Given to the Sea

by Mindy McGinnis

  “It had occurred to me,” Witt admits. “But my own thoughts on the matter change nothing if the people will not have a Lithos with a woman by his side.”

  “First things first,” the Mason says. “Win the war, then worry about the woman.”

  “First things first,” Witt echoes. “Move an army across a river with no boats and no bridge.”

  “And I say if the Feneen can do that, then perhaps they deserve more than Pietran arrows in their backs,” Pravin says.

  “Perhaps they do.” Witt wills his answer not to be influenced by the invitation in Nilana’s eyes when she looks at him. “Perhaps not.”

  CHAPTER 55

  Khosa

  MY NERVES HUM, FOR ONCE WITH SOMETHING OTHER than the assurance of my death. This is the last time I will sit in this library; my fingers will never hold this quill again. The words I write are still wet, and I’ll not linger over them, once dry. The dust sifting onto my shoulders from the maps above as they sway will land on the floor tomorrow.

  For I will not be here.

  I work, even so. Vincent thought it best for me to keep to my habits in the days leading to my escape, and I am not one to fill my scrolls with drivel. My hand shakes a bit as I remind myself that all of it is exactly that, if Dara’s memories are as compromised as I think. I steady the tip of the quill on the edge of the inkpot, only to hear a rhythmic tapping as it strikes against the glass. Tiny convulsions are running through my hands, nerves come to life in a body that now has the hope to live. Tension ripples down my spine, into the meaty muscles of my legs and down into my feet.

  My feet.

  “Not now,” I say and bite down on my lip to feel pain instead, anything other than the beginning of the dance, though it may only be an echo of the tremor in my hand.

  “And usually the girls are happy to see me,” a voice says, and I turn to find Donil leaning in the archway, his smile so comical next to Merryl’s obvious disapproval that I feel an answering one bloom on my lips.

  “It wasn’t meant for you,” I tell him, and he takes this as an invitation, striding to my side. The leap of my heart at his voice drives my senses away, any shame I feel from our last meeting driven out by the pulse of my heart. Too late, I remember the lure that Vincent told me resides with Donil, an Indiri magic that no doubt is the reason within I ended up on my back the last time we spoke.

  “Nonetheless, I am busy,” I find myself saying, my stony voice sliding back to what it knows best.

  “I know, and it’s a fine bit of work you’ve set upon yourself here,” he says, completely unfazed by my tone. “Khosa is going to save the world,” Donil yells over his shoulder at Merryl, who only grunts.

  “You are,” Donil says, reaching out to pat my hand as he says it.

  I let him, savoring the rush of warmth that slides up past my wrist, tingling all the way to my shoulder and burrowing toward my heart. Even if it is planted falsely, I can’t dislike it. Vincent has been the promised gentleman every night in my bedroom, never suggesting he even lie beside me to pool warmth. I’ve lain in my feather bed night after night, listening to him turn on the stone floor at my feet, knowing he will not suggest another arrangement. And neither do I want him to, for even though he will give up a throne to save my life, his touch still brings a shudder to my skin that I cannot ignore. Yet with Donil I seem able to outrun my father’s dark heritage, if only for a few stolen moments.

  I slide my hand out from under his to clear my head. “I don’t know if I will save the world, after all.”

  Donil grows suddenly serious, leaning in close to me as Cathon did, but instead of increasing the distance between us, I tilt forward, drawn forward by his intensity.

  “Then you waste much ink,” he whispers dramatically.

  A laugh barks out of me, and I swat at him. He bats away my arm with a simple gesture, and again I feel the heat radiating from where our skin met.

  “No, honestly,” Donil says, “if anyone can save us, you can, and I’m here to take my sister’s place.”

  “Ah . . .” With my own problems so close at hand, I had not noticed Dara’s absence. “I offended her past the point of returning?”

