We left the water, and Kata used her magic to pull the moisture out of our hair and clothes, a glittering mist that lifted off me and swirled back into the lake.
We snuck out of the city and back to the sleeping camp, smothering our giggles as we rushed to our beds in separate tents. I pretended to be asleep when the women came to wake me up and start preparations for my marriage.
They rinsed my feet, my hands, my neck, rubbing oil and ilayi blossoms into my skin until the tent smelled like crisp fruit and sunlight, even in the darkness. One cousin insisted I should open my robe a little, to show the valley between my breasts, but my mother clucked her away.
“A wedding is not about lust,” my mother said, smoothing my robes into place. “It is about trust and partnership. Alliance. Faith and faithfulness.”
“It’s a little about lust,” my cousin Cora muttered. Mother gave her a warning look and went to fetch more flowers.
I grabbed Cora’s hands as soon as Mother turned away. Cora was married, and more than that, she lived in Jitra and knew more ways of the world. “What if he doesn’t want me?” I whispered to her. “What if he doesn’t lust for me?”
She laughed, and she held my palms open and stroked her fingers over them. “You?” she said. “You are the most lovely clanswoman alive. Why do you think he chose you?”
Because of Rian. Because of Father.
“Everyone speaks of your beauty. The wild desert rose,” she told me. She laughed and lowered her voice. “And often they say very foul things about what they would like to do to a beauty like you. So trust me, you incite lust.”
My cheeks flamed. “Oh.”
“Oh, indeed,” she told me, and kissed my hands. “Make him happy, little flower, but take a little happiness for yourself as well.”
“Happiness?” said another cousin. “You’ll be a queen. You’ll have jewels and gold—you’ll live in the City of Three and everyone will love you! How could you not be happy?”
I tried to smile, but another cousin grabbed my hands. “And the clothes!” she said. “They’re scandalous, but you’ll look so beautiful people will riot in the streets.”
“And no one ever goes hungry there,” said another girl.
My mother came back in, and her quick eyes brushed over my cousins. “Cora,” she said. “Take the others and go fetch some food. It won’t do to have Shalia faint right off the ledge, will it?”
“No, aunt,” Cora said, bending her head to her. “We’ll be right back.”
The girls tittered and laughed as they filed out of the room, beaming back at me.
My mother drew a breath and came forward to me, taking my hands. “You’re shaking,” she said, meeting my eyes.
“I’m nervous,” I whispered.
She smiled, smoothing my hair back. “You haven’t been yet. You seemed so calm when we first spoke about your marriage.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“What are you afraid of, my little flower?”
I looked down at the ground.
“Tell me, Shalia,” she said, pulling me down onto a bench.
“It just seemed so simple before—I would marry someone anyway; why shouldn’t it be this foreign king? Especially if it stops our people from being murdered.”
My mother’s hands tightened on me, and I cursed my words. I had lost a brother when Torrin died, but she had lost a son.
“I don’t want to leave everyone,” I admitted in a hushed voice. “I don’t want to leave you.” My hands gripped hers painfully tight. “I feel like such a coward,” I told her.
She wrapped her arms around me, my cowardice hidden in my mother’s arms. “I know what we’ve asked you to do, my love. You are giving up your family and the desert, but you’re making a brave choice for us. You are doing what your brothers, with all their swords and valor, can never accomplish—you are bringing us peace, and life, and safety.”
I held her tight, not wanting to tell her that I would give it all up if it meant I could stay a child one day longer. If it meant Kata and I could swim on in the lake forever, and I would always be surrounded by my clan.
“I don’t know how to be a queen,” I protested.
She petted my hair. “Don’t be silly, my love. You know exactly how to be queen.”
I shook my head.
“Just look to us, Shalia. This new country, they will be your family now. You will teach them as you’ve taught Catryn and Gavan. You will support them as you do Aiden and Cael. Sometimes, you must even chide them as you do Kairos.” She sighed with a smile. “And hopefully they’ll listen to you, unlike him. You are your father’s daughter, my love, and you can’t help but lead.”
I sniffed, pulling back to look at her. “I’d rather be like you,” I told her softly. “You would never hesitate to do something that would save the clan, no matter the cost to you.”
Her mouth trembled a little, and she gave a soft laugh. “I hesitate all the time, my love. You will stumble, just as I have. But you will persevere. You are a daughter of the desert and your feet—and heart—will never fail you.”
She took me into her arms again until my tears were finished.
My cheeks were barely dry before my father came into the room. He kissed my mother gently and came to me, taking my hands.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to meet his eyes, scared he would see my indecision, my confusion, my fear.
“You look beautiful, daughter,” he said to me. “I never thought I would see the day when you became a wife. How can you have seventeen years already?”
I sniffed, and my father tugged my chin up so he could see my eyes, desperately holding back tears. His face changed, filling with worry that looked strange on his warrior’s impassive scowl.
“You’re frightened?” he asked.
Taking a deep breath, I nodded slowly.
He tucked me against him. “You don’t have to marry. You can stay with me all your days,” he told me, soft into my ear. “I won’t mind.”
A little laugh jumped out of me at the idea, so close to my own thoughts a moment ago. But I thought of my mother’s words, my brothers’ lives, my clan’s safety, and resolve twisted around my spine, making me strong. “No. I want to marry him.”
He pulled back a little. “You’re certain, my girl?”
