When the sky grew dark, Zeph knocked at the door. “The ishru would like to attend to you, my queen,” he said.
“They can come in,” I told him. “And thank you for asking.”
Zeph’s mouth twitched as he opened the door. “You shouldn’t get in the habit of thanking your servants,” he said.
I smiled. “You shouldn’t get in the habit of correcting your queen.”
He chuckled as he allowed the women in, and they quickly set about attending to me, changing my clothes and brushing my hair to prepare me for dinner. When I was ready to leave, Zeph led me through the halls of the Tri Castles.
The second floor was a huge room with white stone and tall windows. Glittering red fabric draped down the walls to pool on the floor. There were ten steps that led to a higher level against the back wall of the room, with space enough for a single table with four seats all along the back edge, so that those seated would look out over the place.
In the center of the lower part of the room, there was a large pit of fire with an iron shelf around it. Several pots were on the shelf, ostensibly being kept warm for the meal.
Something struck the stone with a resounding crack, and then the noise came again. I jumped.
“The queen!” shouted a voice, and I looked up to the raised level to see the small man in the long black coat striking a staff on the stone.
The rest of the people in the room—a host of nobility in a riot of bright colors and exposed skin—turned and looked at where I stood in the doorway. There was a moment when I didn’t move, didn’t breathe, staring back at them all in panic.
But then a young man in front bowed to me, and they all followed suit.
I took a breath and stepped forward, skirting around the fire to walk up the staircase. I didn’t like having my back to the people, and at the top I turned, just as the small man struck the ground again.
“The king!” he bellowed.
Calix strode through the room as the people bowed, his flinty green eyes on me alone. He mounted the stairs, his back ramrod straight, stopping two steps down. He caught my hand, his fingers sliding up my palm to thread through my fingers. Flipping my hand over, he pressed his lips against my pulse, and I wondered if he could feel it pounding back against his mouth.
“Where have you been all day?” I asked softly.
He met my gaze but didn’t answer. He climbed the remaining stairs but kept my hand captive, drawing me around the table. Pulling back the chair, he led me into it by my hand. I sat, and he took the chair beside me.
“Calix?” I asked.
He didn’t look at me.
The man struck the floor once, and everyone slowly took their seats. Danae and Galen appeared, together, and the man struck the floor again to announce them. They climbed the stairs without hesitation, and Galen helped Danae into her chair beside me before going to sit beyond Calix.
I touched her hand. “Are you all right?” I asked. “I didn’t see you this afternoon.”
She glanced at me and away, like the flicker of fire. “Fine. I should be asking you.”
My shoulders lifted. “Between your two brothers, I was well looked after. Where were you?”
“Hidden. We all have our roles in the service of the Three-Faced God.” She sighed, moving her eyes carefully toward Calix. “And I’ve been searching the city since.”
“For those people?” I asked.
“The Resistance,” she said, and now her careful eyes were watching me. “Your brother’s cause.”
“You cannot believe my brother would be involved in something that would put me at risk,” I said. Despite speaking to Kata, I still couldn’t believe it.
“No,” she said. “But they are growing stronger. And both my brothers must take action to quell such insurgence.”
“And I support them,” I said, raising my chin. I would never stand against Rian, but I didn’t like thinking of him stirring up violence against innocent people, even if he believed it was for a greater good.
Then again, I didn’t want to have to make my loyalties clear to either my brother or my husband.
Her eyes met mine. “Good. I’m sorry I wasn’t standing with you today. You must have been frightened.”
I nodded. “But I’m safe.”
Danae nodded.
The lids of the pots were all lifted, and an army of servants climbed the stairs to our table, offering the food to us. I couldn’t recognize a single thing; it didn’t look like meat or vegetables at all. There were liquids and things floating in the liquid, and it smelled foreign and strange.
Calix pointed, and servants placed dishes in front of me. The smell hit me and turned my stomach.
“What is this?” I asked Danae in a whisper.
“Fish,” she said, using a spoon to lift a chunk of something white.
My stomach clenched.
She gave me a small smile and passed the bread in my direction.
Tearing some of it off, I gave her a grateful nod.
My guards followed us back to our rooms, staying outside my door as we entered. Calix drew a breath and let it out slowly, his hands on his hips. I turned to him, wondering if I was meant to touch him as he so often touched me, if that would break the icy silence he’d given me all through dinner.
Before I decided, I said, “You never told me where you’ve been today.” Too clearly, I remembered the feeling of reaching for his hand and never getting it.
He put his hands on my shoulders, but instead of pulling me closer, he pushed me aside. “Busy,” he said. “I don’t know if you noticed, but we came under attack today.”
