“It’s all right,” Dara says. “It’ll pass.”
Donil sits on my other side, a hand on my leg. “You’ve not killed before, Vin. Not seen battle. This is what happens next. There’s no shame in it.”
He’s right. All around me, the Stilleans that breathe are lost nonetheless, some managing to gain their feet, but most are like me, bewildered in the wake of battle. The twins sit with me as the tremors pass, easing off as the sun breaks through a cloud and warms my skin.
I rise when I’m able, moving through the wounded to do what I can. The dead are many, more Stillean than Feneen. The twins begin piling the enemy corpses, while I grab a Stillean who has his wits about him and we form lines of our own. People have begun to slink from the city, wary as mice. Cries rise up as they discover their own among the line of the dead—growing longer—and among the wounded, yet living. It’s hard to tell joy from the pain, and I stop looking up when I hear them.
“I’ll be drowned,” Donil says. “Vin, Dara, come here.”
We go to him, where he stands over a downed Tangata.
“The Feneen weren’t riding them. They’re sewn to them.”
“Fathoms,” breathes Dara as she bends in closer to see. “Makes sense. No cat worth its claws would ever be ridden.”
“But why?” I ask, staring in horror at the dark seam running between human flesh and cat, each stitch held tight even in death.
“Terror,” Dara says. “Our army split like ants in rain when they saw these. And look . . .” She prods the withered leg of the Feneen with her sword. “This soldier would be useless without a mount.”
“So he chose to be sewn to a cat,” Donil finishes. “How’d they manage it, though?”
Dara pulls back the Tangata’s thick lips, curved teeth shining brightly white, and takes a sniff. “Darrow root.”
I’d seen the kitchen maids taunt the housecat with darrow, sending it into a frenzy, followed by the deepest of tail-twitching sleeps.
“And they woke with Feneen on their backs,” I say.
“They woke with riders they couldn’t pitch. Pissed off, in pain, and with Stilleans in front of them,” Dara says. “We had no chance.”
“The prince!” A shout rises from the edge of the field as my father steps out of the city, clothes unspeakably clean amidst the carnage. He had left the speech to go with the advisors, the group of them checking grain storage against the number of army volunteers.
And now that number is much fewer, and my father is king.
“The king!” comes the corrected call, from a man who had been in battle, seen Gammal fall.
A hush rolls over the field at the full impact of those two words, and all around me, men bend a knee. I go down as well, not surprised when Donil and Dara keep their feet. A quiet sob breaks through the silence and I spot a woman kneeling over a fallen man, her grief too sharp for the change of sovereigns to penetrate.
My father walks though the field, nodding for everyone to rise. He places his boots carefully to avoid treading on the dead—whether out of respect for them or for his boots, I don’t know. When he spots me, something like relief washes over his face, and I’m alarmed to realize that it surprises me.
“Son,” he says, clapping heavy hands on each of my shoulders, “you’re unharmed.”
It’s not a question, but if it were, I wouldn’t know how to answer. The spasms that racked me have passed, but left an emptiness in their wake. I’m surrounded by the dead and dying, my king and grandfather among them, the blood of mutilated strangers on my blade, the friends of my childhood on either side of me.
Yet I feel utterly alone. I find myself wondering if Khosa is safe in the library, and if she is concerned for me.
“Father,” I say, the word somehow alien and unfeeling, even if accurate. “Gammal . . . My . . . The king is dead.”
He nods once slowly and squeezes my shoulders. “I know. It’ll be all right, Vincent. I am king now. Not that it seems to matter to some,” he adds, eyeing Donil and Dara.
“It’ll take more than a crown to get me on my knees in front of you,” Dara says.
“Dara!” Donil growls, and even I gape for a moment. She ignores both of us, the coldness of her voice mirrored in her eyes as she stares down my father.
“How did it happen? Take me through it.” My father takes my arm, and Donil follows.
