The Broken Realm

by Sarah M. Cradit

  “How do you know? Did you see it? Or are you once more guessing?” Isdemus pressed. He had one hand held toward the light, as he had for the days Jesse had been inside. His strength waned. This was the other reason they must be done with it. Lysanor had lost much over the long years, but she would not lose him.

  “I saw flashes of it, and of his rage, in the moment he sundered my hold on his magic. I felt it, and now I feel nothing. Now he is closed to me forever. Once his all-seeing eye finds Dain, he will find the others. I cannot protect us, Isdemus. We are as if laid bare before our enemy, and now that he has dispatched of the Saleen...”

  “What if he isn’t ready, Lysanor? What if you are wrong, and he returns to us before he understands?”

  “Oh, my brother,” Lysanor said softly, sighing. “The light cannot make him understand. Who has ever had their truth turned upside down with such easy acceptance? No, the light cannot make him understand. Only we can, if fortune holds, and our hearts are true.”

  “Our hearts were not always true.”

  “We have corrected them. That must count for something.”

  “And if it does not?”

  Lysanor met his eyes. “Then we will fail having first tried to save this world.”

  * * *

  He was again in Bythesea. Back to where he’d begun, where the circle had first been drawn.

  But his time here was ending. All that lay before him flickered, a light going out for the last time.

  Jesse reached in clawing desperation for his mother, fast fading away. Somewhere within him he knew he’d never be able to, but it was the sorrow of every motherless boy that bade him try anyway. Even the outcome could not erase the pain behind the intent. He would die trying, if that was the cost.

  It seemed for just a moment, Yanna de Medvedev turned and saw him. Eyes locked, knowing glances passed between mother and son, the veil of life and death thin for the briefest time.

  And then she was gone.

  Hamish was gone.

  Bythesea was gone.

  It was only Jesse and the beckoning call of a blinding light.

  He knew this light. This light had brought him here, and now it wished to take him away.

  But once he stepped through, it was a one-way trip. He could never again return, and if he did, it would not be the same. There would no more stolen time with his mother whose promise was long spent.

  Mama, he thought, gazing back into the endless sea of nothing. Mama, why did I never listen when you tried to tell me your stories? Why did I think they were nothing? That they were trifles in my world of salt and sand? How have I let my world become so narrow that there was no room for you and what you brought to our home and hearth? That father’s world was the only thing which mattered?

  “Mama. I can make this right.”

  Jesse screamed the moment the searing light overcame him, as he was pulled, resisting, howling, into it, and then...

  * * *

  “Welcome back.” Isdemus’ voice was soothing, but was soon replaced by—

  “Now do you know you who you are?”

  “Lysanor, look at him. He’s clearly in no fit state to speak. No one who returns from the light is, not for some time. Have some wine. Summon your patience.”

  “When I would like to know what you think of something, Isdemus, I will be sure to advise you.”

  “And I’m nonetheless advising you that he’s in a terrible state of shock, and that he cannot be expected to rise to your unreasonable—”

  “We are out of time, Isdemus! Out! There is none left. He is ready or he is not, but Oldwin will not hesitate!”

  Jesse wrapped his hands tight around his eyes, wincing as he rolled to the side to block the light. He felt the heaviness of the desert sand again, with its large round grains so unlike what he knew in the Southerlands. The sulfur in the air burned his nose. A hard wind whipped through, carrying another scent foreign to him. “Why did you pull me out? I wasn’t ready! I wasn’t done!”

  “You were more than done. You should have been done days ago.” Lysanor. Calm. He wanted to scream into her tranquility and destroy it, to bring her to where he was, even for a moment, so she could see, so she could understand. He was done, she said, with the even tone of a shopkeeper ready to serve the next patron. Done, she said? What did she know? What could she know? What could she possibly know?

  “Give him time. You’ll only make it worse,” Isdemus pleaded with her.

