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.
Theron growled at the stableboys to get the horses out of the way, but I just led him and Adria to skirt around them. That was when I saw Galen, and my breath caught, halting me for a moment.
I started moving again, quicker, admonishing myself. I was simply surprised—it had been months since he’d been at the palace, and I hadn’t expected to see him. That was all.
The people began cheering louder again, and Galen looked in my direction. Our eyes met and I felt it, every pulse of blood in my body, the million fine strings at my fingertips.
I didn’t dare move. The threads were alive, stronger than I’d ever felt, sparking with heat and light and lightning. I’d been using my ability in small ways here and there, trying to learn to control it in secret, but I hadn’t ever felt my power like this, so bright in my hands.
Adria made a noise, and I jolted forward, walking toward my husband’s brother with my chin raised, trying to summon the cold and the stillness I’d known while he was gone.
He came to me and knelt, dropping his head, and everyone quieted to hear our exchange. “My queen,” he said.
I nodded to him. “Commander. You’ve defended us well, but we are happy to welcome you home.”
“Thank you, my queen.”
“You must rise,” I told him. “As our valiant hero.”
The people burst into cheers at this proclamation, and I started to move away as they quieted.
He stood, calling out to me. “My queen, I’ve heard you’ve been busy here, as well.” I looked back at him, and his eyes made me flush. He took a step closer. “Feeding our people. Protecting our women. Perhaps it is you who should be called a hero,” he said.
“Don’t be silly,” I denied, but he caught my hand and kissed it.
For something that Calix did so often and made me feel nothing, the radiating heat of his lips on my skin took me utterly by surprise.
Warmth rushed over me, and before I could tamp the feeling down, the heat burned out of my skin and over the threads. The threads burst, and all around us the white stone squares of the courtyard suddenly shattered beneath our feet, dissolving into sand.
Adria screamed. I fell back, pulling away from Galen as I landed in the sand.
“My queen!” Theron called, pulling me behind him like it was an attack.
When my eyes found Galen, his sword was drawn, turning as he shouted orders to defend the queen. Theron hurried me inside, and I saw Calix standing on the step, his face twisted in a dark snarl.
Calix met my gaze, and the threads, and the power at my fingertips, vanished. I didn’t look back to the courtyard.
I couldn’t leave my room. I knew that Calix would come, and avoiding him would only make it worse. He knew—he’d seen what I was, I was sure of it. What I could do.
But I still couldn’t leave. I stayed on the balcony until the sun set. And then I came in from the balcony, sitting on the floor, holding myself tight and shaking. I skipped dinner, waiting for Calix to return.
The door didn’t open until very late. I was sitting on the bed, wrapped in a coat with my arms twined tight around my body. I had stopped shaking, but there was still something shivering deep within me.
“Wife?” he asked. I looked up, and his face was folded in a frown. “Why are you still awake?”
My heart started pounding again. “Today …,” I tried, but my courage failed me.
There was a knock on the door before I could finish my sentence, and Calix called out for it to open.
Theron opened it. “Princess Danae?” he asked.
“Yes,” Calix said, his face lightening.
Danae came in and went to her brother. “I just returned,” she said. “You wanted an immediate report.”
He drew in a sharp breath. “You found it,” he said, his eyes gleaming.
Danae shook her head. “We couldn’t find it. We found a lake. The quaesitori need further instructions if you want them to search other caverns.” She looked to me. “Shalia, we need your help.”
I hesitated. “It’s sacred to us,” I told her. “But it wasn’t there?”
She shook her head.
“Calix, what else do you remember of the vision?” I asked. “Perhaps there’s something we missed.”
He shook his head. “No. The vision spoke of a sacred body, a desert lake. It could not be describing anything else.”