“They broke through the forest,” Donil tells him. “We heard a scream. Could’ve been a cat, but I think we’ll find what’s left of a timber crew out among the trees later.”
“The men didn’t even have swords,” I say, steering us toward what remains of the pile we’d been distributing. “They were lined up to receive them, and I was helping Grandfather—”
My throat closes against me as I remember the glint in Gammal’s eyes to match the shine of the new swords, the pride he took in each Stillean he armed, sparing a word for everyone. The sun hasn’t moved three finger spans in the sky since then.
“The men weren’t prepared, which was part of their attack, I’m sure,” Donil continues. “To be fair, even a trained and armed man would’ve been taken aback by soldiers such as these.”
“Were they well practiced? Better armed?” Father asks.
“Some had clubs, others fought with bare hands,” Donil says. “There were those with swords, but—”
“They had sewed themselves to Tangata,” I say, spitting out the words.
“It’s more than that,” Donil corrects me. “Many of these people were thrown away because their mothers couldn’t bear the sight of them. Raise a child on a lifetime of anger, feed him on the memory of rejection, then give him a weapon. It makes for a fierce soldier.”
“And a frightening one,” my father says, toeing over a Feneen corpse with three arms, all his fists still locked around daggers.
“There was one that had eyes all ’round his head.” A Stillean speaks up, an open gash in his cheek showing that he faced a cat today. “Wasn’t any way to come at him—he could see in every direction.”
“And a woman,” adds another, the battle stories coming thick now. “Did you see the one who ran on all fours, fast as I do on two at a sprint? She took Unga’s leg out at the calf, ripped the muscle right through with her teeth and spat it out to go after another.”
“A fierce battle,” my father says, raising his voice so everyone could hear. “Many are fallen—Stillean and Feneen. We’ll bury our dead tonight, and mourn them. Pile the Feneen and burn them. Tomorrow we’ll have our revenge.”
A cheer goes up from the group that has gathered around us, and I try to find the strength to answer with a halfhearted smile. Father grabs my hand and lifts it upward in his own.
“Revenge will have to wait until long past tomorrow, if he really wants all the dead buried,” Donil whispers in my ear.
“What do you suggest?” I ask. “We can’t burn our own alongside the enemy.”
“It’s quicker.” He shrugs. “And this is war.”
I’m pulled away from him as Father raises our arms together again. “For Stille!” he shouts, and an answering cry rises from those around us, echoing out in the field and drawing the attention of others.
“For Stille!” he shouts again. Again, my arm is jerked upward, and we’re walking, bringing the crowd with us as we step over my grandfather’s body and the first of the flames rises from the pile of Feneen.
CHAPTER 37
Khosa
SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAS HAPPENED.
I’ve spent my life studying faces, and there are volumes in the tight lips of the kitchen girl who brings a lunch tray to the library, stories buried in the red-rimmed eyes of the maid I pass in the hall, and untold tales in the taut muscles of the sconcelighters who keep eternal fires burning in windowless corridors.
Vincent does not come to see me, something I tuck into a dar
k corner of my heart, a place I’ve learned to hide worry. He’s made it a habit to speak with me every day, asking about the progress of my sessions with Dara, and the lines of cramped writing that fill lengths of paper as I dash out my thoughts. His visits always start that way, then we veer off into other conversations, often losing much time telling each other things of little consequence that somehow bring me great happiness.
His absence today is conspicuous. Taken in hand with the tense shoulders of the servants and tear-streaked faces of the maids, I know there is news, and likely not the kind people want to hear. More than once my tongue has quaked in my mouth, wanting to ask after Vincent, to be assured of his well-being.
But I caught one of my guards tipping a wink at the other the last time Vincent came in, sliding one of his fingers in and out of a hole he made with his fist. I blushed scarlet, and Vincent had to pry every word out of me on that visit. He left with a furrowed brow and hunched shoulders, dejection seeping from him.
