“More will fall while we sleep. It’ll be enough to keep us from being seen,” Donil says, all teasing gone.
They lie quietly as night settles in the forest, the leaves falling of their own accord and not Dara’s will. Her breathing evens out as her temper settles, and Donil chooses his next words carefully.
“I had hoped you no longer thought of Vincent in that way.”
“I hope for that too, brother. But the only thing that will avert my eyes is one marked such as us.”
“So what will you do?”
“Jam your teeth down into your gullet if you don’t stop your hole. The way your mouth runs, you’ll have us both eaten by this thing we track, the last of the Indiri rotting in its dung heap.”
“At least we’ll be together.”
Dara gives him a dark look, the one that has kept stable boys and Stillean nobles alike from troubling her. But Donil’s smothered humor only vibrates through his body, spreading to her own until her smile is drawn out.
“I’ll keep first watch,” Dara says. “Get some sleep. Dream of women.”
“You’re confused, sister. They dream of me. And what is it you think of, if you ever rest easy?”
Dara’s mouth tightens, all traces of humor gone.
“Revenge.”
CHAPTER 4
Witt
WITT WAKES TO THE SOUND OF THE SEA IN HIS EARS and a filthy word in his mouth. The tide always brings out the worst in him, and the worst of the Lithos of Pietra can lead to very dark things. He covers his face with his hands, the thin bedsheet sticking to the film of sweat that gathered on his body as he dreamed. Tiny muscles in his face twitch under his palms as they fight to reassert the stony mask he must wear by necessity, as unrelenting as the shores of his people.
If his council knew that the sound of the tide resurrected faces in his sleep, he’d be usurped, and rightly so. No Lithos can lead with the weight of emotion upon his shoulders. To be the Lithos means making decisions that can lead to deaths, and having compassion can only complicate things. The teachings of his people echo in his head, trying to banish the faces of his loved ones for the last time, to force them to a place where the tides will not bring them back while he sleeps.
Years have passed since his arms, just burgeoning into manhood, pushed his mother off from the shore in a boat with no oars, her face shining with tears as she told him how proud she was. Next, his young brothers, each in their own boat, the smallest not even able to sit up yet. They all went to the sea and the Lusca, the weight of his love for them a burden lifted. After that final assertion of his abilities, Witt was recognized as the Lithos, with splinters still prickling his hands from the rough-hewn boats he’d made to carry his family away, one by one.
He watched, night after night, from his tower room to see if the sea could be forgiving, if it would return his loved ones and all the anguish that caring brought. In his waning boyhood, he imagined that he would save them, reeling them in under the light of the tide moon and hiding them secretly in a cave while he led their people to victory, bringing them before the council later to prove that one could love and lead at the same time.
But the sea did not relent, and Witt grew, the softer spots of his soul slowly shaved away as his gray-haired mentors deemed themselves no longer assets. The forest always rang with axes, as the old and infirm built their own boats from the Hadundun trees, and Witt performed his duty to shove them into the tide, and the waiting bellies of the Lusca. Now in his twentieth year, his palms are embedded with splinters, his heart a wearied thing that has retired under the reign of his mind.
A heavy knock at the door brings his hands away from his face, now rigid. “Come in,” he says, all trace of tears shed in the night evaporated.
“My Lithos.” Pravin ducks his head briefly as Witt sits up.
“My Mason.” Witt nods at his lead advisor.
“Reports from the field bring no surprises. Our soldiers are positioned near Hyllen, ready to attack. The village has many men, but they hold pitchforks better than swords.”
“A pitchfork can wound,” Witt reminds Pravin as he dresses. “If our men believe this village will prove nothing but a lark, they might discover that such a wound can fester.”
“Perhaps something to impress upon them before taking the field.”
“Anything else?”
“More Feneen attacks in the night. They dragged off another sentry.”
“That’s the third in a moonchange,” Witt says, as he laces up leather boots cracked with years of wear. “What are they doing with them, do you think?”
