beach where Witt waits, Pravin by his side. The girl who faces him now is younger even than he, and she cradles a babe still bow-legged from the womb in her arms.
“Why have you made a boat?” Witt asks, words that he will repeat many times, to the sick and the old. But this girl is neither. Wan and thin, yes, but with many years still ahead of her. If she wants them.
“My baby won’t suck, my Lithos,” she says, her voice dull. “She’s nine days out of me and has had nothing except what I squeeze from a cloth into her mouth.”
Witt glances at the baby. It is curled against its mother, jaw open and mouth slack. He knows nothing of infants, but enough about the pallor of death to be aware that her boat has been built only just in time. And yet, the sight of the tiny hand splayed against its mother’s chest, each finger as thin as seaweed, sends him reeling from the thought.
“Have you not considered the Feneen?” he asks, and Pravin stiffens beside him. The Lithos is only to ask why the boat was made, accept the reason, and then push the dead out to sea and the waiting Lusca.
The girl wavers as well, confused by the departure from what she expects. “No, my Lithos. I could not bear the thought of leaving her alone on the rocks if she wasn’t accepted.”
Witt keeps his face in the straight, practiced calm that the muscles know so well, but his eyes sweep out to sea and the mist that rolls back from the shores. It climbs to meet the gray sky, forming a wall of sheer white. But Witt knows the boats will sail through it, and the claws of hungry creatures will break them to splinters.
“I used the last of my strength to build my boat,” the girl stammers, and Pravin puts a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“As you should. That is what the Pietra do,” he says.
Witt’s tongue curls in his mouth, a muscle in his cheek flickering as he fights the urge to rail at the girl that she should have used that strength to find the Feneen and give the babe a chance. They could refuse it, certainly, but beyond the mist, there is only the water and the monsters—and they welcome all.
“Please, my Lithos.” The girl reaches for Witt, her hand so small it can barely curl around his wrist. “I am so tired.”
He can see as much. It is etched into the shadows under her eyes, evident in the frail grip she holds him in.
“I have nothing left to offer my people,” she says quietly. “Let me go.”
Witt pulls the boat from her side, a small thing meant for only the two of them, and pushes it into the surf. It was cut from a Hadundun tree, the barest indentation of a seat hollowed out.
“You have built a boat.” He returns to the words he is supposed to say. “You may go.”
Relief floods th
e girl’s face as she climbs in, her hand tight on his shoulder to keep her balance as she takes her seat. The baby stirs briefly, hand reclaiming a strand of its mother’s hair as it settles against her.
“Thank you,” the girl whispers in his ear as he shoves the boat off, water lapping the toes of his boots. She fades from sight in moments, the mist closing around her.
There is a solid clunk as another boat falls at Witt’s feet.
“I have made a boat, my Lithos,” says an old man, a wheeze escaping him as he speaks.
“Why have you made a boat?” Witt asks, closing his eyes against the weak mewl of a baby’s cry that penetrates the mist.
“Will there be anything else?”
Witt glances up from the fire to see the Keeper from Hyllen standing by his chair, a tray with his supper resting on the table beside him.
“I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Your thoughts seem far away.” Her eyes go to his boots, still wet from the day’s work, resting next to the fireplace. He doesn’t answer her, and she moves to leave.
“Wait,” he calls. “Stay. I doubt I will eat much. You’ll be taking this back soon.”
She takes the chair across from his, hands folded in her lap. “Your man Pravin doesn’t like for me to be alone with you. Though I’m not much of a threat. I think you could break my neck quick as a chicken’s.”
Witt shakes his head. “It’s not that.”
“Ahhh . . .” She laughs to herself, throat long in the firelight as her head tilts back, more life in her than there had been the night he spared it. “Am I so tempting?”
He can’t help but smile back. “A Lithos—”
“Cannot be distracted,” she finishes for him. “Yes, I’ve heard that many a time. One of the scullery girls has a running bet with a Lure for his pole. She thinks she can distract you.”
“And how fares she fishing?”
“Hard to catch anything when you don’t have a pole.”
They laugh together this time, and Witt snaps the legs off a crab, handing her one. She waves it away.
“That’s the best of the lot, for the Lithos.”
“I’m giving you some,” he insists, and she takes it.
They crack shells in silence, the low fire drying Witt’s boots and leaving a film of salt around the bottoms. “Are there many such wagers concerning me?” he asks.
The Keeper pulls some white meat from the shell with a quiet smile. “More than you’d care for, I’m sure. Quite the variety, as well. Some think you take your pleasure with other boys, but I’ve seen your eye caught by a well-turned curve of a girl’s hip once or twice, though it’s only your eye that goes to it and nothing more.”
“The Lithos’s only pleasure is in seeing Pietra safe,” Witt says, in recitation.
“And you do revel in it.”
“What else is there?” he asks, voice gone hollow.
“Many things, my Lithos. But none of them for you.”
They are quiet again, the sound of the fire and the crack of shells the only noise as they eat.
“I know you only as the Keeper. What is your name?” Witt finally asks.
She pauses a second, a sliver of crabmeat pinched between her fingers. “Odd thing, a name. The little Givens I’ve raised called me only Keeper, and the man I raised them with . . . Well, when you’ve spent your whole life with someone, you call each other all kinds of things, but rarely your names.”
“And what kinds of things do a man and a woman call each other, when they live together?”
“Nice things, if you’re lucky. Though no matter how good you have it, we will use ugly words to each other sometimes.”