His rejection burned through me. “Of course I noticed,” I said. “I could have died.”
His face turned to mine, angry and stormy. “That’s what I thought too, Shalia. That everything we are fighting for could have been undone in a moment. But I saw him. I’m sure of it.”
“Saw who?” I asked, but I knew already.
“Rian,” he snarled. “The brother who I assumed would never act out against his sweet little sister. So it remains that either he is disloyal and a sorry excuse for a man or you knew exactly what he planned. You agreed to risk yourself to tear my kingdom down.”
My dread was overtaken by anger. “You think I knew?” I demanded. “I have never been more frightened in my life, and when I tried to reach for you, to get to you, you did nothing. You were so concerned with your hate that you could not spare a thought for me. And it was your brother, not you, who defended me.”
“He’s my commander—that’s his thrice-damned job!” he shouted at me.
“And you are my husband,” I returned, my voice quiet but clear. “I was scared, and I wanted you.”
“Not your brother?” he growled, moving closer to me. “What do you know of his rebellion, Shalia? What haven’t you told me?”
“Nothing,” I insisted, backing away from him.
“You’re lying,” he said, his face twisting.
“I know only that it was part of the reason you married me,” I said, stopping and raising my chin, drawing a breath, and meeting his eyes. “Nothing else.”
He stopped advancing; his eyes narrowed and focused on me, calculating, assessing. “I have a spy in his camp, you know. I know Rian’s not the leader—Tassos says the leader’s true identity is a closely guarded secret. You know who it is, don’t you?” he asked.
A spy? I made a note of the name, though I wasn’t sure if I could give such information to Rian. But if Calix had a spy in Rian’s camp, he needed to know. Didn’t he?
Calix’s voice had lost the fury of a moment before, but I was still trembling, and I shook my head. “No. I don’t, and you know I don’t or you never would have married me,” I insisted. I crossed my arms. “I don’t know how you can even ask me this, Calix.”
He turned, waving one arm as he shook his head. “You do not understand what they did today. What this sorcery—what people seeing this sorcery—represents.”
“You told me of this prophecy, but I don’t understand why you are blind to everything but hate when you are confronted with them. You have spent so much time caring for your people and solving their problems, but you forget it all when you encounter these powers.”
“You’re the one who is blind!” he roared, and I stepped back from him. He lunged forward, shaking his fist at me. “This sorcery will play tricks on your mind, wife. It seeks to destroy, to overpower. It wants my throne and my life, and it will do whatever it can to steal them from me.”
He was wild, but for the first time, I felt like he was showing me the cause of his hate. “Calix,” I said gently. “I don’t understand.”
He drew in a breath, turning abruptly away from me and walking to the balcony doors. He stopped with his fingers on the handle. “It’s all a trick,” he said, his voice rough. “First the trivatis who gave me that prophecy. Then her.”
Slowly, I came toward him. I put my hand on his shoulder, but he moved away. “Who, Calix?”
He turned to me, seizing my arms and pushing me until the back of my knees hit our bed. “Calix?” I questioned.
His touch was hard on my skin, and he shook me.
“Calix, stop,” I pleaded.
“Are you deceiving me?” he growled. “I loved her, and she tricked me. She wanted my throne. She deceived me. Are you deceiving me?” he demanded.
I couldn’t help the fear trembling through me. “I’m not deceiving you,” I told him.
I leaned forward carefully, and he brought his arms around me, lifting me up and kissing my lips.
A lie, sealed with a kiss, to stop a conversation that it seemed neither of us wanted to have.
That morning I woke early, close in my husband’s arms. He was still asleep, and I wanted to get up—perhaps I could walk someplace, after being trapped so long in a castle and in the carriage before that—but I didn’t want to upset him after whatever precarious peace we had achieved last night.
He had mentioned so many things—the prophecy, a spy in Rian’s camp, a trivatis, this girl who once had so much sway over his heart. It must have been the girl he told me he loved who had died—but did she have powers? Could he have ever loved an Elementa girl and act the way he did toward their kind?
My kind.
I’m not deceiving you, I’d told him. Now the lie rang like a bell inside my mind, the sound bouncing back and forth, unending.
Growing impatient, I nudged my husband’s foot. He drew a deep breath and rolled over, and I elbowed his back.
“Wife?” he groaned, shifting.
I sighed like I was still asleep. “Hm?”
“Ugh. Good morning,” he grunted.
I yawned and sat up, drawing the nightclothes around my shoulders. “Good morning.”
He looked out the window. “It’s early.”
