When we came to the break, my father went first, leading us into the city as Osmost took to the air. The long staircase was dark after the unending, unshadowed light in the desert, and it took a disorienting moment to adjust.
In the darkness, I thought of the night before, sneaking down to the lake that called to Kata.
I wondered if I would miss the sand as she did the water.
The sunlight broke on us at the end of the stairs, and we walked out into the wide avenue of Jitra’s stone-carved dwellings.
“Dragon!”
I turned to see my uncle embrace my father, then turn to my mother and haul her off the ground. She was small, like my sister, Catryn, and I wondered how it would be to feel so delicate within a family. To be a woman who bore eight children, a woman of iron and bone, and still look fragile.
“D’Falcos clan welcomes you to Jitra,” my uncle said.
“D’Dragyn clan is most welcomed,” my father said, bowing to him at such formality.
“And our little bride!” my uncle cried, turning to me. He was not like my father. He was tall—most desert men were—but he was soft where my father was battle scars and rock.
And it was silly to call me little. I was only half a hand shorter than he was.
“Uncle,” I said, sweeping my wedding robes back and giving him a bow before he laughed and hugged me.
“It is a miracle,” he said. “The Trifectate and the clans in one city without any of it on fire.”
My heart went tight and my mouth ran dry.
“Saying things may wish them so,” my mother said, patting her brother on the arm. “Don’t.”
He huffed out in protest, but she silenced him. “Is the procession ready?” she asked.
He smiled at her and nodded.
As we moved through Jitra, everyone came out of their houses, offering threads and blessings to me, and then followed us. It was a long labor, and Jitra sloped down sharply, so much that I felt like my body tilted back as we walked down, my feet moving forward but my head leaning away, torn between my future and past.
My clan was around me in a cloud, but they all suddenly stopped and whispered and giggled. They parted enough to let me see why.
There was a man there, standing across the river. He stood beside a girl, younger than I was. They both had pale skin and dark, shining hair. She wore some kind of fashion that was like a robe but bound tight to her body with ribbons, but he was magnificent. I knew it was the traditional garb of the foreign men, but his clothes were cut so close to his body they seemed indecent, and hidden behind my covering, I let my eyes wander. He had powerful legs and a narrow waist, shoulders that seemed wider than my hands outstretched. The kind of shoulders that could surround a girl and make a fortress with their strength.
And eyes. Such eyes. They were green, bright as fire, lashed thick in black and so powerful their heat leaped across the distance.
He was looking at me.
He nodded, slow and respectful. Though he couldn’t see my eyes, I swore his met mine.
My cousins and family closed around me then, pushing me along. Please, I prayed to the Skies, let that be my husband.
We kept walking, and I caught glimpses of the foreign man as he processed down as well, meeting with others dressed in similar uniforms.
Maybe it wasn’t my husband. Perhaps that woman was his wife, and I still had yet to know my fate.
We reached the edge of the city, and the clan stopped. Cael came forward, leading me to the very edge of the cliff. Beside us, the river that was the life-giving vein running down the center of Jitra came to an end, dropping over the cliff and pooling thirty feet below.
As I held my breath, Cael helped me down the old, slick ladder of rock to stand on the ledge beside the pool. I looked up, and my family was only shadows against the bright glare of light.
Cael touched my arm. I let out a breath and allowed him to lead me forward to the Teorainn, the small bridge of rock that the river had cut under. I could feel the thunder of the water and the falls vibrating beneath my feet.
The Teorainn was only feet wide and not much longer across, the very limit of Jitra and my world, and at the sight of it, my heart pounded.
Keeping my eyes away from the thousand-foot drop on the other side of the bridge, I looked over, and my heart matched the thunder of the falls.
As if I had wished him into being, the handsome man I had seen earlier was standing there, his hands behind his back, looking regal and stately. It must be him. It must be my husband.
