“You will take part,” Father says, pressing down on the table so hard that his knuckles go white. “Choose the mate for her, or do it yourself. Take your pleasure, do your first real duty to your kingdom, and maybe you’ll discover at the same time that some tastes are acquired.”
“I will do no such thing.”
“Your choice,” Father says. “But be aware if the girl is not bred soon, I will make it so. I will fulfill my duty to my country through whatever means necessary. That is what great men do, Vincent.”
I turn my back to him, denying my hands their urge to close around his throat. Behind me, I hear him walk to a window. His next words bounce back from the glass, echoing through the room.
“Did you know that they say the sons of great men are always a disappointment?”
“Then I have nothing to fear,” I say as I walk to the door.
The slamming of the hall doors behind me sends servants scurrying out of my way, but the fear on their faces is nothing compared to what has taken root in my mind. I have always known that I cannot save Khosa, that her life was made to be short.
But no one said it had to be miserable.
CHAPTER 47
Khosa
THE LINES OF THIS BOOK HAVE SNAKED INTO MY BRAIN, the sweeping quillstrokes of the anonymous Scribe flowing so beautifully that I am pulled along, oblivious to my surroundings. I’ve picked a book from the Stillean histories today, searching not for entries that speak of the sea, but for a distraction so that I may not think of that very thing.
An eerie report today from a hunting party. They saw Tangata sunning themselves on the rocks, newly born kits tumbling beside them on the ground. The young were purely white, an anomaly spoken of by those before me, a cycle that their coats follow, a white generation born every hundredth harvest. Word of the white cats spread and people of Hyllen and Hygoden had come, bringing their children so that they would not miss their chance to see a white Tangata—something all of us can remember, no matter when it occurs in our lives. A white Tangata is a marker, splitting our time like a line in a palm. There is what came before, and what came after, the cat a common reference point for all.
But this generation’s cats will be overshadowed by something more stunning, and they will speak of it before the cats, the white fur an anomaly—but one that will recur, eventually.
While the party stood at a safe distance, watching the cats and tumbling kittens, an alarming cry broke out, and a naked Indiri child scrambled onto the rocks with the cats. Mothers covered the eyes of their children, and those unable to look away watched, breathless, expecting one swipe of a claw to mark the day with blood and tragedy.
Instead the child curled into the warm body of a Tangata, and the mother cat licked it clean, while the Indiri made the deep purring noises of a cat, kneading the Tangata’s skin, human hands following all the motions of a kitten content with its kin.
“Khosa?”
I’m startled out of the story, the image of sun-dappled cats replaced by the dust motes of the library, and Cathon’s apologetic smile.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he says.
I wave away the apology, biting down on my own as I notice the permanent bump in the bridge of his nose, the skin around it still swollen and yellow with bruising.
“Do you know this story?” I ask, tilting the book toward him. His trained eyes skim the lines quickly, and he nods.
“The wild Tangata child,” he says, taking a seat next to me. “She was in the time of Konnal, who would’ve been Gammal’s grandfather.”
“What happened to her?”
“When the Indiri learned that one of their own was living feral, they tried to reclaim her, but the child was more cat than human. She sharpened bones and tied them to her fingers, swiping her claws at those who tried to come near, and eventually the Indiri had to admit defeat.”
“I doubt that came easily,” I say under my breath.
“It didn’t,” Cathon smiled. “They caught her finally, but their party was attacked by Pietra and the girl was lost.”
“Dead?” I ask.
Cathon shakes his head. “No one knows. The Pietra and Indiri had no love for each other, so it wasn’t unusual for a chance meeting of the groups to end in violence. Whether she died with them there or was allowed to remain with her cats is a matter of conjecture. There were tales for years afterward, though. Men claimed that they would feel a presence in the woods and look into the trees to see a grown woman staring down from above, only to disappear in the blink of an eye.”
My fingers curl a page of the history, finding comfort in the touch of the paper much as the feral girl did in her mother’s fur. “I prefer to think of her that way,” I say. “Alive and wild in the woods, not dead by a Pietran hand with no knowledge of why it should be so.”
“It makes for a better story, anyway,” Cathon says, leaning toward me. “In some versions, the girl even has a tail.”
He winks at me to show that he’s teasing and I shut the book, uncomfortable with how close he is. I rise from my seat and cross to another table, one where I have laid out my scrolls with Dara’s ancestry on it, paralleled with Vincent’s so that an Indiri and Stillean time line can be created. I trace my fingers across Dara’s line, the simple beauty of Indiri names out of place with the sharp edges of my handwriting.
“How did the feral child come to be as such?” I ask. “The Indiri do not give their children to the Feneen, and they put such an effort into reclaiming her.”
Cathon crosses to me, closing the distance between us again. “Stilleans have made their own stories to answer that question. Some say the mother was taken by surprise by Tangata in the woods, and the babe’s helplessness was somehow endearing to the cats. Another story goes that the child had always harbored fascination for the wild, and went to the cats on her own. But no one knows.” His eyes land on Dara’s bloodline. “Perhaps you should ask your Indiri.”
“She’s hardly mine.”
