I left Iona a little later, looking for Kairos to make arrangements. I found him out in the wood around the inn, reclining in the heart of a tree, looking at the sky. Osmost was making lazy circles, hunting, and we both watched as he swooped, silent and deadly, striking for a kill.
“So Galen says we’re going to the desert,” Kairos said without looking back.
“Yes,” I said, coming beside the tree.
He nodded. “Good.”
“What happened?” I asked, my voice low. “Since we parted.”
His eyes swept down, but he still didn’t look at me. His throat bobbed. “After you put up an epic fit?” he asked, but his joke didn’t work. “I had you,” he said, shaking his head. “I had you, and then your power just ripped me away from you. I couldn’t hold on, Shy,” he told me, and he finally looked to me. The pain in my brother’s eyes tore at me. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t hold on.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save them, Kai.”
He looked thoroughly confused. “What? How could you save them?”
I pushed a tear off my cheek before it fell completely. “What good is this damned power if I can’t protect them? I should have learned to use it earlier. I was just so frightened of it—of Calix—”
Kairos waved his hand. “Unfortunately, my dear sister, you’re not allowed to take credit for the actions of others.” He rubbed his hands over his knees. “Even if it would make it easier to blame yourself. To feel like you had some kind of control in the situation.”
I crossed my arms. “Then why do you get to be sorry for Calix capturing me?”
He looked at me with a sadder version of his sly smile. “I’m older; I get to make the rules.”
I gave him the best smile I could muster.
But his smile faded. “And I should have known,” he said softly, squinting into the forest rather than meeting my gaze. “The visions—I should have figured it out sooner. And I was so clouded trying to make sense of visions of our family buried in rock that I didn’t look past it. I didn’t know what was coming for you.”
I wanted to tell him that like his vision of our family, there might have been nothing he could have done to change what happened to me, but it felt too much like rubbing salt in a wound. I put my hand on his arm, and tried to let that say everything I couldn’t.
He cleared his throat. “So Galen?” he asked.
A piece of quartz in the dirt near the roots of the tree caught my attention, and I unearthed it with my shoe, delaying my answer. “I think Rian is going to murder him.”
Kai smiled. “Not everyone is quite so enlightened as I am.” I made a face, and Kairos’s smile broke wider. “Rian wants you to be happy. Galen makes you happy—he’ll see that eventually. But he’s been lied to, and no one enjoys that.”
I ran my finger over the tree bark. “I love him, Kai,” I told him.
“I’ve known that for a while,” he said. He sighed. “I think I knew that before you did.”
“You did not!”
He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “The day you selected the Saepia. Knew it then.”
“I didn’t love him then!”
“But I could see that you would.” He shifted in the tree. “Go find Rian; Osmost is about to come back with something exceptionally bloody, and I’d rather spare you the violence of it all.”
“Very well,” I said, pushing off the tree. “I love you, Kai.”
He didn’t look at me. “Love you too.”
I heard Osmost’s cry as I turned away and didn’t look back to see what he’d caught.
It wasn’t difficult to find my oldest brother. He was in the common room of the inn, sharpening his sword and looking out the window to where Kairos was in the tree. When I came in, he looked down.
“Were you watching us?” I asked, sitting across from him.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m not letting either one of you out of my sight. Ever.”
“You punched Galen.”
His jaw knotted with tense muscle, but he didn’t respond.
“Rian.”
“What do you want me to do, Shalia? I can only imagine what kind of advances he’s made on you. You trusted him, and he abused that. He dishonored you—”
“No,” I snapped. “Do not say that anymore. My honor has nothing to do with what man is married to me, or touching me, or loves me. I will not be broken or diminished or belittled by the choices of men around me. Do you understand me, Rian d’Dragyn?”
He stopped sharpening and looked up at me. His eyes darted over my face for a moment, and he said, “I understand.”
“Good.”
His hands moved on the blade again, slowly dragging the whetstone to sharpen the blade. “You sound like Mother, you know.”
My eyes shut. That was everything I had ever wanted, but now—now—
“It’s a good thing,” he said, his voice rough. I looked at him, and he raised his head up, his eyes bright and ringed with moisture. He sniffed and fixed his eyes on his sword again.
“I’m worried, Shalia, and I have that right. You don’t know him like I do. There’s no one else I would want beside me in a fight, but he will hurt you.”
“I’ve been hurt,” I said softly. “And if he does hurt me, it won’t be the same way Calix did. Galen’s heart is strong and good.”
Rian’s throat worked. “What heart, Shalia? Galen may have emerged on the side of good in that family, but none of them are unscathed. Calix? Danae? They’re damaged. They’re broken. Galen has been lying to everyone he loves for years. He has killed for one cause while he believes in another. He is the most dangerous man I have ever met.”
“And you don’t have to see what I do,” I told him. He opened his mouth, and I raised my hand. “I trust him, Rian. I trust him and his heart.”
“Shalia,” Rian said, frowning at me. “You’ve always been tenderhearted, but he is not a bird with a broken wing.”
“Calix betrayed me in every way I can imagine,” I told Rian, my voice soft. “He stole my will. My voice. He made me feel small, and quiet, and trapped. Galen has protected me, at great cost to himself. He’s made me feel valued, and valuable, and precious, and loved. He doesn’t see his own valor, his own worth, and I think it’s shameful that you claim to be his friend and don’t see it either.” Rian scowled at me. “Galen may be broken, but I have been broken too. And if we can break and rebuild together, that’s all I want.”
Rian swallowed, shaking his head. “I want more for you. I will always want more for you.”
“It’s my choice, Rian,” I told him. “After everything that’s happened, don’t take my choice away.”
He sniffed. “I don’t regret punching him.”
I crossed my arms. “I suppose that’s your choice.”
Rian looked out at the darkening sky. “You should sleep. We’re going to be moving fast tomorrow, and you’ve been through a lot. As has my niece,” he said, looking to my stomach.
I smiled. “I’ll try. Is there somewhere to send the other Elementae? They don’t want to come to the desert, and they need to be safe. To heal in more ways than Kata can give.”
He nodded. “I’ll see to it.”
“Are you going to stay here until Kairos comes in?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Good night, Rian,” I told him, going around to kiss his cheek. He touched my arm for a quick moment and let me go.