With another stretch of breathless galloping in the afternoon, we made Trizala well after nightfall; I almost regretted my fast rides that brought us to this strange new city without the light to see by.
Galen said we were getting close when the road rose steeply, the horses slowly climbing switchbacks cut into a mountain. It was dark, and the growing height made me uneasy, but Galen seemed confident and sure, and I followed close behind him.
After another turn, Galen stopped as we faced a wall, a stone gate bridged right over the road.
“Open the gate for the Trifectate Queen!” he bellowed.
“Open the gate!” someone called back.
Without us seeing how, the gate slowly rose until we could pass easily with our horses, and Galen ducked his head and rode into the dark shadow. I followed him, holding my breath.
A torch illuminated the dark area, and the man holding it bowed. Galen nodded to him without saying anything, and rode on.
The city was built into the mountain, houses balanced along the road, which continued in switchbacks up the mountain. As we continued higher, the houses were more elaborate and huge, carved into the rock itself.
“It’s like Jitra,” I marveled. “I never knew there was another city like this.”
Galen turned around, one side of his mouth winging upward. “I thought you’d like it. I figured you’d feel safe here.”
He turned around front, and it took me a moment to spur my horse to follow him. Perhaps I was just starved for affection, but his thoughtfulness touched my heart.
We kept going until we crested the mountain. At the top, there was a great flat space carved out between the mountains, and it was lit with a hundred torches. People were gathered there, a man who I guessed was a vestai and his family, and I dismounted, taking in the grand spectacle of it. Peering off the edge into the night, I could only get a rough sense of the sweep and beauty of this view; it felt like a rich, dark mystery, full of promise.
“Definitely crafted by Elementae,” Kairos said, coming up behind me. “Maybe you’re not the first Elementa from the desert, you know. Jitra would make a lot more sense.”
I looked at the rocks. “Maybe,” I whispered back.
He put his hands on my shoulders. “How are you feeling?”
Leaning against him, I smiled the small bit that my bruise would allow. “Free,” I told him.
Like a good brother, he didn’t remind me that was a lie, even as his hawk wheeled around us and dove for something in the dark, the only creature here that was really free to do as he pleased. Kairos just rubbed warmth into my shoulders and stood behind me.
Vestai Nikan brought us to his stronghold, tucked into the mountains. The rooms were all carved stone, cool and dark, and walking into them, I felt my power bubbling around me. Not triggered or pulled, nothing to do with me—just preexisting and natural.
Zeph and Theron went into my chamber while I waited in the hall. Galen stood across from me, close enough that our feet were nearly touching, and Kai wandered up and down the hall, restless, looking at everything.
“What will we do here?” I asked, glancing around. “In my rush to leave, I hadn’t thought what I would actually be doing.”
“Whatever you wish,” Galen told me. “I would recommend addressing the people at some point. Vestai Nikan is planning a feast in your honor tomorrow night.”
I nodded. “Thank you,” I told him.
Galen didn’t look at me. “Of course.” Zeph emerged and nodded, Theron coming out a moment behind him. “Secure?” Galen asked.
“Yes, sir. My queen,” Zeph said, gesturing me into the room.
“You’re not going to stay here, are you?” I asked them.
“Kairos and I will sleep next door,” Galen told me. “But yes, they will absolutely stay here.”
“They haven’t slept, and they’ve been riding all day. Can’t one of the others stay here?” I asked.
“Theron will sleep and I’ll watch over you, my queen,” Zeph told me. “I’ll be fine waiting until tomorrow.”
“But you won’t be sharp,” Kairos said. “I’ll stay the night, and then I’ll sleep during the day tomorrow while Shy performs whatever queenly duties she must.”
Zeph frowned.
“Very well,” Galen said. “Just for tonight.”
Kairos stepped closer to my door, and the muscles of Zeph’s arms tightened. “My queen,” he said, looking at the ground. “I won’t offer you an apology. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, and you shouldn’t give it to me. But please know that I will regret failing you for the rest of my days,” he said.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” I told him. “You couldn’t have changed anything that happened yesterday.”
“My queen—” Theron started.
I held up a hand. “I grew up with six brothers. Five of whom were older than me.”
“I’m aware,” Kairos said drily.
I gave him a look. “I understand that I’m bruised, and that you all care very much about my safety and my health. You care about chivalry and what a woman may or may not deserve. And I treasure that. Your concern means a great deal to me. But your guilt isn’t about me, or my body, or my pain. It’s about Calix, and it’s about you seeing me as a thing that needs to be protected, like I shattered when he h-hit me.”
They all looked at me as my voice failed me for a moment, and I pressed my lips together, trying to stop more unwanted emotions from rushing out.
