Given to the Earth

by Mindy McGinnis

  “But I could not . . .” Donil clears his throat, casts his eyes to the distance between them and Sallin. “I could not let you believe the last words I said to you were true.”

  “That I could go to the depths if I cared more for what the histories said of my rule as queen than I do for the man in front of me,” Khosa repeats, her usual dead tones more lifeless than ever.

  “Whatever our end is to be, Khosa, I would not see you go to the depths. I nearly killed Dara with my bare hands for leading you there.”

  “Yes,” Khosa agrees cautiously. “But much has happened since then.”

  “You married Vincent,” Donil says. “And it was Vincent who asked me to keep you safe on this journey, but a trapman could have bade me come, and I would have. I’m not here at the king’s bidding. I’m here because the queen needs me, and I am unable to go against her will.”

  “And if I were to tell you that I do not care overly for being queen?”

  Khosa says the words she practiced, running variations of the same message over and over in her head, desperate to find the one that conveyed her need without being too brazen. She has mouthed them so often since they mounted their horses that morning that she wonders if she has, in fact, spoken them at last, for Donil only stares forward.

  A tremor passes through her, not one that will take her to the sea, and nothing like the one that shook Stille, bringing maps and books down around her head as she thought her life was about to end before she had lived it. It is true fear that has her in its grip now, the giving over of herself to another, and the passage of the moment as she waits for his response.

  “You wear the crown often, for one who cares not,” Donil says, eyes still on Sallin.

  “I wear the crown to remind me of my duties,” she says.

  “And remind me as well,” Donil adds.

  “I thought it best . . .” Khosa lets her voice fade, unable to find words to explain what she had thought best. To be a queen, an honest wife, a living girl: these were all gifts that had been given to her when the only thing she’d been promised was a watery death. And she had vowed to fill these new roles as she had the part of the Given, dutifully.

  “It was best, Khosa,” Donil hisses. “You have done nothing wrong by taking Vincent as a husband.”

  “Done nothing wrong,” Khosa parrots, his word choice following her own thoughts. “That is only too true. I would have walked into the sea, should Stille have told me to, but instead they sent me to be wed. And I went, the good sheep raised in Hyllen doing as she was told.

  “Stille’s past is littered with royals doing exactly as they pleased,” she goes on. “Deeds that would make your hair curl, if they were known. And yet I have done what is best for others, always, to my own misery and nearly to my death. What has it brought me? A dying kingdom and a chaste marriage—”

  Khosa’s hand flies to her mouth, but the words have already been spilled. Donil reins his horse and reaches for hers, pulling them off the path into a copse of trees.

  “A chaste marriage?” he repeats.

  “Yes,” Khosa says, head up, gaze meeting his. “Vincent is gentleman enough to wait until I—I . . .”

  “A gentleman,” Donil says. “A bit of a fool, too.”

  “A fool!” Khosa’s eyes flare. “You think he should demand his rightful—”

  “Because if he’s not bedded you, then you’re not married,” Donil interrupts, quelling her anger.

  “Our bond is written in the histories,” Khosa says, her breath tight in her chest. “We are husband and wife.”

  “In ink, maybe,” Donil shakes his head. “But a marriage isn’t true until the two have become one. That’s a detail perhaps a squeamish Scribe didn’t see fit to write.”

  “You’d be surprised what Scribes write, and with glee,” she tells him, her thoughts racing.

  Donil spurs his horse onward, drawing hers back onto the path alongside him. “Dissa does not know, I assume?”

  Khosa shakes her head. “No one knows.”

  Her clothes have been chosen to protect their identities as they travel, for the queen, accompanied by only two guards, would make a nice target for thieves. Khosa is dressed as a Hyllenian girl, simply, with a strand of coilweed holding her hair at the nape of her neck. Her head feels light without the crown, her limbs free from layers of clothing she puts on at rising only to have stripped off at night, a process that takes some time.

  Always she has felt more like a Hyllenian girl than the queen of Stille.

  Because she isn’t.