“Just as you are no one’s.” Cathon’s voice drops, but there’s an intensity in his words I can’t ignore, and I back away from him.
“Don’t be afraid, Khosa. I mean you no harm.” He glances at the guards, who are awake but lost in their own conversation by the entryway, while Cathon and I have wandered toward the window, our words drowned by the sounds of the sea.
“You belong to no one,” he repeats. “Not a man. Not Stille. Not the sea. You are given to nothing, do you understand me?”
“So you say, while standing in a room full of histories that claim otherwise,” I tell him, gesturing to the stacks of books around us, all of them holding at least one story of a dance that ended in death.
“There are those of us who believe you need not go. Some who penned the very books you mention have studied them long years, our lives dedicated to the history of Stille. We know what has passed and believe what is to come need not follow the same pattern.”
A spark of hope in my chest is more painful than the arrow that pierced it, and I tamp it down. “You tried to say as much to me earlier, and my own feet denied what you say before you could even finish. They will go to the sea on their own.”
“We can take you inland,” Cathon insists, voice a mere whisper. “Farther even than Hyllen. You were safe there.”
“Only for so long,” I shudder, remembering the clamor as the Pietra descended upon everything I knew. “And still I danced,” I remind him.
“Then we’ll put more distance between you and the sea,” he argues. “No Given has ever lived past her youth, or sprouted a gray hair. Who can say? Your fits may cease and a wave may not come.”
My hand reaches again for paper and ink, for the solidity of truth beneath my fingers. “The histories all say—”
“The histories all say that nothing happens when we allow a young woman to drown. It is not the occurrence of not
hing that provides proof but the occurrence of something.”
My breath catches, his logic tearing down the very walls of the room we stand in. “A heavy wager. You would let the Given not dance, only to satisfy the curiosity of a handful of Scribes. If I do not go, and a wave rises, then you are wrong and your kingdom lost.”
Cathon’s eyes return to my time line, the heavy scratches of my ink and quill. “My kingdom is lost, regardless. Shall it go quietly, as your work shows, with lives shortened by rising inches? Or all at once, in a majesty of might?”
“The histories . . . ,” I say again, their facts so ingrained in my mind that I return to them again and again to dispute him.
“The histories are books, written by men,” Cathon says. “You live your life and would sacrifice it because of what is in these pages, but what of ones you haven’t read, reduced now to ashes?”
“What are you saying?” I ask. “There are histories that have burned?”
“In some cases whole books, but in others, pages only,” Cathon says, sifting through the pile on my stone worktable. “Here, for instance.”
He fans the pages of a book I’ve scoured time and time again, but stops to show me something I’d missed, a small shred of paper still bound into the spine, the page itself missing. I touch it gently, and what remains crumbles at my touch.
“I didn’t see this,” I tell the Scribe.
“You cannot see what has been taken away,” Cathon says.
“What did it say?” I wonder aloud, still touching the frayed edges of binding twine where the page had been ripped out.
“We will never know,” Cathon says. “But an Elder Scribe who has since passed once told me stories that I’ve not found in books. Stories of how two of the lines of the Three Sisters died out, leaving only one.”
“They were barren,” I tell him, reciting what I’ve been told. “The strength of their line was spent, and the sea no longer interested in them.”
“Or they birthed male babies,” he says.
“The Given is always a female,” I tell him. “And creates another in her own image.”
“According to who?”
I spin in the shadowed library and wave my hands at the dusty shelves that surround us. “Everyone. Everything. Every book ever written.”
“Again I say, written by people. And people . . . they often have agendas.”
“The Given goes to the sea because she must,” I say, but my words lack conviction, and deep inside me, I feel something foreign. Something like hope.
Cathon does not answer, but his eyes pin me, bright as an Indiri’s. And a flicker within me answers.
“What would you have me do?” I ask.
CHAPTER 48
Vincent
THERE HAVE BEEN CHANGES IN THE WAY I’M TREATED since my grandfather’s death. The throne is one step closer to being mine, which makes everyone around me take one step back. Servants whom I know by name and call to every morning now drop a deeper curtsy or incline their head farther, any joke or familiarity I aim for now bungled on their end as they try to mix their response with deference instead of the friendliness we’ve grown accustomed to.
The newly acquired power has paved a way for me, so it comes as a surprise when the guard at Khosa’s door puts his hand to his blade at my approach, an inch of steel flashing above the sheath.
“I would speak to the Given,” I say.
“She is sleeping,” he responds, tacking on a “my lord,” after a pause.
I hear rustling behind the door, combined with the light humming of an unfamiliar tune, and I raise my eyebrows.
“She is about to sleep,” he amends, unflustered.
I meet his eyes, the same color as his blade, and see that arguing would be pointless. After the conversation I had with my father yesterday, I should be thrilled to know that Khosa is so well protected, but I’m not the one she needs to be guarded against.
“Khosa,” I call, raising my voice, “it’s Vincent. May I speak with you?”
There is a scraping sound as the bolt is shot back, and I can’t help but give the guard an imperious look as I slide past him. Khosa’s fine bones are nearly lost under the layers of her dressing gown, but she clutches it tightly closed against her throat nonetheless.
