“I do not know, Donil,” she says, fingers now making a circle on my back, one that becomes smaller until they rest lightly on my spine. “How am I to be two people, Donil’s lover and Vincent’s wife?”
She says his name as if it did not weigh as much as a Pietran stone shield. The first mention of the man we have both betrayed falls heavily between us, and I sit beside her, my own hands drawing maps on her body that I have only just begun to discover.
“And how am I to be the queen’s lover and the king’s friend?” I counter. “Yet I am both these things, as are you. We need not ask these questions, when actions already done have sealed the answer.”
She intercepts my hand with her own and sits up, the saddle blanket I’d brought with us to the clearing clutched to her chest. “Actions already done,” she repeats, linking her fingers with mine.
Khosa leans into me, the blanket slipping from her hands. “I would not see them undone,” she whispers, and I think I may have dressed in haste.
* * *
Dara once told me that when her anger gets the best of her, it is the only thing she feels. Her wrath burning red blinds her to all else, the blue of the sky, the green of the trees, the face of the unfortunate person who may stand in front of her in that moment. I’ve seen her in that state, a raging animal that wants only to inflict pain and punishment, drawing it from the eternal well inside of her to be poured upon others.
And now I understand, though my nature leans a different direction. I’ve lain with many girls—many and more, truth be told—and enjoyed every moment. But with Khosa I’m cracked open, the center of my Indiri self welling up and overflowing so that all I know is love. Fadernals, drawn by the pull of my affection, leave the deep forest to find me on the path. An oderbird rests upon my shoulder as I ride, beak riffling through my hair, curious to find the source of whatever drew him to me.
Khosa laughs at the trail of animals that forms behind us, but Sallin puts an end to it when a Tangata pushes through the brush, whiskers twitching. I shoo them all away with a word, and they go with disgruntled snorts and the swish of wings, a lazy feather trailing down from the sky that Khosa pulls from the air and tucks behind her ear. My happiness will not be contained, and even as I see the spires of Stille on the horizon, I feel only the rise of hope. For what friend could deny me this feeling? Is it not possible that Vincent will see how it is between us, and know that it cannot be broken only for the sake of propriety?
Such is how I feel as we pass through the gates, that the love inside me extends to Vincent as well. We return with good news, the hope of a new world where we shall make ourselves again, and who is to say that he will not bless Khosa and me in this place yet unseen, that we may be together? I am so lost in my own love that I do not think of ship’s decks wavering beneath my feet, or the fear of an endless sea with no sight of land.
All I see is Khosa. As she is now and as she will be, old and gray, weathered with the wear of time, I at her side on the beach of some foreign land, our children staggered behind us, spotted but with light hair. I see it so clearly there is room for nothing else. I miss the tight faces of the guards that we pass, the drawn eyebrows of the nobles who gather in the courtyard.
I see nothing until I see Vincent and, in his hands, a strip of my sister’s skin.
CHAPTER 52
Vincent
The king of Stille stands in a room brimming with words. They cross in the air around him, glancing off one another like blades. Attacks and parries, offensive and defensive, they coalesce into a miasma he cannot ignore, though his mind wishes only to be alone with the long, soft strip of skin he holds in his hands.
Though they were close as children, Vincent and Dara touched each other little as they grew in age. She fought an urge that her Indiri blood would not allow, an internal battle that he didn’t realize was happening until it was too late. Now he stands alone. Though his wife is beside him, he can feel her gaze drawn to another, her eyes bright with a light not for her husband.
The argument continues, Sallin’s voice against Dissa’s, Elders against nobles, the Curator validating both sides when an erudite point is made. Donil only stands, empty and staring, and Khosa’s gaze does not move from the Indiri.
Vincent runs his finger along the strip of Dara’s skin. It’s soft and light, and he studies the pattern of speckles there, wondering if it’s a part of her he’s seen before, has touched before, and if this is the last time he’ll feel her beneath his hand.
“We must go,” he says, his first words since others have gathered here and opinions have flown. Vincent says them quietly, mostly to himself and directed to the strip of skin in his hands. But Khosa hears him, and for the first time, he has her full attention.
“We must go,” he says again, slightly louder, and now Dissa hears him, her own argument for the same thing falling quiet now that he has spoken. Sallin, without an opponent to speak against, silences as well, eyes on the king.
“We must go,” Vincent says a final time, his hand curling into a fist around all that remains of Dara in Stille. The silence of the others spreads, alerting the room that the king has spoken. There are mutters, shifted feet, thoughts rolling quietly about how to change the king’s position. But in this moment there are only bowed heads, and the sound of the door slamming behind him as Vincent leaves, taking Dara’s skin with him.
* * *
Vincent stands alone in the library, listening to the rustle of the maps hanging above him as they sway in the breeze from the open window. Evening has come, the last of the light failing. His family and advisors have left him alone, knowing better than to follow when he came here for privacy.
It is his wife’s solace, the place that Khosa made her own upon her arrival in Stille as the Given, the stool he sits upon usually warmed by her body, not his. His feet came here from habit, listening to the deep place inside him that needs comfort. For Vincent, that equals his wife, and he came here knowing she would find him first.