  CHAPTER 35

  Donil

  I do not know whether to laugh or to cry, though I feel perhaps there is a scream deep inside me as well, one that will tear my throat out upon release.

  Khosa is not married to my friend, though it is only the act that keeps them from being so. In his mind and heart, I am sure, Vincent looks on her as his wife, and that is what I would betray if I should make her mine, not the trivialities that claim she remains unwed. And yet, the fact that she has not lain with him fills me with a joy tinged with bitter edges, for if she remains virtuous, it is because Vincent is a kind and patient man.

  Each way I look lies a betrayal. To myself and Khosa if I do not fulfill what we both want, to Vincent and Dara if I do. Yet every step of our mounts takes us farther from Stille, and it is so much easier to see her as only a girl, and me only a boy, each of us wanting the other so badly our horses have become edgy from the heavy air between us by the time we make camp for the night.

  Sallin sets a fire as Khosa wanders to gather sticks. I am not far from her side, an arrow nocked that I may find us some supper. I do, and easily, pulling an oderbird from the air as Khosa goes to the spot where it fell. We are laughing children, words flowing easily between us, the night air carrying our voices.

  The three of us make a quick dinner, and Khosa sleeps almost immediately, her body worn from unaccustomed travel. I watch her in the fire’s light, more lost than ever in the thought that we are only two lovers, not the queen of Stille and the last male Indiri.

  I’m passing water in the dark when Sallin comes upon me, much lighter on his feet than I had given him credit for. His hand falls on my shoulder, but my own is nowhere near my sword, so I’m left with little more to do than parry with words.

  “It’s not well to surprise a man while he’s taking a piss,” I say. “You’ll end up with wet feet.”

  “Is that some old Indiri wisdom, friend?” he asks, undoing the front of his own trousers to join me.

  “No, but this is: two men making water shouldn’t cross streams.”

  Sallin laughs, his piss trail jumping with the motion. “That’s old wisdom anywhere,” he says. “So is this: the young will do as they must.”

  “While the elderly speak in riddles?” I ask, tucking myself away.

  “I may be old, Indiri. But I was young once, and never blind. All I’ll say to you is that you wouldn’t be the first man in a queen’s bed who wasn’t the king, and I not the first advisor to turn his head.”

  Part of me wants to do that exactly: turn his head, and keep turning it until bones pop and his tongue never speaks ill of Khosa again. Another part wants to ask what he has seen between us, so that it may not be so visible to others.

  “I care not what you—or she—do with our time here,” he finishes, buttoning his clothing. “The sheep can lie with the goats and the oderbirds mate with the Tangata for all it matters. If we can’t find Harta’s people, or if they know nothing of ships, then I doubt you’ll live long enough to grow a gray hair.”

  I clutch on to the only thing he’s said that I can refute. “Indiri are of the earth,” I say. “I’ll not go on any ship.”

  “You will if she’s on it.”

  * * *

  Hygoden lies far, and though the next few days of travel are hard on Khosa’s
body, her spirit remains high. I see her grab at falling leaves, rest her head against her mount’s neck with a small smile, even watch the whitecaps with awe, once the path takes us next to the sea. I put myself between her and it, but she only shakes her head at me, loose hair flying in the wind. She is in good spirits, and her body under her power—for now.

  Travelers are uncommon in the far reaches, and the road is ours alone in the fading moments of light that mark our last day on horseback. Spirals of smoke greet us from the small village at the foot of the mountains, and I hear Sallin’s bones creak as he dismounts in the square.

  We attract a group of children immediately. Or rather—I do. A sea of small heads bobs around me, many fingers brushing against the skin of my arms. I squat on my heels, letting them touch my face and hair. One little girl even sticks her fingers inside my ears, blocking for a moment their continuous questions, like a nest full of unfed young oderbirds.

  “Can you make it rain if you want?”

  “Do trees really move out of your path?”

  “Are you sad to be the last?”

  “Have you got spots on your pecker, then?”

