I danced until I couldn’t breathe, and my whole body was hot and damp with sweat. I saw my sister sitting on a bench to the side of the hall, and I went to her with a laugh, sitting down beside her. “My feet are going to fall off,” I told her.
She kicked her own feet up. “Liar. Our feet will never fail us.”
“Maybe they will after a wedding. Are you having fun?”
She gave me a bright smile. “I like the dancing.”
I grinned back. “I like it too.” It struck me suddenly that tomorrow I would leave her, and I wouldn’t see her for a long time. Tugging her closer to me, I pressed kisses into her hair.
She tried to twist away. “Shy!” she whined. “What are you doing!”
“Kissing you,” I told her. “I’m going to miss you.”
This stilled her. “You’re really going away tomorrow?”
I nodded.
“But you’ll be back, won’t you? As soon as you have babies, they’ll need to be blessed here.”
Babies. Stupid, foolish idiot that I was—I’d forgotten about the night, where he would put his hands on me in a way no one ever had. In a way no one else ever would. I’d been so nervous about everything else I’d forgotten to be nervous about that.
Suddenly I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “Yes,” I said softly. “They’ll need to be blessed here.”
“Then you’ll be back soon. And you won’t treat me like a baby when you return,” she told me, wriggling away and pecking my cheek before she ran off to join the dancers.
My head spun, and I stood, going outside the hall.
The desert night was brutally cold, but it was the only thing that kept me from heaving. My blood seemed to pound so heavily behind my eyes that it hurt.
I gasped for breath, drinking in the cold, trying to soothe some part of myself.
“Rough night?” Kairos drawled, appearing from the darkness like a wraith. My brother had that strange way, always sliding about the world like he knew of secret passageways the rest of us couldn’t see.
I jumped, but he grinned at me and tucked my hair behind my ear. “What are you doing out here?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Didn’t feel much like dancing.”
“Even with that pretty Tri Princess?” I asked.
He gave a wry laugh that I didn’t quite understand. “She’s not for me, Shy.”
I sighed. “You’re so picky. You can have your choice of women; you always could.”
His shoulders lifted. “There are many people who you’ll care about in your life, little sister. But there will only be one who moves the heavens and stars for you. And that’s what I’m looking for. What we all deserve. And I haven’t found that yet. But I’ll know it when I do.”
I tipped my head back to take in the stars, thinking of all our ancestors who lived up there. “What we all deserve—except me, you mean.”
I looked to him and his eyes met mine, but he didn’t move. Thinking. Trying to double back on his words. “You could love him. You only just met him.”
“How long do you think it takes?” I asked. “Until you know you’re in love?”
He laughed. “I’m not sure there’s a standard measure.”
Could I ever love my husband so much? Did I even know how?
He sighed again, putting his arm around my shoulders and squeezing. He kissed my temple and whispered, “None of us knows what fate has in store, little sister. There’s love for you yet.”
I leaned against him, nodding.
“Besides,” he told me, “I’m going to find a way to come with you.”
My heart leaped, but the thrill faded fast. “You can’t,” I said. “You’re needed here.”
“No, I’m not. I’m not the strongest brother, or the oldest, and I have no desire to marry anytime soon.”
“Father will want you for his Shadow,” I said.
Kairos lifted a shoulder. “If Father wants me as his clever little spy, I won’t say no. But even if that’s my destiny, I will learn a great deal more in the arms of the Trifectate than in the desert.”
A shadow swooped by us, and I heard Osmost call out a warning scream.
Kairos grinned wolfishly. “And Osmost thinks the Tri City has rats for him to hunt.”
I shook my head. “Father asked if he could send attendants with me. The king said no.”
He waved this away. “You’ll see,” Kairos said. “I’ll figure out a way to be there. To protect you.”
My mouth opened, with the same protest I’d had for years with five older brothers—I don’t need to be protected. But despite my brave words, tomorrow was full of everything unknown and all I wanted was to feel a tiny bit as safe as I had my entire life.
“I hope so,” I told him with a sigh. “I should find my husband.”
He nodded to me, and I went inside.
Calix met my eyes across the hall, but he didn’t have a chance to come to me. My family swarmed around me, all the women fluttering cloths of light blue, hiding me from the men. They huddled me out of the hall like a secret and took me to the rooms we had been given.
