Given to the Sea

by Mindy McGinnis

  “Yet those numbers are untrained, uncounseled in war,” says a commander.

  “True. Still, many are more than few. To that end, we’ve enlisted aid to ensure our victory.”

  There is nervous shifting in the room, muttering that Witt can attribute to no one man. He knew that rumors of their alliance with the Feneen would spread before he had the chance to confirm or refute them, but to see Pietran commanders uneasy in their own war chambers drops a weight on his heart.

  “Speak so your Lithos can hear you,” he says. “Or do not.”

  “The aid, my Lithos,” Hadduk, a commander who rode against the Indiri, says. “There are whispers that the Feneen will ride with us.”

  “And not with horses for mounts,” adds another.

  “It is true we will have Feneen at our side.” Witt raises his hands to quell the rising voices. “Whether they ride horses or their own mothers is their business.”

  He is rewarded with a deep rumble of laughter, but Witt can still feel an argument brewing.

  “Why bring inferior fighters to a battle we can easily win?” Hadduk goes on. “The Pietra have never needed their help before.”

  “No, but we’ve never attacked Stille, have we?”

  “The Indiri were three times their worth in fighters, and we bested them,” Hadduk says, puffing out his chest.

  “And their numbers four times less than Stille’s, if not fewer,” Witt says. “Why waste your men’s lives—or your own—when others are willingly given? You think less of the Feneen? Fine, let them die for you, so that you and your children may inherit every speck of dirt until the sea takes all.”

  Hadduk glances at the men around him, gauging their reaction to Witt’s words before trying once more. “We heard a bargain was struck that allowed surviving Feneen to become Pietra in name, and I think very little of that.”

  “What you heard is true,” Witt answers, drawing more muttering. But it slowly dies out as he smiles, something they’ve learned to dread. “And tell me, how many Feneen do you think would survive a battle where they face Stille, with Pietra behind?”

  Witt wipes the sweat from his brow before it can flow into his eyes. One misstep on the steep cliffs of Pietra could put a new Lithos on the throne long before he is ready. More than one Lithos has been replaced in that way, falling victim to the very path that led to where those vying for his role train.

  Pravin clears his throat for the third time during the climb, and Witt turns to him. “Out with it, before I push you to the Lusca to clear the air.”

  “Today, at the council . . . ,” Pravin begins, taking a deep breath before continuing to climb. “I don’t see you as the type to betray an ally, even the Feneen.”

  Witt scans the rocks above for a handhold before replying. “I promised a place for the Feneen who survived the battle, not to make sure that they did.”

  “Which isn’t quite the same thing as telling the men a Stillean sword in a Feneen chest is all the same to you as a Pietran arrow in the back.”

  Witt hauls himself over the top of the cliff, then lies in the cool grass to wait for Pravin. The older man clears the top and rests as well, the cool breeze tossing his hair to reveal the multitude of gray underneath.

  “What would you have me do?” Witt asks. “I can’t fight a war on Stillean soil, only to face another at home after.”

  “I don’t have an answer, my Lithos. But I do know this is below you.”

  Witt doesn’t respond, the sound of small voices making it unnecessary.

  “The Lithos, the Lithos,” they cry, the youngest of the children breaking out of the pack, their little legs bringing them to Witt ahead of the older ones too proud to run.

  They crowd around him as he sits up, eyes still bright with the enthusiasm of youth, and Witt has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from telling them to go back home to their mothers.

  “Have you come to see the rock?” one of the smaller ones asks, little fingers winding through Witt’s as he makes a show of helping the Lithos to his feet.

  “Not entirely,” Witt says. “But I’ll have a look.”

  The rock from Witt’s generation had been dark and smooth, easy to mark with a slash for each boy who would be Lithos, and just as easy to strike through when one failed.

  The boy releases Witt’s hand and points to the white rock they’d chosen, the black slashes from burnt sticks scraped there like dark sentinels.

  “Jannan has gone,” the boy says, pointing to a fresh mark that bisected the original slash, pale from years of rain. “He was caught with a girl who had been making the climb to see him.”

  “Why would he do such a thing?” Witt asks playfully, and the boy pulled a face.

  “Who knows?”

  “Who is this?” Witt asks, pointing to another slash.

  “Paduit,” the boy says quickly. “He refused to kill his oderbird.”

  The oderbird trial wasn’t easy. Each boy was given a fledgling to raise when his family sent him to try for Lithos. They would wake one morning to find that someone had gone through the cages in the night, neatly snapping one wing on each bird. The question was simple—waste time and resources to heal the bird, or finish what had begun?

  “You killed yours, I take it?” Witt asked.

  “Yes, my Lithos,” the boy says immediately. “His name was Baden, and I broke his neck like that.” He snaps his fingers to illustrate, and Witt suppresses a shudder.

  “I’ll make Lithos one day,” the boy goes on. “I heard you sat like a stone when the Indiri were slaughtered. That you took the head off a Hyllenian because he sassed you, and that you made boats for your whole family in one night, not a tear shed. I want to be just like you.”

  Witt goes down on his haunches and looks the boy in the face. “You would make a fine Lithos,” he says, and the boy beams at him before running off.

