“Vin, I would speak to you of it, though I know it is distasteful.”
“What is there to say?” he asks. “I am thrice duped—by my wife and my friend, but also myself, for I knew what lay between you and trusted you to act rightly.”
“You did trust us,” Donil says. “You thought better of us than we deserved.”
“Do you think I don’t know what it’s like to want?” Vincent spits, anger getting the best of him. “I lay by her, in my own marriage bed, night after night, burning with a need that is no less than yours, Donil. And yet I did not act on it—out of respect for her. The two of you could not do the same for me, though there be stone walls separating you and every speck of decency telling you not to.”
Donil stares at the ground, head hung low. “You are not wrong, brother.”
“But I have been wronged and cannot see past it,” Vincent says, tossing the rest of his drink into the fire and sending sparks into the air. “When we return to Stille, you and Khosa shall board one ship, I another. She will no longer be my wife and will be free to become yours.”
“Brother—” Donil chokes on his own words, eyes wet with tears.
“Once we discover land, you will find a place that suits you, and I will find one that suits Stille. May they not be near one another.”
“Vincent—” Donil tries again, only to be cut off.
“What more can you want from me?” Vincent asks. “I’ve given you my home, my friendship for all of our years, even my very wife and places on ships that sail to a new world, though I should rightfully burn you both to ash. What else would you have? My blessing?”
Donil shakes his head. “Forgiveness.”
“That I do not know I can give,” Vincent says, his own eyes bright. “Maybe in the future, when I have my own wife and our youthful hearts have settled. Maybe then our children can meet and start new friendships, while you and I mend an old one.”
Donil raises his cup. “To the future, then. May it come quickly.”
CHAPTER 77
Donil
I have lost my best and only friend, the only man that I call a brother. It’s created an emptiness inside of me, but deep within that fires a spark struck by his own words. Khosa and I can be together, our child born and more to follow. And yes, I cannot ask Vincent to see us together now and revel in our happiness, but once he has found his own, then perhaps it can be as he said. I imagine a day when we are not yet old men, who can look upon each other and remember our youth and affection for each other.
I ride with a commander who trained with Dara, one of the first to volunteer his men to march on her behalf. Though more left Stille with us than I expected, many remained behind with Winlan, rebuilding the ship that burned. Less than half the Stillean army is at my back, and I do not trust that they will all stand when faced with a Pietran lancia, whose spears fly true and far. I spur my mount to join Vincent at the head of the column.
“How do you think our soldiers will fare when faced with the enemy?”
“Some will surprise us—and themselves,” he says. “Enough will stand. They have not trained for nothing, and those who march with us do so not only for your sister’s sake. They were cheated of a chance at glory when the sea won the day for us.”
There is truth to what he says, but though they may thirst for blood, they remain unbloodied. A soldier who has not fought cannot know what a fight will do to him, and even the stoutest man may lose his gumption when the one next to him falls.
“Let me ride ahead alone,” I urge Vincent. “We do not know where Dara is held or if—”
Vincent stops me, raising a hand. “I have failed her, Donil. Often and again. This once I would like to say truly that I did everything I could for Dara of the Indiri. I will lead this army and see her back on Stillean land.”
I want to argue, tell him that we may not be outnumbered but will certainly be outfought, when a scout crests the rise and spots us, pushing his horse to its limits until he is at our side.
“My king,” he gasps, nearly out of breath, his horse heaving as well. “The Pietra are gathered not far from here.”
“The entire army?” I ask, though I was not addressed.
“No.” He shakes his head. “Not by half. The Lithos is with them, as well as the Mason. The Indiri is with them too.”
“How is she? How does she look? Is she well? How does she seem?” Vincent asks quickly, grabbing onto the scout’s arm as his horse shies away from mine.
“She . . .” He looks from Vincent to me, eyes wide.
“Out with it,” Vincent says.
“She was laughing, my king.”
CHAPTER 78
Witt
The Stillean scout’s horse kicks up dirt as it retreats, the animal clearly as stunned as his rider at finding us. We rode to the edge of the Hadundun forest, past the rotting carcass of the Lusca that Dara killed. The tree was not entirely severed from the earth, and it found life in the Lusca, drawing its blood for new shoots that rooted in death, sharp green leaves bursting through the dead scales. There was an eerie beauty to the sight, and no small pride in knowing my wife brought down this behemoth. Even Hadduk was impressed, a feeling utterly lacking as he watches the Stillean scout ride away.
“There’d be almost no pride in killing them,” he says, spitting on the ground.
“Which we are not,” I remind Hadduk. “Bring the men into formation,” I tell him. “But stay well back.”
He nods and rides off, already shouting orders as I swing onto my horse. Dara and Ank spot my movement from the camp and do the same, riding to join me, my wife’s dark braid bouncing between the crossed blades she again wears on her back. Hadduk grumbled at this, warning that sheathing my sword in her didn’t guarantee she wouldn’t do the same to me. Yet Ank argued that seeing Dara armed and beside me would be the first indication to the Stilleans that she was there by choice, and would stop them from attacking on sight.