  Jesse waved one hand around in chaotic swats, covering his eyes with the other. He wasn’t ready to open them. If he kept them closed, there was still a chance he might not really be here. “I need to see her. My mother. Please. Just for a little longer. You cannae give me that and then take it from me.”

  “Do you know who you are?”

  “Please! I am begging you. I have things I need to say to her!”

  Lysanor groaned. He could almost hear her head shake. “You’re a stubborn child, like the hapless man who reared you.”

  “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me. I’m now asking this of you in return.”

  “The light doesn’t work that way. It gives what it gives. It offers no more.”

  Jesse panted, crawling forward on his hands and knees. He didn’t have the strength to stand. It had been taken, just as his mother had been. He could hardly find it within him to breathe.

  “Stand, Jesse.”

  “I need water.”

  “You needed truth, and now you have that. Stand.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You won’t.”

  “I can’t.”

  The air around him changed and he at last looked up and it was Lysanor before him. She had crawled to him, met him on his level. “You do not descend from men who cannot, Jamesan Strong.”

  “Why are you doing this to me? Why?”

  “After everything you saw, you would ask us that?”

  His vision blurred into a sea of fading worlds. He dug his hands deeper into the sand and winced to extract the tears before they could take over. “I’m a trader. I’m the son of Hamish Strong and Yanna de Medvedev. I’m known for my skill, for my loyalty, for my—”

  Lysanor snapped her hand forward and grabbed his chin. “You’ve known your whole life you were not like your brother, or you father. Look at me!”

  “Leave me alone!”

  “Look at me, or I will peel your eyelids back with my fingers and pin them there for all of time.”

  Jesse heaved out a silent sob. He looked up. “I never asked for this.”

  “No one ever does. Who are you?”

  “I’m a trader’s son.”

  “Who are you?”

  Jesse’s tears came freely now. They landed in the sand beneath him as he hung beneath the strength of his shoulders, weighted by the visions. Was it true, that he had always known? No, he could not accept that. He had done what was expected of him. He’d learned his father’s trade, learned it well. He would proudly inherit his title and his lands, as would his son, one day, Guardians willing. He had done what was expected and this was not his life!

  Hamish’s gaze, loving but with a soft, careful distance. He’d known. Not the full truth, no, but he’d known, and he’d said not one word. He loved Jesse that much.

  And Yanna... did she know the man she’d loved was Dain Rhiagain? Did she know? Had she taken this truth with her as she spent the last of her promise?

  Jesse gasped for breath. All at once, he remembered who he was, really was, and it was not this. Not what they wanted him to be.

  “I need to get to Esmerelda. Oh, Guardians. She’ll be long gone by now. How long was I in there?”

  “Esmerelda is beyond your path now. Who are you?”

  Jesse reared up and grasped Lysanor by the shoulders. “How long?”

  Lysanor calmly extricated his fingers, one by one, and then pushed him back into the sand. He landed on the back of his heels.

  “Esmerelda is beyond the help of Jamesan St
rong now. Only the man you really are, the man you were born to be, can help her, but to become him, you must claim him.”

  “None of this makes sense. None of this. I don’t know who you are, or why I’m here, or—”

  It was Isdemus now who dropped to his side. He cupped Jesse’s face with his palms, and a gentle peace stole over him. Isdemus had spelled him, and it had worked.

  “You are the son of my son, and you will claim that birthright, here and now.” Isdemus’ soft handling was gone. His passion radiated from him, like a flame.

  “I thought I knew who I was,” Jesse said, looking back at him with a sorrowful smile.

  “Say it. It must be you, child. It must be you who says it.”

  “I...” Jesse faltered. It was not his denial of the truth holding him back any longer, only a fear of becoming, and then failing. “I’m a son of the Medvedev.”

  “Go on,” Isdemus urged.

  “Of the Ilynglass sorcerers. Of... of the Rhiagains. Of man.”

  “And of Ravenwood,” Isdemus said, exhaling a long-held breath. “For that blood runs through me as well.”