I looked at him, in his perfect grandeur, as if expecting some signal. But he couldn’t see me looking through the cloth, I remembered. I knew he had a younger brother—this must be the man beside him, slightly taller and more severe, his nose twisted, his face hard and brutal like it was carved from the rock around us.
Of course, I couldn’t be certain. One of them was my husband and one of them was his witness, and I suspected I wouldn’t know for sure until my husband was the one to remove the veil.
Cael stood behind me on the small landing and nudged me toward the Teorainn. I could see the pool to my left and the infinite, terrible drop on the right.
A gust of wind pushed me a little, and I sucked in a breath, trying to plant my feet.
It was unnatural, a desert girl so high above the earth. I was a dragon, a scorpion, not a bird.
I stepped forward and froze. I was shaking so hard I didn’t trust myself to take another step. My whole body was trembling, and I couldn’t look up, staring at my feet and the rushing water beneath the bridge so long the rest of me felt off-balance too.
I am going to fall.
Uselessly, wildly, I put my arms out, trying to balance, and it didn’t help. My heart was pounding in my throat, and I couldn’t even cry out or look for my brother. I was alone, and I was going to die.
Arms caught me, but it wasn’t Cael—my savior was in front of me, and my hands landed on stiff black cloth. I looked up to see the broken nose of the second Trifectate man on the bridge.
My heart sank as I realized my girlish hopes of the handsome man becoming my husband were wrong. Certainly it didn’t matter—despite his nose, he wasn’t ugly, by any means. Besides, I wasn’t marrying him for his face—and he had just saved me from falling a thousand feet, after all.
He took my shaking hands, his skin warm and rough against mine, and the shaking calmed. “Come,” he said, loosing one of my hands. I drew a deep breath, and my heart beat heavy and hard as he took the end of the cloth and unwound it from my face.
Our eyes met in truth for the first time. I drew a slow breath in, and something within me shifted, moved, sliding around my chest and pulling tight, shivering down my spine.
But then it was like the shiver was contagious, and the earth jolted, shaking and moving, threatening to throw us off the Teorainn as I gasped, clinging to the black cloth on my husband’s arms.
It wasn’t my imagination either; someone shouted, and my husband caught me, holding my arm and waist, so close to holding me tight in his arms that I couldn’t breathe.
A moment later the world seemed to calm, and the guests all looked at one another, murmuring about what had caused the tremor. My husband took my hand again.
“What was that?” he asked.
I shook my head, mute. I had no idea.
He looked past me to Cael. “Is the bridge still stable?” he asked, shouting over the water’s roar.
“Mountains break and move,” Cael said. “Jitra is eternal.”
My husband’s eyebrows lifted, looking at me. I opened my mouth to start speaking the words, but he spoke before I did.
“Come,” he repeated. “Meet your husband.”
He pulled me along the bridge as my heart stopped. Meet him? Hadn’t I just …
But no. It couldn’t be.
The one with the broken nose brought me to the apex of the Teorainn and easily stepped around his brother. Behind him, as Cael did for me. His brother’s witness, and not my husband.
I couldn’t help but shake. They had done it all wrong—it was my husband who was supposed to remove the covering, who was supposed to have that magic moment of unveiling. No one else. Not a brother. Not a charlatan!
How could he have not known this error? My mother had schooled me for weeks on every moment of what would happen at this ceremony—had no one told the same things to him?
My true husband really was the handsome one I had first seen, first wished for, his green eyes bright and captivating, staring at me like he was waiting for something.
He squeezed my hand, and I realized I was supposed to speak. “We’ve come to the ends of the earth so that we may journey back together,” I said, so soft it was little more than a whisper. “Here I leave the maiden, the daughter, the child. Here I become a wife, one part with my husband.”
I saw his lips move, saying a version of the same, but I couldn’t hear him over the river water and the violent rush of blood in my ears. Wrong. It was all wrong.