Pravin shrugs. “The Feneen are always swelling their numbers, collecting rejects from Pietra and Stille, even the nomads. How they feed so many mouths, I don’t know.”
“Perhaps that’s why our sentries are disappearing,” Witt says. “A starving man will eat anything.”
He glances up from his boots to see Pravin running his thumb along the silver band on his middle finger, the metal there giving him the right to take a wife, his bloodline lending more strength to Pietra. He was lucky to have kept it after his first child was born with a grotesquely large head. It was left on the inlet where the Feneen came to examine those freely given, sometimes choosing to include the abandoned as their own.
Pravin’s child was taken not by the Feneen, but by the Lusca.
“Although if they were hungry, they’d take everyone who is offered to them, if for nothing other than meat,” Witt finishes.
“True, my Lithos.”
“So why our guards?”
“Fresh blood, maybe? With no one but themselves to breed with, their babes can’t be too healthy.”
“Then why take a man and not a woman?”
“I . . .” Pravin shifts uncomfortably. “A man’s body can be at odds with his mind when it comes to such matters. If they wanted to breed a man against his will, there are ways to make it so. But I shouldn’t talk of such things with you. The Lithos is—”
“Not to be distracted. I know.”
Pravin clears his throat. “As I said, a detachment is near Hyllen. Two days’ journey will have you in camp, a night of rest, and we can attack.”
“No, I don’t need to sleep.” Witt turns his back to the sea, his unflinching face hard as the stone floor beneath their feet. “Why wait?”
CHAPTER 5
Khosa
MY LESSONS ARE OVER FOR TODAY, THE KEEPERS’ FACES exhausted after showing me an array of emotions to mimic. They don’t know I take another kind of knowledge from them in the dark as they speak to each other in their bed, their words rising to my mattress in the loft. Because of their nighttime conversations, I know what worry sounds like, trapped inside a voice.
I go to my bookshelf for distraction, fingers rippling over the uneven spines. Stillean histories are laid bare to me in these pages, the long, fruitful past of the kingdom that I will die to preserve. A slim volume, warped with time and edges curled with rain, falls to my hand instead. It is a guilty pleasure, one that the male Keeper has chided me for spending long hours over. But the sketches of spotted Indiri skin hold a fascination for me that the long columns of Stillean nobles do not.
“They were savages,” my male Keeper had said once, pulling the book from my hands as I leaned close to a candle’s light. “Strange creatures that walked at birth and spoke as soon as they drew breath. Good that they live now only in the ink you see there.”
“Not so,” the female said, pulling tight the thread as she mended near the fireplace. “Two escaped the Pietra, or so our messenger from the castle told me.”
“Two too many, then,” the male said, sliding the book back into its place and handing me a larger one that smelled of mold and must and long years of being unread. “Learn of Stille,” he told me. “Stille is what you were made for.”
That memory is farther back in my mind th
an my first blood, but more bitter. What I’ve learned of the Indiri has come in small snatches, evenings when I snuck the small book up to my loft bedroom under my skirts. I pass over it today, not even the pages on the shelf calling to me as they usually do.
I leave our small house behind, the hills open to me if I trusted my feet to wander without pulling toward the east and the ocean I’ve never seen. But I know it lies waiting, so I don’t go far, only to a rock on the hillside, more dear to me than any people I have known during my lifetime in Hyllen.
Tendrils of the Keepers’ voices from the night before echo in my mind, captured to be examined later. The female is worried. Though my seventeenth Arrival Day has come and gone, I have shown no inclination to choose a mate, and the fine lines around my Keepers’ faces have deepened as I grow older, well aware of what ails me.
Since childhood I have watched Hyllenian children nestled against their mothers’ hips as they walked side by side, fingers entwined. What would bring a smile to another serves only to sadden me, a reminder that even my female Keeper tucking a strand of hair behind my ear produces a rising revulsion from my gut. I shy from their skin on mine as others would from a snake in the grass, though the poison comes not from them but my own mind.
