On the wall opposite her, straight down through the hall, lay another great wooden double door of the same size and shape as the one that brought her in from the morning’s chill, this one also flanked by two guards. Two open fire pits lay between her and the other door, offering further reprieve from the dying chill that melted and drained from within her, though she had other aims more important than her body heat. Faint columns of smoke rose lazily from the two blazes, leaving a light haze in the air before drifting up and out a pair of chimneys high in the roof.
She started into the room somewhat slowly, unsure of where exactly to go next. Too late she thought to turn around and ask the guards at the door, as no sooner had she turned back to look than the doors banged shut with a crash that echoed off the distant walls and towering ceiling. The hall fell to near silence, with only the conversations of the others in the room reaching her ears, their overlapping voices mingling and reverberating so that she could make out no words in particular from the jumbled string of mutters.
Realizing she had few options, Oleja turned back and strode confidently down the center of the hall, continuing to call on her crutches only for balance. She looked left and right, scanning the room for anything that indicated the continuation of her path. She did not know what sort of leader a “king” was, only that such a title was customary of the world these days and seemed to hold a slight bit more honor than the unofficial mantle of village “leader” that marked the only comparable position back in her village.
“Do you come to see the king?” asked a voice from off to Oleja’s right. She turned to see a group of others around a table. One man rose, presumably the one who had spoken to her.
“I do,” said Oleja in response.
“Then you’d best find a place to sit—others have been waiting here longer than you,” said the man who now stepped towards her. He was a startlingly handsome man a few years older than her with long, dark brown hair that reached the base of his ribs and equally dark eyes set beneath heavy eyebrows. Stubble painted his upper lip and jaw, standing stark against his pale skin, though tanned. Fine clothes clad his body, bearing resemblance to the outfits of the guards though without the armor, and with more embroidered embellishment. His arms remained bare, displaying thick muscles. Around his neck hung a collection of leather cords; from each dangled a different tooth or claw, creating a cluster of ornaments that clacked together as he moved.
Oleja blinked a few times as she realized she had stared at him for longer than seemed at all appropriate. Her face burned.
“Yes, all right—where is the king?” she asked, shaking the heat from her head.
The man raised an eyebrow. “Atop his throne—where he will sit for many long years to come, I may add if I can be so bold.”
“His… yes, and that is where?”
The man flicked his eyes to the large double doors. “Well, clearly the king of Ahwan sits on a throne tucked away in a storage cellar.”
“Behind the big door then? Why does he require such a large entry?”
“What do you take him for, some pauper of a lesser village?” asked the man, giving her an odd look. “The door is for the sake of grandiosity.”
Oleja ignored the comments. Plenty in Ahwan seemed odd—this dependence on the size of doors for validation came as little surprise.
“Great, thank you,” said Oleja and moved towards the door.
“Where are you going?” asked the man from behind her, a note of annoyance in his voice.
Oleja cast a glance back over her shoulder. “To speak with the king?”
“Did you not hear me when I said you must sit and wait? The king is a busy man; he is speaking with attendants at the moment.”
“The business I bring is more important, I am sure.”
The man stepped around in front of her now, so that he stood between Oleja and the door. “Have a seat, miss…”
Oleja watched him as he drew out the sound, tilting his head to her as if poised for a question. After hissing like a fool for several moments too long, he sighed.
“What is your name?”
“Oleja Raseari.”
“Welcome to the king’s halls, Miss Raseari—I am Helis Sniveer, chief guard to the king and his most trusted advisor. Have a seat.” He glanced down, his eyes tracing across her crutches and prosthetic. “Allow me to help you over to the bench…” He reached for her arm.
She tugged it away as if recoiling from a snake’s strike. “I can manage fine on my own,” she snapped. She spun on her right leg and made her way to the bench Helis indicated, taking both crutches in one hand as if to prove that she had no reliance on them.
