He was so close, and the others had drifted back. Whether it was his hand on my neck or the words or what they called up inside me, warmth rushed through my skin. “That’s not fair,” I told him. “Bargaining a neck rub for information.”
His big hand was warm, spanning over my neck and softening my muscles. “I’m quite ruthless.”
My eyes met his for a tantalizing second before I pulled away, and losing his hand on my neck seemed to shoot nausea to my stomach. “I can’t, Galen. Not here, not ever.”
He sighed, but stepped closer and resumed gently rubbing my skin. “Why?”
“You said we can’t talk about it.”
“No one can hear,” he whispered. Without moving much, I saw Zeph and Kairos laughing, almost five paces back, and no one else near us. “Every day I think about the haunting things you say. That you’ve been imagining things between us. That something—something we did or said or felt in that cave triggers what you can do. What is it, Shalia?”
Anger bubbled up inside me, and I pulled away again, turning to face him. “No, Galen. You can’t do this. We can’t do this. And you already know—or you suspect, at least,” I hissed, trying to keep my voice down. “You want to hear me say that I care about you? Will that make it easier when I have your brother’s child? When he ceases to honor the fact that I don’t want him to touch me? Will that help?”
Galen looked stunned. Then he looked away, shaking his head like he was trying to clear it. I looked over my shoulder and caught Kairos’s watchful gaze, but kept walking. “Wait,” Galen said. “There are many, many things in what you just said. Your power is triggered by l—” He stopped, and didn’t say that word. “Caring? About people?”
I nodded.
“When I returned home from the south and met you in the courtyard, the stones fell apart into sand. Was that you?”
My face burned with heat. I nodded.
“It happened almost the moment I kissed your hand,” he said.
I had hoped he would never put that together. “Galen,” I said, shaking my head in warning. It wasn’t wise to think about that, much less discuss it.
He looked ahead, a strange expression on his handsome face, his chest rising and falling faster than was merited by our walk. “And he hasn’t—he hasn’t touched you?” His eyes slid to me at this, running over me like a physical touch.
I crossed my arms. “I thought my guards reported to you.”
Color bloomed on his cheeks. “Not about that.”
“No,” I said, looking down. “Not since he struck me.”
He nodded. “That’s a good reason.”
Chewing my lip for a moment, I hesitated to add, “There are many reasons.”
He looked to me in question.
“I just can’t stand the thought of him touching me,” I whispered. “Not after … Trizala.”
“He took that surprisingly well,” Galen said.
I shrugged my shoulders. “He wanted a baby, and now he has one. Besides, he’s trying to prove to me that he actually cares about me.” I shook my head. “I don’t believe him.”
I couldn’t look at him, even though I felt his eyes on me. “I can’t imagine anyone not caring for you,” he told me in a soft, gentle murmur.
I tried to laugh, but it didn’t quite come out that way.
“Here,” he said, passing me water. “You should drink more.”
I nodded, taking a sip. I passed it back to him, rubbing my own neck.
He watched my hand. “I’m sorry,” he said, soft. “I shouldn’t have brought any of this up.”
“No,” I told him with a sigh. “You shouldn’t have.”
“I feel like my whole life, I’m desperately trying to hide who I am. And with you, I think you just see it. Or it seems that way.” His shoulder lifted. “I can’t help myself.”
I nodded. “I wish it were different. You deserve to have someone who sees you.”
“You do too,” he said. “You deserve someone who loves you.”
Pulling my coat tighter, I looked at the ground and walked a little faster.
We didn’t make the desert by nightfall. We stopped at Vestai Atalo’s castle, and he and his wife made a great fuss over me, saying their bedroom with the stars in the ceiling must have given us a child so soon.
We returned to the room with the bathing chamber, and Calix ordered the servants to draw a bath for me. When I slipped into the water, he ordered them out. “May I come in?” Calix asked from the doorway.
I looked at him. He was watching my body through the water, and I felt exposed. “Calix,” I murmured, covering myself, looking away from him.
“I just want to talk. Is that all right?” he asked.
I considered for a moment, then nodded.
He came in, sitting beside the bath. “Do you remember the first night we spent here?” he asked.
I nodded again.
“You washed my feet for me,” he said. “No one had done something so simple and selfless like that for me in a very long time. I never wanted to love you, Shalia, not after everything with Amandana. But that night, I started to care for you.”
I stared at the surface of the water.
“I did an awful thing to you, Shalia. But I did it because I thought you were just like her. I thought you were deceiving me. But it occurs to me, we haven’t had much opportunity for the truth between us.”
My eyes shifted over to him, surprised. “No,” I agreed.
“Is there anything you want to tell me?” he asked, meeting my gaze. “Confess to me?”
I hugged my knees in the water. He couldn’t possibly know, could he? I had so many secrets, but no—I couldn’t trust him with any of them. “No, Calix,” I said softly. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Danae took a sorcerer to the lake,” he said. “They still couldn’t find it. I need to know if you will support me damaging the lake—draining it, or blasting around it to find what’s hidden.”
I frowned. “If you find some indication that the elixir is there, we can discuss the means to retrieve it. But damaging the lake isn’t just about the elixir—it’s the water reserve for the desert,” I told him. “That would be incredibly dangerous for the clans.”
He heaved out a heavy sigh, but he nodded. “Maybe we can come up with a way around that. Alternative water stores, or something.”
I reached for his hand. “We’ll figure it out. But, Calix, what if it’s not there? What if you can’t find it, and you have no way to defend yourself against the Elementae?”
His face pinched into a deep scowl. “We have to keep looking for it.”
“But if you can’t find it, Calix. What then?”
“This feels like a trick, wife. If we can’t find the elixir, we need to start eliminating this threat before it grows more powerful. But I don’t think that’s what you want me to say.”
“Perhaps you should consider protecting them,” I told him. “Working with them. Rather than try so hard to eradicate them, consider how they might benefit your reign. It would remove all the power the Resistance has. It would defend us. It would achieve peace without death.”
He stood, shaking his head. “That defies everything I believe, wife. Have you forgotten one of them will kill me?”