  “I believe so. She’s run off to the woods for a few days, something you get used to once you know her. I pity whatever she comes across, but her anger is better spent there than in castle walls. Dara’s sworn to have my head off at least as many times as I’ve winked at pretty girls, and I think she’s threatened to toss Vincent from the parapet once or twice. Temper comes easily to my sister, but the fire burns far hotter than it does long.”

  “If you’re saying she’ll forgive me eventually, that’s not the best way,” I tell him. “I prefer the fire not to burn at all.”

  There’s a glib reply on his lips and a light in his eye that tells me exactly where the comment was headed, but he bites down on it and clears his throat. “In any event, my memories are at your disposal, if you’re still so inclined.”

  I am inclined, but not for the sake of his Indiri memories. I don’t want to rifle through dry pages and ask Donil to find the whisper of an overgrown path or a certain pattern of rocks. I realize I want his eyes open, and on me.

  “Tell me more about your sister,” I say instead. “Why are the two of you so different?”

  Donil shrugs. “Why is the sea wet and the land dry? We are each of us what we need to be. Sometimes I think that, though there be only two Indiri left, fate handed us each a half of what was necessary for there to be a whole remaining.”

  I remember what Vincent told me. “You are life,” I say.

  “Yes, and Dara quite the opposite.” There’s a smile when he says it, but I’ve studied faces long enough to spot the shadow there.

  “You would rather it were switched?”

  Donil’s mouth opens and shuts again, the quick answers I’m accustomed to from him not coming so easily. He remains still long enough that dust motes have settled in his hair before he speaks.

  “Sometimes,” he says, voice low and heavy with words I know he’s never spoken before. “I know battle, and I can fight. But when the Feneen attacked, Ank waited until Dara had left King Gammal’s side to kill him. He faced me and Vincent, shoulder to shoulder, but Dara he would not challenge.”

  “You think this makes you less of a man?” I ask, my hand searching for his and closing around it to give comfort.

  “Does it make me more of a man to tumble girls?” he asks, then squeezes my hand. “Sorry, I should not have said that.”

  “It’s all right, Donil,” I say. “I know about . . . what you can do.”

  His brow furrows, and his hand clenches a little more than comfortable. “How?”

  “Vincent told me.”

  The laugh that comes from him is dark and jagged, not fitting in his throat well. “I’m sure he gave you a truthful accounting of it,” he says, shaking his head. “Khosa . . . it’s not . . . I could never take a girl against her will, or even turn a head that wasn’t already inclined my way.”

  I pull my hand out of his, but gently. “I didn’t think you would . . . force a girl. It’s not your nature.”

  “It’s not,” he agrees. “But it’s also not in my power. There are girls who enjoy my company, surely. But there are many more that find my spotted skin repulsive, and no amount of flirtation could change that.”

  I falter, biting down on my lip. “So you can’t . . .”

  “Khosa,” he says. “No one has ever thrown themselves at my feet, begging to be ravished, then woken regretting the act.”

  “I believe you,” I say. The warmth this time comes from my own voice, and I know that it’s true.

  “Good, because they don’t regret it,” he teases. “Far from it.”

  “You are terrible,” I tell him, and we laugh together, the sound deepening Merryl’s frown.

  �
��My lady,” Merryl speaks up, and I feel a tinge of annoyance at the interruption, “I believe it is time you dress for dinner.”

  I’ve spent long hours in the library with food trays brought by servants cooling at my feet, formal dinners with the royals long abandoned once my stone face set their stomachs awry. But I can hardly contradict Merryl when I see the concern for me buried beneath his irritation at Donil.

  “I’ll go,” Donil says, taking my hand as he rises. “Perhaps tomorrow we will save the world together?”

  “Yes,” I say, savoring the tips of fingers brushing as he leaves. “Tomorrow.”

  He turns in the doorway, a hesitation on his lips that doesn’t fit with the boy I’m learning to know. When our eyes meet, his gaze drops to the ground, and the words that come seem to gag him as he forces them out.

  “I know that you will save us all, Khosa. I know the sacrifice you make.” His gaze meets mine again, a twist of his lips trying to resurrect the easy smile. “Until tomorrow.”