  “But no one should wish to be as I am,” he adds to himself.

  CHAPTER 50

  Khosa

  MY OWN IDIOCY ASTOUNDS ME.

  The memory of Donil’s hands on my body draws a blush even in the chill dark of the library. That I could touch and feel nothing was an anomaly, that I could touch and feel pleasure, remarkable. To learn that it was all smoke and mirrors, the natural product of his Indiri gift misleading me, has painted my mood black, and I know that my irritation with Dara is born from that.

  “Look for . . .” My eyes roam the history in front of me. “Anything to do with the village of Dosdos. I’ve found a mention here of the high tide that could be useful to compare.”

  Dara waves me off. “It’s a Stillean village by the sea. No reason for an Indiri to venture there.”

  “Would you mind looking, though?” My words are polite enough, and delivered in my usual monotone, but my eyes remain on hers when she challenges me with a glare.

  She sighs, hands going to her temples as they always do, an involuntary twitch that accompanies the beginning of her journey into memory. I study the dark circles under her eyes, which aren’t new, but the swelling underneath is, as if the Indiri girl hasn’t slept. She squeezes her head tighter, and I see that her nails are ragged and bitten, not the usual clean edges pared down with her dagger.

  “Never mind,” I say. “It’s not worth chasing.”

  Dara opens her eyes, hands dropping. “Why?”

  “Because I doubt we’ll learn more than we already have.” I tip my hand over the table I’ve claimed as my own, charts, diagrams, time lines piled on top of one another. All of them telling the same story.

  “And what have we learned?” Dara asks.

  I hedge on answering with numbers, their impersonal nature not able to convey all I’ve ruminated on in the waning hours while sitting in this chair. “One of the Hyllenian shepherdesses was delivered of child before I came here,” I say instead. “He may r
each her shoulder before the water closes over all our heads.”

  “So soon?”

  “If my calculations are right and Indiri memory can be trusted—”

  “Indiri memory is faultless,” Dara says, cutting me off.

  It’s my turn to rest my head in my hands, an argument I hadn’t wanted burgeoning in front of me. “I’m not so sure.”

  “What are you saying?” Dara asks, learning toward me across the table.

  “When was the feral Indiri child raised alongside white Tangata, according to the Indiri?” I ask, rising from my table and going to another, where her bloodline lies next to Vincent’s.

  “My great-grandmother has that memory,” Dara answers easily, the monumental moment right at hand. “Agarra.”

  I hold up the scroll with her ancestry. “Yet Agarra lived during the reign of Philo, Gammal’s father. I can show you here on the time line.”

  Dara shrugs. “Agarra remembered the feral child.”

  “She didn’t,” I insist, my voice breaking. “The Stilleans keep detailed records, and the Scribes write down daily events as they happen, Dara. You’re reaching through years’ worth of memory, distanced by time and warped to match the mind of whatever Indiri passed it on.”

  Dara comes to her feet too. “Warped?”

  I hold up my hand to still Merryl, who is watching Dara carefully. “Yes, warped,” I insist. “Who holds dear the memories of failure? Agarra may have passed on to you that she saw the feral child because she loved the story so much, she wished that she had.”

  Dara says something under her breath in Indiri, and I don’t need to know the language to be aware I’ve been deeply insulted.

  “Truly, Dara,” I barrel on, “would you hold tightly to a memory of when you were wrong or acted poorly, knowing it would be passed on to your children?”

  “I have none,” she seethes. “And if ever do, I’ll be sure to pass along all that happened here in this room, so that they may know it is a grave error indeed to throw an Indiri mind open to one who would pick it clean only to mock it.”

  “I’m not mocking. Only correcting.”

  “Oh, correcting,” she says. “Adjusting what my ancestors claim so that it will fit the Stillean version? There may only be two Indiri left, Given,” she sneers, “but we’ll hold the truths buried in our minds more sacred than lines of ink written by strangers long dead.”

  “And thereby disputing facts,” I plunge in, ignoring the shake of Merryl’s head pleading me to stop, as well as the fire in Dara’s eyes.

  “Facts,” Dara laughs. “Yes, and what of those? Tell me, these long days spent over your books and histories, draining one inkpot after another—what have they told you?”

  My hands unclench at her words, my stomach dropping. For all of the anger clouding her mind, she’s right. If the Indiri memories are inaccurate, all my work is undone.

  “If this is true, then we know nothing more than at the outset,” I admit. “The cave paintings and the evidence of our own eyes when looking at the Horns tell us that the sea is rising, but we don’t know how quickly.”

  Dara shakes her head. “You mistake my meaning. I’m asking instead, what could the Given learn of the rising sea, when she is destined for it, at any depth?”

  I have no answer, and the slamming of the library door sends a shiver down my spine, whether at her words, or because it reminds me of her brother’s exit, I do not know.

  CHAPTER 51

  Dara

  THE SOONER SHE SINKS, THE BETTER.” DARA FINISHES OFF her flagon of wine and slams it to the table, leaving a bloodred ring.

