I close my eyes against Vincent’s pain, choosing instead to drown in my own.
CHAPTER 38
Vincent
MY MOTHER SITS, SILENT, AT THE FOOT OF THE BED WHERE Gammal lies, one hand resting on his shin, as if touching only this impersonal part of his body will make it less real. I say her name, but she doesn’t hear; her eyes are large and unfocused.
“Dissa,” I say, her given name bringing her gaze to me.
“I never thought it would happen,” she says. “Seems an odd thing, to not expect that death will come eventually.”
“Not in Stille.” I sit on the other side of my grandfather’s bed and reach for her hand, our fingers warm over his cold skin. “We are a land of length and plenty.”
She grimaces at my words, and the ghost of my older brother, Purcell, seems to fill the room in contradiction.
“The old linger here,” I go on. “It is not surprising for you to think he would live until your own hair was thoroughly gray.”
“Instead of only a few hairs,” she says, fingering the tip of the braid that rests on her shoulder. “And those that I have I blame your father for.”
Her hand is still with mine, but her mind is far away, the ghost of a smile that had traced her lips turning bitter.
“Did you think you could change him?” I ask. We have never shared words about my father, only glances that spoke of mutual opinion.
“It was foolish,” she says. “But I was young, and never very pretty. And he the handsomest man in the kingdom, with enough noble blood to raise his chin in pride even higher.”
“You are beautiful,” I argue.
“You look at me with eyes of love, and that can change many things.” She shakes her head. “If I ever carried the gaze of a room, it was because of the crown on my head.”
Which she wears less now than I remember as a child. It cannot be because her pride in it has soured, because it imbues her very spine. I look at her now with the eyes of a man and see a broad nose, hair a little too coarse to invite touching, lips a shade too thin. If she wore the crown more often when I was younger, I realize now it was an attempt to recapture whatever lure it had held for my father. But that prize was claimed the day of their wedding and cannot be rescinded.
“Is there no way—”
“I have turned it over and over, like a stone in my mind,” Mother says, guessing at the question before I ask it. “Maybe if I had been born in a different age, Stille would have accepted the king’s daughter as their ruler and not her husband. But we are in dangerous times—a barren Given, and the blood of Stilleans soaking our doorstep.”
I listen in silence, knowing she’s right but feeling that her very argument presents reason for her to ascend rather than my father.
“In such times, would not the strongest ruler be the best choice?” I ask.
Mother shakes her head. “I lost the love of many when I brought Dara and Donil into our family. I know what they are called in the streets, and that sometimes my name is mentioned with theirs. No, Stille would not have me. Not after that.”
“Varrick will not rule well,” I warn.
“No,” she agrees. “But you will follow, and because of that, I cannot regret my marriage. You will bring honor to my blood, though it is tainted with his.”
I look again at our hands, the lines of blue veins pulsing beneath our skin.
She sighs, her eyes on Gammal once more. “I am glad he went now, before he could see the depths we will surely sink to.”
“Madda?”
I call up the winding stairs to the Seer’s room, but hear only a rustling in response. I clear the last few steps, calling ahead to announce my presence.
“What’s this?” Madda’s voice comes from the corner where she emerges from the gloom. “A fine young nobleman come to see me, and to find me in rags . . . how embarrassing.”
“I wouldn’t recognize you in anything else,” I tell her, and she wags a finger at me.
“You don’t know how true that is,” she says with a wink. “Why, only yesterday I put on a pretty dress and pretended to be a sconcelighter. I think you may have flirted with me by accident.”
“Quite by accident,” I tell her, ignoring the tug of a smile on the corner of my lips. “You spend too much time alone.”
“And what else am I to do? The king is for the ground, and no one asks the Seer what she thinks.”
“I’m here,” I argue, but she waves a hand at me.
“After the fact, long enough for him to grow cold, and your father’s head already bowed under the crown. No, used to be the days when the Seer was sought before the Scribes and the noble council.”
I take a seat at her table, shooing a mangy cat out of the way, its tail nearly catching in a lit candle as it growls displeasure at me. “Perhaps people cared more for magic in those days.”
“Cared for it,” Madda agrees, and takes the chair opposite me. “That, and there was more of it in the world.”
“What do you mean?”
She watches me for a moment, and the cat jumps into her lap, its purr the only sound in the room. “I heard your Indiri girl took down the big tree in the encampment, pulled all its life for herself.”
I nod, remembering too easily the flash of Dara’s magically lit eyes, her hair streaming as if the ripples of life flowing from her own body made it move. Then she’d released it, the butterflies she created with that power flying away, taking with them all the attraction I’d felt. Or . . . almost all.
I clear my throat. “Yes, she did.”
But my pause didn’t go unnoticed, and Madda leans forward. “You liked it, didn’t you?”
“Madda,” I warn with a growl to match the cat’s.