  That comes from an older boy who holds himself apart from the others, arms crossed. Like all of the children, his clothes are worn, knees and elbows poking through the fabric. But the ones around me are bright eyed, curious. This one has a look I know well—wariness.

  “I do,” I confirm. “Do you greet all strangers this way?”

  The children around me giggle, and the boy’s mouth quirks ever so slightly. “No stranger,” he says. “An Indiri, a girl of small build and light hair, and an Elder with soft hands? Take a knee, my friends, for the queen has come to Hygoden.”

  They all gasp and do as told, except for one small girl who instead rushes to cling to Khosa’s skirts. She reaches down reflexively, taking the small hand in her own gloved one. My heart clenches, and I turn away.

  “You’re no dullard,” I say to the boy. “We traveled here without our names being guessed, and me with only a cloak hood over my head.”

  “Hygoden breeds no idiots,” he says. “We may live beyond your reckoning, but we hear of what goes on in Stille, and mark it well.”

  “And the doings of Hygoden are of interest to Stille,” Khosa says, coming to my side, the child perched on her hip. “To me especially.”

  We’ve gathered a crowd, adults leaving their suppers behind to let chilly evening air into their homes. Doors stay open behind them as they take in the scene, an Indiri and the queen of Stille sharing words with a child of their village.

  “And what would you have of us?” a woman asks, leaving the doorway of her house to collect her children to her side, an arm draped protectively around each of them. “We paid our tithe and have no men to spare for the fighting.”

  “We come in search of knowledge only,” Sallin intervenes, casting me a sideways look of irritation. Undoubtedly he had hoped to share words in secret with the village elders, not have our business brought to the light by a kid with half his supper still on his face.

  “We seek the descendants of Harta,” Khosa says, clarifying when Sallin’s words bring only guarded glances and more mothers retrieving their children. “I would speak with them.”

  “You already have,” the boy says, chin jutted out with pride.

  CHAPTER 36

  Ank

  The earth itself tried to keep me from Stille, and yet I return. Always my home has called to me. I sat in the great hall across from Gammal, he thinking I should be awed by the splendor, not knowing that I had seen those walls for many years, though always shrouded by the darkness of night.

  The tunnels beneath the castle are known to few. The route leading to the beaches should the royals need an escape is the only one kept clear. In others I have found bodies, some dragged there by Tangata to be fed upon at leisure, some clearly left behind by another’s hands. Stille has its skeletons, but even the Curator doesn’t know that the city is built upon them.

  I take a different route each visit, pilfering small things from the bodies that the Feneen may find useful. A pair of knitting needles from a woman who had perhaps been too free with advice, a dagger from a man who died with it between his ribs, a fine quill from the pocket of a Scribe who may have written something best left uninked. I do not know why they died, but the hows of it are usually clear. Skulls are fragile things that carry their damages past the grave, and a broken neck is easily spotted. I take a last turn, pocketing a hair clip from a noblewoman who once needed it, then slip out of the tunnels and into the castle halls, leaving my torch behind.

  The sconcelighters are better guards than the men whose duty it is to patrol the halls, I have often thought. The women travel with fire, lighting corners that I could use if they would remain in shadow. This night I ease from behind a tapestry to find the hall yet unlit, the glow of an approaching sconceligther far around the corner. I make my way, the stones beneath my bare feet well known to me, ascending the steps with one hand on the wall to keep my balance as I travel ever upward.

  My hand falls upon the door, delivering our knock. The latch slides back, and the scent of nilflower greets me moments before her embrace.

  “Hello, Mother,” I say to the Seer.

  CHAPTER 37

  Khosa

  Khosa is taken to a small cabin at the edge of the village, the child’s small fist clutched around one of her gloved fingers. Her heart twists at the pull of the tiny hand, quivering at the thought that any child of hers would have been taken from her the moment it left her body, and she sent toward the sea.

  “Momma will be excited to have visitors,” the girl says now, bare feet sliding over the stone path that leads to her doorstep.