  Lysanor sighed into both hands. “Yes. Yes, Jamesan, you are all of these things. You are the only one in all the worlds who unites all five, the five who have given and taken, and you are the only one who can bring them together.”

  “Bring them together? How?”

  “We will show you.”

  Jesse dropped back into the sand. He closed his eyes and willed his heart to slow. “Your magic has failed somewhere along the way. I would make a terrible king.”

  “King? How very limiting, Jesse,” Lysanor said. She approached him once more and pressed a hand to his cheek. Her embrace this time was loving. “You’re so much more than that.”

  Isdemus joined her. “You’re the one who will save us all.”

  Epilogue

  It was Correen who found them.

  They’d cleared the royal apartments and were headed toward the banquet hall when Correen waved them down, scurrying over with her dress poorly hitched in her sweaty fingers.

  When Assana saw her dour, fat-faced sister-in-law barreling toward them, she was certain this was the end. Correen’s loyalty to Eoghan was the only thing Assana actually knew about her. She skulked around the keep boasting expressions so sour Assana had to wonder after her diet. She’d never had more than a few words for her brother’s wife, all of them some form of order or admonishment.

  Assana positioned herself in front of Esmerelda, as if that would stop anyone with an earnest intention to harm them. She didn’t even know why she did it. Why she’d saved Esmerelda, and not simply saved herself. There was more than one way to weaponize your anger. Esmerelda’s frenetic jabs to Eoghan’s little broken body was one. Assana coming to the aid of someone in need when no one did the same for her was another.

  “Ah, there you both are! I thought he’d killed you, too.” Correen was doused in sweat. She waved her hands, urging them to come. “Follow me. He’ll be looking for us.”

  “What do you mean you thought he’d killed us? Oldwin?” Assana asked as she kept pace with the princess. She wouldn’t have guessed the woman could move this fast.

  “Of course, Oldwin!” Correen hissed, turning her head to the side. She kept dropping her skirts as she ran, pausing to lift them not quite high enough to come off the stone. “He killed the king! He claims he is the king now! Pfft! He is not even a Rhiagain!”

  Esmerelda and Assana shared a wide-eyed look. Assana took her by the hand and they ran faster.

  So Oldwin was telling everyone he’d done the treasonous deed. But Assana didn’t trust Oldwin’s intentions in claiming the kill for himself. There was more behind it. Nothing that creature said or did was accidental. Whatever the answer, it made them less safe, not more.

  Correen ushered them down a set of unfamiliar steps. She realized how limited she’d been in her short reign as not-a-queen of Duncarrow, how little she’d seen and done. This was not a festive court, alive with color and dance and music. It was dead with the absence of these things.

  They descended in a spiral until they came to a large squarish room. Around the perimeter of the room were three doors.

  “These are the storerooms. Where the kitchens keep all of our provisions. We keep enough for a year or more. We’ve had to, with the Southerlands and their treachery.”

  Esmerelda gritted her teeth. Assana gave her hand a squeeze of caution.

  “Do you spend much time down here, Princess?” Assana asked.

  Correen looked inexplicably proud when she said, “I am the Mistress of Kitchens.”

  “Why are we here?”

  Correen wiped her sweat onto her sleeve and pointed to the room on the right. “That one. We’ll be safe here. It’s hardly accessed. It’s full of dried meats. My brother... the king, that is, he never possessed the constitution for such rich food, and the cooks are forbidden from serving it in his presence.”

  “Yes, well, he’s dead now, and everyone else likes meat,” Assana pointedly replied.

  Correen pulled at the rat’s nest atop of her head. “You make a fair point, Lady Assana. Oh, it’s too late to go back up!”

  Esmerelda touched her arm. “Are there no ships?”

  “Ships?” Correen dropped her hands and laughed. She looked half-mad. “You wouldn’t make it past the range of the bows. Did you not hear me, girl? Oldwin is king now, or so he says. And who will stop him? Who could?”