My Keeper has tried to ease me into comfort by laying her hand on my shoulder while speaking, or wrapping her arms around me before I climb my ladder to bed at night. The only response my skin knows is a shudder, my bones and muscles rigid as death until she releases me.
Their positions as Keepers are enviable. A home in Hyllen. Food supplied by the villagers. They successfully raised my mother, the male Keeper taking her to Stille for the dance. The female Keeper was left behind with my infant self, a baby infuriated by her cuddling and affection. If I cannot bring my own girl child forth, they will have failed in their duties.
As will I.
It weighs heavily on her. Last night she suggested the male Keeper perform the role himself. Fear had me scrambling for my shoes before I heard his answer, but he was as revolted as I, maybe more. He said no man could be expected to perform under the scrutiny of my blank face, no matter how beautiful. It’s a cold reprieve, and I sit on the rock, handling his words carefully so as not to shatter what little confidence I have.
The rock comforts me now as I spot Abna approaching, the solid feel of it beneath me something that will anchor me through a slippery conversation. Another Given in my place might have found him suitable, and he could’ve fathered the next cursed daughter.
“Khosa,” he greets me, the morning breeze tossing his light hair. “How does the day find you?”
“Well,” I lie, fitting my face to match the word. It must be convincing, for his natural smile answers my false one as he joins me on the rock. Either I’ve improved with my daily lessons or Abna is as apt at pretending as I am.
“I’ve not seen you since taking the sheep to the high meadow,” he says, eyes skipping over me in a way part of me welcomes. My skin may not call for a man, but my blood does. And of late it has boiled.
More than ewes are bred in the high meadow, and well I know it. The young shepherds and shepherdesses who receive that duty come back with secretive smiles and healthy glows, not a few having their waists thicken in the following moonchanges.
“You’ve become prettier,” Abna says.
“As have you,” I say, which is certainly not a lie.
In the distance a rhythmic sound toys with my ears, and my fingers drum along, blunted nails striking the rock beneath my palm. They’re stopped by Abna’s own hand, strong on top of mine, which clenches.
“Khosa,” he says again, his voice low, “my father returned from Stille yesterday. The trapmen become restless. They say it is time for you to be Given.”
I nod. There are no words to agree with my own death.
His hand tightens on my own. I can feel bones beneath skin, his and my own, pressing nearer to each other. I focus my entire will on not pulling away, teeth grating behind lips still peeled in a practiced smile.
“You cannot go to the sea yet,” he goes on. “All who live in Hyllen know this, but what of Stille?”
My eyes close, following the example of my throat. Yes, Stille knows that nothing grows inside me, that even the shortest wait for my dance is at least nine moonchanges long. Nine moons in which the sea can choose to become tumultuous, demanding me as my belly stretches, tiny feet inside performing a prelude of what is to come for both of us.
“I can help you,” Abna says. “I know what must be done will not be easy for you, but . . .”
“But it must be done,” I finally say, raising my eyes to meet his.
“Yes,” he says, drawing courage from my words. “And I know that I can provide you with what you need, easily.”
He plows on, his face growing red. “I was with Allas, just the once, and she quickened with child, though it was lost. And now Anja, after only once. If you can bring yourself to bear me for a short while, I can help you, and I wouldn’t . . . mind the doing of it.”
If he can promise me it will be just the once, maybe I could look at the grass or the clouds, distract myself sufficiently for as long as it will take. I force my palm to turn upward, meeting his.
“Abna,” I say, but the agreement is lodged in my throat, unwilling to be voiced.
His attention is elsewhere, and I realize the noise I was drumming my fingers to earlier has grown louder while I deliberated, its pulsing rhythm now distinguishable as the slap of marching feet. Hundreds upon hundreds, they flow into our valley, the black armor of the men making them like ants marring the waving grass as it is shredded in their wake.
