Reign the Earth (The Elementae #1)(67)

I followed where he pointed and looked at the bands of color. There was a dark line that didn’t feel like rock—perhaps it was a shell of some kind, ground up into the sand. There was glittery white, and that was rich and vibrant against my hands. The thick bands of wet gray were heavier, like they were sleeping and didn’t have any interest in being woken.

Sweeping my hand, I watched as the white rock pulled against itself, forming a blob and sliding up the beach.

Smiling, I left it there, and then nudged at the gray sand. It was almost like it sighed against my power, and it let me move it, scooping it up the beach to join the small pile with the white sand.

I saw a series of small stones in the surf, and experimentally I pushed against them. My power felt like it ended by trying to pass through the water, but I remembered being submerged in the communes, and I knew it wasn’t quite so simple.

I reached my power along the sand, under the water, and I connected with the small rocks.

First one, then two, and three, they leaped out of the water. I caught the first and second, and with a grin, Kairos caught the third before it hit my hand. “Good,” he told me.

Laughing, I sprayed him with sand.


It seemed like I was getting stronger. My power wasn’t wrestling me for control—it was there for me to use, in small, secret ways, and despite not having the power himself, Kairos was as good a teacher as he had always been with weapons, or fighting, or even teaching Catryn how to win an argument.

I spent my days at the mill or at the Erudium, where they wanted me to preside over their Consecutio, the day of contests when boys would claim they were men and fight to be eligible to join the army and pick brides.

I heard of the Resistance, in murmurs and mentions that weren’t meant for my ears. Actions here and there in the country; stealing money or crops, distributing it to the people. Protecting the Elementae, and building an army of them.

Calix and I had settled into being married over the past few months. I couldn’t love him, knowing what he’d done, but we were peaceful together, and it felt like enough to build our future on. I had bled once, right after I returned from the communes, and though I tried to explain that my cycles had never been very regular, he didn’t speak to me for days. I dreaded the day that my blood would return, and wondered if it was something he could frighten out of me.

For the most part, I walked. Sometimes in the Royal Garden, sometimes on the cliff walkway that was secluded and lovely and made entirely of stone, which Kairos urged me to manipulate. When we went out in the city, I pressed my attendants to walk farther each day, but I still felt like something was being lost, like I would never be able to return to the long days of walking in the desert.

Yet now walking served a new purpose. I had not forgotten those moments beneath the water—this power was part of me, and if nothing else, I needed to know how to use it. It might be my damnation, but it might also be my salvation, and I wouldn’t know which until it was far too late.


As Theron, Adria, and I left the mill one day, Adria turned to me. She had ceased to complain so much about walking, and I wondered sometimes, in moments like this, if I could ever come to consider her a friend.

“Ismene is with child,” she told me.

“Who is Ismene?”

“Domina Abydos,” she told me. “Her husband’s father is one of the higher vestai beneath my father.” She sighed. “I hate her.”

I laughed. “That’s a little stark.”

“I do,” she said, shrugging. “We were the same year in the Erudium. She was married after me, and yet that little show-off has a baby, and I will never have one. And of course, her mother is acting like the Three-Faced God blessed her specifically.” She rolled her eyes. “She’s requested an audience with you. Must I allow it?”

I smiled, but my smile faded. “I suppose so. But will you never have a child?”

Her head turned down. “No. As soon as I married, the king sent my husband to the south and demanded I stay here. My father is the most powerful vestai, and the king doesn’t want me having a child before you do. It would threaten his reign.”

I watched her. “And if I have a baby?” I asked.

Her shoulders lifted. “I hold little hope. I can’t presume to imagine what it will take for the king to feel secure in his legacy.”

Stepping closer to her, I threaded my fingers through hers and held her hand tight. “Then no, she can’t have an audience with me.”

Her fingers squeezed mine, and she gave me a small smile.

I turned forward, saw people on the Royal Causeway ahead of us, and my breath caught; I was not sure why there were so many there.

Theron saw it too and put his hand on my arm. “Stay close, my queen,” he told me.

I tucked close to him and pulled Adria against me, keeping our fingers together.

The guards were blocking off the road, so when they saw Theron with me they let us through to walk in the open center of the causeway. People started screaming and crying at us in delirious excitement when they saw me and realized who I was, and I flinched.

“Come quickly,” Theron said, walking behind me, sweeping his eyes over the crowd as we hurried up the hill.

We crested the hill and saw what the fuss was. A military regiment had returned, and people were cheering. The soldiers were off their horses, and I could see hands waving at the crowds but nothing else.