Given to the Sea

by Mindy McGinnis

  “My lord.” Cathon stands, takes a ducking bow, and flicks my map beneath his papers. “I was just taking the prince’s measurements. He’s becoming quite the man.”

  “Yes,” my father says, a smile I don’t like quirking his lips. “I’ve heard that as well.”

  Cathon glances between us. “I believe I have all I need.”

  “You’re excused,” my father says, and Cathon gathers his books, quills, and inkwell without glancing in my direction. Like any of the more informed servants, he knows my father well enough to close the door behind him as he leaves.

  “What is it, Father?” I ask.

  “We had rather harsh words last time we spoke,” he says, crossing to the scale. He sits on the empty side I recently vacated, the rock on the opposite rising much farther than it did for me.

  “We did, and I don’t know they’re the kind that can be taken back,” I say.

  He laughs a little to himself, the kind of chuckle that would’ve have sent Purcell and me running for our rooms when we were smaller. “You don’t truly think I’m here to apologize, do you?”

  “I don’t believe I will, either,” I say. “So why are you here?”

  “Because I’ve heard whispers that you spend your nights with the Given.”

  My jaw clenches; an uneasiness spreads in my gut. I spent much of my childhood avoiding my father, and the better part of recent years either answering him with halfhearted mutters or full-fledged insolence. But I’ve never lied to him.

  “Yes,” I say. “It’s true.”

  He eyes me carefully, as if this new development is something he could spot on my skin or in my stature.

  “And?” he asks.

  “And?” I repeat, shaken by the question.

  “How do you find her bed?”

  “I . . .” Of all the things I expected him to ask, this was not one of them. “It’s very nice,” I finally say.

  He sighs and examines his fingernails. “I know you’ve never liked me, Vincent. Your mother got her claws in you too early. I didn’t think much of it at the time, since Purcell was always at my side, but—”

  “But he died and left you with me,” I say.

  “Yes,” he says, rising from the scale. The rock hits the ground again, twice as loud as when I was on it. He crosses to me, and I have to will myself not to step backward as his hands land heavily on my shoulders. He is silent, staring into my eyes as if expecting to see Purcell resurrected there in this one moment when I have not failed him.

  “It’s an odd thing,” he says quietly, almost to himself. “The Tangata care for their kits, wolves for their pups. I’ve seen great men handle their babes with extreme gentleness, and women raise infants not their own. How can this bond exist in abundance, yet have failed utterly between you and me?”

  “I do not know, Father,” I say, swallowing past the lump in my throat. “But it has.”

  “Quite,” he agrees, stepping away from me. “Get the girl with child. You can make more on some other woman to fill the throne. Then perhaps we’ll have something to talk about between us.”

  I watch him leave, hoping it is the last time I will ever have to hear his voice.

  CHAPTER 58

  Khosa

  MY DEPARTURE COULD BE THE DEATH KNELL OF AN ENTIRE kingdom, but the feelings of a single boy slow my steps. A permanent groove mars my fingers where a quill has pressed against my flesh as I piece out the fate of our world, but the one I hold now feels awkward in my hand. I am adept at stringing together facts and tallying numbers in cold columns, but I have no idea how to make ink tell the story of my feelings.

  In the end, I know it’s best that I don’t.

  Donil’s parting words from the library echoed in my head last night as I walked with Merryl back to my chambers, their meaning lost to me. The whole country knows what sacrifice I would make if I were to remain here. Why should it weigh so heavily on Donil only now? The thought had itched, like the snag of a barbar weed on bare skin, a rash spreading through my mind. A maid slipped past us, dropping a curtsy, something that hadn’t happened since the newness of my arrival wore off.

  The turn of the corner brought another, and a deep nod, followed by the touch of a forehead from a sconcelighter, along with a breathy “good evening to you, Given.” My face remained impassive to the last, until I saw Vincent waiting at my door and a gulf of heat opened in my stomach for my heart to descend into. Our ruse has been successful, and the entire castle believes that Vincent beds me to breed the next Given.

  And if maids and sconcelighters know, then surely Donil does as well.