They started to take my threads off my neck, then open my robes, and I pulled away. “Stop, stop, please,” I begged, and Cora caught my hands.
She met my eyes. “Women have much to fear in a world like ours, cousin. But the bedroom is yours to rule.”
She pulled at my robes then, and tears gathered in my eyes as they took my clothes, pushing me into the prepared bed with soft blankets and many pillows. They lit wax candles all around the chamber as I clung to the bedding, trying not to cry.
My mother touched my hand, and I jumped. She smiled gently. “I know it’s frightening,” she told me. “But soon it will be wondrous, the most loving, intimate act two people can share with each other.”
I nodded at her, but at that moment, I didn’t believe her. Cora and a few of my other cousins kissed my face and my hands, and then they were gone.
The room was warm with so much fire, but I was shivering. It wasn’t long until I heard the noise of men climbing the stairs.
I watched in terror as the door swung open and my husband was pushed inside before the door shut sharply.
He looked at me for many moments. “You’re making the sheets tremble,” he said.
I clutched them harder.
He came closer to me. The men had pulled at his clothing so it was askew, but still on his body. He sat on the bed, and I refused to let myself move away from him.
He drew a slow breath and didn’t touch me. “You’re nervous,” he said softly.
I wanted to tell him that “nervous” utterly failed to describe the feelings inside me, but words didn’t come out of my mouth.
His eyes rose and looked at me, and I blinked, staring back. “You’re young by any measure, and close to ten years younger than me. Tonight will be painful. I wish that weren’t so, but it is.”
I hugged my knees, willing myself not to cry.
“Do you know why I wanted this marriage?” he asked.
I looked at him, shaking my head a tiny bit.
“My people need peace,” he said softly. “And hope. And I think that settling things with the desert will help, but having a queen, having children—it will show my people that we are not meant for war now. We are for family and peace.”
His eyes watched me, and I thought I needed to respond somehow, but I didn’t know what to say.
“You—watching you today, dancing with your family, you can become those things to me, Shalia. A king … a king has little place in his life for emotion, for weakness. But I believe that you will make me stronger. I believe that you will save my people.”
So many thoughts stuttered and stopped, tripping over one another in my mind. I wanted to save my people too. I wanted family and peace. But how could we have family without emotion? Was emotion the same as weakness? I had never known it as such.
Before I could say anything, he caught a bit of my hair and tugged me gently forward. He pressed his mouth to mine, slowly, and petted my hair. He opened his mouth, and I mimicked him.
I didn’t feel love, or lust, or heat. I felt frightened and far too aware of where my hands were and how to move my head.
He stopped kissing me as he took off his clothes. “It will only hurt once,” he said. “And then we will have a family together. And our peoples will have peace.”
I wanted all those things. Family, children, and peace. I nodded, trying to want this. To want him.
When he got into the bed with me, to my utter shame, I cried. His hands touched my arms, and a sudden, desperate instinct to flee rose up in me and I tried to push him off.
“Stop,” he said, holding me fast, his hands gripping my arms. I froze, feeling tears slide out the side of my eyes. He sighed, and his hands gentled and rubbed the skin on my arms until I could take a breath. “Stop,” he said again, even though I was already still, panicked beneath him. He swallowed, his throat bobbing and moving, and he sat up, backing away from me. He turned from me and sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, the first words I’d spoken since he’d come into the room.
He didn’t look at me. “Maybe this was a mistake.”
Even as a tiny flutter of hope lifted my heart that perhaps I wouldn’t have to do this, my stomach felt like lead. “If we don’t consummate the marriage, it will be invalid.”
He turned and looked at me with an edge of suspicion. “Is that what you want?”
Silently, I shook my head. No. I had come this far, and I couldn’t fail now. It will be wondrous, my mother had said. The most loving, intimate act two people can share with each other. I clung to her words.
“Tell me about your home,” he said, and I drew in a breath, confused.
“My home?” I repeated.
He gave a ragged sigh. “Yes,” he said. “Or ask me a question. Talk to me of anything until this doesn’t seem quite so frightening for you.”
I both appreciated his kindness and also felt a sting in his words that made me feel like I was failing in my duty, but I drew my knees up, hugging them. “Was that the only reason you wanted to marry me?” I asked softly. “For peace?”
