by Daryl Banner
Least of all Kellen, whose face has lost all color.
Erana adjusts her glasses. “That was eight reasons, depending on how you separate or join them. My final reason is an observation. All facts considered, perhaps it is you, Kellen Armetis, whose loyalty should be questioned.”
After another spell of silence, Axel is the first to move, taking exactly two steps toward Erana. She considers her, then moves her cool gaze to Kellen. “That, my friend, is why this girl is Queen.”
Kellen’s eyes shift to a few faces. He wishes so badly to make a counterargument, but so many of the facts of his career—whether the suspiciousness of some of Erana’s points were things he’d even bothered to consider or not—are now out in the open, and all his comrades are mulling over them. Kellen slowly lowers himself to his chair and grits his teeth, a mix of anger and fear in his eyes.
“And so I return to my point,” Axel says. “Marshal of Legacy. I think, all things considered, we ought—”
“I will be the Marshal of Legacy as well,” Erana interrupts.
And it is now, for the second time, that the whole room turns her way.
The look now flooding Axel’s face is one of utter astonishment.
Erana addresses the room. “I know every Legacy that resides under this roof.”
“Any of us do,” blurts Aegis, puffing up his chest. “We all—”
“And I know your parents’ Legacies,” she goes on. “And your grandparents. And your brothers and sisters, those of you who have them. And your uncles and your aunts and their children, and their children’s closest friends. That would be no less than two-hundred and twenty-eight Legacies already in my mind. More so, I know every Legacy that resides in this very City, and the people’s names, and their histories, and their families, and their attachments—both loyal and not—to various factions among all of Atlas. I know where every person in this city was born, and when. I know the last time I saw each and every one of them, too, and the first.” She then turns her eyes onto Axel, who stares back with a mixture of awe and indignance. “Once I get ahold of Impis’s records, personal notes, and his database of information collected from all his Legacy Tours, I will permanently know the Legacies, names, ages, and wards of every person in all of the Last City of Atlas.”
Nermia in the back of the room quivers.
Kellen has stopped breathing.
Dregor hasn’t blinked once since Erana started speaking.
“Other Kings and Queens in our past have been their own Marshal of Legacy or Order or Peace,” Erana then concludes. “It has happened exactly four times since the dawn of Atlas. First with King of Wrath Borbar, who acted as his own Marshal of Peace and Order. Then Queen Xen Lunaran, who restored the balance after the demise of the twelfth ward, acting as all three of her own Marshals. King Everest was his own Marshal of Peace, whose Marshal of Order was Phade, who then inherited the throne after him and retained his position as Marshal of Order during his own reign.”
She decides not to mention that her number is coming from the known histories. But judging from the looks on the faces of everyone in the room, she could have thrown out any number and they would have believed it instantly.
When Erana brings her deadpan stare to Axel, it is only then that she realizes, for the first time, perhaps, the greatest limitation of Axel’s Legacy: She can make me believe anything she wishes, but she cannot know for sure what is true that I say.
Indeed, Axel is not her sister, and she cannot read minds.
I ought to remember that; someday, that subtle distinction could very well save my life.
“Fine,” Axel finally states, her eyes cold, full of wonder, and full of authority. “Erana will … be the Marshal of Legacy as well.” Then, as if an afterthought, Axel faces the rest of the room, a pinch of distance in her words. “Does … Does anyone wish to oppose her for the …” She gestures in the air, reaching for the words, still recovering from the potency of and bewilderment caused by Erana’s long spiel. “… for the position of Royal Legacist?”
Again, no one objects. But this time, it feels more like a genuine lack rather than a roomful of resentful stares and swallowed protests.
“Fine.” Axel gives the table a nod. “Fine.” She turns her cool eyes onto Erana. “She will hold the position of Marshal of Legacy.”
Erana takes little pride in this assignment. She only nods lamely, then sits in silence. Erana Sparrow, Queen of Nothing.
And Marshal of Legacy.
0263 Wick
“The Mad King is dead.”