“Witt.” Ank nods to me, reining in. “Shall I do the speaking?”
I nod in agreement, knowing that any word from me directly to the Stilleans would be met with only disbelief, and Ank’s way with words can smooth paths before tempers flare.
“Your brother won’t kill me outright?” I ask my wife, who shrugs.
“I’m the rash one, and also the quicker,” she says. “If he draws, I’ll protect you.”
“Very kind,” I tell her, and she gives me a smile.
I heave a sigh, watching as the men form up behind Hadduk, perfect lines in the distance that I’ve looked upon countless times, but never with the intention of negotiating peace.
“Nervous?” Ank asks.
“A bit,” I admit. “All I’ve ever known is death.”
The Feneen follows my gaze to where Dara has ridden off a pace, checking her mount’s hooves and feeding him an apple she’s hidden in her cloak, returned to her along with her other clothes.
“Learned something, have you?” he asks.
“A thing or two,” I admit, blushing.
“Lithos!” The call comes from the camp, a woman’s voice, and I turn expecting to find a Pietran wife approaching with her husband’s helmet, left behind in the rush. Instead it is the Keeper, hair astir, leading a horse better suited to a meadow than a battlefield.
“What are you about?” I ask her, urging my mount to her side, Ank following. “You’re better off in camp, should something go awry.”
“As if I’ve not seen that with my own eyes,” she scoffs, and I remember the ashes rising from Hyllen, her husband dead at my command.
“Seeing and having it done to you are two different things,” I tell her. “I’d not have you harmed.”
“Not even Hadduk thinks blood will fall today,” the Keeper insists. “And he’s likely to open throats when a game of ridking goes against him.”
She??
?s not wrong, and I can only hope my Mason’s confidence holds true. “What is it, then?” I ask her.
“I’d like to ride alongside you and the Indiri, if I may,” she says, eyes bold upon me. “This is a day for the histories: the Stillean King, a Feneen, the Lithos of Pietra, and his Indiri wife gathering together. I would see it and perhaps have it written that the Keeper of Hyllen was there, too.”
I study her for a moment, hands shaking on the reins of her horse, eyes bright with hope. Of all the things I have taken from her, surely this is a small thing to grant.
“You may come,” I say.
CHAPTER 79
Donil
Vincent and I crest the rise, two of his commanders alongside us, to find a party waiting to meet us, a small contingent of the Pietran army behind them. Vincent raises his hand against the sun.
“The Lithos, the Mason, Ank the Feneen,” he lists. “A woman I can’t name, and . . .” He trails off, and I find myself sharing his confusion.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen my sister happy. We were born among the dead, the weight of our ancestors upon our blood, the fear of failing them on our shoulders, the constant worry of the sight of our skin sparking outrage in someone who would kill us for it. A life lived as such leaves room for only contentment, drawn in small measures and celebrated only in stolen moments of safety.
Yet before me I see Dara, blades upon her back and a smile on her face.
And at her side, the Lithos of Pietra.
CHAPTER 80
Ank
The Stilleans ride toward us, and we spur our own horses to meet them, the growing space between us and Hadduk’s soldiers raising an unease that travels the length of my spine. Much could be made this day, and more could go wrong. We pull our mounts to a stop as they do, the length of a drawn blade between us.
Though my time spent among these people has taught me they know much of life, I have forgotten that they are yet children, and greet each other as such, with the simple joy found in each other’s company.
“Vincent?” Dara says. “You’ve nearly burnt your face off.”
“Would’ve lost more than that, if I’d not doused his breeches,” Donil says.
And they’re laughing, shoulders that were tense only moments before rising and falling with mirth. The very horses underneath us feel the shift and begin to crop grass, battle readiness set aside.
“You look well,” Vincent says, and if I’m not mistaken, there’s a blush beneath his burns, one that Dara misses as she turns to her husband with a smile.
“I am,” she says.
I clear my throat before anything can go amiss. “Vincent, King of Stille,” I say formally, inclining my head toward him. “You know me as Ank of the Feneen, and I speak on behalf of the Lithos of Pietra, that we may make terms.”
“Very well,” Vincent says, settling back into his role. “I bring with me Donil of the Indiri.”
“You of course know Dara,” I raise my hand where she sits to my stoneward. She nods, and I look to the Keeper on Dara’s other side, who sees my confusion.
“I am the Keeper of Hyllen,” she says. “Mother of drowned children, caregiver of the Lithos, wife of Horus.”
Vincent dips his head to her. “You have many names.”
“And one more, given to me by my mother,” she says, voice suddenly hard. “I am Gronwen. I would have the Lithos know that name and keep it well. For I now take back from him what he first took from me.”