  “Ravenna could,” Esmerelda mused, to herself.

  Correen cackled. “That girl flew right off. Rightfully so. I hope she’s found herself long gone from here. If she was wise, she’d return from whence she came.”

  “She’ll come back, for me,” Esmerelda said. Her hands fell to her belly in a protective shield.

  “Then you’ll both die,” Correen said. “You choose, then.” She nodded at Assana. “Meats, grains, or wine.”

  “Meat,” Assana decided. “For Oldwin will let them all starve. That’s more his way.”

  Correen bent backward to afford herself one more wary glance up the stairs and then ushered them into the most richly scented space Assana had ever entered. At first it stoked her belly, and then it was all she could do not to gag.

  She regretted choosing the meat room. Before she could say so, all three women paused at the sound of boots on the stairwell.

  “Down. Quickly now!” Correen whispered. They all searched for a place to hide. Esmerelda positioned herself behind a cluster of barrels, and Assana and Correen fell into low crouches behind the curing shelf.

  A half dozen voices filled the corridor beyond. Guards that had once served her husband, and now served the greatest traitor this realm had ever seen. Her father had nothing on Oldwin of Ilynglass.

  “Let’s go,” one said. “Two to a room.”

  “There’s nothing here but food. This is a fool’s task.”

  “You heard him. Bring him one of the traitors or it will be our heads he takes.”

  “No highborn would come down here, even to save their hides, so let us go to where they would, and spare our heads another day.”

  There was more arguing. Assana glanced at Correen, but the princess was fixed upon the door, and the absolute gamble their lives rested upon.

  At last, the sounds shifted. The guards were leaving. For now.

  Esmerelda moved back over to the two women. “We can’t stay here.”

  “Plenty of food,” Assana quipped.

  “You know what I mean.”

  Assana nodded. “Is there any other way out of here, Princess? Anything else we can do?”

  “We cannot return to the castle proper. There is a way to climb deeper, to sea level where smaller vessels sometimes enter by way of the portcullis. It was once the entrance for prisoners, but many years ago one of our ancestors built the sky dungeon instead. These days it’s hardly in use at all. But don’t get that look in your eyes. It’s not the way for us. If we did not drown
at the high tide, we would freeze to death before a vessel arrived to rescue us.”

  Assana’s patience hung by a single frayed thread. “Then what do you propose we do?”

  “I got you this far,” Correen said. Her scowl returned. “I could have let him kill you. You could afford to be more grateful.”

  “For delaying our deaths by a mere few hours, or days?”

  “Ravenna will come for us,” Esmerelda said again. “And Jesse.”

  “Jesse?” Assana asked.

  “Ah,” Correen said with a bitter laugh. “You mean the Strong boy, don’t you? The one you traveled with when you feigned your death? Son of Dain, grandson of Isdemus.”

  Esmerelda’s face clouded with confusion. “No, you have the wrong man.”

  “Sure, dear. They’re only rumors anyway, just like the ones about Darrick,” Correen said. She slumped against the wall, sighing. “I’m spent, enough that I could find rest in this wretched place. Keep watch for a spell.”

  * * *

  They’d been in the cellar for days. Or was it weeks? Months? Assana had lost all sense of time. Until she’d been denied access to the sun, she hadn’t realized her reliance upon it in orienting herself to the world around her.

  Correen had died at some point. They moved her to the farthest corner of the room, but this arrangement wouldn’t last. The room was built to keep moisture out. She would dry up and begin to reek, and that scent would either drive them away or draw the attention they’d so far managed to avoid.

  They never talked about it. There were many unspoken conversations between Assana and Esmerelda in these days. There was no use in guessing how the older woman had passed. Her death seemed a mercy, and one less thing for them to factor into their own survival.

  The dried meats sustained them well enough, but already Esmerelda’s hue had changed. The hollows in her cheeks became more prominent. She was not only eating to sustain herself, but her child. She needed fresh foods. There was nothing here for her like that in these cellar storerooms.