She leans back in her chair, still smiling. “What would Stille think of such a match, I wonder? Better yet, what would your Mother think? And”—she fakes a gasp as if something has just occurred to her—“where does that leave the lovely Given?”
“Mother’s made herself clear enough on that point,” I tell her, before I can think better of it.
“Ah, well,” Madda shrugs. “Someone else can always breed her.”
“Of course,” I say, desperately trying to sound uncaring, but the words can barely get past my clenched teeth.
Madda bursts out laughing. “Ah, my poor young prince, you need to release some tension. Too bad the baker’s girl is no longer in your service. You should find a playacting girl and ask her to teach you a thing or two. You could use some lessons on keeping a straight face.”
“I’m sure if I took up with a stager, it would send tongues wagging,” I say.
“And the Indiri running about town with her blades bloody, all the shows canceled until new girls are trained,” she adds, and cackles again at my dark look.
“You were saying about magic?” I remind her.
She waves a hand in the air, as if it no longer matters. “I hear that your Indiri girl pulled a tree into herself, and the whole battle stalled to see it.”
“It was a sight.”
Madda garrumphs deep in her throat. “Only because it goes unseen now, a display like that. When the Pietra slaughtered the Indiri, their bodies went back to the dirt, but I still think something was taken from the earth, nonetheless. Our land falls away, and there is only one female of a hated race left who can use magic, and it weak as an oderbird with a broken wing.”
“Our land falls away,” I repeat her words. “You think the rising tides sap Dara’s magic?”
“I think the girl can do very little on her own. She has to drain strength from another, and that is a deed best left undone.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a death, sure as slitting a throat,” Madda says, finally reaching across the table for my hands. She pats the soft inside of my wrist reassuringly, her face suddenly ser
ious as she pulls a candle closer to us. Her touch is warm and sure, resurrecting memories from when my hands were smaller, her chambers a mysterious place where I might ask if there was a new horse in my future, or if my father and mother were going to fight again.
“A death,” I say. “Certainly not the first at Dara’s hands.”
“No,” Madda agrees, “but she is of the earth and took one of her kind—only a tree, sure, but it’s a living thing. She pulled its life to fill a hole inside her, one that I fear grows even as she does. She’s more alone than even I am, up here in my tower. And a creature alone will fold into itself, feed its own fears.”
“Dara fears nothing.”
“Dara fears being alone,” Madda shoots back. “And she’s right to do so, if her eyes fall on you, and yours on the Given.”
“Is there nothing about me people don’t know?” I ask.
“They don’t know what’s in your palms,” she assures me, my hands tight in her bony grip. “What’s in the skin is between you and me.”
We lean forward together, old head bent to young, my hands spread before us like Khosa’s maps.
If only they were inked so clearly, and my choices easily made.
CHAPTER 39
Dara
HOW GOES IT?”
Dara’s voice no longer carries across leagues, but the sound of it makes Vincent jump, regardless.
“I didn’t know you were there,” he says as she emerges from the shadows to take a seat across from him, the low fire providing the only light in the great hall.
“I’m always somewhere.” Dara slips off her muddy boots and curls her feet under her in the chair. “So—how goes it?”
“It was a clean shot. Khosa’s healer says it’ll close in a few days. She hit her head pretty hard—”
“I’m asking about you,” Dara interrupts. “I assume Khosa is fine because the whole castle isn’t wailing fit to end the world.”
“No, their mourning is more the quiet kind.”
“As is yours,” Dara says gently. “Battle tactics aside, Ank was right about one thing. Your grandfather was a good man.”
“I know,” Vincent says, eyes on the fire. “And I can’t help but wonder . . .” He trails off, loyalty to his bloodline closing his mouth.
“Say what you will, Vin. I’ve seen you naked. Might as well know what’s on the inside, too.”
Despite his mood, a smile cracks Vincent’s mouth. “You haven’t seen me naked since we were children.”
“You can’t have changed too much.”
He tosses a throw pillow at her, which she catches easily. “I have, thank you,” he says.
She laughs, tucking the pillow behind her head and giving him a minute of silence before pressing on. “Come on, then. Out with it.”
Vincent glances around to be sure they are alone before continuing. “The quiet in the castle makes me feel as if the people mourn not only the passing of Gammal, but also the end of his reign.”
“Ah,” Dara says, understanding. “And the beginning of your father’s.”
“Yes,” Vincent nods. “Ank said he wouldn’t fight a man he could respect, but he’d go to war against one he could hate. Truly, Dara, what do you think of my father?”
Dara looks away from him, back to the fire. “I think he is a man.”
“Lovely help you are.”
“No, Vin.” Dara pins him with her eyes, remnants of stolen life still flickering in their depths. “I think he is a man before anything else, king or otherwise.”
“Dara, if he—”
“I can take care of myself, Vincent,” she says, the fire in her eyes a thousand times brighter than the one that burns in front of them. He stares unabashedly, nearly as lost as he was on the battlefield.
