Given to the Earth

by Mindy McGinnis

  “Kakis.” I manage to speak her name just as the sound of hooves reaches my ears, and sunlight flashes off armored men as they clear the horizon.

  “Go,” I say to her. My cloak is still in her mouth and so the growl that she gives is muffled and weak. But the cat knows she is hurt and that we are outnumbered.

  “Go,” I repeat. There is the briefest touch of her nose, cold and wet, against my cheek. And then she is gone.

  “Now you listen,” I say, my breath sending up a puff of dirt to meet with the cloud that the Pietra bring as they come to a halt in front of me.

  The Lusca is dead, the horses in front of me still.

  And the ground shudders as all I have inside of me pours out.

  CHAPTER 24

  Witt

  I am with a Lure, standing on the cliffside when the Stone Shore begins to fall apart.

  It starts with a stream of pebbles at my feet. They roll between my boots and over the edge, lost to sight long before they find water. The Lure ceases to speak of the Lusca he saw crawl onto land only the day before, his eyes on the flow of stones.

  “What—” He begins a question, but does not end it. For the small stones have held larger ones for generations, and without them, the boulders tremble. The first one catches him cleanly, taking him over the side to the sea. There is a heavy sound, not unlike those I’ve heard from the kitchens when the Lures bring large fish in, tossing them onto stone tables to be butchered.

  It’s the sound of meat hitting rock, and that realization sends me back from the edge before I am fed to the sea as well. My back is pressed against the cliff, so that I can feel it shudder, each movement sending more rock falling from above. Rocks and men, for I see another Lure, and part of a third, sail past, bound for the sea.

  I close my eyes, waiting for the one that will come for me.

  Always I have seen our world ending in water.

  I do not know what to do when the very rocks turn against the Pietra.

  CHAPTER 25

  Vincent

  The army of Stille stands before him, and Vincent fervently wishes it were a more impressive sight. Sallin insisted on bringing every able-bodied man before the king, armed with the best weapons they own. As Vincent’s gaze sweeps the gathering, he wonders if Sallin’s point was not a show of power, but further argument for building ships.

  “All are mustered, sir,” Sallin says, inclining his head just enough to show respect.

  Vincent nods back, feet pacing the training field as he takes a quick tally of the Stilleans before him. Given the number of Pietran spears that had bristled the sea after the wave cleaned the beach, he has no doubt that Stilleans outnumber their enemy. But each Pietra was raised on tales of battle and grew up on shores made of sharp rock. The Stilleans have walked on soft sands their whole lives.

  “Sir—”

  Vincent closes his eyes against Sallin’s voice, one that has grated on his nerves much and more as the advisor presses the need to leave Stille behind and find other lands.

  “There is nothing else,” Vincent has reminded Sallin, again and again. He opens his mouth to do the same now, in anticipation of another argument. But his words stop as Sallin’s did, and their eyes meet, asking the same question.

  A sound rises from the men, the clank of armor against sword and spear, every hand unable to hold its weapon still. They look to each other as the sound grows and knees give way, the earth beneath them no longer the solid thing they’ve always believed it to be.

  Sallin falls as well, and Vincent shortly thereafter.

  All he can think of as the tremors creep into his very body, teeth rattling against one another, is that Khosa is in danger, and once again, he is not at her side.

  CHAPTER 26

  Khosa

  The paper moves beneath her quill, and Khosa regards it quizzically as a wayward line forms, only to be blotted out by a river of ink as the pot spills.

  “Khosa!”

  Merryl pulls her from her stool as a bookshelf comes away from the library wall, cracked spines and torn papers sliding across the floor, the wooden shelves splitting against the table where her head had been bent over her work only moments before.

  “Tides,” Khosa says, only to have Merryl yank her yet again as the stacked firewood beside the large hearth tumbles. Her guard clutches her to him, and the queen is too surprised to object, as books fall from the walls and the maps above their heads wave as wildly as if the wind has joined them.

  There is no breeze on her face, yet her skirts whirl around her legs, and her hair is pulled from its pins. Khosa slides to the floor to feel the stones vibrating as Merryl draws his sword to defend her from an unseen force.

  The queen falls among the folds of the coral dress her attendants had brought that morning, the brush of the fabric against her face and the stones pressing against her shoulder blades reminding her of the one moment she and Donil had explored each other’s bodies, hungry hands and mouths roaming.

  As the first archstone falls from the ceiling, Khosa swears to herself that if she leaves this room, she will not return to it with regrets.

  Regrets of things left undone.

  CHAPTER 27

  Ank

  My horse doesn’t care for me, nor I him, but it is still a surprise when he throws me on the road to Stille. I am not a born horseman, but I’ve not lost my saddle since I was a small boy. I rise with wounded pride, only to find that rising at all is a challenge, the earth beneath me behaving as if it were the sea. I go back to my knees, watching as my panicked horse runs in circles, tossing his reins, unable to find a spot of earth that acts as it should.