“Vincent,” she says, her voice as flat as when we first began speaking to each other, “how can I help?”
I’ve never been in her chambers before, and make a concentrated effort to keep my eyes on her face, not letting it wander to her body or—fathoms—the bed. Once I lock gazes with her, though, I cannot look away. The fear evident there is at odds with the stillness of her face.
“Depths, Khosa,” I say. “Don’t you know by now I would never harm you?”
She closes her eyes for a moment, a deep exhale escaping from her parted lips. “I believe so, but a Given in my position . . .”
“Must be cautious,” I finish for her. “Which is why I came to speak with you.” I look to the door, still standing open, her guard making no attempt to hide the hostility in his gaze. “Privately.”
Khosa nods to the guard. “It’s all right, Merryl. We can trust Vincent.”
He flinches at the use of my proper name, as I do at her use of we, but the door closes all the same, with Merryl on the other side. I gesture for her to sit at one of the chairs facing the fireplace and take the other, conscious of the fact that she wraps an extra blanket over her dressing gown despite the heat.
“You’re very much in the right to be cautious,” I begin. “And it’s good to know that you have a dependable guard.”
“Merryl is trustworthy. But he cannot be with me at all times. Even he must sleep.”
“As must you. Though the circles under your eyes tell me that hasn’t been easy of late.”
Khosa readjusts her blanket, but says nothing.
“Khosa, I . . .” There is no pretty way to phrase what comes next, so I aim for truthfulness. “Until you are bred, you are not safe here.”
“I know it,” she says, eyes still on the fire. “Merryl tells me that the soldiers in the bunkhouse drew lots to guard me until I requested him personally.”
“Lots may be the least of it,” I tell her. “My father has quietly offered a reward to whoever . . . accomplishes it.”
“Yes,” Khosa says simply. “I am aware.”
“I can help you,” I say, and her eyes shoot from the fire to me, alarmed. “Not in that way, at least, not in truth. Please—hear me out.”
Khosa nods, and I continue.
“You said yourself Merryl cannot be by your side always, and with your mate not chosen you are a target for gossip and worse. Allow me to sleep here, at your feet. If my father believes you have made your choice, it will buy you some time, and a measure of safety.”
Her face is blank, her eyes staring me down with an intensity I can bear only because of a lifetime spent with Dara.
“You can have a standing order for Merryl to come in and clean my head from my shoulders at your first cry of alarm,” I say, garnering a smile.
“Stille would love me all the more for that,” she says. “No child in my belly and the prince dead at my feet.”
“You are safe with me,” I tell her.
“It is not your actions I fear, but your mother’s anger,” Khosa says. “She warned me away from you. Nicely, and with pretty words, but her meaning was clear.”
“Am I a child, still to be ruled by my mother?” I ask, feeling the heat flush my cheeks.
“Vincent . . . .” Khosa drops her eyes, fine hands toying with the front of her dressing gown. “She is only protecting her son. Any feeling you harbor for me would end badly.”
“But there would be a beginning,” I say, voice suddenly hoarse. I reach to cross the distance between us and our hands touch. “And a middle,” I add. A flicker of
discomfort lights her face, and she pulls back in a moment.
“It could only hurt you,” she says, but I reach for her hand again, ignoring the tug as she tries to pull it away.
“I know what you are. I go into any agreement between us aware that you are the Given, and accepting that our time together would end in death for you and misery for me. Yet I accept that, for what would come before.”
But she is shaking her head, tears now running freely on her cheeks lit by the fire. “That is not the only way I can hurt you,” she says, and my heart dips in my chest.
“Donil. You are drawn to him,” I say quietly, and she nods. I clear my throat, eyes on the fire. “You are aware that he has certain abilities?”
“I know of Dara’s,” she says.
“Donil’s are different,” I say, ignoring the flare of conscience in my belly. “He’s able to charm . . . women.”
“Oh,” Khosa says again, her voice calm and flat, in stark contrast to the tempest in her eyes. “I did not know.”
I let my words continue to hang in the air, aware that saying more would only illuminate my jealousy.
“Would you be amenable to my sharing your room?” I ask. “For your protection only?”
The smile that cracks her face is not one I’ve seen before, almost mocking. “I need no protection from Donil. He would not harm me.”
“You would not perceive it as harm, at the time,” I say. “Ask any of the kitchen girls who are made of laughter on the days they have his attentions but cannot be drawn from their depths when he is finished with them.”
The smile is lost quickly, the heat of conscience in my belly soon overridden by victory at her next words.
“Yes, Vincent,” Khosa says, face once again blank as she stares lifelessly into the fire. “You may share my room.”
CHAPTER 49
Witt
HYLLEN FELL EASILY, BUT STILLE IS NO SHEEP TOWN. It’s a city, with deep roots and many to protect it,” Witt says, glancing around the room at his commanders, who nod. “We drew back to return what we had captured to our people, much needed meat brought to our shores, and Hyllenian shepherds to tend the sheep that provide it. It will be with fuller bellies that we approach their city, but they outnumber us greatly.”
Given to the Sea Page 20
