Reign the Earth (The Elementae #1)(94)

I touched my stomach. “I don’t quite understand why some things make me ill and others don’t.”

“We will find things you can eat. My niece will be well fed,” he said, nodding once.

I smiled. “It won’t always be like this. I remember Mother was usually terribly ill for the first few months, and then she was very healthy.”

“Did you have problems with him last night?” Kairos asked, glancing back toward the castle.

“No,” I said. “I told him I don’t want him near me. He said he would respect that, for now.”

“You did?” he asked, his eyebrows shooting up.

I nodded. “I can’t stand the thought of him right now, much less the idea of him touching me, kissing me.” I shuddered.

“With someone like him, that’s a dangerous choice,” he told me.

“At this point, it isn’t something I can choose differently.” I sighed.

“You weren’t at dinner last night,” Kairos said. “I heard Calix made some sort of gesture for you.”

“The court knows of that?” I asked. “They know what he … was making up for?”

“No,” Kai said. “They were all whispering that he was showering you with presents, that he’s so madly in love with you.”

I crossed my arms, remembering the chill of the night before. “He’s allowing me to go to the desert for the blessing.”

Kairos grunted. “Allowing you.”

My shoulders shrugged up. “It’s an opportunity, Kai.”

His eyebrow arched, questioning.

I stopped on the path, taking a deep breath and looking at him. “I won’t see my daughter raised here,” I told him. “We need to speak to Rian and figure out the best plan to get away from here. To leave without hiding, without endangering the desert.”

His chest swelled with a deep breath. “You want to fight.”

I nodded.

He let the breath out. “Good. I’ll contact Kata, and Rian. We’ll figure out a plan.”

I sighed. “I confess, the thought of seeing Mother, and Father, and everyone again is soothing to me.”

He looked me over and nodded. “I know. It’s strange being away from them for so long, isn’t it? And it’s only been a few months.”

“If that isn’t the right opportunity for me to leave, I want you to stay with the clans,” I told him.

He chuckled. “Not a chance. No matter what, our brothers will know of his treatment of you, and you will have a new, desert-born Saepia. I would write to them of it already, but they would invade the damn city.”

The thought felt warmer than my coat. To have family around again, to feel protected and safe—I’d grown up itching to get away from the protection of my brothers, and now it was all I wanted. “They can’t come. They have their own lives, Kai. You know that.”

He put his arm around me. “And they would leave everything to defend their sister. Even Gavan will try to come.”

I nodded. “A few more weeks, then. We can last a few more weeks, can’t we?”

He kissed my temple. “You can last through anything, sister. Don’t ever think otherwise. You’re much stronger than he is.”

I covered his hand on my shoulder. “At least now we know what that awful feeling you had was about,” I told him. “Certainly things can’t get much worse than they are.”

He didn’t move.

“Kai?” I asked, turning to him. “It was about Calix hitting me, wasn’t it?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “If anything, the feeling has grown worse. And I can’t explain it, but it’s not simply about you or me; we are at the crux of it, but it’s like an anthill. There is a center, and something dark is streaming away from that center. Growing over the earth.”

My mouth fell into a grim line. I shook my head. “No. We will make it a few more weeks, and get to the desert, and all will be well.”

He didn’t lie to me. He didn’t say anything.





Yellow Powder

The procession to Jitra was slow. It was far slower than our first trip from the desert—what had been a four-day journey to the City of Three took us more than a week.

Everywhere we went, people lined the roads, desperate to see us, to touch me, to throw flowers at my feet. We seemed to go out of our way to stop at several castles and cities—mostly so I could be fed only to retch my food back up, but also so that the army could go ahead of us and ensure the safety of our route.

My husband was in a startlingly good mood. In the weeks since he’d struck me, Calix was considerate, kind, nearly affectionate with me, and still respectful of the distance I asked him to keep. He oversaw all the preparations for our journey with a zeal that disarmed me.

“Maybe there’s hope,” I told Kairos on the fourth day. We were riding together, the carriage just ahead, and Galen and my guards on horses behind us.

“He was attentive to you at dinner,” Kairos allowed. “That doesn’t mean he’s a different man, Shalia.”

“I know,” I told him. “I know that. But it gives me hope that he could be. That isn’t so wrong, is it?”

He looked at me fondly, but it made me feel foolish. “No. It isn’t wrong. But does it mean that we won’t be leaving in the desert? All the arrangements have been made.”