Given to the Earth

by Mindy McGinnis

  Vincent winces at the thought of her skin, moon white from never having known life outside her tower, now exposed to the harsh light of morning. He stands with his wife and mother at the head of the crowd, the black ribs of the burnt ship rising around him, the pyre at his back. Heat rises from the ground, baking his feet in his boots. Beside him, Khosa wipes beads of sweat from her lip with one gloved hand, the other firmly caught within his own, should the sea call her.

  Vincent spent the night before alone, forgoing even the company of Khosa. There was no comfort to be had from anyone, for there was nothing that could be done. Even the Curator shook his head when the king came to him asking if there was a route other than death for Madda, as there had been for Khosa. On this, the histories were unwavering. Traitors burned. Grief had filled him, pushing all else aside. The path of his life had always ended with the throne looming over it, but never had he believed such atrocities could be hidden in the shadows it cast.

  “Madda the Seer,” Vincent announces in a clear voice when she reaches him, hands bound, bright eyes on his own. “You are a traitor to Stille and will burn. Have you any words?”

  “I do,” she says, voice filling the outdoors as it had her tower. “You’re a good king, Vincent, and an even better man. This is not your doing, child, only the wheels we are caught up in together. They will move, and I will be crushed, and you will go on, for it is in a wheel’s nature to turn.”

  Tears run down Vincent’s cheeks, and he makes no move to stop them. Finally Madda reaches up, wiping them away with a fold of her cloak.

  “Also, three of Unter Hoff’s children are not his own,” she says to the crowd. “And Baura thins her cow milk with well water.”

  There’s a gasp at the first revelation, a smattering of laughter at the second, and Madda pulls a torch from her guard’s hand at the distraction. He twists to stop her, but she is gone, mounting the steps with surprising grace and dropping the torch to her own kindling. Her cloak catches quickly, the long-loved folds falling away as the fire eats toward her skin. The Seer clutches the pyre, a cry she cannot contain escaping her lips as her hair lights, gray strands suddenly bright with color.

  Vincent goes to her instinctively, Madda’s cry of pain overwhelming all else. He is stopped by Khosa’s hand, tight on his, and his mother’s on his elbow.

  “Let her go, Vincent,” Dissa says, turning his face away.

  “No, Mother,” he says. “I must watch.”

  So he does, even as her flesh catches and Madda’s voice rises in agony. The king looks on as others fade away, horror overwhelming curiosity. The Scribe sent to record the deed turns his head, the Curator draws his hood over his eyes, and two nobles are lost to faints. Vincent and Khosa look on, hands clasped, as the rising heat evaporates their tears and the smoke rises, smelling of nilflower.

  CHAPTER 70

  Vincent

  Solitude is all he wishes for, and the one thing he cannot have. As king, Vincent must allay the fears of the Stilleans who wish to sail and fear that the boats cannot be built before a second Pietran attack. The firing of the ships has lent heat to those who would stay and think it a bad omen that one of their own—and the Seer, at that—contributed to their destruction. And yet others push for more aggressive action toward the Pietra, and wish to march on the offensive at the first opportunity. Vincent listens to all, the smoke from Madda’s pyre sticking to his clothes, his own skin still blistered and red.

  He sits in the great hall with Dissa and Sallin, Khosa having made an excuse to lie down. Vincent’s mother and advisor give their thoughts as each Stillean leaves, then receive Winlan’s estimations on how quickly their work can resume. A messenger from Sawhen arrives, responding to their invitation to any in the village who wish to sail when the time comes. Many have accepted, and though Vincent knows their lives have been saved by this decision, he fears he cannot accommodate them all. The last to speak to them is Milda, hands twisting in her skirt with nervousness and cheeks aflame when she sees that she will be addressing Dissa as well.

  “I will speak to this Stillean alone,” Vincent says, rising to his feet when he sees Milda’s discomfort.