  “Tides,” I say to myself now, stabbing the quill through parchment in the privacy of my own room.

  Leaving a letter could compromise everything, make a mockery of what Vincent, Cathon, and Merryl risk for my sake. But the combined weight of their fates feels fragile when set against the vision I see when I close my eyes—an Indiri boy’s face crumpling with grief as he imagines me fleeing with his best friend, my supposed lover. I mutter an Indiri curse learned from Dara, its sharp edges tart on my tongue.

  “Khosa,” Merryl enters, bolting the door silently behind him. “It is time.”

  It is, and yet it is not. I crumple the page beneath my fingers, wet ink smearing my hands. No message is left behind, only a feeble attempt to open myself taking form in a splotch of black that I crush beneath my heel.

  “I am ready,” I say.

  The draught that Merryl brings has been carefully measured to sink him into the deepest sleep. Those searching for me will find him on the floor of my room, a spilled water glass from Vincent’s chambers close by, my lover come to save me from my fate, my guard easily dispatched with trust in his eyes as he accepts a drink from the royal visitor. Merryl sniffs from the vial, his eyes watering.

  “I have a bit more sympathy for my wee babe, at least,” he says, waving his hand in front of his nose. “The wife puts a drop of this in her mouth when she’s colicky, and her face twists something terrible at the taste.”

  I rest my hand on his arm, our first and only touch. “You all take much upon yourselves for my sake,” I say.

  “I take nothing but a long nap,” Merryl says. “Cathon has a life of boredom in front of him, and a touch more heat in his blood than is good for a Scribe. He’ll treat it as an adventure.”

  “Vincent leaves a throne—”

  “That he never wanted,” Merryl cuts me off. “He was never good at hiding that fact.”

  I think of the first time I met Vincent, at the celebration of my arrival, his face tense and unhappy, palms curled in his lap as he surveyed the milling nobility.

  “No, he wasn’t good at hiding it.”

  “You’re the one with the trial in front of you,” Merryl says. “The coast will echo with screams for your blood, from the royals down to the maids. They’ll hunt you, and them not the only ones. The cats in the forest will feast on anyone, Given or not. And always your feet will want to turn toward the sea, your own body betraying you.”

  I stare at him, my eyes brimming with tears at the truth in his words. “Always I have lived knowing I do so in order to die,” I say. “Only now do I know the fear of losing my life.”

  I don’t tell him the reason has light eyes, freckles, and an easy smile, or that the hesitation in my step has nothing to do with the fear that every day I draw breath I will be hunted. Instead I hold on to each passing second, because the warmth Donil leaves behind when he touches me could erupt into a bonfire if we allowed it the time. But that time would be measured by the growth in my belly, and end with a rush of blood, leaving him with a child and my footprints in the sand, not returning.

  And yet, I falter. Because part of me believes that time might be worth trading for a life full of anything else.

  Merryl’s eyes are on me, intense. “I know why you linger,”
he says. “If I were told to walk away from my wife or die, I would lie down then and there. There may be something between you and the Indiri, but it is a seed without roots. Tear it out, carry it, keep it near your heart if you would. It will grow elsewhere. Go, Khosa. Lead a life, and let none tell you it was done in vain.”

  He puts the vial to his mouth before I can stop him, the muscles in his throat rippling as he drinks. I cry out, grabbing for him as he falls. We slump together against the foot of my bed, his head on my shoulder as the vial rolls from his hand. I splash water from Vincent’s glass onto the floor around Merryl, then wrap his still fingers around the stem.

  The steps of our plan have been so deeply seared into my mind that I’m enacting them before I realize the choice has been made not by me, but by Merryl. I brush his hair from his eyes as he sleeps, pressing my lips against his forehead for the briefest of moments, ignoring the shudder it brings.

  “Clever man,” I whisper. “Clever and good. May we meet again.”

  Cathon’s knock is so quiet I barely hear it as I tie off a few things in the corner of my sleepshirt. I came into Stille with bloody feet and a dress in shreds; I’ll leave better prepared. I take a quill and inkpot, a small scroll, and hunks of bread and cheese from my dinner. The sleeves of the sleepshirt knot together nicely and I duck underneath the loop I’ve made, the bulk of all of my possessions resting on my hip.