  “Something of the sea takes to the earth,” I say, thinking of the cave in Stille littered with Luscan scales. “And the earth—”

  I cannot finish, for the trembling has set my teeth against my tongue.

  I lie against the ground, feeling it shake as if in fear.

  And I, too, am deeply afraid.

  CHAPTER 28

  Donil

  They come to me with large eyes, a Tangata kit too small to be alone, a fadernal too frightened of something unseen to mind the cat. An oderbird lands at my feet, wings spread wide, raising the call of alarm. I draw my sword and spin on my heel, but see nothing, only the trees swaying in the wind.

  But there is no breeze, and the trees do not move gently. Cracks fill the air, and I understand the animals’ fear as they gather to me, and I open my arms that I may shelter them as best I can, an Indiri body against the wrath of whatever we have enraged.

  I have no memory of this feeling, earth as tremulous as a sea-spine in a riptide. I close my eyes and ask my ancestors, but there is nothing. As I go to the earth, animals held tight against me so that they may have comfort, I know without remembering that something in our world has gone terribly wrong. The dirt beneath my hands cries as if in pain, and I fear that it is mourning one of its own.

  One of the last.

  “Dara,” I say.

  And the earth stills.

  CHAPTER 29

  Dara

  I draw one breath, then another.

  A bubble of dark blood forms at my mouth, breaks, splatters against my cheeks.

  The Pietran soldiers that face me are unhorsed, their mounts running wild. I draw a blade while they are distracted, opening one throat and bursting a heart with a quick upward thrust from behind before the others see that I have gained my feet.

  I do not hold them long. Each step feels as if the earth itself throws daggers, and I drop, the dark blood of things long dead still coursing in me.

  “Filthy fathoms, she smells like a corpse,” one of the Pietran says, yanking my arms behind me to be bound.

  “I am Indiri. I do not make a corpse,” I tell them, spitting out another dark surge that comes from my gut. “My people are given to the earth, and when we cease to walk, that
is what we become.”

  “Eventually,” one of the soldiers says, as he yanks me to my feet. “But first you go to the Lithos.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Vincent

  The earth shook, and with it what remained of Vincent’s faith.

  Always he had believed that the throne he sat on, though he had never desired it, had been eternally warmed by the sun and rooted in peace. Now he knew that darker deeds had been hidden in shadow, and those who came before him were not all he had thought them to be, the knowledge he had always depended upon greatly lacking in a time of need.

  “Never have I seen such as what happened today,” Sallin says, eyes coasting from one noble to the next, all the gathered advisors who sit at the table that doubles as a map.

  There is a murmured agreement, one that Vincent can add to, but only weakly. The gathered years around him are many and more than his own. If any of them had felt the earth tremble under their feet as it had today, it would be one of the Elders. And yet they look to each other with tight lips and eyes clouded with worry. Vincent glances at the Curator, who shakes his head.

  “There is no mention of such a thing in the histories.”

  “In any of them?” Vincent asks, raising his eyebrow so that the Curator takes his meaning. He and Khosa had found many things in the hidden histories, and she had shared with him the most startling—her discovery of Harta and his forgotten ship. If such a secret as that could be lost to memory, perhaps too the land had tossed as the sea before.

  “No, my lord. No quill has ever inked such as what we witnessed today. It is a thing unheard of, and one of which there would have been many lines written, had it happened before. Of the great wave we have pages upon pages, many and more. Yet this . . .” He spreads his hands in helplessness, and Vincent sees that they are shaking.

  He went through the city, after the trembling had ceased and the stable horses were calm enough to sit astride. The king met his people in the streets, wearing a smile he did not feel and speaking words of assurance that he knew to be empty. In the square, a man had been killed by a collapsed tower, and his blood flowed into the brick dust, creating a sticky clay on the ridge of Vincent’s riding boots that he runs his fingers along now, thinking. Of all the lined faces and noble names that surround him, the person whose advice he wants most is his wife’s.

  She is safe. Khosa was the last thing he thought of as he fell to the ground, and her well-being the first thing he assured himself of upon rising. Sallin went with him, old legs keeping pace with young, the corridors of the castle an endless tunnel until he knew his wife was safe. He found her in the library, already righting fallen shelves with Merryl’s help, draping torn maps and unwound scrolls across tables to be mended at a later date.

  Vincent knew his face was as readable to her as any of the books at her fingertips, and that if she did not know before how he felt, she surely did after today. As for her, after leaning into him for a brief moment, Khosa brushed away the stone dust that rested on her shoulders, still unable to hide the way her mouth twitched when their skin touched.

  He is thinking of her still as he faces a table of lined faces, all of their years weighing heavy against his few. Yet they are the ones who seem helpless, while a seed planted by Sallin and watered by Khosa grows roots that feel more solid than the earth of the kingdom he’s inherited. Vincent rises slowly, the mix of blood and mud on his boots crumbling onto the floor as he does. The other men fall silent, eyes on their king.

  “Today brought fear,” he says, and they nod in agreement. “Fear in the face of something unknown to us. And we stood—though some of us longer than others.” He drops a wink to the nobleman who lost his feet first, and some of the others chuckle.