With Oleja seated at the empty table across the hall, Helis returned to his own group, seeming to pay Oleja no further attention. At first, Oleja fumed as she sat alone, but the steam clouding her head dissipated slowly as the minutes ticked by. As her head cleared, her mind wandered about the room in search of something to pass the time. Studying the room more closely, new details began to present themselves—ornate ones, stuck in every corner of the hall. The pillars, which previously she thought were merely carved wood, were actually inlaid with snaking designs of gold and silver. Similar designs rimmed the doorways, which all bore handles of polished metal. Even the knobs on the glass-faced boxes seemed to be fashioned of silver or precious stones, and all showed off the finest carved designs right down to the feet with which they stood on the stone brick floor. Everywhere she looked, Oleja’s eyes found precious metals and stones—weeks’ worth of hefty hauls, enough for her entire village and then some. The room alone could feed her people for months.
The hall may have held many weeks’ worth of hauls, but the people of Oleja’s village had dug up far more than that. Generations upon generations of miners had been at it for ages longer than anyone down there knew. In her peoples’ time, how much more had they dragged up? If heaped into one pile, how many of these enormous rooms could they fill to the brim? And if the Ahwan king’s hall was indicative of what leaders did when they came upon metals and stones, what did the eclipser leader’s hall look like?
“Oleja Raseari.” Oleja snapped out of her thoughts to the sound of her own name. The words drowned within the immensity of the hall, failing to fill the space as they passed through the lips of a mousy girl a few years younger than her who stood at the doorway Helis said led to the king. She clutched a leaf of paper in her hands, a blot of white pressed to her dress—orange, embroidered with back, silver, and blue, a vibrant contrast against her dark brown skin, so dark it bordered on black.
Oleja hoisted herself up onto her feet. The girl, seeing her stand, took a few quick steps forward.
“Oh, let me help you—”
“I’m fine,” said Oleja, gritting her teeth and making her way to the door as swiftly as she could, avoiding the girl’s eyes as she went. She stepped around the girl, paused, and turned. “Sorry. Uh, I’m all right, thank you for the offer.”
The girl nodded quickly.
“I’m Oleja.”
“Yes, I assumed as much,” said the girl, a note of caution in her voice.
“Right,” said Oleja, remembering at once that she’d been summoned by name.
“I am Sabelle, scribe to the king. He is free to speak with you now.”
Oleja nodded and allowed Sabelle to step past her, leading her into the next room.
The room they entered into stretched nowhere near as long or wide as the one behind her. Though it still found a lofty home on the list of the largest rooms Oleja had ever been in, coming from the entry hall made the size of this one look more akin to something that belonged back home in her village. Above a circular floor around fifty feet in diameter, the ceiling rose to nearly the same height as the entry hall, with a second story balcony that rimmed the room at its midsection reachable by a curved staircase. Another staircase led up from there and disappeared through the ceiling above. Though curiosity tugged Oleja up to see what lay above the room, she had
climbed enough stairs for the day—and many more still sat between her and her room, where she was inevitably bound to return.
In the center of the room, five steps led up a circular dais, and atop it rested a chair of ornately carved silver. On it sat a man—the king of Ahwan, if she had to venture a guess, though why big doors and tall chairs were the city’s ways of indicating this, no guesses came to mind.
He had pale skin and hair like Maloia’s—fire orange, though while Maloia’s still burned bright and hot, the king’s seemed to be sputtering to ash, as a good many streaks of silver-grey cut through the unusual color. An odd and uncomfortable looking hat of pronged metal sat on his head—a crown, if she remembered the word correctly. Wrinkles creased his face, hidden partially beneath a short beard of copper and silver. When she looked into his eyes, memories snapped into focus—they watched her from beneath heavy eyelids, a muted shade of blue like the sky, eyes like those that belonged to Kella or her mother Hylde.
Beside the king’s chair, a few steps down the dais, stood Helis.
“Hello, and welcome to my palace, Oleja,” said the king, a smile on his face. He straightened his shirt—black velvet with heavy embroidery—and clasped his hands. “I hear you are new to the city. I am King Grasorre Reungier. What brings you before my throne?”