  Cathon leans over Merryl, placing his palm on the guard’s chest to make sure it still rises and falls.

  “He may sleep longer than we thought,” Cathon says, rising. “But the later he’s able to say anything to anyone, the better. Are you ready?”

  I nod, pulling a dark cloak over my dress, the hood over my face. Cathon peers into the hall, motioning for me to follow. We slip into the corridor soundlessly, keeping to the walls. The candle sconces are newly lit, tears of wax beginning to drop down their sides. The lighter is somewhere ahead of us, unknowingly illuminating the way for our escape.

  Another hall and another, Cathon’s breath coming faster and mine catching in my throat as time spent on stools in dusty rooms takes a toll. Neither one of us could run across the training field without stopping for a rest, and I feel a bubble of laughter rise at the thought of the two of us ruining the escape because we need to sit down.

  Cathon pulls up short at the next corner, laying a finger on his lips. I nod, grateful for the break. A bead of sweat trickles down the side of his face and drops to the stone at our feet before we move again, ducking past the lit hall where I see the sconcelighter standing on tiptoe, stretching to replace a candle. The darkness folds around us as we slip into places she has not touched yet, but the stone under my fingers is warm and the smell of bread is in my nose.

  “The kitchens?” I whisper.

  “We’re in the servants’ hall, just behind the hearth,” Cathon answers, his voice a thin thread in the dark. “In a moment we’ll be in the dairy. There’s an entrance there to the tunnels that will take us to Vincent, and the horses. Which”—he heaves a deep breath—“I think I’ll rather welcome.”

  “We’re scholars, not adventurers, you and I,” I say, my own words barely audible as I gasp for air.

  “A few steps down now,” he warns, and I slide my feet forward in the dark, feeling for the drop-off.

  There are more than a few steps, and I feel the air cooling around me as we descend. The sweat on my skin now feels chilly, and I shiver, pulling the cloak tighter at my throat.

  “Almost there,” Cathon says, and the floor beneath my feet evens out.

  The air is heavy with the smell of fresh milk and the tang of aging cheeses. It presses against me and it takes real effort to breathe, as if the darkness itself is a weight on my chest.

  “Where is the passage?” I ask, ready to leave this place behind.

  I hear Cathon searching for the trapdoor. The pitch-black of the dairy matches the inside of my eyelids, and I don’t know whether they are open or closed. I cross my arms, hugging my own elbows for warmth.

  “Khosa,” Cathon breathes, his voice directly in my ear, “I am sorry.”

  My whole body stills, even the air in my chest suspended for a moment as his arms encircle me from behind, his mouth hot on my neck. I am coiled like a snake in the grass, only I am not the predator, but the prey.

  “There is no entrance to the tunnels here,” I say, my voice flat and lifeless.

  “No,” he says, hands rising up my torso as he presses his whole body against me. My skin pulls away from him, but can only go so far, and I feel the revulsion all the way to my bones as his hands slip inside my bodice. A shudder rips through me, and bile rises in my throat. I gag and fall to my knees to retch.

  Cathon follows me down, all apologies forgotten as his desire grows, emboldening his hands. I reach out in the dark with the palest idea of stopping him, but he swats my arms aside easily, pinning them above my head. It seems the time has come for my body to serve its purpose, and it has collapsed under the knowledge of what will happen, leaving only my mind in the darkness.

  “I’m such a fool,” I say. “A secret cadre of Scribes who wish to see the Given released?” I almost laugh as Cathon pushes my skirts up.

  “Oh, they exist, and I am one of them,” he says, trapping my wrists in one hand and fumbling with the front of his robes with the other. “But the king gave me a better offer. Now be still,” he whispers, and I feel the nearness of him above me, the tightness of anticipation in his voice.