Merryl isn’t on duty at the moment, and I won’t ask the ones here about what happened, or about Vincent. Not when they think he comes to see me for one thing only. Blood seeps into my cheeks even thinking about it, a mixture of anger and humiliation that makes my fingers shake.
But even as I rage inwardly at their assumptions, I ask my own questions. Would it be such a surprise if that was why Vincent came to me? Should I be grateful that at least he puts on a pretense of courting me, instead of stating his duty to his people and pulling my skirts up?
The tip of the quill I’m using punches through the paper, and I swear under my breath just as I hear the soft scraping of feet across the floor and the rustle of weapons as my guards come to attention.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone was here,” an unfamiliar voice says, and I look up to see a Scribe in the doorway, a heavy book in his arms. Since Vincent asked them to work in their own wards so I could continue using of the library, I have not seen any of the robed men.
“Hello,” I say awkwardly, the word tumbling out because it’s supposed to, but with no welcome in it. “I am Khosa.”
“Yes, I know,” the Scribe says, his brown robes rippling as he comes toward me. “I am Cathon.”
“Hello,” I say again, and he glances over my table.
“I’ve come to return one of the histories,” he says. “But I wouldn’t want to disturb your workspace. Is there somewhere you’d like me to put it?”
“This room belongs to you more than me,” I say, the coldness of my words not reflecting the warmth I feel inside that he is respecting my ink splotches and tottering piles. “Put it where you feel is best.”
“I think . . . here.” He casually knocks a pile of books off another table, a plume of dust rising as they fall. I’m so surprised I laugh, and he smiles in return.
“What are you working on, Khosa?”
“The rise of the sea, the same as you,” I say, and find myself unfurling scroll after scroll, explaining my methods, sharing my calculations, pointing to maps and diary entries that have no bearing on the sea. Cathon nods as I speak, his hands occasionally pulling on his beard in thought.
“I admit, you’ve made more progress than the roomful of Scribes I come from,” he says, when I am finished. “You have the mind of a scholar.”
“And the body of the Given,” I remind him. “The mind will go to the sea with it, when the time comes.”
“Seems a pity,” Cathon says, his eyes locking on mine.
A shiver passes through me, echoing one that gripped me earlier when I thought of Vincent breeding me out of duty. But this one is for my mind, and the idea I see in Cathon’s gaze at the thought that it might not need to be flooded with salt water.
“More of a pity to end Stille for the sake of one,” I say, looking away from him. “Mind. Body. They’re both set for the sea.”
“Because of Stille.”
“Because of who I am,” I argue, the heat of my thoughts firing in my belly but not seeping into my words. “Stille does not send me to the sea. My feet go on their own.”
Even as I say it, I feel the tremble, so different from anything else a body can feel. It starts in my center, as if a string connected to the shore is tied there, pulling taut in this moment. My toes twitch, my fingers spasm, I feel my tongue curl in my mouth and my lips stretch across my face in an obscene smile.
I want the sea, more than I want Donil. It has been patient, and I have waited too long. And though there is a stone wall between me and the sea, it is nothing.
The windows are set high. I break for a bookcase even as Cathon yells for the guards, but my need outstrips their duty. My wrist slides through the Scribe’s grip like seaweed, and I’m climbing the bookcase. The first shelf holds me, but the second groans as I ascend, the third warning me with a subtle shift that it’s been holding its weight too long. The fourth splits beneath my foot, raining down books and scrolls onto Cathon and the guards.
I slide as it goes, my ankle within the Scribe’s reach. He grabs it and pulls me back, my hands gripping the sides of the bookcase, screaming in misery. When I’m close enough to land a kick, I do, and the slight bridge of his nose caves beneath my heel. Cathon’s blood drips on the fallen books, marring pages, something I would’ve mourned only moments ago.
But not now. There is only one thing for me, and my insides are screaming for it, wailing for want of the one thing they’ve been denied. I’m scrambling through broken boards, the strength of panic propelling me upward to shelves untouched for many lifetimes. I send them falling on the faces of my guards, and then the window is at my fingertips.
