Kingdom

by Kyle West

  “Isandru next,” I said to Isa. “Thanks, Isa. I’ll be well soon. On my feet in no time.”

  “I’ll go get him.”

  She left as Leah returned with a steaming bowl of soup; I hadn’t even noticed her leave. Even though its scent made my stomach growl, I could think nothing but Aether, the liquid I told myself I would never get addicted to.

  Maybe Isandru could let me have a little, just to have the strength to get through this pain. After that, I’d cut myself off completely.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  ISANDRU CAME IN SHORTLY, AND like Isa, stood at the foot of my bed. He stared down at me as Mara continued to work. His expression appeared stern, though I didn’t know what I did to earn that look. Mara, sensing his severity, stood up, wiped her hands, and stepped away from the bed.

  “I’ll leave you some privacy, Elder,” she said and was gone.

  When it was just us, he heaved a heavy sigh and sat on the old wooden chair she had vacated. “You can’t keep doing this, Shanti.”

  “Doing what?”

  He shook his head. “We are past this. I’m not going to explain it to you. These scars . . . you shall bear them for the rest of your days.”

  “If we just return to Shenshi . . .”

  “I have spoken with Pallos,” Isandru put in. “He says that even the doctors of Shenshi have their limits. Their medicines are amazing, yes. But they cannot cure everything.”

  “I don’t care what I look like,” I said. “I saved the city, Elder. If I hadn’t done this . . . there might not be a Savannah left.”

  “One city, a dozen cities, does not compare to your safety,” the Elder said. “You are like a daughter to me . . . we both know this. But beyond that, you are the only hope of salvation for this entire world.” Isandru’s expression grew darker, if that was even possible. “Perhaps your greatest threat isn’t the Radaskim. It is yourself.”

  “What would you have me do?” I asked. My voice should have gotten louder, only it didn’t. There was only a rasp, and I strained to express my frustration. “Anna came back to fight, not hide behind walls. What person would want to follow a coward?”

  “I am not saying not to fight. I am saying you must be careful. When you fought that dragon, Shanti . . . my heart nearly stopped. I thought all was lost. I should never have given you that Aether. I thought you were going to remain on the ship, but you flew into battle with no regard for your own safety. There was Northold, and then there was this. This was much worse.”

  “I will fight as much as I have to,” I said. “I will have to risk myself again and again. If I don’t . . .” I was unsure where I was going with this, but I knew, deep down, that Elder Isandru was right.

  “Stubborn,” Isandru said. “I’ve never known anyone as stubborn as you. You are a child! And yet . . . you are to be the world’s savior.”

  “I’m not a child anymore,” I said. “I’m a child as much as Anna was when she and her friends saved the world.”

  “Don’t you see it is not just your life you are risking? Every time you risk yourself, you risk the entire world!”

  “Was it not you who gave me the Aether?”

  “Had I known what you would do, I’d have locked you in your cabin. All that was for what? In all, you killed some forty dragons. A mere tenth of the swarm. They can afford to lose that many, Shanti. We cannot.”

  I knew he had a point. “And what of the swarm?”

  Isandru sighed. “Pallos tracked it north. The next town is Charleston. By this pattern . . . it will attack every major city on the East Coast. We’d need to attack it ten more times, at this rate, to destroy it for good. Even then, it is a matter of time before another swarm comes. No doubt Charleston has been reached by now. We must do something to stop the swarm that doesn’t involve directly attacking it.”

  “During the fight, I had a vision of the lake. I believe the way is open to the Nameless One.”

  Isandru didn’t respond for a long time. At last, he said, “You must tread very carefully.”

  All I had were my memories, what Alex had told Anna all those years ago, and even those memories were hazy. Anna had written at length about him, but for some reason—even though I remembered most things from Anna’s life before and during the Ragnarok War—I remembered almost nothing from the time after it, when she had set to work preparing the world for the next invasion of the Radaskim—the next Xenofall.

  Something told me that information was vital, and there was a reason I couldn’t access it.

  “You will need to dive again,” Isandru said. “You won’t be well enough to do that for a long time.”

  “I need healing,” I said. “Not just herbs and poultices, though they help. You said Shenshi would not be able to help me. Perhaps Serah back in Haven could help.”

  “There is not a Cleric in all the Wild that can get you back to how you were,” Isandru said. “Even with all the time in the world.”

  “What can we do, then?”

  Where I expected Isandru to have an answer, he didn’t. “I don’t know, Shanti. There is much I don’t know. The best healers are in the Sanctum . . . but that means returning there.”

  “Do you think they would heal me, after all I have done?”

  “I have no doubt they would,” Isandru said. “No one, not even our enemies, are turned away for healing. With all the Clerics, you might be made whole enough for an audience with the Nameless One.”

  “That’s what we do, then,” I said. I reached for a nearby cup of water, but Isandru picked it up for me, holding it to my lips.

  “Do not forget,” he said, “we are all in this together. What one of us does, affects all.”

  “I’m tired,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Rest,” he said. “I’ll return tomorrow.”

  I watched as he went for the archway separating this room from the next.

  “Isandru?”