Abna and I stand, fingers still intertwined, as they overtake the first Hyllenian. He falls at the single swipe of a sword, his bewildered sheepdog hunching near his body as the horde swarms past. I feel my face changing, contorting into one of the only emotions I can feel honestly: fear.
Abna whirls me to face him, hands strong on either of my shoulders. Even among the rising screams of Hyllen, I flinch. “Khosa,” he says, face close to mine, “listen to me. You must run. Far away, as fast as you can.”
“Where?”
But he has already left me, running back to the village though he has no weapon and no knowledge of wielding one.
“Where?” I ask the question, though panic has already taken me, my feet slyly making the decision while my mind is lost. I ask the question, though I know there is only one direction for me.
I ask the question even as I head east, toward Stille.
And the sea.
CHAPTER 6
Vincent
THE REALITIES OF RUNNING A KINGDOM ARE MUCH LESS interesting than one would imagine.
My grandfather listens to trapmen claiming that the weavers are negligent in their work, the fibers that bind the traps together not as good as years past. The weavers claim the fault lies in the quality of the wool, the shepherds blame faulty grain for their stock, and the farmers lay blame on a wet season. Unable to bring the sun down from the sky to mount a defense, Gammal soothes tempers, sprinkles well-placed compliments, and sets everyone at ease until the entire assembly is smiling as they rise from their chairs.
I can’t help but notice that even though they are my father’s age, there are no cracking joints, or complaints from hours spent sitting in futile argument. Their skin may sag, but not the muscles beneath. My father is the only one whose attention wandered during the meeting, and it does so again as a shepherdess makes her exit, his gaze falling somewhat south of appropriate.
I know that boredom has taken a toll on him as he waits for the throne, but he has found his entertainments in pursuits that leach all happiness from my mother. Donil and Dara were a balm of sorts for a while, their childish mouths conversing with her like adults, their oddness requiring protection from those who feared them. But now their appearance matches th
eir speech, and my father’s reluctance to sire more royals for Stille leaves Mother a floating presence with less worth even than myself. It’s her wan face I see when I clear my throat, drawing my father’s attention away from the shepherdess.
“Prince Varrick.” I keep my voice distant and formal, though the commoners are gone, Gammal and his guards exiting with them. “Yesterday the trapman waiting for his session shared his concerns about the sea with me. What are your thoughts?”
“I think that those who spend too much time by the sea are addled in their brains,” my father says, turning his gaze to mine as the guards draw the doors shut.
“He claims the sea is tempestuous and calling for the Given,” I say.
“Memories that stretch long cannot be trusted. Ask any Elder, and they will tell you the weather in their youth was more mild, the people kinder. That this trapman finds the sea more temperamental now than in the past is not surprising.”
“So you don’t think it’s true?”
“What I think doesn’t matter; I am not the king.” He doesn’t remind me with words that the same is true of me. It’s in his dismissive glance and the way he rises from his chair—the conversation over in his mind if not in my own.
“What does Gammal say?”
“He says that the opinion of the trapman matters little. The girl has not borne a successor yet and cannot be given until then. We’ve sent men to Hyllen for another report, good men who can hold their tongues. If all of Stille knew that she has not bred yet—” Father breaks off. “She is of age, and her Keepers aware of their purpose.”
“As am I,” I say out of habit, though the words have grown stale in my mouth of late. The path to my kingship is long, but I am in no hurry to travel it. The cold seat has never called to me.
With the meeting over, the day stretches in front of me. Madda will be in her dark room. Whether she waits patiently for me to return or prays for me to stay away, I don’t know. She has always claimed that the lines in our hands can change with time but laughs when I press for answers, saying that she can no more give me truth than predict where a gull will land. We frustrate each other, my pointed questions an amusement, her vague responses bringing less comfort than the cakes she would offer me as a child.