Her soft step crosses the doorway, her hands alight upon his shoulders, followed by the weight of her head resting upon his back.
“I am so sorry, Vincent,” she says. He reaches up, clasping her hand in his, and she allows it.
“I know you are, and truly,” he answers. “But I also know you come to speak to me of ships and escape. How can I leave her in their hands when I see what they have done and imagine what more awaits her?”
Khosa sighs against him, her breath ruffling the hair at the nape of his neck. “I do not know, Vincent.”
“What you must ask yourself is how many Stillean lives you balance against hers.” Dissa’s voice comes from the doorway, and Khosa straightens at her appearance.
“How can you say such a thing, Mother?” Vincent asks, still very aware of his wife’s hands upon his shoulders. “She is your daughter, Indiri or not.”
“She is.” Dissa nods and takes a seat across from her son, claiming one of his hands in her own. “And I love her as I love you. But you cannot answer what you will do as her brother or—” She cuts her eyes to Khosa, censoring her words. “You must make this decision as the king of Stille. Not as Vincent, Dara’s friend,” she finishes.
“An easy thing to say when you do not hold a strip of her flesh in your hand,” he says to his mother, putting Dara’s skin on the table between them.
Dissa’s eyes go to it, and tears well there, but her mouth remains thin. “How often has flesh weighed on my mind? That of other women your father hounded after; the dead, cold feel of your brother’s hand as he lay during the Stoning, alive and also dead. Yet I was the queen of Stille, not a wife or a mother, and acted as a queen should, keeping my tears for myself and the walls of my empty chamber.”
“So I should mourn in private and build ships in public?” Vincent asks, and feels Khosa’s hands tighten upon him. “And what of the next piece they send me? Her spotted finger o
r the scalp of her wild hair? Do I wait until we have Dara back in full, and piece her together on a ship that sails for salvation?”
“You’ll wait for nothing,” Donil’s voice fills the room as he walks in to stand behind Dissa. “Nor will I. Your mother is right, Vincent. You are the king, and Stille your first concern. I am Indiri. Let Dara be mine.”
“Donil—” Khosa begins, but he silences her with a look.
Vincent’s eyes remain on the skin, which Dissa now reaches for, but pulls her hand back at the last moment.
“You would go alone?” Vincent asks Donil.
“It would be best,” he says. “The only Stillean I would have by my side is you, and you are needed here.”
Vincent nods, and hears Khosa’s intake of breath behind him.
“What is this foolishness?” she asks. “You would send Donil on the same path Dara took? And who follows him when it’s his skin we receive?”
“The skin will stay on my bones, my queen,” Donil says, and Vincent feels her arms stiffen at the formal address.
He raises his eyes to his mother, sees the cold calculation in her face, and settles his into the same. They are of royal blood, trained from birth to gauge tone and decipher the flicker of muscles, the poise of a spine. There is great emotion in this room—despair and hopelessness, wrath and rage—but rising above that is a deep line of lust tinged with betrayal.
And it runs between his wife and his best friend.
CHAPTER 53
Khosa
Khosa’s bedroom is as she left it. Piles of the forbidden histories are stacked within reach of her side of the bed; her dresses still hang in the wardrobe, the fullness of their skirts pushing the doors outward even once latched. As soon as she returned, she had to shed the comfortable Hyllenian clothes, surrender to the unique torture of having her hair done, even if it was only to appear at a briefing where they shared what they had learned from Hygoden with Vincent’s advisors, the pall of Dara’s capture hanging over all.
No. She shakes her head. She should not use the word torture to describe what happens to her as she sits in luxury, wine and water at hand, food brought by a beckon. There is pain in her routine, it is true, but she still wears her skin.
Khosa shudders now as she pulls a brush through her hair, preparing for bed. The bedroom has not changed, true, but her knowledge of what may happen within one has. Color rushes to her cheeks at the thought, memories of Donil and the journey from Hygoden sending heat into her blood. A smile plays upon her lips, but a black bloom opens in her belly, heavy as rankflower, when her eyes alight upon the crown of Stille, which lies waiting for her.
She is an adulteress now, and not only that but a traitor to the crown. Sleeping with Donil has endangered the legitimacy of the royal line, and while she could fan the pages of any history in this room and find instances—many and more—of the same, there is a reason why the histories were hidden away.
Shame.
It weighs on her now, within these walls. The freedom of the wilderness and the possibilities of the open sky are distant dreams now, silly fantasies that she allowed herself to indulge in when the sun shined on her face. Now, in her bedroom where the shadows loom, Khosa knows she has done wrong.
They had decided that they would not be deceitful, she and Donil. During a long break for the horses that had ended with them beneath a blanket, warm and content, they had vowed to be honest with Vincent soon after they returned. They would bring him their love, show him their respect, and leave the choice to him.
It had never occurred to her that her husband might have her burned as befit a traitor, her lover alongside her. But when Dissa reminded him of his duties to Stille above personal feeling, she had felt a shudder pass through her bones. He had that right, and could exercise it.