  He paused, turning back around. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry. I mean it.”

  He nodded cautiously. “Get some rest.”

  I wanted to respond, but there must have been something in that water that made me sleepy. Already, I felt myself fading.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  WHEN I WOKE, IT WAS still dark, but a candle burned on the nightstand next to me. My skin was burning again, though not as severely as before. I felt along my arm with two fingers, detecting a thin coat of whatever ointment Mara had rubbed on earlier. The air was thick with its spicy musk.

  I heard voices outside, but they were too muffled to hear anything. I tested a leg to make sure I could move. Sharp pain shot through the limb and into my abdomen.

  “What did I get myself into?” I muttered.

  Isandru was right. But that was no surprise.

  All the same, I wanted to know what was going on outside. I was surprised that no one was inside watching me. I reached out to take hold of Silence to dim the pain. My mind became a void and the pain became manageable. I braced myself before swinging my legs off the bed and planted my bare feet firmly on the wooden floor.

  Right in front of me was my katana, sheathed and leaning against the wall. I blinked, surprised that it had survived. Someone had reached into that dragon’s mouth to retrieve it.

  I walked over to it, grabbed it by the hilt and removed it from its sheath. The metal sang and gleamed by the candle’s firelight, more polished and clean than it had been since I’d taken it from the Sanctum museum.

  “What are you doing out of bed?”

  I jumped at Isa’s voice. I turned to face her, and her hands were on her hips and her expression stern.

  “How are you not in horrible pain right now?” she continued.

  I was, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. “What’s that racket outside?”

  She shook her head. “People. They want to see the dragon and the ship, which is parked in the square. More are coming by the hour.”

  “It’s the middle of the night.”<
br />
  “It doesn’t seem to matter,” Isa said. “I think they’re shocked. Looking for direction.”

  “Where’s their king? They have a king, right?”

  “They have a president,” Isa said. “He fled the city before the dragons arrived.”

  I could see why the people were looking for direction. “I can go talk to them.”

  “Absolutely not,” Isa said, walking over to me. She paused, seemingly only now to notice that I had a naked blade in my hand. “And put that thing away.”

  I sheathed it and set it against the wall. I decided to compromise, sitting on the bed instead.

  Rather than insist I lay down and sleep, Isa sat down next to me.

  “How’s everyone else?” I asked.

  “Holding up,” Isa said. “I volunteered to keep watch while everyone else sleeps.”

  We just sat like that for a minute. I let go of Silence, doing my best to brace myself against the pain.

  “Can you believe any of this?” I asked.

  “No,” Isa said, “I can’t.”

  “Why couldn’t life have just been . . . normal. We’d still be roommates at the Sanctum. I’d still be an initiate, learning how to be a Seeker. That I could have just remained myself . . .” I sighed, shaking my head. “I haven’t even seen myself in the mirror yet. I’m afraid of who might look back.”

  The fact that Isa didn’t say anything let me know that it was bad.

  Slowly, I touched the top of my head. Not feeling hair on my face or on my shoulders and upper back felt wrong. Where I touched the top of my head, I felt only a strange roughness, the way a man’s face might feel after not shaving for a few days. Someone had taken the time to shave it evenly while I’d been sleeping.

  Everything just hit me at that moment. Tears filled my eyes and I was racked with sobs.

  Isa was instantly hugging me, and I cried even harder, never minding the pain my sobs produced. I don’t know how long I sat like that, rubbing tears from my eyes, feeling completely broken.

  “There, there,” she said. “We’ll get through this.”

  I tried to get a hold of myself, backing away and wiping my eyes. There were a few more sobs, but no more tears came.

  “What now, then?” Isa asked.

  I moved away from her, taking a deep breath. “We’re returning to the Hollow. I think the way might be open to the Nameless One.”

  “You’ve explained it before . . . but who exactly is the Nameless One? I don’t think I understand.”

  “I don’t really know, either. I just know Anna wanted me to go see him. She wrote about him in her prophecy. He’s important. Without him . . . I don’t think defeating the Radaskim is possible. Alex saw him, and it allowed him to defeat the Radaskim four hundred years ago.”

  “Alex . . .” Isa frowned. “You mean Elekim.”

  I nodded. “The Nameless One provided a way to defeat Askala. That way cost Alex his humanity when he joined the Xenofold. The price was heavy.”

  I tried not to think about how the price might be heavy for me, too.

  “He has something to say,” I continued. “I mean to find out what that something is.”

  “Surely not now, in the state you’re in. Isandru talked to us about going back to the Sanctum for healing.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I don’t see any way around that.”

  There was a knock at the door, quickly followed by it being opened. Mia appeared in the bedroom. Her lack of shock upon seeing me revealed that she’d been in earlier, though she still looked sad.

  “Isandru is prepping the ship now,” she said.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised that he wanted to get underway immediately. “How long?”

  “He hopes to be airborne within the hour,” Mia said. “He has more Aether for the pain, if it’s needed.”

  My heart leaped at the idea of having more . . . and the perfect excuse to take it. I thought about what it would feel like to have the drug coursing through my veins; how when I was using it, the path forward had been so clear. I could use that clarity now.

