My guards followed us back to our rooms, staying outside my door as we entered. Calix drew a breath and let it out slowly, his hands on his hips. I turned to him, wondering if I was meant to touch him as he so often touched me, if that would break the icy silence he’d given me all through dinner.
Before I decided, I said, “You never told me where you’ve been today.” Too clearly, I remembered the feeling of reaching for his hand and never getting it.
He put his hands on my shoulders, but instead of pulling me closer, he pushed me aside. “Busy,” he said. “I don’t know if you noticed, but we came under attack today.”
His rejection burned through me. “Of course I noticed,” I said. “I could have died.”
His face turned to mine, angry and stormy. “That’s what I thought too, Shalia. That everything we are fighting for could have been undone in a moment. But I saw him. I’m sure of it.”
“Saw who?” I asked, but I knew already.
“Rian,” he snarled. “The brother who I assumed would never act out against his sweet little sister. So it remains that either he is disloyal and a sorry excuse for a man or you knew exactly what he planned. You agreed to risk yourself to tear my kingdom down.”
My dread was overtaken by anger. “You think I knew?” I demanded. “I have never been more frightened in my life, and when I tried to reach for you, to get to you, you did nothing. You were so concerned with your hate that you could not spare a thought for me. And it was your brother, not you, who defended me.”
“He’s my commander—that’s his thrice-damned job!” he shouted at me.
“And you are my husband,” I returned, my voice quiet but clear. “I was scared, and I wanted you.”
“Not your brother?” he growled, moving closer to me. “What do you know of his rebellion, Shalia? What haven’t you told me?”
“Nothing,” I insisted, backing away from him.
“You’re lying,” he said, his face twisting.
“I know only that it was part of the reason you married me,” I said, stopping and raising my chin, drawing a breath, and meeting his eyes. “Nothing else.”
He stopped advancing; his eyes narrowed and focused on me, calculating, assessing. “I have a spy in his camp, you know. I know Rian’s not the leader—Tassos says the leader’s true identity is a closely guarded secret. You know who it is, don’t you?” he asked.
A spy? I made a note of the name, though I wasn’t sure if I could give such information to Rian. But if Calix had a spy in Rian’s camp, he needed to know. Didn’t he?
Calix’s voice had lost the fury of a moment before, but I was still trembling, and I shook my head. “No. I don’t, and you know I don’t or you never would have married me,” I insisted. I crossed my arms. “I don’t know how you can even ask me this, Calix.”
He turned, waving one arm as he shook his head. “You do not understand what they did today. What this sorcery—what people seeing this sorcery—represents.”
“You told me of this prophecy, but I don’t understand why you are blind to everything but hate when you are confronted with them. You have spent so much time caring for your people and solving their problems, but you forget it all when you encounter these powers.”
“You’re the one who is blind!” he roared, and I stepped back from him. He lunged forward, shaking his fist at me. “This sorcery will play tricks on your mind, wife. It seeks to destroy, to overpower. It wants my throne and my life, and it will do whatever it can to steal them from me.”
He was wild, but for the first time, I felt like he was showing me the cause of his hate. “Calix,” I said gently. “I don’t understand.”
He drew in a breath, turning abruptly away from me and walking to the balcony doors. He stopped with his fingers on the handle. “It’s all a trick,” he said, his voice rough. “First the trivatis who gave me that prophecy. Then her.”
Slowly, I came toward him. I put my hand on his shoulder, but he moved away. “Who, Calix?”
He turned to me, seizing my arms and pushing me until the back of my knees hit our bed. “Calix?” I questioned.
His touch was hard on my skin, and he shook me.
“Calix, stop,” I pleaded.
“Are you deceiving me?” he growled. “I loved her, and she tricked me. She wanted my throne. She deceived me. Are you deceiving me?” he demanded.
I couldn’t help the fear trembling through me. “I’m not deceiving you,” I told him.
I leaned forward carefully, and he brought his arms around me, lifting me up and kissing my lips.
A lie, sealed with a kiss, to stop a conversation that it seemed neither of us wanted to have.
That morning I woke early, close in my husband’s arms. He was still asleep, and I wanted to get up—perhaps I could walk someplace, after being trapped so long in a castle and in the carriage before that—but I didn’t want to upset him after whatever precarious peace we had achieved last night.
He had mentioned so many things—the prophecy, a spy in Rian’s camp, a trivatis, this girl who once had so much sway over his heart. It must have been the girl he told me he loved who had died—but did she have powers? Could he have ever loved an Elementa girl and act the way he did toward their kind?
My kind.
I’m not deceiving you, I’d told him. Now the lie rang like a bell inside my mind, the sound bouncing back and forth, unending.
Growing impatient, I nudged my husband’s foot. He drew a deep breath and rolled over, and I elbowed his back.
“Wife?” he groaned, shifting.
I sighed like I was still asleep. “Hm?”
“Ugh. Good morning,” he grunted.
I yawned and sat up, drawing the nightclothes around my shoulders. “Good morning.”
He looked out the window. “It’s early.”
“I couldn’t sleep much, thinking of yesterday,” I told him. “You never told me what you will do in the wake of the attack.”
He stretched. “My army was hunting them through the night, but I don’t know if they’ll find anything. These sorcerers—this Resistance—hide in plain sight. Among neighbors and friends who cover for them, if they know at all.”
“And what of this elixir that you’re searching for? Have your men found it in the desert?”
An edge of suspicion came to his eyes. “Not yet. They’re trying to re-create it in the south,” he said. “But so far they have had little success.”
“So what can we do to comfort the people?” I asked him. “There was so much fear in the courtyard yesterday.”
“Fear,” he mused. “Yes. People should be afraid, shouldn’t they?” He sat up. “Perhaps that’s the key to this whole thing. If we make people afraid of their neighbors—if we teach them how insidious and deceitful these people are—they will cease harboring them.”
“Calix,” I said, shaking my head, “I meant that there is already enough fear. Surely it’s not a good idea to encourage more.”