I turned to Cael, and he handed me the bunch of flowers in his hand. I tore off the heads, filling my hands with multilayered blooms, and turned back to my husband. Husband.
My husband held out his hand, and I put some of the blooms into it. He looked at me, and we spoke the final words together, words my cousins made me practice late into the night until I knew them by heart.
“Today we release our former selves like flowers unto the wind. Today we become one.”
I opened my hand and he did the same, letting the flower petals drop a little before they caught the wind and swirled up, a few coming back toward us and the rest flying out into the air.
Then his hands were on my waist and he pulled me closer. I turned back to him and sucked in a gasp. He paused for a moment, and his warm breath ran over my lips before he pressed forward, kissing me. His lips were dry, and I stood still, wondering if I was meant to do something else. He let me go all at once, and despite Cael’s words earlier, I did feel alone.
No one in my family told the Tri King that his brother had made a grave blunder, but it was all I could think of. We were taken to the great hall of Jitra, and the raucous celebration that usually followed a wedding was delayed as my father and husband sat at a long table, and the families were introduced. My father shook hands with my husband’s brother, and he bowed his head respectfully, saying his name—“Galen.” Galen straightened and swept his arm behind his sister, saying her name—“Danae.” They stood stiffly as all my siblings save Rian were introduced to them, and my husband watched, his chin raised, staring at them coolly.
Then the families parted like water, the desert to one side, the Trifectate to the other.
“My siblings and I are the Three-Faced God incarnate, the Holy Rulers of the Bone Lands and the vastness of the Trifectate, and we have taken your daughter as one of our own,” my husband said. He looked at me, standing with my siblings behind the table, and his eyes held mine for a moment in a way that made me smile and stand straighter. I had done it—I had said the words, and this was my reward. Peace. “And I will care for her as family should. And in so doing, I pledge to lay down my arms and leave the desert unmolested.”
“We promise to do the same,” my father said. “We will keep our borders and leave the Bone Lands free from any retaliation from our people, and we will welcome the Bone Lands into the desert. We will be at peace.”
“Peace,” my husband echoed, and he raised his cup to me as documents were brought forth. They drank from a shared cup and signed the papers, and then my husband quit the table, coming to me. Great feast tables were brought out, the remnants of the treaty signing removed, and music played. His hands slipped over my waist and everything else was forgotten, my heart stuttering with nerves. “Come with me?” he asked.
I smiled brightly at him and nodded.
The sky was dark and had taken all the heat of the day with it, and as soon as we stepped outside, I shivered.
“You’re cold,” he realized. “Take my jacket.” He started unbuttoning what I’d thought was a shirt. It never occurred to me in all the time I’d seen Trifectate men that they might have more clothes under the black. He put it around my shoulders, and it was warm from his body.
“You must have been so warm today,” I said, pulling it around me.
He shrugged. “I’m certainly not used to desert heat.” He tugged the jacket straighter on me, then let his hands settle on my waist. It was the closest I’d ever been to a boy not my brother. I knew I was staring at him. He was … beautiful. He had a wide jaw, a sharp, short nose, and black hair that fell rakishly over his forehead.
His handsome face almost made up for his brother removing the veil. Almost.
I reached up and smoothed his hair back, and he smiled. His thumbs stroked my waist, but it felt oddly ticklish.
“Are you pleased by this match?” he asked. “By our marriage?”
“Of course,” I said quickly.
“Are you pleased by me?”
I met his eyes. They were direct, forceful, like staring into the sun. “I think so,” I said.
He nodded. “Your happiness is important to me.”
“It is?”
His hand touched my cheek, stroking it gently and nudging my chin down. His thumb touched my lower lip, and then his mouth followed it. I waited, patiently, to feel the things my cousins spoke of—heat, and electricity such as a summer storm had never seen.
But they never came.
But they would. He was handsome, and we were married now—it was simply a matter of getting used to each other.
He pulled back. “I am yours,” he said. “Entirely.”