Words caught in Oleja’s throat for a moment. This meeting was far more formal than she anticipated. But then the gates opened, and her words sprung forth.
“I am here with an offer for you. I’m sure you are familiar with Itsoh, the earthborn camp to the east?”
“Well of course,” responded the king with a faint huff of laughter. “Everyone in the region knows of Itsoh.”
“Then I’m sure you’re familiar with the terror it brings in its wake to the minds of the people of this city. Itsoh is a powerful hub of the eastern earthborn lands—I know this, as I have seen it myself, with my own eyes. For the good of Ahwan, I will lead a strike on the camp to crush it and sweep the rubble from the world, if only you could lend me the forces with which to do so.”
The king made no movement—no twist of a lip nor twitch of an eyebrow—for several long seconds.
“Your bravery is honorable, Miss Raseari, but Itsoh is a long ways off, and across deadly wilds. Excuse me for asking, but how do you plan to get there?”
“By walking. It’s not too far, I’ve made the trek before.”
The king’s eyes flicked down to her left leg, and to the crutches she held in her hand. “Yes, by walking indeed. That is a fine device you have made for yourself, but could it stand up to the task?”
Oleja clenched her jaw. “Yes. I could manage it fine.”
The king nodded and scratched at his beard for a moment. “Once again, I commend your boldness, and appreciate that you have approached me with this proposition, but unfortunately I am unable to make such a strike at the moment.”
“But with me at the helm, you won’t need to send any of your generals or employ your strategists.” Oleja took a step forward. “They can remain here at their posts, operating on defense. I only need a force large enough to destroy Itsoh, and we will return with haste as soon as the deed is done.”
The king shook his head. “I cannot.”
“I have the knowledge of Itsoh you need to make this a success. This is an opportunity for Ahwan!” She struggled to keep the desperation from her words.
“I apologize that I cannot enact your plans, but though you bring an admirable degree of boldness to my hall this morning, I’m afraid I am not so bold. By now I’m sure you’ve seen how fragile the social order is here in Ahwan. Aukai’s Clan is growing more bold with every passing generation; they are constantly at odds with the other people of the city, so desperate to regain some semblance of their former power that they meet those who oppose them with deadly force. There is much unrest—wounds that need healing, so that we may all unite together as one people the way we once were, not so easily divided by quarrels. My position as king is one that can change as easily as the tides. A strike on Itsoh would divide the people, no doubt—some prefer that we keep to ourselves, you see, and others even wish to trade with the earthborn who live in lands neighboring our own. I cannot make a move so bold without risking my seat here in the palace. Aukai’s Clan would see me unseated through any means, and they are too many in number and hold too much influence over the city for me to oppose them directly. If waves of unrest wash anew through the populace, the clan will take hold of that and strike. I hope you can understand.”
Panic rose faster into Oleja’s mind. She had to convince the king. Her plan had to work so that she could return triumphantly as her peoples’ hero.
“Listen, please,” said Oleja, taking another step closer to the dais. “My people are enslaved there, mining for the earthborn. I want to save them. With the forces of Ahwan behind me, I can save all of their lives. It is right to aid me; it is the honorable thing for you to do.”
The king looked down at her with sympathy. She didn’t want his sympathy—she wanted his army.
“I truly wish that I could help, but at this time it is not something I can risk. I am sorry, Oleja.”
“You have to!”
“Miss Raseari, I have shown you my cards. My final answer is no.”
Oleja climbed the first step up to the dais.
Clearly, that one step was one too far, as no sooner had she done so than a hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. Oleja lost her balance and fell to the floor on her backside. One of the guards from the door stood behind her.
The king raised a hand. “She meant no offense. Please, help her up.”
“I don’t need help!” shouted Oleja, her voice booming off the walls and the ceiling high above.
“Please, Oleja—” The king closed his eyes and took a deep sigh.
“You cannot hide behind your own cowardice! Take a stand and do something if you presume to call yourself the leader of this city! Exercise your leadership or you will lose it just the same!”
“Please remove her from the grounds,” said the king, disappointment and regret in his voice. He met her eyes with an apologetic look.