The cabin is stunned silent, even though it’s the second time Rone said the words. Even the stoic Rychis is wide-eyed as he listens to the words again, sitting in the back of the dark room as he always does. Kraag is at the main map table with Dran on one side and Wick on the other, the candlelight dancing over their faces. Puras, Trovis, Ferra, and Nance sit across from them, their stares on the newcomer Rone, his sapphire eyes beaming with pride at his own words.
It is Chief Korah Cagemont who is the only one to express her doubts. “But you only stabbed him once.”
“Several times in the gut with a dagger. And once in the neck with a …” Rone demonstrates lamely with his own hand to his own neck. “With a nightmare serum … thing.”
“A nightmare serum thing.”
“Yes. A syringe full of serum. It puts the victim in a permanent nightmare state, apparently. They’re asleep forever, trapped in that nightmare with no way out.”
Korah chews on that for a mere three seconds. “So what you’re saying is, he’s still alive.”
Rone bristles. “Well, yes, but in effect, dead.”
“No. He is literally alive. But he is asleep. In a nightmare.”
“Same difference.”
“Not the same at all.” Korah eyes the big-eyed Puras. “You’re the chemist among us. Tell us. Is it not likely that one of Impis’s plethora of talented followers might be clever enough to concoct an antidote that could rouse him, or otherwise end the said nightmare?”
“Yes,” answers Puras too quickly. Then: “Well, maybe. I mean, if I was in the Lifted City, I’d certainly be able to. Well, if I had access to my lab. Well, if I … if I had a lab.” He sulks. “I wish I had a lab.”
Korah ignores his antics and takes from his words a conclusion. “So it’s possible.” She returns her cold stare onto Rone. “In effect, you merely interrupted the Mad King’s reign. You didn’t end it. He can, and likely will, return to full power, if he hasn’t already.”
“If I may,” murmurs Puras, pulling the spotlight meekly back to himself. “Impis also had a … a very scary Twenty-Two, made up of all the cleverest or most powerful Legacies he’d discovered among all the slumborn. If he was to fall out of power, that … might prove far more deadly for Sanctum than it would helpful. Any of his Twenty-Two would be next to scramble for the throne.”
“Fuck the throne,” Korah says, picking up on his point. “They don’t need a place to sit to wreak havoc on the slumborn below. They aren’t people who plan and strategize. They’re riotous, chaos-loving idiots, all of them. I met a few in my time in the Sky Guard.” Korah eyes Rone hard. “So come tell us again what lovely feat you’ve achieved before falling through the planet, as you so described it?”
Rone grows very still, his own eyes turning cold.
Wick isn’t used to the darker side of Rone’s demeanor, always so jovial and free-spirited as he is. Perhaps Korah is coming on a bit too strong, considering what Rone’s just gone through. “Chief.”
She turns to Wick patiently and lifts an eyebrow. Even in her ire with his newcomer best friend, she always shows an uncharacteristic softness toward Wick.
He gives a short nod at Rone. “My friend has been through the worst of hells and back. It’s a miracle he’s even standing here. I think we should give him time to rest and recuperate in a setting that … isn’t a wild forest filled with beasts who want him dead.”
“Like the beast he br
ought back with him?” counters Korah, her voice light. Then she dismisses her own remark. “Fine. Away. Go.”
She turns away from the table and stands by the back window, staring out at the night that’s fallen since the arrival of Dran, Wick, and Rone from the wilds. For a short moment, no one moves. Then Puras rises from his seat, apologizes when it squeaks, and excuses himself from the room, followed by Nance, Ferra, and the old man Trovis, who gives a respectful nod toward Rone with a, “Welcome, you lucky fool, you,” on his way. Rychis and Kraag leave together, but go on their separate ways once outside the door of the cabin.
Dran leans over the table, inspecting the chalk, coal, and paint-spattered map etched across its woody face. “Tell us,” Dran softly says, then jabs a finger on the map near the river. “We met you here. Where’d you say you made your way from?”
Rone, still affected by Korah’s cold, unkind demeanor, brings his sullen eyes to the table. “There,” he says unenthusiastically. “I could see the Wall from a clearing hereabouts.” He points elsewhere. “The ocean is many, many more tables that way.” He points toward the wall of the cabin, far out of bounds of the table. Then he brings his eyes to Dran, a touch of humor returning to them. “If it’s your plan to map the whole of Oblivion, or at least where I’ve been, I’m afraid you’ll need a much bigger table, my friend.”