  Dissa sends him an odd look but takes her leave alongside Sallin, who tips Vincent a wink as he closes the doors behind him. Vincent turns to Milda, grateful for the burns that hide his own flush of embarrassment.

  “I am sorry for the loss of your Seer,” Milda says quickly. “I know you were close, and I . . . I’m sure what passed this morning was not easy for you to endure.”

  “Harder for her, I think,” Vincent says. “But I thank you.”

  Milda nods, and he leads her to a chair. “Have you had much luck speaking with Stilleans about the ships?”

  “Yes,” she says. “More than expected. And no”—anticipating his next question—“I do not think the burning of one will turn the minds of many. Some, perhaps. Those who can see salvation in the sea are not softhearted or thin-skinned. Stille has sat silent for years, many and more. Young blood has been stirred of late, and obstacles only fire it in their veins—oh, I—” She clears her throat. “I apologize for my choice of words.”

  Vincent smiles, waving away her apology. In fact he hardly heard it, his eyes lost in searching her face. Motherhood will agree with her, and the prettiness of youth has acquired the gravity of experience. His hand finds hers, and he squeezes it.

  “I thank you, Milda. You have saved lives with this work on your king’s behalf, and I will not forget it.”

  She returns the smile, squeezing his hand as well. “It is not the king I do it for, but my friend Vincent. I saw in your eyes the depth of your belief in the ships and finding new land, and adopted it as my own.”

  Milda rises, releasing his hand as he does as well. “I am pleased your family will be alongside us,” he tells her truly.

  She pulls her cloak around her shoulders. “To think that our children may play together, and on the shores of a far land.”

  “Perhaps someday,” Vincent agrees.

  “Ah.” Milda covers her mouth with her fingers, eyes sparkling over them. “The queen’s handmaidens had said that the early-light illness has taken her to bed of late, and that her shift grows small at the waist. But I of all people should know better than to listen to the idle chatter from the castle.”

  “Yes,” Vincent says, forcing the smile on his face to remain there. “Idle chatter is all it is, for the moment.”

  He escorts Milda to the door, willing himself not to crush her arm in his grip, or ask what else his wife’s servants have said. A king should know the truth from the mouth of his queen, and Vincent intends to ask for it.

  CHAPTER 71

  Khosa

  Khosa has spent the day scouring the hidden histories, finding only the one reference to Madda being Vincent’s mother. It is pinched between her fingers now as she rests by the fireplace in her bedroom, thoughts racing.

  Watching the Seer burn turned her stomach, and for once she would have run away from the sea rather than toward it. Yet through all of their time together, Khosa had always felt that she needed Vincent more than he did her: for protection, for friendship, for the preservation of her own life. Today he needed her, and so she stood, hand in hand with her husband, knowing that he watched his mother burn, and on his order.

  Khosa rubs the piece of parchment between her fingers, the single line that would oust Vincent from the throne and mark him a matricide releasing a scent at her touch. Always the mix of pulp and ink has brought a smile to her face, but now it is laced with smoke and nilflower, stinking of death. It is not the thought of Vincent losing his crown—and she her own—but the dual brand of being the killer of both his parents that makes her unclench her hand, sending the truth to the flames. It is curling in the heat when Vincent walks in, closing the door behind him. Startled, she comes to her feet, glancing first to the fire to be sure that the parchment h
as burned.

  “What is that?” Vincent demands, a gleam in his eyes that Khosa has not seen before on her husband.

  “It is nothing,” she stammers. “Only a—”

  “A note from your lover?” he finishes for her, advancing a step.

  “No! Vincent!” is all Khosa can say as she steps backward, falling into her chair.

  “Is it Donil?” He pulls her back to her feet, but Khosa yanks her wrist from his grip, her own temper ignited.

  “Do not touch me,” she cries, cradling her arm to her chest.

  “Yes, how dare I?” Vincent roars at her, answering anger with rage. “What husband would put his hand on his wife’s skin? What man would know the woman he is married to? Not the king of Stille, surely. So who, then, has planted a child in the queen’s womb?”