  “One life was lost, and will be mourned,” Vincent goes on. “That a single building fell, and only one man beneath it, was a stroke of luck for Stille. Yet I wonder . . . what comes next?”

  “I have already spoken with a bricklayer,” one of the noblemen says. “The building that fell can be rebuilt, the merchant who made business there housed elsewhere until it is finished.”

  “And when the earth shakes again, and it falls again?” Vincent asks.

  “We do not know it will,” the nobleman says.

  “We do not know it won’t,” Sallin interrupts. “The king has the right of it, to wonder what comes next. Shall we build on land that shudders, that we know is eaten by the sea, even should it rest easy? Why dig deeper roots in a place we know is dying?”

  “Dying is a strong word—” an advisor says.

  “It is not,” Vincent says sharply. “Crushed—as that man was today—is a strong word. Killed—as I saw Stilleans fall by Feneen hands—is a strong word. Dying is a slow, torturous process, and I find it only too apt for this land. The only thing we do quickly in Stille is dismiss new ideas.”

  Sallin nods his agreement. Vincent looks to the Curator, who chews his lip.

  “There is much we do not speak of here, things that are known and yet unknown. I’ve come to learn how much false knowledge is called true.” Vincent presses his thumb against the edge of the table, and a splinter slides deeply beneath his nail. He pulls it loose, fingers trailing the edge of the known world.

  “Shall I be the first to raise the question? Shall I be the king who asks if there is somewhere else I may take my people?”

  He expected an uprising, outraged shouts, certainly the oft-repeated there is nowhere else coming from mouths aged with saying so, smooth spots on their teeth where the words have passed so often. Instead there is a lengthy silence, guarded glances, and finally, a protracted fart from an Elder who has fallen asleep.

  “This is not, perhaps, the shock I had thought it would be?” Vincent asks.

  “I am shocked, my lord,” one of the nobles says. “But too old to show it. Outrage is for the young, change for the strong of heart. You ascended the throne of Stille long before your face was lined with age, and while there were many who questioned how our kingdom would fare in a time of such unrest with you at the helm, I now think . . .” He glances at the other Elders, who look to him to finish.

  “I think it is as it should be. The old have reigned long, but now the waves—once our greatest enemy—have defended us, and the Given sits on a throne. Much has changed. And more is called for. If it is new land you seek, young hands will build the ship to take you there, strong backs row the oars. The old will be only ballast, yet I think I would like to see such a thing, even if it should be sailing away without me.”

  “I had not . . .” Vincent clears his throat, where it feels his heart has taken up residence. “I had not thought to leave you behind.”

  “Then you must resolve yourself to it.” Another Elder speaks up. “For there are many who will not join you. I for one, agree with the will of the council that to remain in a land full of our enemies—where we can no longer trust even the earth beneath us—is folly. Yet I cannot give over a lifetime fearing the sea to sail upon it. There are many who will choose to stay, my king, both old and young.”

  “And so passes Stille,” the Curator says, eyes wandering among the council. “Those who remain behind fall to the Pietra. Those who go to sea will linger upon it in search of what may not exist.”

  “A quick death or a slow one,” a noble says. “Are these truly our choices?”

  “The ships will sail toward hope, not doom,” Vincent says.

  But the only eyes that meet his are Sallin’s, and Vincent finds his first victory as king of Stille hollow, won over a battlefield no bigger than the trunk of a tree, against an aged enemy too tired to fight. Vincent’s injured hand curls into a fist, a thin trail of blood tracing the curve of his knuckle.

  “Stille has not passed yet.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Vincent

  I wish to go, of course,” Khosa says.

  “I thought as much,” he
says with a smile. Just as he hopes never to be his father, he wants Khosa never to feel as his mother did, as if permission were necessary. Given that her knapsack was already out when he arrived in their room, hands sorting through clothes for the journey to Hygoden, it was clear she felt the same.

  “I would go with you,” he says, sitting on their bed. “But the council thought it prudent to continue training the men. Should Stille truly be split, I cannot stand on a ship’s deck knowing those I leave behind are helpless to defend themselves.”

  “Many will stay,” Khosa says quietly, folding a sleepshirt and tucking it into her sack. “I know what it is to fear the sea, more than most. But the council underestimates your people, Vincent. The same country that can take a girl meant to die and make her their queen will listen to stories of land elsewhere, and some will wish to see it.”

  Vincent nods, for once more, his wife’s mind has followed his own. “Training the men is only part of why I remain when you go in search of Harta’s people. I will spread such stories over Stille’s dinner tables, move among my people, palm pressed to palm. Someone must bring them hope beyond the promise of battle. That falls to me.”

  Khosa smiles absently and pulls a cloak from a trunk. “You make a good king, friend.”

  He watches her work, calm and relaxed as she moves without the gaze of the public upon her. She is not the only one who can read a face, and Vincent has learned hers well in their time together. Though she is mostly inscrutable, tiny deviations have made themselves clear to him over time. And he knows in this moment, she is happy.