Dran smiles dryly, forcing himself to appreciate Rone’s humor. “A much bigger table, indeed.”
Rone glances at Wick. The boys, without words, seem to share an unspoken gratefulness for one another’s existence with their eyes.
“You alright?” asks Wick quietly, though his words fill the cabin.
Rone gives him a nod. “Maybe we should check on Eerie.”
“I’ll go with,” Dran tells him. “The Wildercat better get used to the likes of me, too, Dream Tear stains or not.”
The three of them make their way out of the cabin. At the door, Wick peers over his shoulder to find the Chief still standing there at that back window, contemplative and silent.
The door shuts softly behind him.
At the edge of Gaea, Eerie sits in a shadowy patch of clover. Her eyes are wide and bright and her one ear perks when Rone and the others find her. She licks her lips once when Rone comes to her side to place a hand upon her soft head. “There, there, Sweet Girl.” Rone looks over his shoulder at Wick. “I was torn about what to call her, long ago. I settled on Eerie, but I just like Sweet Girl too much not to use it as well.”
Wick and Dran, notably, stand with enough distance from the big cat to fit half a cabin. “She … does seem sweet,” murmurs Wick uncertainly.
“Yeah,” mutters Dran. “And I’m sure we’d taste sweet to her.”
Rone ignores the jape. “I’ve come to learn that she doesn’t eat too much. When she caught an animal, she’d only eat half and leave me the remainder. She learns quickly. Very smart. Perhaps she has figured out not to eat people already. Maybe throwing the fruit at you was unnecessary. Really, she’ll be great just to prowl the—”
“We don’t need the sales pitch again.” Dran folds his arms. “We are not the ones who need convincing.”
Rone shrugs. “Well, clearly your Chief isn’t so fond of me, so I don’t see the point of convincing her of anything.”
Wick takes a few steps toward his friend. Eerie’s eyes track him, which does not go unnoticed. “Korah … takes a little while to warm up. Just give her time.”
“She really ought to regard me as a special exception of sorts among you.” Rone straightens his posture. “I happen to be the only one out here who did not arrive by means of Metal Hand’s touch.”
Wick shrugs. “That’s … interesting.”
“Useless distinction,” mutters Dran. “No matter how you came to be out here in the Oblivion, you are. You know the truth just the same as us. What you need to figure out …” he starts, taking a few steps toward Rone.
A growl swells in Eerie’s throat.
Dran stops, turning his alarmed eyes down onto the beast.
Rone pets her soothingly on the head as her one ear flattens and her eyes narrow. “There, there, Sweet Girl.”
After taking a moment to deduce whether or not he’s in danger, Dran resumes, his tone a touch kinder. “What you need to figure out is what you have to offer Gaea.”
“Oh, well that much is simple enough.” Rone turns and throws a cocky smile at Dran. “My Legacy is in passing through solid objects. That includes the very Wall itself. Korah mentioned—at least three times—that you’ve not yet figured a way past it.” Rone lifts his free hand as if in a classroom, waiting on the professor to call him. “I’m the answer you’ve been waiting for. My sweet, ‘useless’ ass.”
Dran wrinkles his face in thought. “But you can pass through the ground as well, right?”
Rone nods. “Yep.”
“Well, then we’ve another issue to manage first. We don’t know how thick that Wall is. Any reasonably intelligent individual would deduce that the Wall is incredibly thick—far thicker than your arm or leg span. And even if you could leap through it in one blind go,” Dran points out, “how do you expect to bring us with you?”
Rone’s eyes detach, staring off. He doesn’t answer.
Dran smirks. “Useless, you were saying?”
Wick eyes Dran, annoyed. “Why are you being so petulant?”
Dran lifts an eyebrow. “Petulant? Maybe like Korah, I’m tired of being lifted up with hope one second and then dropped back to the ground the next.” He spits at said ground. “I’m just through with it all. Through with these damn Wildercats. Through with dreams of ever seeing my Mercy again. Through with it all.” With that, he turns and heads back to the village, his shoes digging and chomping into the dirt and grass on his way.