The stone window ledge is warm from the sun, almost pleasant, as my fingernails peel backward when I pull myself up. I hear the men screaming below me, but the sound is a dull cousin to the roar of the waves, the spray of the sea. I take a deep breath, the salt of the air touching me more deeply than any person ever will. The pull forward is so strong, I can’t fathom the feeling when I start to fall back, until I glance down and see an arrow tip protruding from my shoulder.
There is a tug, almost polite in its tentativeness, and I’m headed toward the floor, the window growing smaller in my vision. Dust follows me down, arms try to break my fall, but my head meets stone. The last thing I see is the ripple of the ink sea in the map above me, the closest I could come to the place I’m supposed to be.
Vincent’s voice is the first to break through, and I reach for him instinctively, the only familiar person in the room. His fingers close around mine before my eyes are open, and I bear it for a few moments before pulling away and wiping my fingers on the soft blanket of my bed.
“Khosa? Can you hear me?”
I nod, but my eyes feel like heavy stones, my skull a watery jam hardly capable of supporting them. My hands go to my temples, and I make a sound like a kitten without a mother.
“You’re either the best shot in the kingdom, or the most ruthless man in it,” Vincent says, and I peer through my fingers to see my guards, no longer smug and smirking, but pale and shaking under Vincent’s glare.
“If I may, young prince.” Cathon’s voice is thick, blood still coating his chin. “The guard was the quickest thinker among us. If he hadn’t shot her, Khosa would’ve cleared the window. And while an arrow ran the risk of killing her, the fall on the other side left nothing to chance.”
“It’s true, sir,” one guard says. “She wasn’t stopping for anything. I’ve sat in that room with her day in and out, not seen a single bit of violence. Then she breaks a Scribe’s nose and climbs a bookcase like a cat up a tree. There was a spool of the stuff they use to bind the books, so I tied an end to an arrow and—”
“And you shot her.” Vincent says, his tone making it clear what he thinks of that.
The guard’s chin goes up. “I can place an arrow.”
“That he can,” I say, finding my voice. “My hea
d hurts worse than the wound.”
“It didn’t nick a bone, slipped right through flesh,” a new voice says, and I turn my head to see a woman rolling a clean bandage by my bedside. “You don’t hurt much now because I put a bit of rankflower salve on it. Will take the kick out of any pain that ails you, though not much I can do for your head, dearie, I’m sorry. That hurt’s on the inside, nowhere I can get to without cracking your skull apart, which I don’t think Stille would thank me for.”
I angle my head but can’t quite see the arrow wound just below my clavicle, but the poultice carries a distinctive aroma.
“I thank you,” I say to the healer. “And you,” I add, nodding to the guard, despite the pain it causes me. “He saved my life,” I tell Vincent, and the scowl that has been etched on his face since I opened my eyes lightens slightly.
“And I’m sorry about your nose,” I add to Cathon, who waves away the apology.
“How many Scribes can say they’ve had their nose broken by a Given?” he says. “I may find my name written in a book one day.”
“If anyone lives long enough to write it,” I hear a guard mutter as Vincent waves everyone out of my room.
“What did he mean by that?” I ask Vincent when the door closes behind them. “Yes, the seas are rising, but even my most dire calculations give us at least a generation—”
But Vincent only shakes his head, and I know it is not the sea that brought on those words.
“What is it?” I ask. “What happened?”
“The Feneen attacked. Many were lost on both sides—the king among them,” he says, his voice as empty and dull as mine.
I know that I should comfort him, that the hours we’ve spent together in the library have added up to something like a friendship, and that in this moment I should put my hand in his, say words of consolation. But my hand is in a fist, and my throat is closed against kindness. The madness that swirled in my center has quieted for the moment, but I know it will return, calling me to die for the land that my mother tried to end in the very act of birthing me, the kingdom that my father’s people now wage war against.