Free The Midnight Sea (The Fourth Element #1) by Kat Ross

from her eyes.” Tijah splashed water under her armpits, gold bracelets jangling. “This man had two faces, you see. The one he showed to the world, and the one he showed to his wives. My mother saw it too. She begged my father to wait two more years before the wedding took place. He reluctantly agreed.”
    I dragged a comb through my hair. “He sounds like a monster. What happened?”
    “The two years flew by. My dread grew so intense I stopped eating. But my father would not be budged. He was terrified of offending this man, for he was the son of the satrap.”
    I shook my head in disgust. “Many marriages are arranged in the Four-Legs Clan as well, but care is taken to choose someone suitable. And the girl has the right to refuse.”
    “Then you nomads are far more civilized than my people,” Tijah said wryly. “If I hadn’t had Myrri, I might have taken my own life. I saw no other way out.”
    “How did you come to be bonded, if girls are valued so little?”
    “My father had no choice. The satrap rewarded him with a daēva for a service he performed, and I was the only one he trusted that had the gift. I imagine he expected to take her from me once a male heir capable of wearing the cuff was born. But my daēva made me even more valuable to my future husband.”
    “He did that to you?” I asked, looking at her back.
    “My father did that to me,” Tijah said flatly. “Or rather, he ordered the servants to do it, the coward. He didn’t want me looking emaciated on my wedding day. When I refused to eat, he had me beaten. And when I still resisted, he made them whip Myrri. He knew I felt her pain as my own. Greater, in some ways, since she had done nothing to deserve it.”
    I thought of Tijah’s daēva, mute, unable even to scream. “What a bastard. He didn’t fear her power?”
    “She was afraid I would be harmed if she fought back. But after that, we’d both had enough. She told me we would both end up dead if we stayed, and I knew she was right.”
    “So you ran away.”
    “Yes. The night before the wedding, I stole a horse from his stable. Myrri laid a false trail leading south. Then I chose the most remote satrapy I could find. One where they would never think to look.”
    “Why the Water Dogs?”
    She shrugged. “I spoke the truth when I said I wanted to kill Druj, although I had never seen one before coming here. A Water Dog is…it is the opposite of everything about my old life.”
    “And your scimitar?”
    She gave that wicked grin. “My father’s. It was purely ceremonial. I thought it should be put to good use.”
    “You know they won’t give up, don’t you?” I said. “They will hunt you to the ends of the earth. Men like that…to be humiliated by a girl. It is the worst shame imaginable.”
    Her lovely face hardened. “I know. Which is another reason I joined the Water Dogs. By the time they come, they will find not a frightened girl, but a warrior with blood on her sword. Let them try to take me back.”
    I leaned over and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “You won’t fight them alone, if it comes to that,” I said.
    “Thank you. I wanted to tell you before, but…”
    “I know. My mother used to say that secrets begin as pebbles and grow into boulders. Yet still we would rather carry them around than give them to another for safekeeping.”
    Tijah yawned. “Your mother was a clever woman.”
    We dried ourselves off and put on fresh tunics.
    “I suppose your name isn’t really Tijah,” I said as we walked to the barracks.
    She turned to me, brown eyes blazing with a kind of crazy determination, and I thought if those men valued their manhoods, they would stay far away from this girl.
    “It is now,” Tijah said.
     
    I was bone-tired, but I couldn’t shake the shame of my failure at the village. It touched a raw nerve in me, something that had festered for years. After Tijah’s confession, I felt a powerful need to apologize to Darius, to explain myself. We’d