He looked at me, his eyes sharp and assessing. “I want to embrace the desert with friendship instead of arms,” he said, but the answer still felt coy to me. “Why do you ask?”
“You want to send your men to the desert,” I reminded him.
He nodded, leaning back on the bed. “Yes, my quaesitori gather knowledge and intelligence. We know so little of the desert. And of course, it’s rumored that your brother is gathering Trifectate dissenters to the desert.”
“What is it you wish to know of desert ways?” I asked, ignoring the part about Rian. He would never endanger us by bringing his rebellion here—Father, if nothing else, would never allow it.
He drew a slow breath, and the suspicious edge was back in his eyes. “Can I trust you, wife?”
“Of course,” I told him, frowning.
“I’m searching for something. Something infinitely precious to me.”
The lake. “What is it?” I asked, my heart beating faster.
“What do you know about sorcery?” he asked me.
“Do you mean the Vis peoples, the islanders?” I asked, averting my eyes from his. “I know they’re gone.”
“They are no longer one and the same,” he told me. “The Vis may have disappeared, but their foul magic has spread—we have seen it even in the Trifectate.”
I looked at him, unsure how to respond, unwilling to betray how much I knew about such magic. “Foul?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” he said, shaking his head. “Their power deceives and destroys. It can burn a house to ash and take the air from your lungs. It is truly the darkest threat of all. Because of that, I’m searching for an elixir that renders their powers useless,” he said. “It is the only way to ensure peace and safety for my kingdom, my family.” He looked at me a moment. “Our family.”
“But couldn’t the powers also be used for good?” I asked. I had never known Kata’s power to hurt us—in fact, her ability to find water in the desert often meant the difference between life and death.
He didn’t look at me, and he was still a long time. “There’s a prophecy,” he said quietly, “that an Elementa will be the one to kill me. My father thought he prevented that prophecy from coming true, but now …” He stopped, then sighed and shook his head. “That power has taken everything from me. Everything I ever cared about. It is the single most vicious, dangerous thing in this world. And if I don’t get that elixir, it will take my life.”
Heat flushed my cheeks at the finality of his words. “And you believe this elixir is in the desert?” I asked. “Very little can survive in the desert.”
“I’ve been assured that it is,” he said. “Given to your people to protect.”
“I have never heard of such a thing,” I told him honestly. “Perhaps my father would know.”
“You cannot tell him,” Calix said, turning his face to glare at me, hard and serious. “If you do, I will know there can be no faith between us as husband and wife.”
“But why?” I asked. “He may know the answer.”
“We may have peace, but your father still knows me as his enemy,” he told me. “It has to be done carefully, and my hope is to find it without him ever knowing.”
Anger rose in my chest, tight and hot. “You mean because you believe he might not let you have it if you find it.”
“I do not want to be set up to oppose your father,” he said, touching my hand. “For both our sakes.”
Better between them than standing to the side as they burn another one of my brothers in the sand. I remembered my bold words to Kata the night before; I had never thought that they would come to bear quite so rapidly. “Why did you tell me?” I asked softly.
“Because you are not my enemy,” he said, tugging my hand to his mouth so he could kiss it. “You are my wife. And keeping this secret will prove that I can trust you as I so desire.”
He continued to apply gentle pressure to my hand, making me come toward him in the middle of the bed, and he stopped when I was right in front of him. I licked my lips, still frightened, but it wasn’t as paralyzing as before. “Can I trust you?” I asked, but I knew the answer before he said it. I could never tell him about Kata, or about the lake, or everything I knew about the elemental powers.
He nodded, his face grave. “Always,” he told me, coming closer and kissing me again. My heart thudded against my chest, but I swallowed down the fear that rose up with it. I could take a little pain—I was a queen now. I could do this.
Everything felt strange—his mouth against mine was slick and intimate, and I couldn’t stop from jumping every time he touched my skin. As the barriers between our skin disappeared, I felt vulnerable and exposed, my muscles tense and unsure.
When the worst of the pain struck, I cried out, and he told me it would be better after that. I bit my lip and tried not to let him see me cry, but I couldn’t help but feel tricked by my mother’s words and my husband’s promise—instead of some wondrous act, it felt like he had betrayed whatever delicate trust he had just spoken of. Instead of two people made whole, I felt like I had fractured.