The Bitter Kingdom

36

THE morning brings a letter sent via pigeon from Captain Lucio, Hector’s second-in-command. Cosmé herself hands it to me with an apologetic shrug, saying it’s been waiting for me for some time. “It’s addressed to ‘Tuciela,’” she says. “It was passed around a lot before one of our former Malficio friends remembered that you used that name as a code.”

I take the missive with trembling fingers. I pop open the canister and unroll the tiny bit of parchment. Hector reads over my shoulder.

Dearest Tuciela,

You will be glad to know the house is locked down safe. Each entrance is heavily watched. The desert rebels you worry about so much are unlikely to break in here. They would have to be very stealthy indeed! The boy and his most precious possessions have been taken away until it is safer. He wallows in self-pity and loneliness at your absence. Please come home soon.

Ever yours,

Lucio

Dread and relief war inside me, turning my stomach to mush. General Luz-Manuel has locked down the palace and barred me from entrance. But my little prince is safe.

Hector tugs the parchment from my hand and rereads while I pace. “Lucio thought to grab Rosario’s signet ring and papers, too,” he says. “Good man. It’s not exactly an unbreakable code, but I appreciate the effort.”

“They’re hiding Rosario in the Wallows. In the secret village.”

Hector forces a smile. “A hideout like that is paradise for a boy his age.”

“Conde Eduardo is probably tearing the city apart looking for him.”

He nods. “Whoever controls the heir controls the throne.”

I crumple the message in my hand. “I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to Rosario.”

“He is safe with Lucio. Even if Eduardo finds him, he will come to no harm. He’s too valuable.”

Hector would not say so if it didn’t believe it to be true. I nod up at him gratefully.

We take our leave in the afternoon, after concluding our negotiations. I would love to stay longer, reacquaint myself with old friends, with my sister. But the longer I wait to retake my city, the stronger Conde Eduardo’s and General Luz-Manuel’s foothold becomes.

I stay just long enough to see the Deciregi on their way. Then I turn to my vassal queens. We stand in a circle for a moment, gripping hands. I love these women—my dear friend and my dear sister. But things will never be easy with us. We must always distrust one another a little as we fight for our own interests and the interests of our people. This time, I outmaneuvered everyone. But it won’t always be that way. Cosmé and Alodia are both perfectly capable of outmaneuvering me, and our next battle might belong to one of them.

We promise to reconvene next year, and every year after, for an annual parliament. Both promise to come visit earlier if their schedules allow. I hope they do, but I won’t count on it.

We depart on horseback when the sun is high. We will travel hard and fast, exchanging our horses for fresh mounts at trading posts along the way. I hate this idea, though I recognize its necessity. After getting to know Horse, it seems wrong that these loyal, hardworking creatures should be so disposable, so at the whim of their human masters.

To our right, the foothills grow greener and more lush as they stretch into the sky. To our left is the great yellow basin of desert. Heavy winds—maybe even a sandstorm—have kicked sand up from the desert floor and onto the road. In some places it piles and drifts, like soft snowbanks. The first night is as arid as the day but bitter cold. We huddle at the fire, gratefully slurping Mara’s hot soup, and fall into our bedrolls exhausted. Hector follows me into my tent. “For warmth,” he says with a crooked grin.

My confidence grows with each day. Part of it is the dry, dusty familiarity of the desert. Some comes from the feeling of being surrounded by the warmth and loyalty of trusted companions. But mostly it is because the acknowledgment settles into my bones about how much I have accomplished. I have finally been to the enemy’s gate, and survived. I have negotiated for peace. I have moved mountains.

On the fifth day, an itch begins, a strange restlessness that tingles in my bones. After a meal of hot oats and honey, I volunteer to take the first watch, knowing sleep will be impossible. I pace back and forth across the edge of the plateau, gazing at the velvet-soft, blue moon desert, yearning for something, though I’m not sure what. My Godstone’s behavior is subtly different, the usual pulse more like a twitch, as if it’s yearning for something too.

Eventually Storm comes to relieve me. We stand side by side for a while, gazing out across the desert, not saying a word. I should ask him about Waterfall, see how he is coping with her death. But I don’t, because maybe he wants to talk about it as little as I want to talk about Papá.

At last he says, “Your Godstone. It’s different. I can feel it.”