Yet she cannot see him taking such a drastic action. Instead maybe he will see the ships built that Sallin calls for, put her and Donil aboard one with a blessing, then ride off with his army to see to Dara’s release.
The comb catches at a knot in her hair, breaking the spell of what she spins—yet another fantasy. Donil made it clear to her in the library that, given the choice, he would ride for Pietra and his sister—alone if necessary. Her gut turns at the thought, and the comb in her hand shakes.
She sets it aside, hoping the tremor will pass. It does not, instead trickling up her arm and into her shoulders, creeping up the muscles of her neck until her head twitches and she yearns for the sea.
CHAPTER 54
Vincent
Vincent has listened to Sallin, his advisors, the Elders, his mother, Donil, the Curator, all with Dara’s skin in his hands. He will not set it aside, that its weight and his responsibility for its separation from her body will not leave his thoughts while pondering Stille’s reaction.
Sallin argues that it makes no difference to the fate of their nation, that boats should be built and Stilleans put upon them, especially in light of the second shaking of the earth, though it was less than the first. His mother argues for the same, but with a deadness in her eyes that echoes the life that has left the strip of Dara’s flesh. The Curator also calls for the boats, with the Elders split upon the notion.
Donil says nothing, his path already decided.
“Do not leave without first speaking to me,” Vincent found the time to say to him, a quick meeting in the halls while the Elders filed out of the meeting room, the nobles coming in. “Don’t do to me what she did.”
Donil’s mouth was set tightly, but he nodded in agreement.
Vincent thinks on this now as he heads to his own chambers, wondering how long Donil’s vow to his oldest friend can stand against the need of his only sister. He nods to Rook, who stands in Merryl’s place, and enters the chamber to finds his wife tearing at the bars of the window.
He slams the door behind him before Rook can see, and pulls Khosa from the window, her hands leaving drops of blood behind her as he hauls her away. They crash to the floor, her body still spasming, sleepshirt billowing around them both.
“Khosa . . . Khosa . . .” he calls to her, cradling her head against his chest. In the past he has held her through the spasms, but this one is different from the others, strong and relentless. He watches a candle burn down, one fingerlength, two, and as his strength flags and still her body fights him, he wonders if he needs to call Rook. But Khosa has lost all control of her body: tears spill down her cheeks, inarticulate sounds tear from her throat, and she has wet herself, the sharp, acidic smell filling their chambers. As much as he trusts Rook, he does not think Khosa would want to be seen like this, queen or not.
It eases, the strength of her flailing relenting moment by moment, until Khosa is completely limp in his arms, her breath coming in small, weak gasps.
“Khosa,” he says again, his mouth near her ear.
She makes a small sigh in response, and he lifts her to the bed, stripping her soiled clothes away with no thoughts of lust, only intense care in his touch as he puts her in something clean and tucks the bedthings around her. He dims the lanterns and slides into his own spot of the bed, his hands going to her hair, which he has learned he can touch without her recoiling.
“I did not know if you would return to me,” he says softly.
She sighs, not having the strength for speech yet. But her eyes are on his, her hand reaching up to entwine with his.
“We both feared the dance would forever be a part of you, yet . . .” He pauses, not wanting to give credence to his thoughts by voicing them. “That was the strongest I have ever seen it.”
Khosa nods her agreement, though she squeezes her eyes against the truth of it, tears escaping from beneath her eyelids. Her voice finally comes, weak and fragile.
“I have not been honest with you, husband,” she says, eyes still closed.
Vincent’s hand grips harder on hers in reaction, but his voice remains c
alm. “What is it you would tell me?”
She opens her eyes and fixes them upon his. “The dances come more often, and more violently than before. Merryl has been with me for most of them, but . . .” Her nose flares as the smell from the soiled sleepshirt she wore earlier reaches the bed. “I fear it was you who witnessed the worst,” she finishes.
“There is no shame in it,” he assures her. “You should have told me.”
“I did not want you to concern yourself, with so much already on your shoulders,” she goes on. “And yet I find myself a hapless heap of a woman on a night when you learn your friend has been harmed at the hand of the enemy. A friend who was driven from your side on my account—”
Her face twists into grief, and her body shudders again, this time racked with sobs. Vincent pulls his wife against him, shielding her as best he can.
“Dara left of her own volition,” he reminds her. “I would have never sent her away, in spite of everything.”
Khosa lifts her face to her husband. “You care for her?”
“I do,” he answers honestly, pushing her hair from the tracks of tears on her face where it wishes to stick. “With a deep and abiding affection that is a separate thing from my feelings for you.”
Khosa nods, and he feels a stab of pain, aware that she knows only too well what he means.
“You must be honest with me from now on,” Vincent says. “True, the weight of Stille is always upon me, but that is inconsequential next to my concerns for your welfare. Whether it goes good or ill with you, I would know it.”
Khosa nods again, then gets up from the bed to blow her nose and toss her soiled sleepshirt rather unceremoniously out the bedroom door. Vincent remains where he is, in the middle of their shared bed, and is pleased when she returns to it and claims the same spot she held before, their bodies nearly touching.