“After you brought down the tree, why did Donil tell you to . . .”
“Release it? Because when I steal life like that, it fills me, gives me strength. But I took too much, and it overflowed onto everything around me. Life . . .” Her words flutter, her cheeks reddening in a way that has nothing to do with heat from the fire. She clears her throat, trying again.
“Life wants to celebrate being alive,” she says.
“Ah . . . ,” Vincent says, color rising in his own face as he remembers how Dara had affected him, the uncontrollable need for her that had risen. “But you didn’t let it all go, did you?”
“There is a splinter of it lurking inside me still,” she admits. “It will burn off in a few days.”
“I can see it,” he says, his voice hitching slightly.
“Yes, and you feel it,” she adds, eyes avoiding his.
“Yes.” He rises from his chair, cutting the distance between them, his fingers finding her speckled ones. “Dara—”
“I should go.” She rises abruptly, pulling her hand from his.
Vincent reaches for her again, confused. “But I thought you—”
“I do.” She cuts him off, almost violently. “I do,” she says again, quietly. “But not because you can’t help it. Not how Donil does it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tides,” Dara mutters under her breath. “It’s not the way it sounds.”
“Dara.” Vincent’s voice is suddenly cold. “What do you mean how Donil does it? Is that why girls always—” He breaks off, anger closing his throat until he manages a laugh, the sound coming out choked. “And I thought he was just handsome.”
“He is handsome,” Dara bites back in her brother’s defense. “Now, hear me out, or I’ll tear your ears off.”
Vincent goes back to his seat, but Dara remains standing, arms crossed.
“The Indiri are ancient,” she begins. “Even with fighting buried in our bones and memories carried in our heads, Donil and I could spend our whole lifetimes and never learn everything there is to know of our people. It’s all here.” She points to her forehead. “But we have to look for it.”
“I know all this.” Vincent’s voice is laden with impatience.
“Yes, you know us best, and yet you know the Indiri not at all. You can’t possibly, when we ourselves learn something new every day. Our hands will turn to a task we think unfamiliar only to find our fingers know what to do because our grandmothers’ did. When I pulled life from the earth, it was a reflex, my battle instincts telling me I needed strength and my body simply taking it, and it was done badly. I regret taking down that tree more than any Feneen.”
Dara picks up a length of her hair and begins to braid it, her fingers moving as quickly as her words.
“The Indiri are earth. And if you know anything of nature, you know that it excels at two things—life and death. The trees are heavy with the nests of oderbirds in the spring, but how many fall to the ground before they can fly, their helplessness easy fodder for Tangata kittens just learning to kill?”
“Many,” Vincent says, remembering a vision from his childhood, a Tangata sitting lazily beneath a nest as the baby oderbirds tried to fly. Tried and failed, not knowing they only had the one chance. He picked up a stick, and was about to run at the cat in all his foolishness when Dara had stopped him, a chain of salium in her hair.
It is the way of it, she said then.
“It is the way of it,” he repeats now.
“It is. Death follows life, and life returns again, only to find the same shadow behind.”
“What does this have to do with the Indiri, and Donil?” Vincent asks.
“We are the earth,” Dara says, tying off her braid, fingers finding a new lock of hair to toy with. “Each Indiri has an inclination toward life or death. Which is why my blade flashes a bit faster than Donil’s, why my voice can convince a tree to lay down its life at my request. Donil can’t help what he is. When we were children, the animals of the forest would come to him.”
Vincent nods, rememberin
g snakes curling around Donil as he stood like a stone, his entire body a writhing mass of poison that he didn’t fear. “Yes. Donil could call anything to him.”
“And now . . . ,” Dara prompts.
“And now we are older, and it is women who answer,” Vincent finishes.
“It cannot be helped any more than you can help that you are of royal blood and bound to the throne by it. I give him some salt about it, but truth be told, I think he turns away many. He knows the difference between winning a woman who wants him for him and having one who is responding only to his body’s call.”
“And that’s what you think you’re doing to me?” Vincent dares to stand, approaching her next to the fire. “Using the life you took and making me want you?”
Dara studies the flames, tying off her last braid with an efficient twist. “I would have you on my own terms, and you never looked at me before.”
“You don’t know that,” Vincent says, and she turns her head in surprise. “You were spilling death from your lips when you talked down that tree in the woods, and I suddenly saw a woman where the girl from my childhood had been.”
His words hang in the air, which stretches tight between them.
“Our childhood,” Dara echoes. “Do you remember the vow we made?”
“We said if neither of us found a suitable spouse before a gray hair, we’d marry,” Vincent says, the words so close to his tongue she knew they had been in his mind more than once in the passing years.
“A vow made by those who were little, and knew the same, Vin. Childish minds that took no account of my skin, the throne, the will of the people, or your own mother.”
“There can be no marriage between us, but . . .” Vincent agrees, and though she had said as much in her own words, his cut her to the bone because of the opening he left after.