“And you?”
“I was lucky,” she says, the ghost of a smile on her lips. “He called me Lamb.”
“And what became of him?”
“You killed him,” she says simply. “So I think I’ll keep my name to myself.”
Witt nods in understanding. “Did you watch the Culling today?”
“I saw the boats go, yes.”
“And what did you think?”
“I think pushing so many off into the sea must be a great weight.”
“As is raising little girls who don’t even get a boat.”
“True enough,” the Keeper acknowledges. “But in my lifetime, I have sent three to the water, and today I watched you send ten times that many. And I imagine the line from the cliffs at the next Culling will be as long or longer, with the next moon coming on again.”
“Too soon,” Witt says, before he can catch his tongue.
“You didn’t kill me at Hyllen,” the Keeper goes on. “Others were spared, and now they tend sheep and sow grain—things a Pietra won’t. And yet I’m bringing food to the Lithos, a task any hands can do. I had thought in time you might make . . . other requests of me.”
“It’s the weight we both bear that caused me to spare you.” Witt says, though he does allow his eyes to slide over her in the firelight, a harmless indulgence. “As I told you that night in my tent; you raise the Givens from small things only to know they go to die.”
“And you look your people in the face every day, knowing they will all build a boat in time.”
“Tell me how to bear it,” he says, voice tight.
“There’s no bearing it, young Lithos. All things die. We only hold their hands as they go.”
Silence falls again, thick and heavy. She reaches across the space between them, her fingers entwining with his. “The best you can hope for is to find someone among the living to hold you up.”
“I’m the Lithos. I’m not allowed someone.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
He squeezes her hand back, and they sit by the fire as the flames settle into embers.
CHAPTER 34
Khosa
IT’S DARA I EXPECT TO SEE WHEN I HEAR FOOTSTEPS OUTSIDE the library, but the polite knock on the already open door makes me raise my head—the Indiri girl would no more do that than embroider a marriage pillow. Instead her brother stands there smiling, the raised hand wrapped in a bandage that seeps enough to blood to send alarm through my own veins.
Merryl’s eyes shoot to me in question, but I wave him away, “It’s all right. It’s only Donil.”
My guard gives Donil a hard look, one that Dara would set him on his armored ass for. But he stands aside when Donil takes a seat across from me at my stone table, cluttered with dulled quills, ink splats, and piles of paper.
“You’ve hurt yourself?” I ask, nodding toward his bloodied bandage.
“Not so badly that it should trouble you,” Donil peels back the end of his shirtsleeves from the wound, revealing the bright slash across his palm. “I thought I might see if my sister wouldn’t mind patching a fellow, but she’s not here.”
“No, she’s not. I don’t think she much enjoys spending time with me,” I say, rapidly searching for something to add so that he won’t leave.
“Then she’s a fool,” Donil says. And I feel a rush of warmth as he winks. Behind Merryl clears his throat.
“You should let a healer look at this,” I say, unwinding the makeshift bandage, the tips of my fingers as black with ink as his are red with blood. “It may need to be closed.”
“I’ve had worse.” Donil waves off my concern.
“Not that I knew of,” I counter. “Would you worry me unnecessarily?” It’s a tease, one I’ve heard Hyllenian girls toss to boys they fancy to gauge their reaction.
“Never.” Donil smiles, and I see that he knows the game I’m playing, though he’s doubtless more experienced at it than I am.
“What were you doing to be cut?” I ask, highly aware that my hand is resting only inches from his, our fingertips straining toward one another.
“What any man does when he’s alone and bor
ed—playing with my dagger,” he says, and I laugh loudly, waking the other guard, who had slumped back against the wall.
“And how do you fill your time?” Donil asks.
My eyes fall to the book in front of me, a flush creeping up my face when I realize that it’s a study of the Indiri, opened to a particularly detailed drawing of an Indiri male. I pull a loose paper over it quickly, but not before Donil sees.
“Khosa,” he says, clicking his tongue at me. “Naughty, naughty.”
I sputter, caught halfway between shame and amusement, the prim line of my mouth trying to squelch a giggle that pushes its way out anyway, the blood in my cheeks rising along with it. Donil spares me further embarrassment by pulling a different scroll toward him, one carrying the long list of Indiri ancestors that Dara had recited for me.
“My sister has been of some use other than killing, then,” he says, glancing at it. “I could tell you all kinds of Indiri stories, if you have interest. Would you like to know how we got our spots?”
“Certainly,” I say, happy to keep him near me under any pretext. Donil leans back in the chair, kicking his feet onto the table and ignoring a protracted groan from Merryl.
“The Indiri are earth people, I’m sure you’ve read,” Donil continues.
“Yes. Dara claims she can bring down trees at her whim, pulling their life out with her voice.”
“That she can,” Donil says. “Because of where our ancestors come from. Long ago, before there was a Stille or the Pietra had built a single boat, there was a heavy rain that brought life to the Indiri. The moon passed three times before it stopped, and the water soaked deep into the ground where we had been sleeping for time out of mind.”
Donil’s voice is low and lulling, and I find myself searching his face as he talks, not knowing where my fascination with the story ends and one with the boy telling it begins.
“We woke to find roots poking our eyes and soil in our mouths, so we dug for the surface, rising as the last of the rain cleared. It fell on our dirt-covered skin, clearing some spots away and leaving others still stained with the truth of our beginnings.”