  “Papa will not,” her brother says. He wishes to appear sullen, but she notices him watching every move Donil makes, then mimicking them himself.

  Khosa turns her head away, not wanting the boy to see her smile. The Indiri skin is not the only fascination that Donil holds for others. The very life inside him is kind and gentle, drawing to him animals and children alike. And as their innocence fades, their interest in him changes. The girls, given a few years, learn to look at him aslant, with hooded, inviting eyes. The boys—like Pand—watch his movements, learning to do as he does, so that they too may make good men.

  Pand pushes open the door to their small home, announcing who we are before his little sister, Unda, gets the chance.

  “Pa! The queen has come to ask us things, and with her an Indiri. Also, him.” He points to Sallin last, who, for a man of rather large importance, makes a good job of being found the least interesting of the group.

  “Sir, madam,” Sallin says, nodding.

  “The queen, my goodness,” the lady says, coming to her feet to help Khosa out of her riding cloak. “I’ll put a few more plates on . . .”

  Khosa sees her eyes dart to the kettle that hangs over the fireplace, and she doesn’t doubt there’s more steam than food inside it. The plates already set are chipped and hold little.

  “We had a good midmeal,” Khosa says quickly, hoping the lie covers the rumble of her stomach at the mention of food. “We don’t want to trouble you.”

  “No trouble,” the man answers, rising as he does, and Khosa’s breath stops in her throat. He has to tilt his head to keep it from hitting the rafters, and while she knows that Donil cuts a fine figure, she finds it hard to belive that Pand would imitate the Indiri when he has such a formidable father at home.

  “Winlan,” the man says, extended his hand to Sallin, who takes it without the slightest hesitation. Years spent maneuvering through Stillean Elder meetings have taught him well how to hide his thoughts; even Khosa can read no reaction in Sallin’s face at the appearance of the man. Donil, on the other hand, has unconsciously raised his chin a bit and puffed his chest slightly. Khosa bites the inside of her cheek at the sight.r />
  Winlan’s hand comes to her next, and she takes it as a man would, thinking what a sight it would be if he were to attempt to bow to her. Even should he bend cleanly in half, his head would still be a handspan above hers.

  “Khosa,” she says as introduction, her title having slipped away from her entirely this far from the city she reigns in.

  “And what do an Elder of the city, the queen, and an Indiri require of me?” Winlan asks, taking his seat again as he scrapes the last bites of supper from the plate in front of him.

  “I think you know,” she says. Winlan grunts in response. His wife looks nervously at her visitors as Unda claims Khosa’s lap now that they are all seated at the table.

  “Is it the papers?” Unda asks, one fist buried in Khosa’s hair. “Papa says we musn’t talk about them, so I don’t.” She promptly pops her hand over her mouth, eyes bulging, cheeks puffed full of air to illustrate how well she can keep a secret.

  “Except you did,” Pand says, cuffing his sister and eliciting a shriek. She burrows more deeply into Khosa, who folds her arms around the girl and latches eyes with Winlan. The big man heaves a sigh and crosses his arms, a behavior his son most definitely learned from him.

  “Papers?” Khosa prompts.

  Winlan’s wife lays a hand on one of his arms, the length of her hand barely spanning his forearm.

  “Aye, well, if you came here with Harta’s name on your lips, I suppose what’s written on them will be no great shock to you.” Winlan rises, goes to the stacked beds in the corner, and pulls a trunk from underneath it. From his neck hangs a key knotted in leather, which he uses to open the chest. A handful of scrolls, small and musty, are placed on the table. Sallin and Donil crowd closer to Khosa as she opens them.

  Intricately inked ships meet her eyes, billowing sails so lifelike that Khosa feels if she were to blow upon them, they would travel from the page. The second scroll holds columns and numbers, and small sections of the larger whole brought into focus. The third is a series of notes, detailed instructions on how to maneuver sails, steer the ship, and navigate. Khosa reminds herself to breathe as she looks upon the first lines she’s ever seen that tell her how to follow where her dance wishes to take her, instead of documenting the death it will lead to.