“I couldn’t sleep much, thinking of yesterday,” I told him. “You never told me what you will do in the wake of the attack.”
He stretched. “My army was hunting them through the night, but I don’t know if they’ll find anything. These sorcerers—this Resistance—hide in plain sight. Among neighbors and friends who cover for them, if they know at all.”
“And what of this elixir that you’re searching for? Have your men found it in the desert?”
An edge of suspicion came to his eyes. “Not yet. They’re trying to re-create it in the south,” he said. “But so far they have had little success.”
“So what can we do to comfort the people?” I asked him. “There was so much fear in the courtyard yesterday.”
“Fear,” he mused. “Yes. People should be afraid, shouldn’t they?” He sat up. “Perhaps that’s the key to this whole thing. If we make people afraid of their neighbors—if we teach them how insidious and deceitful these people are—they will cease harboring them.”
“Calix,” I said, shaking my head, “I meant that there is already enough fear. Surely it’s not a good idea to encourage more.”
“Fear is healthy,” he said with a dismissive wave. “No, this is an excellent idea. But how best to show them that they should be afraid?”
“You cannot tell me it was easy to see children clinging to their mothers in fear,” I said.
“Where are the ishru?” Calix shouted toward the door as he stood from the bed.
The door opened, and Zeph bowed his head to me as the women in white filtered in like wraiths. They bowed to Calix, and then stood and nodded to me.
Calix stopped. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “Why would you not bow to your queen?”
The ishru all dropped to their hands and knees, and I jumped from the bed as Calix towered over one. “Calix,” I told him, coming by his side. “I told them not to. I don’t like it.”
“Don’t like it?” he demanded.
“Yes,” I said. “I don’t want them bowing to me. I don’t want you making people humble themselves before me.”
He squared his shoulders off against mine. “And what would happen if the Concilium saw that a slave no longer needed to bow to a queen? Or to my other vestai? I was crowned king as a child, Shalia, and they will always see me as a child. I can barely retain the respect that I have clawed from them, and it sounds foolish and small, but something so simple as a slave failing to show proper deference could threaten my position as king. And your new attendant will be watching you always, ready to report these infractions to her father. How the Thessalys would relish hearing that a slave doesn’t bow to a king.” He shook his head. “Ruling cannot be about emotion, my sweet. It has to be about power and control. Always.”
“True power does not force others to make themselves smaller,” I told him.
Anger simmered in his eyes. “No, wife. You’re wrong.”
My eyes met his. How could he truly believe that?
“Apologize to me for your foolishness.”
My mouth opened in shock. “It’s what I believe, Calix,” I told him.
He stepped closer to me, and I stepped back. “You are my wife. You will believe what I tell you to believe. Apologize.”
My eyes burned. “Calix,” I said, shaking my head.
He stepped forward, and as I stepped back again, there was a sick feeling inside me I recognized as fear. He didn’t just want his people afraid—he wanted me afraid. And I was. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“For what?” he demanded.
“For my foolishness,” I said.
He nodded once, leaning his head closer to mine. “So you see,” he murmured. “That is power.”
The ishru dressed me, and when I was done, Calix was waiting in the chamber, straightening his own clothes as he dismissed the servants. “Lovely,” he said, his eyes brushing over me. “You are right, wife. We must look to the children of this nation, first and always. I would like you to go to the Erudium today and allay their fears. Coddle the children and convince them that they were right to be afraid, but we will protect them. Tell them to tell their praeceptae and parents if they see sorcery.” He shook his head. “No—tell them that only with their help can we protect them.” He nodded, a smug smile on his face.
“What is the Erudium?” I asked.
“A temple of learning,” he told me. “Where our young men are educated and our young women are groomed.”
“Groomed,” I repeated.
“Yes,” he said. “Taught in the arts that will serve them as wives and mothers. Sewing, how to fix their hair, that sort of thing. We’ve seen the dangers of overeducating women in other countries—we do not make such mistakes in the Trifectate.”
I remembered my father laughing and saying that he would rather spend more time educating his daughters, because they were the true leaders in every home, and to educate them was to educate a whole family at once.
My head fell at the memory. “What will you do?” I asked.
“Instruct the vestai to spread word of the same throughout their lands,” he said. “With one difference—that they will receive a tax credit for every Elementa that they produce. It’s brilliant—my vestai swear their first loyalty to their overflowing coffers, and it will keep them busy and happy, and quash the Resistance.”
I gasped. “Calix!”
He came and kissed my cheek with a bright smile. “You inspired the idea, my love. Thank you.” His hand slid over my chin, drawing it to him and pressing his mouth to mine. “You are good for my kingdom, wife.”