  “No,” I said, every part of me rebelling against the rejection. “Not unless it becomes unbearable.”

  She nodded, the relief on her face palpable. “Good. Isa and I can help you get to the ship.”

  “What about the crowds?” Isa asked.

  “Fiona is out there, standing by.”

  “Don’t worry about the crowds,” I said. I nodded to my friends. “Let’s move.”

  “You’re ready?” Mia asked.

  “Now or never.”

  Both she and Isa went to my either side, helping me up. I couldn’t help but let out a pained groan, a pain which I dimmed by reaching for Silence. The pain receded to the back of my mind, still burning hot. I tried to tell myself I’d been through worse.

  I made my legs move . . . it felt as if I had the nastiest sunburn of all time, except all over my body.

  “And where do you think you’re going?”

  Mara stood at the base of the stairs, which I’d never actually laid eyes on until now.

  “Thank you for your help,” I said. “However, we must be on our way.”

  The seriousness of our demeanor must have convinced her of the futility of trying to convince us to stay.

  “Gods speed you on your travels, then,” Mara said. “Take very great care, Shanti. There may not be another herbalist to save you.”

  I nodded my thanks just in time for Mia and Isa to turn me back around to face the door, which Mia opened, letting in warm, humid air. The low din of the crowd became a roar of applause and cheers, and then gasps and shocked exclamation at my appearance. I couldn’t react to any of it. As Mia said, Fiona was at the ready, already calling out, “Make way, make way! The Saint of Savannah is coming through! You don’t want to anger her Holiness!”

  That got people backing up. A corridor was formed leading from us to the Odin, parked in the center of the square. People in drab clothing reached out from either side of the aisle for the chance that I might touch a hand or that they might grab my cloak. I had no energy for any of it.

  I was relieved to reach the boarding ramp, at the top of which waited Isandru. Mia and Isa ushered me quickly up the ramp while Fiona turned around to guard our backs—though it wasn’t likely that anyone was going to try anything. Weakly, I turned my head, seeing hundreds of faces, all calling for Saint Savannah.

  Not Savannah, I thought. Just Anna.

  The blast door shut, and the people’s voices were instantly cut out. The silence was almost eerie.

  “Let me get you to your cabin,” Fiona said.

  “I want to fly up front.”

  “Nonsense,” Fiona said. “You need to rest. We’ll wake you when we reach the Sanctum.”

  The Sanctum. I felt a stab of fear at just the thought. Something told me that Seeker Haris—now Elder Haris—would have little sympathy for my condition and would do everything he could to thwart me. Such were my thoughts as I was laid down in a bed I’d only slept in a few times since acquiring the Odin.

  Fiona sat down at the foot of the bed. I felt like a child being tucked in by a parent—or perhaps a big sister. It reminded me of when I first met Fiona. She had seemed like a legend—not just a Seeker, but a Prophet at that. There were so few of those as it stood.

  Somehow, over the last few months, we had become equals.

  “Have you been dreaming lately?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “Nothing that I can remember. There was the vision . . . other than that, no.”

  “I have.” She turned to face me, her gray eyes tired. “Isandru has, too. We both feel something coming. This meeting with the Nameless One . . . it makes me uneasy.”

  “Why?”

  Fiona shrugged. “Only the gods know, Shanti.” The irony of what she’d said didn’t seem to register, but old habits die hard. “Things are about to change. As the swarm ravages the Eastern Kingdoms, we go west to find an answer.” She shook her
head. “A paradox.”

  “I did what I could,” I said. “It wasn’t enough.”

  “Elekim himself couldn’t have done what you did today,” Fiona said. “What was done is . . . unnatural.” Her face became stern. “You are lucky to be alive.”

  “You sound like Isandru.”

  “Elder Isandru. You are Anna Reborn, yes. But he is the Elder Prophet.”

  “What dreams have you been having?”

  She shuddered. “Darkness. Red eyes. Deep cold. Stars. Images more so than tangible things. But through it all . . . dread.”

  “Anything relating to Isaru?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing about my cousin. If he remains . . . he is buried deep. His mind and body are dominated by the Radaskim.”

  “You dreamed this?”

  “I know it,” Fiona said. “I don’t feel him near, though. Do you?”

  “I don’t feel him now,” I said. “I’m not sure I ever did.”

  “Nor do I. What do you think that means?”

  Fiona wasn’t just asking me. She wanted to see what I thought, and how it lined up with what she thought.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I think . . . we last saw him at the Crater. Could he still be there?”

  Fiona shrugged. “There’s no telling. The truth is . . . I don’t feel him here. He’s kin. I would know.”

  “You said it yourself, though. What’s left of him is buried deep. Perhaps there is nothing of him left to feel.”

  “True,” Fiona said, sadly. “But that’s too horrible to imagine.”

  “If he’s not here directing things, then where is he? A swarm this size doesn’t stay coordinated unless there’s someone controlling them, someone nearby.”

  The sound of Odin’s engines intensifying interrupted us.

  “Something to ponder later,” I said.

  “Sleep, Shanti,” she said. “Leave the talking to us.” She stood and went to the door.