“I’m restless,” I say. “It often responds to my moods.”

“I’ll never know what’s that’s like,” he muses. “My Godstone fell out so early that I don’t remember it at all. I can’t imagine it being part of me, alive inside me. I admit, I envy you.”

It’s as raw and unguarded a declaration as I’ve ever heard from him. On impulse, I reach up and hug him. He stiffens, then he hugs back a little, patting my back awkwardly.

“Good night, Storm.”

I crawl into the tent where Hector is sleeping soundly, taking up the middle of our bedroll as usual. I shove him aside and slide in front of him. He wraps an arm around me and hitches me close but doesn’t really wake. I am wide-eyed in the dark all night, the itch growing.

By morning, it feels like I’m coming out of my skin. I accidentally pour soup down the front of my blouse. When we’re packing up, my fingers fumble as I try to attach my saddlebags. When I drop my bedroll the third time, I kick it across the campsite, grunting frustration.

Hector chases after it, grabs it, puts it on the back of his own saddle. “Good memories here, now,” he says, patting the bedroll and eyeing me sidelong. “I’ll not stand for you abusing the poor thing.”

This teases a smile from me, but it’s short-lived. We mount up, and my mare dances nervously, reading something in my mood. I snap at her to be calm, but this only makes things worse.

We set off, Hector in the lead, but after a while I pull even with him, and then I discover that I’ve moved ahead. I don’t even remember nudging my horse.

And then I’m too far ahead, and I hear Hector calling to rein in, that it’s not safe to separate myself from the group, but I can’t help it. Something pulls me forward, something as inexorable as the tides, as unsatiated as thirst in the desert.

Galloping hoofbeats bear down on me. A cloud of dust chokes me, and suddenly large hands are ripping my reins away, pulling back, slowing me down. “What in God’s name are you doing, Elisa?” Hector yells.

I read the fear in his face, but I’m helpless to do anything about it or explain. I try to yank the reins back, but his grip is steadfast.

So I lift a leg around and slide from my saddle to the ground. Then I take off running.

Oh, God, I itch, itch, itch. The need to move forward is so powerful I feel like my skin will burst open if I don’t. I must keep going. I must go faster.

Hector overtakes me. He slides from his horse and grabs me. “What are you doing? Just tell me! I can help! But you can’t run off alone—”

I pummel his chest with my fists. “I have to!” I cry, and as the words leave my mouth I realize they don’t make any sense. “I have to keep going. Let me go, Hector.”

“Where? Why?”

Tears of frustration leak from my eyes, run down my cheeks. I hate not being able to explain, but not as much as I hate not being able to go. “I don’t know!” I sob out.

The others catch up to us. “Elisa, what’s going on?” Mara says.

I try to wrench my arms from Hector’s grasp. “God, Elisa, if I hold any tighter, I’ll hurt you.”

“It’s her Godstone,” Storm says. “I can sense it.”

I don’t care what it is. I’m helpless with need, blinded by it, and I kick out at Hector, colliding with his shins. He releases me all at once, and I fall back onto my rear. I scramble to my feet and run.

Vaguely, as if from very far away, I hear, “Follow her!” I pound down the road, pumping my arms for speed, sucking air and dust. I slip in the sand, fall to my knees. Pain shoots up my legs, but I jump to my feet and run on.

The plateau dips slightly, at a place where the cliff is not so steep and the sand has drifted against it, creating an easy path to the desert. I plunge down the side, knee-deep in sand, slipping and sliding my way down the slope.

I edge along the cliff, something tugging me along. I have no idea where I’m going or what I’ll do, but something inside me knows, and I push forward, desperate to satisfy the awful tugging, the awful itch.

Eventually the cliff curves over my head, creating a lip of shade during the hottest part of the day. At the base, where the sand drifts are the deepest, I drop to my knees and begin to dig with my hands.

I shovel as fast as I can, but sand is a nebulous, liquid thing, and more pours into the hole I’m making as soon as I remove it.

So I dig faster and harder.

The others come up behind me, but I keep digging. Sand lodges under my fingernails. One of my cuticles bleeds. But I can’t stop.

They watch for a while, puzzled. Then Storm drops beside me and starts digging too. Then Hector. Then Red. Mara and Belén work behind us, moving sand that we’ve displaced out of the way so it doesn’t come pouring back.