She draws a dagger and stabs Dara in the chest.
CHAPTER 81
Witt
There is a sound, fist upon flesh, and the Keeper has driven a blade so deep into my wife that her hand touches skin, pale upon speckled. There is the breath of a moment as Dara looks down, confused, the hilt brushing against her chin. The Keeper has never done violence and does not know this point in between the action and the realization of it, when all is still. The Keeper herself is frozen, stunned.
Yet Dara knows these moments, has lived inside them all her life, and recovers first. She draws her blades, and they chime together as one drives downward through the Keeper’s back, the other upward through her gut so that they meet in between loudly enough to be heard, steel upon spine. Blood sprays in an arc as the Keeper falls, and Dara does too, blades in hand, the ground rising to meet her as her horse bolts.
I know nothing of battle, nothing of blood. I am not the Lithos of Pietra as I jump from my horse. I am only a husband, rushing to his wife’s side.
CHAPTER 82
Donil
I see my sister fall.
Moments ago she was light and happiness, a face I knew well but had somehow never seen before. Now I see the Dara from my memories, hurt and pain, disappointment and resentment, wrath and rage trapped inside of speckled skin. My sister is death, and she has brought one down with her even as she falls, the Keeper’s body cut in half.
“Dara!” I yell, my horse rearing. I’m thrown, nearly trampled by the Keeper’s horse as it bolts, terrified by the smell of its rider’s insides. It barrels into Vincent’s mount, knocking him aside and tearing past the two commanders who rode behind us. Panicked and poorly trained, they do they only thing they know.
They signal for our army to attack.
CHAPTER 83
Ank
I am screaming, my horse gone from underneath me, my feet too small to take me far. I yell, I wave, I plead, but having lost all words from my once intelligent tongue, I do not know what I say. It is gibberish, sounds of grief, a mourning for the peace that should have been and now is surely lost.
The Stilleans rush us, though I stand before them weaponless, my arms out to both sides. Untrained and half mad, they flow past me, swords better suited for children in their clenched fists. I turn to the Pietra, to see Hadduk bring his men to a march with a grim face. They move forward, dark blocks of armor and stone shields that meet the Stillean force with a crash.
I am yelling, I am crying, I am screaming. I make noises none can hear.
I am an old man standing amid the carnage of two armies, useless and unseen.
CHAPTER 84
Witt
I find my wife while she still lives.
Dara lies on the ground, one hand on the dagger buried inside her. I crawl to her side, a mounted Stillean soldier clearing my head, his horse’s hooves grazing my hair. He rides into our lancia, his mount run through by a spear, the rider tossed over his head and into a fray of Pietra who will end him if he’s not already finished.
My sword stays in its scabbard, my hand knows only her.
“Dara,” I say, and she opens her eyes, bright upon mine. She smiles, blood darker than wine slicking her tongue.
“All my life, all I wanted was to hurt you,” she says.
I cover her hand on the dagger that is killing her, our fingers entwined.
“You have,” I assure her.
Then I’m hit from the side, rolling into dirt, torn from the only sight I wish to see.
CHAPTER 85
Vincent
Vincent pulls his horse under control too late, his army already attacking in a melee, everything he ever taught them gone in the instant that blood fell and horses bolted. The commanders have run into the fray themselves, one already gone, skull crushed by a Pietran shield, the other fighting alongside his men. The Stilleans are breaking against the Pietra, and though they fight bravely, they stand atop their own countrymen’s bodies to do so.
“Donil,” Vincent says, turning to the Indiri to take control of the first commander’s men, while he goes to the aid of the one still standing. But his friend is gone, no longer a Stillean but an Indiri who will see his people avenged.
CHAPTER 86
Witt
I rise to face the Indiri, drawing my blade as he does the same. There are no words between us, only a lifetime’s teaching of hate. And so we continue.
He comes at me with a practiced hand, one that I turn away with effort, striking his exposed side quickly with the flat of my fist, taking away his breath. I spin as he circles me, our blades speaking to each other with a song written in blood. We know how to kill and have both longed to see the other on the sharp edge of our sword. Yet as I lunge, I hear Ank’s voice, a call rising above the chaos, a reminder of something I once knew.
There’s a pause in this dance between the Indiri and me, the breath when I remember.
I’ve failed my people in so many ways, asked them to set aside swords for shepherding, brought the Feneen among them and called it wise, opened their throats with leaves for treachery when I have taken a wife myself, going against all they have known. I led them to a far shore, to be swept away by the sea.
And still they follow me, only because I am the Lithos, a boy who should be made of stone yet cries for his mother and small brothers in the night. I have given these people nothing, and shall take no more. Boats are for the dead; the least I can do is leave them with the ground beneath their feet.
The Indiri strikes again, and I let my blade be knocked from my hand. He stops, questioning, when I lift my hands.