Lichgates

by S. M. Boyce

  “When did you plan on leaving my beautiful city?”

  “In three days, sir.”

  “That simply isn’t long enough. You must stay longer.”

  “I’ll come back. I can’t thank you enough, and I’ll gladly train with them. But I just can’t do it all right now. I’ll have to return another time.”

  “No,” he said, firmly.

  “Blood, thank you. But—”

  “No,” he repeated. “If you want a treaty, you must prove that you can lead us. Train, and I’ll consider the negotiations. Leave, and I shall not.”

  Kara’s mouth hung open, lost for words. In Losse, she was trapped under an endless ocean. There was no fresh air and no sky, just sharks and hundreds of miles of water. She had her puzzle piece. She could just leave.

  No.

  Peace was the Vagabond’s purpose—her purpose. It was the reason she was in Losse to begin with. The treaty between the kingdoms was the first step on a long road. If that meant she was stuck underwater for a while longer, then fine. She sighed and bit her cheek to keep her voice steady.

  “I’ll stay, then. But we have to compromise on how long I’ll be here. It can really only be for a short while.”

  “Excellent! You’ll begin now!” Blood Frine clapped his hands, ignoring her conditional acceptance. He looked past her to the doors and opened them with a wave of his hand. They swung apart with a shuddering boom.

  A line of six Lossians walked in unison up the stairs from the seashell courtyard outside. They stood on the threshold like statues, as still and watchful as the Blood and his Heir. Kara forced her mouth shut and swallowed hard, suddenly wishing she’d chosen to leave.

  Four of the Lossian tutors were stocky bald men, taller than Braeden but still skinny when compared to the Hillsidians and Kirelms she’d grown accustomed to. Their thin limbs hung by their sides, and a solid black suit covered each man’s entire body to the neck, wrists, and ankles. Only one of them carried a weapon, which looked at first glance to be just a very tall walking stick. That is, it did—until she saw the sharp dagger in its tip.

  The other two tutors were women, their hair tied behind their heads in tight braids. Their black suits accentuated curves otherwise hidden in the flowing gowns of the other Lossian women. They glowered, their faces riddled with more scars than the men’s. One of them smirked and gestured for her to follow.

  Kara’s training lasted for three weeks. She debated quitting with every blow to her back or shoulders or neck, the dangling promise of peace only enough to fuel her for so long.

  She wanted to scream after every disappointed shake of her tutors’ heads, or when they barked that she was a sorry excuse for a soldier. She wanted to yell back that she wasn’t anything but a college sophomore who liked to hike and found the Grimoire on accident. Still, after a while, that excuse lost its power. She was the Vagabond, no matter what she’d been in the human world. If the Vagabond was supposed to be a warrior, then she would become one.

  There was no sunlight in Losse. Instead, the golden glow of the dome faded to pale blue at the end of the day. There were no curtains to block out the brilliant golden glow when it returned in the morning, so she would force herself out of her warm blankets to begin her next day of training. She slowly adapted to their world.

  She kept her satchel always slung over her shoulder. Though it sometimes limited her movement, it contained her little blue egg and the still-unfinished map, and she never once let it out of her sight.

  Kara always meant to connect the final pieces before bed, to finally see where the map would take her, but each evening, she fell into a deep, exhausted sleep the moment she laid down. In the three weeks she was there, she never once had the chance to complete it or to even open the Grimoire.

  The training toned her muscles. Her hand-eye coordination improved until she could swing basic weapons with accuracy. She mastered whirlpools and a dozen other techniques, and even cut a tutor on his cheek once with his own staff during a sparring match.

  Each day, she ate with the still-disguised Braeden during her dinner break, telling him everything she’d learned—which he usually critiqued—before she visited Blood Frine in his throne room as a synthetic darkness fell over the city.

  Every night, she asked the king to consider the treaty. And every night, he said, “not yet.”

  It was on the last night of the third week that she didn’t leave the throne room when he refused to give her an answer. Braeden had missed dinner, and in the quiet hour she’d spent alone in the dining hall, she debated how much longer she could force herself through Frine’s lessons.

  She watched the Blood with narrowed eyes that had only hours ago been bruised and swollen from yet another beating in the sparring ring. She’d healed herself despite the tender pain and without her healing tutor’s help, but the ache still hadn’t completely subsided. Her torso, legs, and arms were riddled with at least a dozen scars collected during her short tenure with the battle masters. She was very much done with Losse.

  “Blood Frine, people up there need my help!”

  The Blood cocked an eyebrow.

  “I appreciate this training,” she continued, “but I’m leaving in the morning whether you negotiate that treaty or not.”

  “No,” the Blood said after a short pause.

  “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

  “You must stay here and learn. I vow to return you safely once you’re ready.”

  “That’s the thing,” she retorted. “It’s not your decision to make.”

  “Vagabond, please,” Daowa said. “Watch your tone!”