I smiled at him because I knew this was supposed to please me, but I wasn’t even sure what that meant. I was devoted and committed to this marriage, and him, and the cause they both represented, but was that the same thing as being his? I didn’t know.
“Do you know what’s strange?” he asked, touching my cheek again. “I don’t even know your name.”
“Shalia,” I said, stunned. He had never asked? Never once, in all of this?
But then, I hadn’t asked for his name either. This marriage had never been about us.
“And I’m Calix,” he told me. He smiled. “I’m sorry to have kissed you without knowing your name, Shalia.”
It sounded … silly. This whole thing was silly. I smiled at him, putting my hand on his chest carefully, wondering what it would take to lay claim to the heart beneath my palm. “The past doesn’t matter,” I assured him. “Our future together does.”
He nodded, kissing me again, and I pressed my mouth against his, wondering if I was supposed to push harder to feel something. Or maybe this was just what kissing felt like, and my cousins simply exaggerated?
He broke off, smiling. “We will have a grand future together, wife.”
“Come!” Kairos said, striding to me with a wild grin on his face, his shoulder missing a hawk. “Shy, bring your husband for a dance!” he ordered. “And, Your Highness, please convince your sister to dance with me!”
I looked around him to see Danae slipping away into the crowd.
“Calix?” I asked hesitantly.
“I’d be honored,” he said, smiling.
I drew him into the crowd of dancers, and I let go of his hand to hold up fistfuls of my robes. The dances of my people were fast, complex, and intoxicating, stomping and jumping, twisting to brush against the person you were dancing with. We barely entered the crowd when I was overcome with cousins and brothers and even my sweet little Catryn, swinging me around and laughing, pulling me away from my husband.
I saw a flash of silver-blond hair, and I turned away from Aiden, finding it again and going toward it. Kata’s hood had only fallen for a moment, but I saw her face in the crowd and pushed my way toward her.
By the time I got to where I’d seen her, she was gone. I looked through the crush of people, but I couldn’t see her.
My husband came to my side, catching my arm. “Who was that?” he asked.
“Who?” I asked.
He squeezed my arm. “I saw someone. A girl who looked like an islander. You were walking toward her.”
I pulled my arm away from him. “There are no islanders,” I said sharply. Too sharply, perhaps, but his father had eradicated Kata’s people.
His eyes cut to mine. He drew a deep breath, and the edge in his eyes faded. “Forgive me,” he said. “It must have been the light. Would you care for a drink?”
I tried to force myself to smile, but it felt like a flicker of fire over my face, barely there and gone again. “Yes. Come; we’ll drink together.”
He nodded.
When I took him to the tables of wine, I saw his brother at the tables ahead of us. Smiling, I opened my mouth to call to him, but his eyes flicked over both of us with quick efficiency, and he turned away.
“So this isn’t made from grapes?” my husband asked.
Shaking my head to try to forget his brother’s slight, I told him about the ilayi wine and cactus wine from the desert plants and offered him a glass of each to drink. Rather than sip as I expected, he upended each, much to the encouragement of the other men drinking.
I smiled and laughed, and he put the cup down, smiling back. “Your people are easy to impress,” he said to me, looking at the other men raising their glasses to him.
That stung a little, but I ignored it—surely he meant it as a compliment, and even if he didn’t, all the resentment between the Trifectate and the desert would not be erased in a single night. “They are far more impressed by dancing,” I told him, offering him my hand in invitation.
He hesitated and opened his mouth, but my family interceded, Catryn tugging me into the fray as my brothers pulled Calix, showing him how to dance. I even saw my cousins trying to force Calix’s stone-faced brother onto the floor, and the rock floor rumbled as we pounded it with our feet. I watched my father and mother dancing close in each other’s arms, and my heart swelled with joy—my husband and I were married, my people were safe, and it wouldn’t be long before my husband looked at me in the way my father had always looked at my mother. We would be safe, and I would be loved.