We dig and dig. The sun is hot on my back, burning my neck. My hands are scraped raw. Grit fills my mouth, crunches between my teeth.

My right forefinger brushes against something cool. Something smooth-textured and alive. My digging slows as I reveal a tiny dark-green leaf.

It is the most precious leaf in the world, and my fingertips, which had so recently clutched at the sand with such raw abandon, trace its outline carefully, rubbing sand away from its gentle curve, loosing it to spring free of the harsh desert soil. With it comes a fragile stem. Two more leaves. Then a tiny offshoot with a budding yellow-green leaf at its tip.

“It’s a baby fig tree,” Mara exclaims breathlessly.

“It must have been buried in a recent sandstorm,” Belén says.

I hear them, but I can’t acknowledge them, because I’m not done yet. I keep digging until the sprout is entirely free of its sand prison, then I pat the ground firm around it to give it some strength against the wind.

“I have moisture here,” Hector says. “Look! It’s wet.” He holds up a handful of sticky sand.

“Another tree,” Red says.

And then we all renew our digging with fervor, uncovering two more plants I don’t recognize and the unmistakable seepage of a desert spring.

We clear a wide area at the base of the overhang, using nothing but our hands, and when finally the last tiny leaf is entirely dust free, I stop. One moment, I’m frantic with doing, and in the next, the itch disappears, replaced by bone-deep weariness that makes me feel like I could sleep for a week.

“Elisa, you’ve found an oasis,” Mara says. “A new one. It was covered by a sandstorm, but you—”

A great crack rends the air. Or maybe the crack is only in my mind, but I cover my ears against it, moaning at the ache suddenly zipping up my spine. My vision turns cloudy red, swimming with black spots. Bright pain explodes through my belly.

And the Godstone falls away, catching in the waistband of my pants.

I lurch to my feet. The Godstone slides down my leg like a warm scurrying rodent, lodges in the top of my boot. I shove my hand inside for it. My fingertips just brush it. It’s edged, like broken glass. And wet.

I wrap my fingers around it and pull it out slowly, afraid of what I’ll see.

I hold it up to the sun. It’s blue-black now, a huge crack zagging through the center. The back side is smeared with blood. I put my other hand to my navel, my empty navel. It’s monstrously large, sore to the touch, and seeping.

It feels like a camel is standing on my chest, and I can hardly breath. I know this means something, something important. But I can’t think what.

Mara slips an arm around my waist. “You’ve done it, Elisa. This was it. Your act of service.”

“And you lived,” Hector says, his voice dropped and gruff.

I turn around, survey our handiwork. We cleared an enormous area. One spot grows dark with damp, like a blot of ink in the sand. Beside it are my fig tree and a few smaller sprouts, their living green a stark contrast to dry sand and shale. Off to the side is the mountain of sand we removed to reach it all. I stare in awe. I would have killed myself trying to dig it all out alone.

That’s why I didn’t die, I realize with a start. Mistress Jacoma obsessively painted herself into an early grave. Lucián drained his youth carving the Hand of God, which now sits in my throne room at home. I would have driven myself to death too, were it not for my friends. They helped shoulder the burden.

“I think we just saw history being made,” Belén says.

Mara drops to her knees to study my fig tree close up. “We’ve watched Elisa make history all year,” she says, fingering a fragile leaf. “So why this? God wanted an oasis? It’s so . . . uninspiring.”

Belén shrugs. “‘The mind of God is a mystery and none can understand it.’ Damián the Shepherd never knew why he was compelled to dig his well. He died long before the well caused an accident that ended a battle. We may never know why Elisa was called to serve in this way.”

“You know what else this means?” Hector says. He gazes down at me with an expression that can’t be interpreted as anything other than smug. “It means everything else you’ve done—starting a rebellion, saving Brisadulce, finding the zafira, negotiating peace with Invierne—none of it was your act of service. Your Godstone didn’t drive you to do all those things. You did them all yourself.”

I understand their words but can’t absorb them. The only thing that feels real and true to me right now is that the Godstone no longer pulses inside me. I can’t sense the zafira squirming beneath the crust of the world. I won’t be able to call upon its aid to save my home.

I am powerless.

I am ordinary.