  His shadow has disappeared along the corridor before I realize there won’t be a tomorrow, and the regret that comes with it is eclipsed only by the fact that the warmth of his touch has suffused me entirely, driving the twinges from my limbs. I ignore Merryl’s glance and rest my head on the table, ignoring the history marred by the tears slipping down my nose.

  CHAPTER 56

  Witt

  WITT STANDS ON THE BANK OF THE RIVER, THE HEAVY air dampening his shirt so that it sticks to his chest in patches. Beside him, Pravin coughs discreetly into his hand, the wet sound drawing a sideways glance from Hadduk.

  “I put my mind around it more than once in the night, my Lithos,” Hadduk says. “If the Feneen have a way to get across this river, it’s beyond anything I know.”

  “How far does one have to search for that?” Pravin asks.

  “You know a little about many things,” Hadduk says. “But I know much about a few. And this entanglement with the Feneen makes the hairs on my neck stand up just as much as Nilana makes something else sta—”

  “Regardless of how it’s done, I believe it can be.” Witt cuts him off. “You rode against the Indiri. Surely you remember the campaign to do the same to the Feneen?”

  “I do. The Lithos before you said they posed no threat, but offered no benefit, either. We sent out scouts to report back, thinking it would be the work of a few days to dig a pit for them to match the Indiri’s.”

  “And?”

  “And we never found them. Party after party went out, looking for a whole tribe of people who should have been easy fodder for blades. Never saw the single turn of a sharp-edged leaf to say where they’d been.”

  “Because they were there.” Witt nods to the opposite shore. “Happily safe from blades, arrows, and eyes. They’ll get us across, Hadduk.”

  “I see you’ve brought a battalion.” Ank’s voice cuts through the clearing as his horse appears from the Hadundun trees. “Pity you didn’t trust us with more. We could have the entire Pietran army safely on the other side by dusk.”

  “I’d prefer not to gather my entire army at a scheduled time and place, nonetheless.” Witt closes his hand around the horse’s bridle.

  “Even to meet an ally?” Ank clicks his tongue. “Your trust is not easily given.”

  “It must be earned,” Hadduk says, unable to hide his clear disappointment when he sees Nilana did not accompany Ank.

  “And it shall be,” Ank says, as Feneen come from the forest, seeming almost to sprout from the ground itself. The battalion of Pietra stand steaming and still in the heat, but Witt can see their eyes scouring the landscape as the number of Feneen grows, and their hands tightening on spears.

  “Earn our trust, then,” he says stiffly to Ank. “Show us, Feneen.”

  Ank motions to some of his men who lumber from the trees, their appearance drawing gasps from the assembled Pietra. Metal protrudes from their shoulders, a loop on each side of their head. They ignore the reaction, drawing small knives from their sides, making a few of the Pietra stiffen. But instead of approaching the battalion, they wade into the river, chopping through coarse reeds. Witt shifts his own shoulders subconsciously at the sight of the mutilated Feneen, and Ank smiles.

  “We call them the Silt Walkers,” he says. “It’s a great honor among our people to join their ranks, but the choice must be made early. As a living tree will grow round a spike in the ground given time, so do humans knit with metal, if the spikes are driven while the bone is still soft with youth.”

  “Why would you do such a thing?” Witt asks.

  “Watch and see.”

  Pravin glances at Witt, a question in his eyes, as Feneen march into the river and more reeds are cut. Witt shakes his head, their purpose a mystery to him. Ank raises his hand and the Feneen with reeds go deeper into the water, handing off knives to their replacements, who cut reeds themselves.

  “My Lithos,” Hadduk says, “if they start to pipe us a tune that reminds me of a dirge, I’ll run them through, allies or not.”

  “Hold, Commander,” Witt growls under his breath.

  The Silt Walkers who went into the river first are far out now, the water to their necks, reeds held above the flow. With another wave from Ank they step still farther, and Witt finds himself holding his breath in empathy, a tightening in his chest that wants to erupt in a scream to tell them to stop.