“I don’t want to feel broken. I don’t want to give him that power. Calix did not—and will never—break me. So don’t apologize, and if you must feel guilty, then share that with someone other than me. Do you understand?”
They all nodded grimly.
“I hope this is the last we have to discuss it,” I told them.
Zeph nodded, nudging the others away. He, at least, understood when he was dismissed.
Galen glanced at me and turned away, following my guards. Kairos slipped inside my room before I could shut the door.
I shut it behind him with a sigh. He went to the windows, gazing out into the darkness, looking at the windows themselves. “Well,” he said. “We should be able to get pretty far before they realize you’re gone.” He turned back to me. “If we’re leaving.”
Drawing a breath, I shook my head slowly. “We can’t leave, Kairos. Or I can’t leave. But I think you should go back to the desert.”
He snorted. “Like hell,” he said. “Why would I ever leave you alone after all that’s happened?”
“Because he won’t hurt me the way he’ll hurt you,” I said, squeezing my hands together, trying to stop the trembles that came anyway.
“I swore a promise,” he said, crossing his arms. “I’ll make him regret what he’s done to you.”
“No,” I said, looking at him. “No. This,” I said, fingering the bruise on my face, “is a distraction. Yesterday Calix proved that he’s not interested in peace. Maybe he’s interested in submission; maybe he wants war. Maybe he doesn’t care. But I still want peace, Kairos.”
He lifted his shoulders. “How can you get it if he doesn’t want it?”
“That’s what I need to figure out. But it is not so simple as running back to the desert—or anywhere—when he still has men there. We cannot risk more lives.” I looked out the window, into the dark that was dotted with torchlight in a strange pattern. “The greater question is whether peace can ever be achieved with Calix as king.”
He drew a long breath. “Rian believes it can’t.”
I tucked my hands around myself, rubbing warmth into my arms. “And if I believe that, then it would make sense to join Rian. To help the Resistance.”
Kairos’s eyes flicked to the wall, reminding me that my guards were likely next door, not to mention my husband’s brother. “Have you considered other options?”
I looked to him. “Such as?”
“Waiting until your child is born, and then removing Calix.”
I shuddered, shaking my head.
He looked at me, and he appeared so much older suddenly. “None of these options will let him live, Shalia. If he lives, then there will be no peace.”
I thought of Galen, of seeing every face of every soldier and choosing their deaths and calling it peace.
“Besides, you may not have that long,” Kairos said. “Your power is growing stronger. It seems like it’s harder for you to control it. If he ever sees it, baby or not, your choices—if not your life—will be taken away.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“The desert can repel the Trifectate men who are there. It would only take a note from Osmost, and it would be done. We could run right now.”
I shook my head. “No. It’s rash, and it’s risky. Besides, Galen and the Saepia will pay the price for it. I won’t bring that on their heads after all they’ve done for me. I need more time to think. That’s why we came here,” I told him.
His mouth drew tight, but he didn’t disagree with me. “Very well.”
“Do you know if Rian is safe?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. But we would have heard by now if he wasn’t.”
I sighed. “I suppose.”
He came forward and kissed my cheek. “Good night, Shy.”
After everything that happened, it wasn’t my husband hitting me that haunted my dreams. It was the attack in the Tri City, seeing the soldier hack into the man’s arm without cutting it off completely. A gaping wound with a geyser of blood.
In my dream it sprayed all over me, hot and soaking my hair, my skin, my clothes.
I woke up with a scream, and Kairos was in the room before I was fully awake, his double swords unsheathed and ready. Shaking my head, I told him, “A dream.”
“I’ll stay in here until you fall asleep,” he told me.
I shook my head. “That may be a while.” I got out of the bed, pulling one of my thickest coats around me. “It’s colder up here, isn’t it?”
He nodded, and I went to the small basin of water. I dipped my hands in it, splashing water carefully on my face. I looked up and my reflection stared back at me, my brown cheek stained purple and black, the area around the cut swollen and red.
“It feels fake,” I told him. “The way it looks—this isn’t my face.”
Kairos’s lip curled. “Wait until you see how colorful bruises can look on his pale skin.”
“You can’t hit the king, Kai.”
“Galen got to,” he grunted.
“Calix isn’t your brother.”
“Brother by marriage.”
“Besides,” I told him, with as much of a smile as I could muster, “you were never the brother who hit back. You were the one to put a scorpion in a bedroll.”
He looked at me, calculating and dangerous. “Yes,” he said. “So just imagine what your husband has earned.”
I looked at him. “Perhaps I’m the scorpion in that situation.”
“You’re a daughter of the desert, Shalia. You have always had the ability to pierce and sting.”
“It’s getting close to dawn; do you want to take a walk with me?”
He grunted. “No. I’m exhausted. But I will if you want to.”
