Reign the Earth (The Elementae #1)(65)

“Very well,” he said. “Then I should go. I can’t risk your being connected to my activities in the city.”

“But you’ll look into the people at the Summer Palace?” I asked.

He nodded, but he didn’t leave. “Kata said something about an elixir. A magical liquid to cancel out the elements. If she finds it, do you want it for yourself ?” he asked me. “To take away your gifts?”

I sighed. “I did,” I said. “Maybe I still do. But more than that, I don’t want my husband to control it. I want to decide who has that power.”

He came to me, hugging me tight. “If you ever need me, tell Kairos. Osmost can find me just about anywhere. And if you need to flee, I will find a way to get you out. Understand? You’re not alone in that palace.”

I hugged him tight. “Please be careful.”

“He won’t be,” Kata said, and I pulled back to see her. “But I’ll be cleaning up behind him, so he’ll be fine.”

I laughed, and Rian let me go, going deeper into the hedge, leaving me and Kata alone.

“So you believe the elixir’s real,” she told me, replacing Rian and hugging me tight.

“It is real,” I told her. “Sit down.”

She pulled back from me. “What?”

“It is real, because Calix used it before,” I told her softly. “When he attacked the islands. It wasn’t on his father’s orders; it was on his.”

She drifted to the bench, ashen. She looked past me for a long time, her gaze not seeing me, as if she was replaying all that she knew about that day. “Why would he do that?” she asked. She looked up at me. “He hated us so much?”

I sat beside her, twining our fingers together. “No,” I said. “He was in love with your sister. Amandana.”

She looked stricken at her name.

“He thought they were going to marry. For peace. And when he came to the islands, he found out she was with someone else. He thought she tricked him. He said she was with Rian.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Kata,” I said, tugging her hand.

“She told me,” Kata breathed. “She told me she was going to marry. She told me he’d come for her any day now. And everything would be different when he did. He’s the one she loved?”

I felt a tremble run through her, and I turned. Droplets of water were rising from the ground slowly, drawing the moisture away from the soil like the earth was crying into the air. “Kata,” I said again.

She pulled away from me. “That sick, cowardly bastard. And he used this elixir to do it? To kill her?” Her eyes whipped to me. “He’s going to do it again. She trusted him, and he killed her for it. It won’t be any different with you.”

My hands scrabbled to hold on to hers. “Kata, no. Kata, Kata, he won’t.”

“If he knows what you are? He’ll kill you.”

I caught her hands tight. “He won’t get the chance. I will never trust him.”

This seemed to calm her a little, and she breathed, nodding.

“But there was a trivatis who had visions,” I told her urgently. “He wrote them in a book. The book said there was more of the elixir in the desert, in a sacred place. Calix destroyed the book, but it’s the only clue he has to go on. He’s sending Danae to find it, but you know the lake, at least better than she does. I think it’s submerged somewhere in there. You’ll be able to find it where she can’t. And you have to do it before her.”

She nodded, and then stopped. “A book?” she repeated. “It was meant to be burned, right?”

“I don’t know, but that sounds like a good way to destroy a book.”

“We have it,” she said. “I think the Resistance has it.”

“How is that possible?” I asked.

“Because. The Resistance has all sorts of things the king wishes didn’t exist, and one of those is a large cache of books that were supposed to be burned. One of our faithful saved them.”

“But this was years ago,” I said. “Before the islands.”

She nodded. “And this girl held on to them. I can’t be sure, but I suspect we have that book.” She met my eyes. “Maybe we have a clue he doesn’t.”

I clutched her hands. “Then find it. And get the elixir before Danae does.”

“What about you?” she asked. “You almost died.”

“But I didn’t,” I told her. “Because of my power. I won’t deny it again, I swear it. I’ll practice as often as I’m able.”

“Good,” she said. “When I come back, I’ll bring news of your family.”

The breath rushed out of my lungs as I thought of her hugging my mother, joking with my brothers, playing tricks with water to delight Catryn. “Skies,” I said, nodding and fighting back the swell of emotion I felt at the thought. “I’ll look forward to that.”

She hugged me fiercely. “You should go,” she told me. “I don’t want your guard suspicious.”

I nodded, burying my face against her neck, and it struck me how lucky I was. Rian told me I wasn’t alone in the castle, and though often it felt like it, he was right. There were people in the world who I trusted beyond every shadow of doubt, and Kata was one of them. “I love you,” I breathed into her hair.