Wick shoots Rone an apologetic look. “Dran’s not usually so …” He can’t find the word.
Rone tilts his head in curiosity. “Does he know …?”
“Know what?”
“That he’s here because of us?”
The words turn Wick’s insides to ice. “I … I haven’t …” Wick’s face flushes crimson and his knees tremble. Until this very moment, it didn’t even occur to him that Rone was part of his terrible secret. “I really … don’t think I can ever even stomach the idea of—”
“Oh, no, of course not. I’d never tell him, either. I just wondered if that might be the reason he’s so raw.” Rone shrugs. “That guy’s got enough demons in his head to fill a city. He doesn’t need another.”
He keeps stroking the head of his Wildercat, who has calmed down considerably after Dran’s departure. Wick watches, smiling, soothed by the affection they clearly show for one another.
Then Wick bothers to give his full attention to the strange bit of jewelry Rone wears. “What is that, anyway?” he asks, pointing.
Rone clutches the oversized, cotton-threaded necklace of shiny metal pieces. “Oh, this? Goodness, I haven’t even shared my oddest story yet. When I awoke in the dark caves, just after my fall from Cloud Tower, I … made a discovery. I created this down there.”
“After going from the highest point in all of Atlas to the very lowest.” Wick smiles appreciatively. “You made that in the cave?”
“You won’t believe what it’s made from.” Rone leans forward and lowers his voice, as if to share a scandalous secret. “Bro, I found a Lifted tomb.”
Wick wrinkles up his face. “A Lifted what?”
“Tomb. Wick, it was an actual … real … Lifted tomb. It might’ve been centuries old for all I know. There were two corpses in there, submerged in some kind of preservative fluid so the women looked like they hadn’t aged a day.” Rone shudders. “You know, it isn’t good fortune to disturb the dead. I think it was a tomb for someone super wealthy, someone who can afford a big burial like that. Maybe two past Queens, their bodies preserved in a pool of fluid …”
Wick remembers a lot of Professor Frey’s more odd classes, who gave a whole week’s wor
th of lessons on the Lifted and their funeral practices compared to slumborn. Not once did he hear about tombs they’d bury the dead in. “What did this tomb look like, exactly …?”
“It was very large. Round. Metallic. Made of this metal.” He lifts his necklace for good measure, giving the shards hanging from it a shake. They clang softly against one another and glow bluish-white. “I pulled some broken slivers from it to make this necklace, which lit my way through the cavern. Without them, I’d … be a … a lost fool in the … in the dark.” He has a touch of difficulty explaining that last part, his gaze going far, far away with those words. It alarms Wick for a second, the way Rone is struck with fear the moment he recalls his time in the caves. “I’m thankful I have them.”
Wick comes to Rone’s side. It doesn’t even occur to him until he’s hugging Rone that Eerie hasn’t growled or glared his way at all, not like she did with Dran. “I’m thankful you’re here, Rone. I don’t like to imagine you dying down there. You were strong. You were … stronger than I’d ever dream you to be. And you fought your way to stay alive. You’re a fucking warrior.”
Rone’s chin rests on Wick’s shoulder as they hug. “Thanks. I … I was told you’d died. I was told Metal Hand touched you. Erana told me, the girl from the Academy. She was under Axel’s influence. She tried to gut me with my—”
Rone’s own gasp interrupts him. He pulls away from Wick at once, reaches behind him, then draws out a dagger.
Wick’s eyes fall upon it. He almost can’t believe what he sees.
“Look familiar?” taunts Rone with half a smile.
From Rone’s hand, Wick takes the all too familiar weapon. It even weighs the same in his palm. Yet another long-lost friend … He remembers all the late nights Rone trained him using this dagger in the Noodle Shop.
It feels like a lifetime ago when Wick and this dagger first met.
“Wow,” breathes Wick, overcome. He notices a dent on the blade that wasn’t there before, and a scratch along the handle. Otherwise, it’s just the same as he remembers it.
“I swore,” Rone says, “that if I ever saw you again, I’d hand your life right back to you.” He presses the handle of the fateful blade into Wick’s palm, then closes his friend’s fingers around it. “It’s yours, bro. Don’t you dare fucking lose it again.”