I nodded. “I won’t tax you. I just want to see the world outside.”
He went and opened the door. “After you, Shy.”
I walked through the door, and we went down the hallway side by side. The hallway led to a huge room and the platform at the top of the city beyond that, and the areas were deserted. “Maybe it’s earlier than I thought,” I murmured to him.
“It definitely is,” he grumbled.
We went outside, and a wind immediately whipped around us. It was still dark, in the shadow of the mountain, but at the edge of the world a pale blue light spread over the sky, and I had my first look at the deep valley and the city we had come up through. The city dropped sharply downward into green grass coating the bottom of the valley, cresting up into gray-blue mountains and trees, rolling out like the ocean made green and immobile.
Kai stood beside me, looking out. “I need to say something, and I don’t know what to say about it,” Kai said, pushing out a breath. With his hands clasped behind his back, he looked so much like Father that it stole my breath for a moment. “I want to ask if I should be worried about Galen. He chose this place to comfort you, and that … means something, Shalia.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but he shook his head.
“And then I thought, maybe I should speak to him—play the big brother like Cael or Rian would. Threaten him, accuse him, poke his chest or something. Or maybe speak to you and warn you of the way he looks at you. But I think you know, don’t you?” My mouth was dry, but as I glanced down, heat didn’t just fill my cheeks—I felt it rush around my chest and heart, and flutter in my stomach. Yes, I knew what Kairos meant. I nodded.
“And you look at him too.”
Slower now, I nodded again. I still wasn’t sure what it meant, but yes, I had looked at Galen in the same manner he’d looked at me.
“And that’s as far as it’s gone.”
Nod.
He sighed. “I should do all those things. But instead I’ll just say that I want you to be happy, and I want you to be safe. Unfortunately, I don’t know that you can have both at the same time right now.”
I looked down. “I don’t know that I can have either, Kai.”
He put his arm around me. “One day. One day.”
Leaning against him, I watched as the sky grew brighter, slowly illuminating the mountain around us. Soaked in new light, I felt the threads against my hands, tingling and strong.
I pulled away from Kairos, going to the back of the flattened platform. There was an outcrop in the rocks maybe fifty feet up, and I desperately wanted to climb.
I put my hands to the rock, searching for a handhold, and it felt warm, like it moved against me to feel my touch. The threads were weaving together, tight and substantial enough to be fabric.
“Shalia,” Kairos said, grabbing my waist. “Do I need to remind you you’re with child?”
I slapped his hands, and he let me go. “I don’t think I could hurt myself here if I tried,” I told him, gazing up rather wondrously at the rock. “I feel … tied to it somehow.”
He lifted an eyebrow, watching me go. The climb was quick and easy—everywhere I put my hand or foot, the rock responded, giving me a hold on it.
“Shy!” Kairos protested.
I stopped, glancing down at him. I looked at the space between us curiously.
“I wonder,” I said softly. I curled the threads around my fingers and tugged through them gently.
The rock shook a little, and Kai shouted my name again, but the mountain was already moving. Small pieces falling and breaking, pushing back and jutting forward, as the stone shifted and changed beneath me—until a perfect staircase was cut into the mountain face, connecting me and my brother.
I was breathing heavily, stunned and a little winded.
“Great Skies,” Kairos murmured, stepping up tentatively.
The staircase went all the way to the outcrop. I climbed the stairs, sitting on the flat rock while Kairos came up behind me. He squatted down. “That was incredible,” he said. “I’ve known what Kata was for a long time, but I never saw her use her power like that.”
I sighed, feeling the weariness in my bones. “Honestly, it was a little more exhausting than I expected.”
“Stay up here. I’ll get you something to drink,” he told me.
I nodded.
He went down the stairs quickly, trotting inside.
Rolling my shoulders, I rubbed my neck a little. It helped my discomfort, my weakness, but as that eased, there was something else. My power was humming, tense, alive—and insistent.
Curling the threads around my fingers, I felt a tightness to it, like the threads had all been interwoven to form a dense, strong fabric. Following it upward with my gaze, I saw a small opening in the rock.
Osmost screamed and sailed past my head, landing on the lip of the opening. He stood there and shook his wings out at me, calling me forward.
Slowly, I got to my feet. Rather than climb this time, I called up a set of stairs first—narrow and steep, but leading straight to the mouth. Drawing a deep breath and feeling the rocks buzzing back at me, I started up the steps.
I was breathing hard by the time I reached the lip. There was an arch carved out of the rock and it went straight through, leaving a small chamber within. The carving was too smooth and perfect to have been made by man or nature—it was an Elementae dwelling.