  “Vincent.” Khosa feels the blood run from her face to her legs, her body preparing to flee from danger, though her mind insists he will not hurt her. “Who has told you these things?”

  “You,” he yells, his throat cracking with the force of the accusation. “Every line of your body, every expression on your face, every smile on your lips when you think I’m not looking. The queen has a lover, and her mind turns to him often, even when her body is not with his. I have seen it, Khosa! I have known, yet I have made myself ignorant, so that I may not feel . . . this.”

  His last word breaks, the wrath cresting into despair, blistered skin still victimized by fire now wet with fresh tears, eyes still red from the smoke of the morning now glistening with a new loss.

  “You have done this to me, Khosa,” he says weakly, sinking into a chair. “And I am no more because of it.”

  “Vincent . . .” Khosa’s heart falls at the sight of him broken, the weight of her guilt sending it plummeting. She goes to her knees in front of him, hands reaching for his face. He turns away.

  “What was it?” he asks again, eyes on the fire.

  “Not a note, I assure you,” she says, shaking her head. “But I will say no more.”

  “Is it Donil?” Vincent asks, all emotion gone from his voice.

  “Yes,” she says weakly, hanging her head. “I carry his child.”

  Her husband’s hands go to his face to cover it as he cries, the shuddering that racks his body so like her own when she dances that she tries to comfort him. He shoves her hands away, her touch no longer something he can desire. Khosa’s own tears flow, and she wipes her face with her sleepshirt as she settles onto the floor, her own gaze lost to the flame.

  “We never wished to harm you,” she says. “Please believe that.”

  “I do,” Vincent says, pulling his hands from his face. “But it does not make the pain any less.”

  Khosa is silent, knowing he speaks truth.

  “What will you do?” she asks.

  “What can I do?” he counters. “This is not only lying outside the marriage bed with another, but—”

  “You are the king, and it is treason, I know,” Khosa says. “We could burn, and our child with us.”

  “You know I will not do that,” Vincent says quickly, the scent of Madda’s pyre still rising from his clothes.

  “I will not rid myself of the child, Vincent.”

  “I would not ask it,” he says. “Of either of you.”

  They sit together in silence, the distance between them greater than what could be measured in fingerlengths.

  “When the child is born, all will know I am unfaithful, and with whom,” Khosa says. “Whether you wish it or not, Donil and I may find our end in flame.”

  “You will not,” Vincent says, rising to his feet. “By Stillean ways, you are not truly my wife, as we have not been one in our bed. I can divulge this, leaving you free, any lover you have taken being a choice you made as a maiden and not as my wife.”

  He walks to the door, and she rises to follow, stopping him with a light touch.

  “Where are you going, husband?”

  The word slips from her tongue as it has become habit of late, a compliment she can pay with her mouth if not her body. It drops now between them as a lie, and his face twists in pain.

  “Somewhere I do not have to look upon your face, wife.”

  CHAPTER 72

  Donil

  The Seer has been a topic of jest between myself and Vincent since we were small, I laughing at anyone who thought they could see the future, though I know the past at a glance. As the smoke of Madda’s burning clears over the castle walls, I mutter an Indiri thought for her ashes, that they may settle on earth and not drown in the sea. I toss a shell from where I sit on the beach as I do, listening for the far-off sound as it falls into the water.

  I have not seen Khosa since the ships burned, our escape taken from us with the toss of a torch. And though I know what role the Seer played, I cannot put blame upon her head. Not when I, too, must balance my fate against that of my child.

  With only one seaworthy ship—and that one rightfully loaded with the Hygodeans who built it—and many Stilleans vying for a spot on another, the chances of an Indiri finding a place on board are slim. Khosa could be saved, though, as queen, and my child with her. It would grow without me, in a land I will never see, yet know me intimately through my memories. Or it could drown at sea, torn from Khosa’s arms moments after being born, cursed for bearing spots and the indiscretion of its parents.

