Reign the Earth (The Elementae #1)(43)

“You should tell him,” Galen said. “That you know. See what he says about it.”

I opened my eyes, surprised. “Telling him I know does not seem wise.”

“Everyone wants to know they can be loved even in consideration of their most monstrous parts,” he said.

I didn’t voice it as we walked forward, but there was a flaw in Galen’s logic: it would require me to love my husband, and I wasn’t sure I could do that.

Seemingly to spite the churning recesses of my mind, it was a peaceful walk. The sun began its slow dive below the edge of the world, sending out lovely, desperate colors as it clung to its last moment. As we neared the castles, it made the three white structures look like some kind of deity indeed must live there, shrouded in the most beautiful colors of the world. As we rose on the Royal Causeway, the colors caught on the moving, shifting surface of the ocean.

I stopped, staring at it. “Skies Above,” I breathed.

We were high enough on the rise of the causeway that I could look out over the low parts of the city, and I could see people moving in the streets, and the winding lines still trailing from the grain mill. The place was long closed, yet they stayed there, waiting for food.

I looked back to the beauty of the Three Castles. Perhaps Galen was right—perhaps the past couldn’t possibly matter. Perhaps it was only this, the things that I could change for the future, helping to create a day when more people would live than die. Maybe that’s all I could ever do. Maybe it was enough.





Call to Service

Galen escorted me into the castle and to the large hall, but kissed my hand and told me he couldn’t stay for the meal. He lingered for a long moment like he wanted to say something else, but then he turned and left.

I went into the hall alone; Calix wasn’t there, and Danae and I sat on the raised dais. I saw Kairos, and when our eyes met, I looked to the hallway and back to him, and he nodded once, raising his wine to me.

“Are you well?” I asked Danae. Her posture was straight and careful, her muscles tense like she was waiting for something.

She leaned back, but she still seemed watchful. “Yes. Court makes me … edgy.”

I nodded, taking a bite of stew that thankfully didn’t seem to have fish in it.

Her eyes swept over me. “And you? How are you finding the City of Three?”

My shoulders lifted, unsure how to answer the question. There were so many things crowding my mind—I needed to ask Calix about his past, and I could only imagine it would be an ugly conversation. But I also wanted to do something about the grain mill that I had seen, and the nagging feeling that I could be doing far more as queen. “Foreign, of course. But there are problems that plague all people.”

“Oh?” she asked, turning slightly toward me.

“Hunger,” I said. “Safety. The need to protect your children. Everyone does it in different ways, but the Tri people and the clans are not so different.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Are we not?”

“We know hunger well,” I told her. “Not as much recently—my brother Aiden has become a tremendously skilled hunter, and it seems he could always make food appear for us—but as a nomadic people, we have few steady sources of food and water. The people here face hunger on a larger scale, of course.”

Danae propped her chin in her palm and covered her mouth with her fingers, but she nodded. “Yes.”

“I wonder if I can help,” I told her softly. “I wonder if I could ask Calix to allow the women to work in the mill. To work to feed their families.”

She was very still for long moments, and then her eyes shifted over me, and she rubbed her mouth before dropping her hands into her lap. “It is an excellent thought,” she said. “But it would not be Calix’s decision. The Three-Faced God must make such a declaration.” Her eyes met mine.

“How … how do I get a God to make a declaration?” I asked. “Is that something you can do?”

Her mouth twisted into something that was too bitter to be a smile. “No, I cannot. Calix feels he alone is the true conduit for the God’s voice. But the call of the Three-Faced God—particularly a call to service—is very, very powerful,” she said, raising her chin.

Drawing a breath, I nodded. “How do these calls to service usually present themselves?” I asked her.

She waved a hand. “They can come in many ways. Dreams, visions—but the most powerful is in response to prayer. Asking the God for an answer.”

I nodded. “And he will listen?” I asked.

“The God?” she asked, and her smile lifted with amusement. “Or Calix?”

“Who is more important?”

“Calix,” she said, looking forward. “And I cannot know his mind, but yes. He likes solutions—if it solves a problem, he may listen.”

Curling my hands around the arms of the chair, I sat up straighter, feeling hope rush through me. I could do this. I could be the queen they needed, and in finding peace for this country, protect Rian and Kairos and all the desert clans.


As soon as I stood at the end of the meal, Kairos appeared, bowing to the dais. “Sister,” he greeted me. “Let me escort you back to your chambers.”

I smiled. “Of course,” I said, and took his offered arm. “Good night, Danae.”