“Kai?” I asked again.
“Your protection,” he said. “We didn’t get a chance to talk during the ride, and I need you to tell me exactly how bad things are.”
“Bad?” I asked.
Kairos crossed his arms, his gaze heavy on me. “Tell me how bad it is.”
I shook my head. “How bad what is?”
“The way he speaks to you? It isn’t exactly hard to imagine him doing worse. The man cannot abide anything outside his control.” He watched my face, studying my every reaction. “Either he’s harmed you already, or he will.”
The only thing I could think of was the pain of our first night of marriage, but even as little as I wanted to mention that to my brother, I was led to believe that was expected. But something else in his words caught my attention. “What do you mean, ‘he will’?” I asked.
He gave me a crooked smile. “You know I know things, Shy. And sometimes I see things. And I’m never wrong. So stop denying it and just tell me.”
“He hasn’t hurt me. I swear it.” My throat went dry, and I covered my mouth. “Does that mean he’ll find out about …” I held up my hands, helpless, unable to say it.
He stared at me for long moments. “Maybe,” he said. “But if he threatens you, your kinsmen will stop him. Decisively. King or not.”
Shaking my head, I sighed. “You’re not kinsmen—you’re just one kinsman. What will you do?” I asked, trying to tease him.
A hint of a smile graced his serious face. “You forget, little sister. I’m not Cael, or Aiden, or even Rian. I don’t punch first and ask questions later. I’m the clever brother, and if I need to be, I can be more powerful than the whole clan together.”
“There’s only one reason I’d need such protection,” I told him, looking at my hands. Quieter, I asked, “Have you heard from Kata?”
He drew closer, looking over his shoulder and nodding. “She’ll find you. It may take her time, but as soon as she can, she’ll come. Has it happened again?”
I shook my head. “No. I think I was imagining things. I had to have imagined it, don’t you think? How could someone from the desert have her power?”
His smile became crooked and knowing. “You know I know things, and sometimes I see things,” he told me again. “Kata says that’s some kind of ability between the elements.”
My breath stopped. Kairos had an ability? “Kai—” I started.
The guard opened the door, and Kai’s smile disappeared as Calix came into the room. He raised his eyebrow, looking over Kairos. “You can go,” he told Kai.
Kairos kissed my cheek and glared at Calix. “I’ll see you in the morning, Shy,” he told me.
Calix watched Kairos as he left and then turned back to me. “Come, my love. It is time for you to meet my vestai.”
“I thought the presentation was tomorrow.”
He nodded. “Yes, but this is a private introduction. It isn’t appropriate for them to meet you like commoners.”
“So there are more vestai than just Atalo?” I asked.
He took my hand and brought me through the palace to the courtyard outside. There was a carriage waiting there, and he led me into it. “It’s a title, for wealthy landowners,” he said, sneering. “Men who would fashion themselves king if they could.”
The carriage was a silly conveyance, as we only traveled a few minutes before the carriage door opened again.
We were in the courtyard of a white stone building, not unlike the castles but smaller and not nearly as grand. “Where are we?”
“This is the Concilium,” Calix said as the guards bowed to us. “The vestai meet here to discuss matters of state.”
“Everything in this city seems so new,” I marveled, looking up as we began to walk forward.
“It is,” Calix said, tugging my hand. “Previous kings of the Trifectate allowed sorcerer pagans to assist in the construction of many of our buildings. Naturally, any vestige of pagan sympathy needed to be dismantled. It’s disloyal.”
I knew he meant Elementae, and my heart tripped over the memory of the boulder coming down, smashing over the road to protect Kairos.
We walked through the archway and down a long stone hallway. As we passed a break in the stone, I looked in the doorway to a large room with overfilled shelves. “What’s that?” I asked.
“Library,” he said. “All our historical books. The appropriate ones, of course.”
I had heard of books, but I’d never seen them. Paper and ink were not things that could survive for long in the desert; our stories, histories, and legends were written in rock, the eternal places in Jitra that wind and sun couldn’t break.
In comparison this room full of quiet paper seemed … fragile. Impermanent.
I stopped, curious, but Calix sighed impatiently. “Shalia, I care very little for catering to the whims of the vestai; I would like to get this over with as quickly as possible.”
“Yes, of course,” I said, and I let him lead me down the hall. Quietly, I asked, “Why do you? Cater to their whims, I mean. You are king.”
This seemed to please him, and he looked at me, pausing for a moment to touch my cheek. “Exactly my thoughts,” he said. “But they are an old power that challenges my reign every chance they have. I prefer not to give them more opportunity.”
We turned a corner, and there was another room off the hallway, but this one made him pause.
He squeezed my hand tighter and walked into the room.
It was small, with a full wall of glass to look out over the ocean that made it seem bigger, endless. The only thing in the room, though, was a large painting with the figure of a woman on it. She was seated, her chin raised, her hair jet black, her green eyes bright, a silvery crown on her head.
Calix was staring at her, and haltingly, he moved forward. The painting rested on a small mantel, and it had three candles beneath it.
He took up a flint to light the candles. As he did, I touched his arm, and he flinched away. “She’s your mother,” I realized. Danae had said her mother died, but I wasn’t sure when it had happened.
He nodded, his throat working.
“When did you lose her?”
“A year before my father,” he said, his voice rough and low. I was hesitant to touch him again, but I was standing close to him, so I tried resting my hand on his back. He didn’t object, and lit the last candle and put his arm around my waist, staring up at her portrait. “After she died—nothing was the same again.”
“How did she die?”
His back rippled with tension, and he shook his head.
“Why is her portrait here?” I whispered. “Why not in the palace?”
He swallowed. “Her father—my grandfather—was the leader of the Concilium until his death, less than a year ago. It was a great comfort to him to have her here.”
Gently, slowly, I stroked his back. “We could move it to the palace.”
Whatever had opened within him closed, and he pulled away from me. “No.”