Reign the Earth (The Elementae #1)(79)

“She betrayed me!” he roared, and I recoiled, curling tighter. “Rian is in the city—she had to have known about it! She’s been helping him all this time. For all I know she’s lying about the child too! To manipulate me!”

“Three hells,” Danae snapped. “Rian d’Dragyn has been in the city since Father died. She had nothing to do with his being here, and it doesn’t sound like you have any proof that she’s helping him with anything. She isn’t lying, and she isn’t deceiving you.”

There was a long pause. “I want Rian d’Dragyn dead.”

I raised my head at this, but Calix wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at Danae. Issuing the order.

“Then it will be done.” She looked at me. “But you let your temper get the better of you, Calix, and you could have killed your wife and child. And you’re wrong. I will kill him only when you find a way to make this right with your wife.”

“Kai-Kairos,” I stammered, looking at her.

Danae frowned. “Kairos? Is he all right?”

“My men are questioning him. Which they will continue to do,” Calix snapped. “He may still know something.”

“I will stop them, Shalia,” she told me.

I nodded, and Calix turned toward me. I cringed.

He sighed. “I was wrong,” he said. “Get up.”

“Leave,” I told him, staring at my knees.

“Shalia,” he said, coming closer.

“Please,” I said, huddled against the wall, shutting my eyes and wishing it would change what I found when I opened them. “Please leave.”

I knew he was angry, but I didn’t care. I didn’t look up or move, either, so I suppose that belied my bravery.

“Go,” Danae said. “You release her brother, and I will take care of her.”

I jumped when I heard the door shut. I felt her shadow on me and heard her moving nearby, but I didn’t look up until I felt her hand touch my foot.

She was sitting in front of me on the ground, leaning against the wall in the same way I was, reaching out to me. She sighed when I looked up, then stood, getting one of the damp cloths the ishru had left. She knelt down, touching the cloth to my face, and I winced. It came away bloody, and I stared at it.

“There’s a cut on your cheek,” she said softly. “And it looks like your mouth was bleeding a little too.”

She cleaned it, slowly and gently, and I just looked at her, silent.

“You’re younger than me—did you know that?” she asked. I shook my head a tiny bit. She nodded. “By more than a year. It’s strange. You seem so wise, you know. You’re very self-possessed. Strong. And I thought, when he married you, that the better parts of him would prevail.” She sighed, rocking back.

“This doesn’t surprise you,” I said.

“Calix can be very cruel,” she told me, lifting her shoulder and not looking at me. “But he can also be protective, and sweet, and loving, when he’s not so very afraid.”

My eyes shut as my head throbbed. “Will you really kill Rian?” I asked.

She put down the cloth, and the pounding pain in my cheek seemed to get worse. “That’s what I do, Shalia. Calix tells me to kill someone, and I do. I don’t stop until they’re dead.”

Anger made me glare at her. “You have a choice. You don’t have to do what he says. Danae, don’t do what he says,” I told her. “Please.”

She sighed. “Calix never wanted this for me, you know,” she said. “I just—after my parents died, there were many attempts on us, particularly on me because I was very young and weak then. It got to the point that I was frightened to go places alone. I thought I was being followed. And then someone poisoned us all, and I almost died. I was sent to live in safety, away from court.” She leaned against the wall again, watching me. “And I didn’t want to be helpless. I wanted to be more than a rabbit in a snare.”

I pressed the cloth to my lip, trying to be calm, trying not to notice the blood building up on the white cloth. “He doesn’t deserve your devotion,” I told her bitterly.

“He does,” she said. “Maybe he doesn’t deserve yours, but he deserves mine.” She looked away from me. “And I don’t want to know of a day when he doesn’t, because I won’t be welcome here. I won’t be welcome anywhere in the Trifectate,” she told me. “So I have to be useful. But with any luck, Rian’s left the city already.”

“If Calix accepted you as you are, everyone else would,” I said.

She gave a dry, sad laugh. “Calix doesn’t mind that I’m a spy, or an assassin, or whatever else I must be to serve the God. But he’ll never forgive finding me kissing another girl when I was thirteen,” she told me, shaking her head. “That’s too much to ask.”

“He loves you,” I said. “Why would he care who you kiss?”

Her stare was flat, defiant. “The girl was found below the cliffs the next morning, so I think he cares.” She shrugged, and I could only imagine how painful the memory was for her. “You don’t seem shocked. Is such a thing common in the desert?”

I pulled the cloth away, dabbing at my cheek again and looking at it. More red, new patterns. “There’s a different ceremony if you choose someone of your own sex. Because you can’t have children of your own, you can choose a clan and travel with them. It’s not common, but it’s not strange.”