  I shudder at the thought of a child being tossed to the sea as I did the shell, yet relish the idea that I will have a child to fear for. I’ve struggled with the betrayal of my friend, the love I feel for a woman I cannot be with, the absence of my sister and what fresh torture the Lithos has prepared for her, yet when I think of tiny Indiri fists, and Khosa’s blue eyes in a speckled face, I can only smile.

  Vincent finds me at such a moment, and I rise to meet him. His face is still burned, the hair crisped away, and one eye mostly closed, so I do not see the rage on his face until it is too late.

  I taught him to fight, and the punch on the tip of my jaw is well landed. I’m thrown off my feet entirely, sand kicked into a spray that falls back onto my chest as I look up at Vincent, blood running down my chin. As boys we traded blows, sometimes in jest, but occasionally with real anger. This is not the same.

  I was punched by a man, one whom I have wronged.

  I say no word, and he none to me.

  Slowly, he reaches down to take my hand. I hesitate only a moment before grasping it, and he pulls me to my feet.

  “What now, brother?” I ask.

  “Now I go to find Dara,” he says.

  * * *

  I cannot watch my friend ride in my sister’s name, knowing that I have acted against him and that he may not return. Vincent put up little resistance when I said I would go with him, already mustering the men and conferring with his commanders. For him, my going along is a matter of strength, another sword that will swing by his side. There is another for whom the battlefield is a distant thought, the child in her belly a greater concern.

  I go to Khosa’s rooms with no care as to decency, giving the guard outside a brusque nod as I raise my fist to knock. She calls for me to enter, standing as I do. Her face is tear streaked, eyes swollen. She cries out at the sight of me, jaw still raw and bloody. I go to her, and we nestle together for a moment, finding no small comfort in each other.

  “Khosa,” I say, pulling back from her, “I must go with Vincent.”

  She shakes her head, but I stop her with a word. “With only one ship to sail and another burned, there is no sense in my staying here while others ride for my sister’s sake.”

  “But—”

  “I will go with you when we sail,” I say. “But it is the Pietra that worry me now. They will not let us go without a fight; that much has been made clear. We have the greater army, if not the better soldiers. I will add my might to theirs, clear the land of our
enemies, then return to build a ship worthy of carrying the mother of my child and the last of my blood. I would not put you aboard something built in haste, leaving you to the same fate that would have taken you when we first met.”

  Her face is still in my hands, tears running freely again. She nods, eyes shining.

  “Donil,” she says, my name heavy in her mouth. “Vincent . . .” She closes her eyes against it, the memory too difficult.

  I pull her back into me, cradling her head against my chest.

  “What did he say to you?” she asks.

  “Nothing at all,” I tell her, pointing to my jaw. “But he said it quite forcefully.”

  “Oh, Donil.” Her fingers trace my face, her thumb rubbing against my lower lip. “I’m so sorry to have brought this upon you.”

  I grip her hands in mine, press them against my mouth. “I’m so glad that you did.”

  CHAPTER 73

  Witt

  I am to be married.

  It is an odd thought, one that should sit poorly in any Lithos’s mind, unable to balance with training and tradition. Yet it is happening, and I seem to be a very small part of what is necessary to accommodate the fact. The Keeper has taken it upon herself to manage every aspect, while I move about in the same ways, drilling with my soldiers—some of whom have given bedroom advice I deem highly questionable—and meeting with my advisors.

  Hadduk is less than pleased with the agreement I reached with Dara, and I know there are many who grumble alongside him, some among my high commanders. Yet we lost many and more to the sea on the beaches of Stille, and though our pride runs strong, it alone cannot stand against an enemy that outnumbers us. It is the wiser choice to let the Stilleans sail, but courage carries more weight in Pietra than cunning, and I watch the faces of my people as I move among them.