  “I’m done, Queen Daowa, and I’m leaving.”

  Blood Frine held up a hand to silence them both. When he spoke, his voice was heavy and disappointed. “Dear girl, I wasn’t offering you a choice.”

  Kara furrowed her eyebrows, confused until his words sunk in. She had never been a guest. She was a prisoner. The training was a distraction. She backed away and walked toward the main entrance, but the entry broke open with a boom. A dozen other hidden doors opened, each ushering in a thick line of soldiers. They blocked the exits.

  She was surrounded, with no choice but to turn back to the Blood. Frine pressed his fingers across the bridge of his low nose and scrutinized her with his coal-black eyes.

  “Are you crazy?” she demanded.

  “Only wary,” he answered, calm. “You aren’t ready. You will get yourself killed and lead those that follow you to their deaths if you leave now. You’ll thank me, someday, for keeping you here.”

  “I don’t want to stay!”

  “It’s hardly a matter of desire. These are facts. This is the safest kingdom, most hidden from Blood Carden’s treachery. It’s the safest place to hide articles of power—” He paused. “And Vagabond, you are nothing but an article of power. You don’t yet realize how many worlds will plummet if you don’t master yourself. I assure you that this is a favor for which you will someday repay me.”

  “I doubt that!”

  “Curious,” he said. “But your friend, I believe his name is Asealo? He seems to disagree with me as well.”

  Her heart fluttered. Is that why Braeden missed dinner?

  “What did you do to him?”

  “We merely spoke, but I’m grieved to discover that you have already begun to build your own army. Vagabond, I know he is free of his loyalty.”

  Frine glared at her, and for a brief moment, she had no idea what he meant. But it clicked, eventually. Braeden never had loyalty to Losse, since he’d merely changed form. Frine never had power over him, but the king had no idea what Braeden truly was. Instead, Frine thought that Kara had broken a Lossian subject’s blood loyalty.

  Neither explanation was really in her favor.

  “Bring him!” Frine bellowed.

  Another door swung open, and four soldiers dragged Braeden, still in his Lossian form, into the room. Two soldiers pinned his arms behind his back and pushed him forward while an
other guard held his head so that his throat was exposed, but the disguised prince caught her eye and winked. He nodded once to the door behind him, which still stood open. Just those four guards stood between her and freedom. She tensed for the escape.

  “Blood Frine,” she said, her shoulders tight and ready for the spell she was about to cast. “This is your last chance to let me leave as your friend.”

  “You aren’t yet my friend, Vagabond.”

  She nodded, smirked, and spun around.

  Lavender flames poured from her hands and engulfed the room, boiling the air with thick currents of heat. Soldiers flinched away. Kara bolted through the fire—it couldn’t hurt its master—and barreled into the guards closest to Braeden. The guards broke away like bowling pins. Her friend shook free and grabbed her hand before he tore off down the empty hallway beyond the throne room. He waved a hand once they were through, and the doors shut at the gesture with an echoing boom. Blood Frine roared orders from behind the thick walls.

  The hallway was wide, meant for massive armies and not two winded travelers in over their heads. They sprinted along without direction. Braeden shouted over his shoulder as they ran.

  “Really?” he panted. “This is a submerged kingdom that’s practically made of water and you shoot fire at them?”

  “It’s all I could think of!” she said with a huff. “Shut up!”

  He tugged on her arm and pulled her into a stairwell without another word. His hand wrapped around the handle, and he closed it with a quiet click before he turned and took the stairs three at a time. Kara did her best to keep up with his pace, but she couldn’t survive much longer on adrenaline alone. The endless, brutal training left her sore and exhausted, as Frine had apparently intended. After a few flights, she limped up only one step at a time.

  The door crashed open below. She leaned over the rail. Dozens of blue heads stormed upward. She ran a little faster, driven by a fresh wave of panic.

  Braeden stood at the next landing, peering through a small crack in a door. She came to a stop behind him, panting and trying to explain the soldiers running up the stairs, but he grabbed her arm and pushed her through the door.

  Thick pillars supported the roof in this new hallway that looked out over a row of curved balconies with ornate railings, each carved from glistening mother of pearl. They were easily a hundred feet in the air, the balconies casting long shadows over the hushed city below. The city’s gold dome was closer here, but still nowhere close enough to touch.

  “Okay, come on.” She grabbed his wrist and headed for one of the columns, but Braeden didn’t budge. She peered over her shoulder. He forced a smile and slid out of her grip.

  “I’ll head them off,” he said. “You need to figure out a way to escape.”

  Voices echoed in the stairwell.

  “Stop playing hero,” she said. “We’re getting out of this together.”

  Footsteps clamored, ever closer.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “I win this one.”