Helis stepped towards her now from where he had stood in silent neutrality, though as soon as the command fell upon his ears, he surged forward like a vulture swooping down upon a dying creature.
Oleja kicked off his hand as he reached for her, and he recoiled, but only for a moment. He snatched at her right arm as the guard took the left, and together they hauled her to her feet.
“Stop! You can’t do this!” She kicked her legs out, scrambling for a hold, but her right leg found only air. Her prosthetic collided hard with the bottom step of the dais, filling the room with a splintering crack. Helis and the other guard did not so much as pause.
Through the doors they dragged her, which closed behind them. Down the hall they went, through the front doors, and back out onto the terrace. There, the pair dropped her, and after one last hardened glare from Helis, the two retreated back inside as the doors slammed shut behind them.
Chapter Five
Oleja’s forearms burned by the time she reached the fork in the path lower down the hill. The hundreds of stone steps that lay behind her now laughed at her back.
She’d taken her knife from the box at the door and been off as fast as possible. That was, however, not very fast. With a grunt of fury, she collapsed into a patch of grass beside the path. Casting aside her crutches, she seized her prosthetic in both hands and yanked it off.
The crack in the wood from her encounter with the mob only worsened after the thing collided hard with the stone step in the king’s hall. It now split the wooden body nearly in two, and her attempts to stand after being cast out only sealed its fate. Entirely unusable, she had relied on her right leg, her crutches, and Tor to manage the short walk down the hill, which in itself proved a terrible and laborious task. And the majority of the walk back to her room still lay ahead.
With another roar
of anger, Oleja threw her prosthetic to the ground. It offered her no further service.
In fact, it proved itself as useless as the king, who sat up in his hilltop palace doing nothing, refusing to make a move to better the city he served out of fear of losing his power and status. He didn’t deserve to lead the city. Oleja could best him in a fight, no doubt, and though she knew little of his wit, it certainly wasn’t sharp enough to make up for his other shortcomings, as any sensible person would have taken Oleja’s offer in a heartbeat. The city could find a far superior leader in her.
To make them all realize as much was one of her options now—go around the city’s leadership, rally the people herself, convince them to march on Itsoh. It had been her original plan, before Wil, Brashen, and Cyrah advised her to speak with the king.
Or she could revert to her old plan. Go back to Itsoh alone, open the gate and free her people so that she could lead them in a battle against the eclipsers. She could do what she had set out to do, exactly how she intended to do it before traveling several hundred miles out of her way on a whim. She didn’t need Ahwan, the king, or his army. She only needed herself.
Her old plan would work fine now; it was the best option—she could be off immediately without relying on kings and armies who clearly didn’t know what was best for them nor for anyone else.
Oleja looked up to the sky. The sun hung high above in the sheet of blue, shedding warm rays down across the land. Her people would be hard at work in the mines now, picking at their lunches as they loaded bags with ore. Perhaps Ude sat by the river the way he liked; what had he been up to since her departure? She had no way to know, at least not until she returned. And the people aboveground, outside of the canyon—the camp from which Pahlo came—would be toiling away as well, working with the eclipsers’ livestock and whatever other duties they performed. Until Oleja returned, their days would pass in the very same manner that they always had—and always would, if she failed.
Pahlo. He had gone so far at her side. He gave everything for her in the end, and now he lived on only in her mind—lying on his back on the floor of the crevice, moonlight catching in the sand that clung to his blood-soaked eyelashes, his chest reduced to a crater as if a piece of his being climbed out and deserted the rest of him. How few carried his memory? Beyond her, the number could not exceed more than a dozen. The raiders, for whatever their worth, had cared about him in some capacity, and as far as she knew they all still lived. Some others from back in his camp of slaves too, surely, though in Oleja’s time with him he never mentioned being particularly close to any other who worked alongside him—never speaking of parents or friends. She had never thought to ask questions about his life. Of course, she shared no details of the sort from her own life either, but she knew the reasoning for that perfectly well.
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