“Besides,” he told me, “I’m going to find a way to come with you.”
My heart leaped, but the thrill faded fast. “You can’t,” I said. “You’re needed here.”
“No, I’m not. I’m not the strongest brother, or the oldest, and I have no desire to marry anytime soon.”
“Father will want you for his Shadow,” I said.
Kairos lifted a shoulder. “If Father wants me as his clever little spy, I won’t say no. But even if that’s my destiny, I will learn a great deal more in the arms of the Trifectate than in the desert.”
A shadow swooped by us, and I heard Osmost call out a warning scream.
Kairos grinned wolfishly. “And Osmost thinks the Tri City has rats for him to hunt.”
I shook my head. “Father asked if he could send attendants with me. The king said no.”
He waved this away. “You’ll see,” Kairos said. “I’ll figure out a way to be there. To protect you.”
My mouth opened, with the same protest I’d had for years with five older brothers—I don’t need to be protected. But despite my brave words, tomorrow was full of everything unknown and all I wanted was to feel a tiny bit as safe as I had my entire life.
“I hope so,” I told him with a sigh. “I should find my husband.”
He nodded to me, and I went inside.
Calix met my eyes across the hall, but he didn’t have a chance to come to me. My family swarmed around me, all the women fluttering cloths of light blue, hiding me from the men. They huddled me out of the hall like a secret and took me to the rooms we had been given.
They started to take my threads off my neck, then open my robes, and I pulled away. “Stop, stop, please,” I begged, and Cora caught my hands.
She met my eyes. “Women have much to fear in a world like ours, cousin. But the bedroom is yours to rule.”
She pulled at my robes then, and tears gathered in my eyes as they took my clothes, pushing me into the prepared bed with soft blankets and many pillows. They lit wax candles all around the chamber as I clung to the bedding, trying not to cry.
My mother touched my hand, and I jumped. She smiled gently. “I know it’s frightening,” she told me. “But soon it will be wondrous, the most loving, intimate act two people can share with each other.”
I nodded at her, but at that moment, I didn’t believe her. Cora and a few of my other cousins kissed my face and my hands, and then they were gone.
The room was warm with so much fire, but I was shivering. It wasn’t long until I heard the noise of men climbing the stairs.
I watched in terror as the door swung open and my husband was pushed inside before the door shut sharply.
He looked at me for many moments. “You’re making the sheets tremble,” he said.
I clutched them harder.
He came closer to me. The men had pulled at his clothing so it was askew, but still on his body. He sat on the bed, and I refused to let myself move away from him.
He drew a slow breath and didn’t touch me. “You’re nervous,” he said softly.
I wanted to tell him that “nervous” utterly failed to describe the feelings inside me, but words didn’t come out of my mouth.
His eyes rose and looked at me, and I blinked, staring back. “You’re young by any measure, and close to ten years younger than me. Tonight will be painful. I wish that weren’t so, but it is.”
I hugged my knees, willing myself not to cry.
“Do you know why I wanted this marriage?” he asked.
I looked at him, shaking my head a tiny bit.
“My people need peace,” he said softly. “And hope. And I think that settling things with the desert will help, but having a queen, having children—it will show my people that we are not meant for war now. We are for family and peace.”
His eyes watched me, and I thought I needed to respond somehow, but I didn’t know what to say.
“You—watching you today, dancing with your family, you can become those things to me, Shalia. A king … a king has little place in his life for emotion, for weakness. But I believe that you will make me stronger. I believe that you will save my people.”
So many thoughts stuttered and stopped, tripping over one another in my mind. I wanted to save my people too. I wanted family and peace. But how could we have family without emotion? Was emotion the same as weakness? I had never known it as such.
Before I could say anything, he caught a bit of my hair and tugged me gently forward. He pressed his mouth to mine, slowly, and petted my hair. He opened his mouth, and I mimicked him.
I didn’t feel love, or lust, or heat. I felt frightened and far too aware of where my hands were and how to move my head.
He stopped kissing me as he took off his clothes. “It will only hurt once,” he said. “And then we will have a family together. And our peoples will have peace.”
I wanted all those things. Family, children, and peace. I nodded, trying to want this. To want him.
When he got into the bed with me, to my utter shame, I cried. His hands touched my arms, and a sudden, desperate instinct to flee rose up in me and I tried to push him off.
“Stop,” he said, holding me fast, his hands gripping my arms. I froze, feeling tears slide out the side of my eyes. He sighed, and his hands gentled and rubbed the skin on my arms until I could take a breath. “Stop,” he said again, even though I was already still, panicked beneath him. He swallowed, his throat bobbing and moving, and he sat up, backing away from me. He turned from me and sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, the first words I’d spoken since he’d come into the room.
He didn’t look at me. “Maybe this was a mistake.”
Even as a tiny flutter of hope lifted my heart that perhaps I wouldn’t have to do this, my stomach felt like lead. “If we don’t consummate the marriage, it will be invalid.”
He turned and looked at me with an edge of suspicion. “Is that what you want?”
Silently, I shook my head. No. I had come this far, and I couldn’t fail now. It will be wondrous, my mother had said. The most loving, intimate act two people can share with each other. I clung to her words.
“Tell me about your home,” he said, and I drew in a breath, confused.
“My home?” I repeated.
He gave a ragged sigh. “Yes,” he said. “Or ask me a question. Talk to me of anything until this doesn’t seem quite so frightening for you.”
I both appreciated his kindness and also felt a sting in his words that made me feel like I was failing in my duty, but I drew my knees up, hugging them. “Was that the only reason you wanted to marry me?” I asked softly. “For peace?”
He looked at me, his eyes sharp and assessing. “I want to embrace the desert with friendship instead of arms,” he said, but the answer still felt coy to me. “Why do you ask?”
“You want to send your men to the desert,” I reminded him.