  He brushed the hair out of her eyes and smiled, holding her disbelieving glare for a second before he pushed her back through the door and shut it behind him. The door was solid, with no windows to betray what went on inside, but she heard him tear up the stairs with loud and purposeful steps. A stranger’s voice hollered from the other side, just a few feet away.

  She cursed and ran for the closest support column, sliding behind it on the smooth floor as the door rattled. Her hand shook as she rubbed the clover pendant and wished forward the Grimoire. It settled into her hands, its weight bringing back half-forgotten memories of black wisps and unanswered questions. She tore open the front cover, hoping that she wouldn’t rip anything in her haste.

  “How am I going to get us both out of here?” she asked the first blank page.

  The Grimoire’s pages turned and turned. Her breathing quickened, but she stopped breathing altogether when the door to the stairwell flew open. Voices flooded the hall. Footsteps echoed on the shell floor. Her voice caught in her throat.

  Finally, the pages stopped on a panoramic illustration. Her lips twitched in a wry smile, despite the flurry of dread in her gut, when she realized what it was.

  “It’s perfect.”

  Escape

  Braeden raced up the stairwell until it ended in a plain, white door that led out onto a flat stretch of roof, where the golden dome that surrounded the city was close enough that he could see the sharks circling through its light. They passed by, the whites of their bellies glowing in its radiance. A rod extended from the ground in front of him and up to the edge of the dome, where a yellow orb flashed like a tiny sun.

  Voices echoed in the stairwell behind him. He slammed the door shut and pressed his hands against it, focusing on the boiling adrenaline in his blood until black vines crawled from under his fingers and lodged in the cracks. They curled through the stone door, locking it with their thorny roots to buy him some time.

  He hurried to the edge of the roof and peered over the waist-high wall. The city glimmered far below in the false sun, beneath rounded balconies that extended from the sides of the palace. These terraces alternated for several stories so that he could see one through the gap between the two above it. Hopefully, Kara had escaped.

  The door crashed open to the ripping snarl of vine roots being torn apart. Duke Trin ran through the narrow entry, followed by a flood of skinny blue soldiers. He spat on the polished shell roof and grabbed Braeden by the collar.

  “Where is she?” he asked. White twists of light danced through the Lossian’s seaweed-green eyes.

  Braeden shrugged. “Far away by now.”

  The Duke broke his fist across Braeden’s jaw. The disguised prince sank to one knee, his neck numb and bruised. Somehow, the skin hadn’t broken; he was, by some miracle, not bleeding. His body began to heal internally, but it was slow. It had been an incredible, impossibly hard hit.

  “Vagabonds always come back for their kind,” Trin said, disgust wrinkling his face. “Seal the doors! Move to the lower walls and for the Blood’s sake, spike this traitor!”

  Braeden pushed himself to his feet as a soldier with a set of poisoned shackles ran toward him. His options were limited. The Lossian army far outnumbered him, so fighting his way back down the steps wouldn’t work. Tapping into his daru would expose him for what he truly was, which would mean certain death when he was overcome by the sheer number of soldiers at Frine’s command. He peered over the castle’s edge once more, his head dizzy from vertigo. His stomach churned as he estimated the distance to the courtyard below, uncertain as to which fate would be less painful: months in the spikes or a fall to the ground. Both would end about the same.

  A rush of wind billowed over him in the otherwise still air, and a black streak sailed overhead, landing on the roof with the heavy crack of snapping shells. It was a black beast with three legs, vein-ridden wings, and a massive, spiked tail. Its long neck craned and came to a massive head, which was adorned with a thorny crest made of the same spiked bone as its tail. It moved like a lizard over a hot rock, darting to bits of the roof with the fewest soldiers and herding them into a huddle far away. The thing snapped its head toward Braeden and scuttled closer, flashing him a sharp grin. Its massive fangs had no lips to hide them.

  “C’mon!”

  He heard Kara’s voice, but shock froze his body for a second longer before he could glance to the creature’s back. There she was, hand outstretched. Her face was white.

  “Hurry up!”

  He jumped up behind her and wrapped his hands around her waist, but the added height of the Lossian form made him slouch over her head. The beast jumped and soared straight toward the circling sharks, its leathery wings beating so quickly that all Braeden could hear was the sharp snap of its skin hitting the air.

  “Hold your breath!” Kara yelled over her shoulder.

  He looked up as they broke through the dome and took a shallow breath seconds before the cold water bit every inch o
f his skin. Golden light stretched to cover the hole they made in the dome, and only a thin stream of water poured through, falling like a spot of rain down to the city below.

  The gathering sharks were roaches in the light, scattering as the monster tore through their ranks. They regrouped, pulling into a militant formation to speed after them with sharp flicks of their tails. Their bodies rippled from the force. A blurring rush of water coursed over Braeden’s face, but he could still make out the Duke and his men reaching their arms upward, twisting and turning their own bodies in coordination with the makos and great whites. The predators weren’t just for display—they were a last defense as well.