My skin glowed, the brown shining until it looked like dark gold. My breath shook as I smoothed down the light blue robes, running shaking fingers over embroidered threads of every color for luck, for wealth, for love, for babies. Everything was in place—everything was just as I had imagined it—but I felt like the shed skin of a snake, still holding shape but hollow inside.
And yet, I could give no other answer. I nodded.
He touched my chin to urge me to stand straighter, and I did. His hands rested on my shoulders as he looked me over. Father’s eyes came back to my face, and his lips curled into a small smile as he gave me a single, solemn nod.
Mother placed a gauzy cloth in my father’s hands. He bowed over the gift, and she bowed back to him, then came forward and kissed him as he stood straight.
He smiled at her, and I wondered if my husband would look at me like that. If he could ever love me without knowing me first, choosing me and not my father’s position, my brother’s head, my people’s pride.
My father held back the tent flap, and my mother nudged me forward. Outside my tent, the whole clan was assembled, waiting for me.
I shut my eyes for a moment before I greeted them. I could do this. This was for them. This was for my people, my family, my clan.
And that would give me strength.
The sun hadn’t risen yet, but it was close, the sky flush with wanting for the light. Caught in the half world between night and day, my family came forward to bless me. The women murmured behind us, speaking words to the Great Skies, calling down blessings to me as the men of the clan filed in behind the women.
The women parted, and my breath caught. In the light of day, Rian’s dark skin was paler than I’d ever seen it from the years of living outside the desert’s unrelenting sun, and his hair was cut in a strange, short style.
My oldest brother gave me a lopsided grin. “Kata ruined my surprise, didn’t she?” Rian said, coming to wrap his arms around me.
I pressed my head into his shoulder, hugging him tight. “I knew, but that didn’t ruin it,” I told him. “I’m so happy to see you.”
He pulled back. “I wouldn’t miss this day, Shy.”
“Even if I’m marrying him?” I lifted my eyes to his.
The grin fell a little, and he kissed my temple. “You don’t have to do this,” he told me softly.
I met his eyes and squared my shoulders. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not what you want,” I told him. “But I want to do this.”
He sighed, hugging me again. “Don’t be sorry,” he said. “Be happy.”
I sniffed, letting go of him. He kissed my cheek once more and stepped back.
Rian held up a red thread knotted with gold coins. It was heavy as he placed it around my neck, and I looked at the coins, staring at the foreign seal printed on the face. They were Trifectate coins, and tomorrow, when I left the desert to go live in my husband’s country, they would be my currency. My brother’s strange and hidden life in another country would now be my future.
He kissed my cheek. “For wealth, little sister. That you never want for anything.”
“Will you stand with me?” I asked.
“I don’t think that will endear you to your husband, Shy. As little as I like giving up my right as the eldest, I think my presence would only remind him of the Resistance, not peace.”
“At least you’re here,” I murmured, squeezing him.
Cael gave a solemn look to Rian as he stepped up to me. “Even though Rian can’t be there, you won’t stand alone,” he told me. He showed me a white-and-black thread woven together. “You are desert born, and you will never be alone.”
Aiden was next, giving me a blue thread knotted around a mountain cat tooth. “For ferocity,” he said, pinching my nose. “Show them what the heart of the desert truly is.”
Kairos took my hand. Osmost, his hawk that was always on his shoulder, sprang up at this, shrieking into the sky. Kairos held my hand and tied the light blue thread around my wrist. “Keep your secrets,” he said with a flash of his bright smile. “A woman needs secrets.”
My two little siblings were next, Catryn and Gavan standing together. They presented one thread, tied around a small purse. “I made the thread, and he made the purse,” Cat explained. She put it around my neck.
“It’s full of seeds,” Gavan said. “In case they don’t feed you.”
“So you never go hungry,” Catryn corrected.
Gavan shrugged. “Same thing.”
They stepped aside, and the rest of the clan came forward, stringing threads over my neck. The women began to sing, a low keening cry.
As each thread was placed over my neck, I was struck by the weight of the threads that weren’t there. The cousins who had died fighting back the Trifectate. The women and children who had starved when we couldn’t find food without our best hunters. Our numbers had dwindled, and yet the spirits of those we’d lost pressed close upon me, clinging to my skin like the smell of burning bodies on the sand.
I carried death into my marriage.
Kata was last, never part of the clan, but she came to me and squeezed my hands and kissed both of my cheeks. “I have to stay hidden,” she reminded me. “But my heart is with you.”
I nodded and hugged her tight. She let me go and gave me one last, sad look before going to stand by Rian.
By the time the clan was done, it was nearly time. My neck was heavy, and everyone stepped back from me.
The sun was coming up over the dune, and I faced the entrance to the city as it did. Standing before my clan, I was the first thing the light touched, and as it hit my face, the singing rose. The sunlight and the sound filled up the hollow space inside me, and I shut my eyes, trying to trap it there, trying to hold the power and peace of the desert within me always.
My father came forward with the cloth, laying it on my shoulders and wrapping it lightly around my head. “The next man who sees your face will be yours forever,” he told me.
And then we began to walk. The women behind me broke down the tents and packed them in our quick, efficient way, but from then on, I was not allowed to look back. I was not allowed to stop.
Instead I moved forward, feeling the sand filter through my sandals, rushing over my feet, urging me onward.
Peace wasn’t a thing that came swift and easy. Peace took courage and faith, and I had those. I would make my family proud, and through my wedding I would protect them for once. For always.