  “A bit harsh, don’t you think, sister?” he asks, polishing off his own wine to keep pace and refilling both their drinks.

  “She’s headed there anyway. And I’ll not be sad to see her go, no matter when it happens.”

  Donil says nothing, only turning his drink on the table and eyeing the basket of bread laid out for the early-rising servants.

  “Oh, and you will be?” Dara asks, drawing meaning from his silence.

  “I doubt Khosa meant to offend—”

  “By implying that the Indiri history is a long string of bragging, and those half lies at best?”

  “Are those your words, or hers?”

  “Mine,” Dara admits, downing a gulp of wine before continuing. “But her meaning is intact.”

  Donil smiles. “My sister, always ready to find a fight.”

  “My brother.” Dara smiles back coolly. “Quite the opposite.”

  Her words still him, and they watch each other carefully over the table. “Are you calling me coward?” he asks, the calm in his voice deceptive.

  “You know I’m not. I’m saying you’ll take any other path before crossing blades, even if the blades are only tongues.”

  Donil raises an eyebrow, and Dara tosses a roll at him. “That was a bad example. You’ll cross those readily enough.”

  Donil sighs. “You’d rather settle an argument with fists than words. As for the tongues, I know your opinion there.”

  “I only think yours is loose, in more ways than one. I know you’ve passed more time with the Given than is seemly.”

  Donil takes a deep drink, eyes in his cup when he answers. “And your tongue? How can it not curl upon itself, twofold?”

  Dara’s eyes narrow. “Why should it?”

  “You told Vincent about my Indiri gift, which has caused no little harm, sister. He and I nearly came to blows over it.”

  Dara’s mouth twists, and she drains her cup for the second time. Donil refills it and adds to his own.

  “No little harm?” she repeats his words back to him, somewhat subdued.

  “Vin may have taken your meaning a bit . . . rashly, in connection to the Given. He has eyes for her, and maybe more than that.”

  “She’s new and different,” Dara says, too hastily. “A rare creature inspires awe, which fades. As for your gift, I told him only that you have life, and it rises within others to answer you.”

  “Whatever your wording, it raised his temper. That’s why we were fighting the other day when you came upon us.”

  “Over a girl? What are you, stags in the woods?”

  “May as well be, for how it ended. We’ve shied away from each other since.”

  “I’d talk to him myself, let him know you’re not magicking girls into dark corners,” Dara says. “But we’re not speaking, either.”

  She doesn’t say why, but the jagged echo of Vincent’s laughter on the training field at the thought of marrying Dara still grates on both their ears.

  “Life was easier when we hit each other with sticks to settle our problems,” Donil says.

  “We’re still doing it, brother. But now the sticks are swords.”

  “And how go your men with those?” Donil asks his sister, ready to change the subject. More than a few Stilleans who saw Dara against the Feneen asked to train under her, speckled skin and femaleness notwithstanding.

  “Surprisingly well,” she admits. “I told them if they couldn’t look past my breasts, I’d cut them off right in front of them. Someone shouted that would be a shame, and we had a good laugh. Then I beat a few of them to a pulp with the broadside of my blade and showed the rest how. They’re mediocre soldiers, but you don’t need a lifetime of warfare behind you to fight well when you’re defending your home.”

  “I feel the same,” Donil says. “When the Pietra come, some will run, but most will stand.”

  “And many will die,” Dara adds. “But not me, and not you.”

  “Or Vincent.” Donil tips his cup to get the last of the wine. “Shall we go to him together and clear the air?”

  Dara’s cheeks are warm with wine, and her kinder nature near the surface. “I suppose. Be a shame to have the Pietra take anyone’s head off when we have som
ething of meaning left to say to those we care for.”

  “Up, then,” Donil says, striking the table as he rises. Dara follows, and they walk shoulder to shoulder through the halls to Vincent’s chamber, only to clear the corner and see his head ducking into another’s door.

  “Where’s he going?” Dara presses forward to follow, until her brother’s hand clamps onto her wrist, as unrelenting as stone.

  “Donil?” she asks, eyes searching his face as a muscle in his jaw jumps.

  Dara looks down the hall to the door where Vincent disappeared and recognizes Khosa’s guard, eyes flickering to the shadows that hide them before sliding away. She grips her brother back, fingers tightening into a bone-grinding pinch.

  “He’s with the Given, in her chambers.” She can barely whisper the words, her throat is so tight.

  Donil spins away, and Dara’s hand falls limp at her side as he goes, his anger fueling him forward, while her own abyss of sadness brings her to the floor.

  CHAPTER 52

  Vincent

  I CLOSE KHOSA’S DOOR BEHIND ME AND COME FACE-TO-FACE with a Scribe.

  “My lord.” He inclines his head, and I take the moment to meet Khosa’s eyes, my confusion evident. She holds up a placating hand, and I hope I’ve recaptured some royal imperviousness when the Scribe looks back up.

  “Cathon, correct?” I ask, offering a hand.

  “Always nice to be remembered by a royal,” he says, returning the shake.

  “You took my Arrival Day measurements,” I say, taking a seat by the fire. “How can I forget columns of numbers tracing my path to manhood?”