The threads felt thickened, pulsing with life and energy and making my breath rush faster. The wind swept through the open space powerfully, and I felt like it was trying to push me away. I pressed on against it, seeing two bowls on pedestals the height of my waist on either side of the room. One, I could see from several paces away, was full of fire, still burning, despite the wind and the fact that there was no evidence of a way someone other than me had been there—or could have even breached such a place.
I went toward the other bowl. It was full of liquid, but it was too shadowed and still to tell what it was.
“Water,” I realized, walking toward the middle of the space. I could see for miles in either direction, out into the bluish darkness of uninhabitable mountains and back over the lightening blush of the valley. The wind pushed at my skirts and my hair, cooling my skin. “Wind. Fire. Earth.”
The second I stepped in the center, the nexus of the four elements, the threads around me snapped. I felt my power like a growing thing, rising from the rock and weaving through my skin. The rush—the power—was unlike anything I had ever known, like it was wrapping me and seeping into me at the same moment.
Like this place was the source. Like it was the fount of my power.
Drawing a deep breath, I pulled myself out of the center, and it was only then that I noticed the dark stain where I had stood. It was old, months old at least. Perhaps because of my awareness of this place, I knew what it was without explaining it—blood. And more than that, I suspected I knew who it belonged to.
Kata had been here. This was the Earth Aede. This was the place she had visited, the place where my power had retreated when harm had been done to it, when my husband sought to wipe it from the face of the earth. It had been waiting for Kata to come and align it with the other elements, waiting to be free.
Without knowing it, Galen had brought me to the source of my strength. The source of my power.
I held up my hands. This power coursing through me was eternal, indestructible, but I was not. I only had a finite amount of time with this gift, and I was wasting it, watching as others with my power were tortured, experimented upon, hunted, and killed.
I would not stand idly by anymore.
My heart beating hard, rushing my blood fast and powerfully through my veins, making me both shiver and feel superhuman in the same intoxicating moment, I went back to the mouth of the cave and looked out.
My hands rested over my stomach. I couldn’t feel her in there yet, but I knew in that moment she would never be raised by Calix. Maybe I would have to wait until she was born, or maybe Kairos and I could find a way to stand with the Resistance before then, but I would not let her come into a world where she watched her mother stand passively to the side.
I was trembling with the frightening clarity of my thoughts, but slowly I walked down the stairs back to the outcrop Kairos had left me on. With barely a thought, the staircase to the site shifted and faded back into rock, and pressing my hand to my heart, I sat down on the outcrop.
It was only moments later that Zeph, Theron, and two other guards came racing out, Galen shouting orders at them to search the city.
“What’s going on?” I called.
Galen halted, spinning around and taking long moments before looking up enough to see my perch.
“What in three hells are you doing!” he roared, his hands on his hips.
I folded my hands in my lap. “I couldn’t sleep. I came out here.”
I saw Zeph lean in, and from the scowl that Galen returned to him, I wondered if Zeph had previously offered a similar explanation.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “What are you looking for?”
“You,” he said crossly. “You weren’t there, your brother wasn’t there, I thought you …” He trailed off.
“Ran away?” Kairos asked, coming from another exit with a skin of liquid. Osmost swooped and landed on his shoulder, and he walked past Galen without looking concerned. “I tried to convince her to.”
This made Galen’s glare worse. “Well, what on earth are you doing up there?” he demanded. “You’re climbing? In your condition?”
Kairos raised an eyebrow as he stepped onto the stairs.
I saw color in Galen’s cheeks. “Oh, hells,” Galen said, turning away. “Do whatever you want.”
Zeph chuckled.
Kairos climbed up and handed me the skin. “It’s some kind of juice they make from flowers,” he told me.
“Thank you,” I said as he sat beside me, letting his legs hang off the edge. “Why don’t you all come up here?” I called. “The sun will rise any minute.”
Zeph and Theron seemed to take this as an order from me and immediately started trotting up the staircase. Galen crossed his arms and drew a long breath, making his chest rise under his arms. He looked up at me, and even at such a distance, meeting his eyes hit me hard.
I wondered if he would come with me if I joined the Resistance.
He let out the breath and climbed the stairs.
Zeph and Theron crested the outcrop, and Zeph sprawled out on the rock beside me, while Theron stood behind us. Galen was slow climbing the stairs, and I turned to see where he was. He was stopped, a few stairs below the top, and he was looking at all of us, at the rock, at the sky. His throat worked, and his eyes skittered around again as he took another step.
Was he scared of heights? Surely calling attention to it wouldn’t soothe his pride. I met his gaze, questioning, and his throat bobbed again, but he came to the top of the stairs, and stood beside Theron. Galen clasped his hands behind his back, and we all waited in silence as the blue blushed to pink, then to a bright orange, then the whole sky burned with the raging color and light that matched my traitorous heart, and the true, full beauty of Trizala was revealed.