  I have no intention of doing otherwise; the coldness of the stone floor beneath has penetrated my skin, dulling even the lifelong shudder that accompanies human touch. I am a shell on the beach, empty and hollow. Cathon’s hand tightens on my wrist, grinding the bones together as he tears away my undergarments, and that flare of pain travels down my arms, igniting something I didn’t know I owned, something inherited from a mother who would stare down a reviled tribe and decide who she wanted.

  I don’t want this. I don’t want this man. And I am not his.

  I buck suddenly, and Cathon falls away from me, not expecting resistance. I swing the bag at my shoulder blindly through the darkness, and it connects, the inkwell inside shattering. I dash for the stairs, but my skirts are loose and heavy, and he grabs me easily, all pretense of regret gone as he throws me face-first against the wall. He presses against me from behind, grinding my head against stone so hard my teeth scrape against grit. I spit and scream, kick and twist, but he is stronger and has no compunction about hurting me to gain whatever prize has been offered him.

  “Khosa,” he growls into my ear, “don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

  I stomp down onto his foot, my riding boots crushing his toes and gaining me a moment to slip from his grasp. I wheel away, but he finds my flailing arms in the darkness, and I’m thrown off balance. I go down, reaching out for anything I can find to break the fall, my fingers glancing against glass bottles of milk. I grab one and turn, throwing it into the dark and hearing it crash against the opposite wall.

  Cathon is still, and I reach behind me for another bottle, drops of water on the outside slicking my palms. My breath rises and falls loudly, and I shut my mouth to quiet it, listening for any movement. The stillness is so complete that my heart fills my ears and I barely notice the scrape of Cathon’s foot to my right. I yell and throw the bottle, but it hits rock, and he’s on me again.

  I grab for another, my nails raking down wooden shelves as his arms circle my waist, pulling me away. I don’t let go, and the entire shelf comes crashing down. Bottles shatter and cool milk splashes my heels, then soaks my knees as Cathon wrestles me down.

  I have no strength left as he turns me over and tears my clothes away, wrenching my legs apart as milk flows into my ears. His face is looming over mine, and I am snapping at him, teeth clicking together on thin air when I realize that I can see him, lit by the fire of a t
orch.

  “Stand up, so I can run you through.”

  I cry out at the sound of Donil’s voice, and Cathon scrambles off me, adjusting his clothes as he rises to his feet. Donil stands on the stairs, a torch in one hand and his sword in the other. He descends the last few steps, eyes never leaving the Scribe, whose hands go out in front of him, as if they could ward off the bite of an Indiri blade.

  “I was only doing what—”

  Donil’s sword leaps forward and slides through his mouth before he can finish. I flinch as Cathon’s teeth close around the blade, his hands wrapping around it, producing rivers of blood that pour down his wrists.

  “I know what you were doing,” Donil says calmly, freeing his sword with a flick of his wrist, and sending Cathon’s body tumbling to the ground, spilling blood into milk.

  I try to get to my feet, but my knees shake and betray me, dropping me back into the mess on the floor. Donil’s arm is around me, his sword forgotten as he pulls what remains of my dress into decency.

  “Come to the stairs, out of the mess,” he says gently. He leads me there, and I lean into him, the warmth I’ve always felt radiating from him seeping past the wetness of my cloak and into my skin.

  We reach the bottom step, and he puts the torch in a wall sconce, both arms now free to hold me. I curl against him as the sobs start, my hands holding what’s left of my clothes tight around me as I shake, my own breath tearing apart my body.

  “It’s all right,” Donil says, over and over. “It’s all right now.”

  His warmth embraces me, and I let it, aware that in this exact moment, maybe it is.

  But a moment only lasts so long.

  CHAPTER 59

  Vincent

  SOMETHING IS WRONG.

  I know this cave, have known it since my fingers were strong enough to pull open the hidden panel in the library, my feet swift enough to carry me away from whatever new anger surged between my parents. Purcell shared the tunnels with me as soon as I could understand the importance of them, along with the need to keep them secret. We traveled them together often, but the last trip I made alone, tears streaming down my face at the death of my brother. Now I sit staring at a crack in the rock that Khosa should have come through some time ago, the tide lapping at my feet.