  They slip farther still, bringing the hollow reeds to their mouths in the last moment, their hair dancing at the surface until even that is gone, and the reeds grow shorter as they walk on the riverbed. Each reed is followed by another Feneen. Each plants his feet on the shoulders of the man beneath him, held in place against the current by their monstrous hooks.

  “Fathoms,” Hadduk says, as the water rises to the chests of the second men.

  “Something to see, for sure,” Witt says to Ank. “But even if I could convince our men to breathe through reeds and walk underwater, their armor will drag them down.”

  “Wait,” Ank says as still more Feneen pour into the river, cutting reeds and climbing onto one another’s shoulders. “You have forgotten. I promised that they would not even wet their feet. You need not convince your men of doing anything other than what they wish to do already: trample my people into the ground.”

  With that he whistles shrilly and a wave of flesh slices through the river as all the Feneen palms above the surface turn upward, forming a path of skin that snakes to the other side. Ank steps out onto them lightly, turning back to smile at Witt when he is halfway across.

  “Don’t go, my Lithos.” Pravin’s hand shoots out to stop Witt as he steps forward. “Who is to say they will not cave beneath you for the joy of watching you drown?”

  “And who would command his soldiers to do something he has not?”

  The trampled grass gives way to silt and the destroyed bed of reeds. Witt can’t hide his grimace as the river water touches his boots, but he wades forward to the first upturned palm, nodding at the Feneen beneath it. He plants his boot, and then the next, the feel of soft flesh under his heel causing him to gag. Nonetheless, he holds his face impassive as he joins Ank at river’s middle, ignoring the sway of the human bridge beneath him. Ank turns to the opposite bank at his approach and Witt follows, relieved when he lands on solid ground.

  “Well done, Lithos,” Ank says. “Welcome to the far shore.”

  Witt extends his hand. “Welcome to my army.”

  CHAPTER 57

  Vincent

  CATHON KEEPS HIS FACE CAREFULLY BLANK AS HE ENTERS my measurements into the ledger, but it is this controlled neutrality that gives him away.

  “Not all that impressive, am I?” I ask, stepping down from the scale. The stone on the other side drops, hitting the floor with a crash that has him scrambling for the inkpot before it splatters across generations of Stillean nobility, all of them taller than me. Ev
en the column that holds Purcell’s measurements is more impressive than mine, though the column itself is short-lived.

  “It’s not the height that makes the man,” Cathon says, turning the book for me to see the carefully lined columns. “Runnar was about your height when he died, and he’s remembered for a long and glorious rule.”

  “Runnar was my height when he died because he outlived his own children and walked nearly doubled over,” I say. “How tall was he at my age?”

  Cathon turns a few pages, scans Runnar’s measurements, and deftly flips the book closed. “I wouldn’t let it concern you overly.”

  I walk to the door of the chamber and glance out. We are utterly alone. The mundane task of measuring the royals has drawn no curiosity from anyone, exactly as we expected. I draw a folded paper from my shirt and hand it to Cathon.

  “I’m no mapmaker, but it’s the best I could do,” I say, lowering my voice. “The tunnels are straightforward if you know where the entrances are.”

  Cathon unfolds the map I’ve drawn of the underground passages beneath the castle. “Made with a panicking royal family in mind, certainly,” he says. “Not much fear of getting lost.” He examines it more closely, a frown developing. “It leads to the beach?”

  “Yes, there’s a small cave there. We’ll have to time it with the tide, of course, but I know the rhythms well. I had it in my mind more than once to run away. I would get as far as the mouth before going back.”

  “What changed your mind?” Cathon asks as he folds the map.

  I shrug. “The sunrise. It’s easier to imagine yourself doing the impossible in the dark. Light has a way of bringing you to your senses.”

  “Speaking of doing the impossible in the dark, I’ve heard a rumor about you.” My father’s voice brings me to my feet, positive that guilt must be painted on my face as clearly as the ink in Cathon’s ledger.