by David Estes
He marched Roan to his second-floor loft, locking the door and window. Roan didn’t know what was happening, but his gut did. His stomach was full of sharp rocks, poking around.
He pounded on the door for a long time, until darkness crept around the gaps in his window frame. Finally, the door opened.
“This is what your disobedience has done,” Markin said when he let Roan out. Like all Dreadnoughters, his skin was the color of ash and as rough as untreated wood, and his forehead was broad and flat. An angry vein protruded just above his eyebrow, pulsing with each beat of his heart.
There was an unusual scent in the air, like charred meat. Had his guardian burned their supper?
In the fire pit in the center of the main space were two blackened lumpy forms. Wisps of white smoke curled up from them, rising out through the flue in the leather tent.
“No,” Roan whispered, backing away. This wasn’t real. He tried to speak, but his stomach heaved. He threw up, and then collapsed. He couldn’t stand, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. “You killed them.”
“Death is but a change in existence, like rain turning to ice in the north or evaporating to mist in the south.”
“You’re a monster.”
“Maybe so. But I will do what I have to do to protect you. Using your power is dangerous for everyone,” his guardian whispered in his ear. “You are too important to risk.” He picked Roan up in his strong arms and carried him back to his loft, depositing him onto his hard bed.
This time he left without locking the door.
Roan wept into his hands. “I hate you,” he whispered to the night, and he didn’t know whether the words were intended for his guardian, or himself. He wasn’t sure it mattered.
While his guardian slept, Roan left, refusing to look at the fire pit as he crept past and slipped from their tent.
He never saw his guardian again, vanishing into the enormous sprawl of Calypso, just another nameless street rat; “I am Born From Dust,” he liked to mutter when he was alone. But he kept tabs on Markin through other sources, until a few years back when he learned of his guardian’s unexplained murder.
Roan never used his power on anyone but himself again.
He also never ate meat again, the smell too much like burning human flesh.
Roan gasped as he awoke, breathing rapidly as the memory faded back into the past, where it belonged. Next, he groaned. His head ached and it hurt to open his eyes, though it was not particularly bright. Despite his efforts, one of his eyes remained stubbornly closed, his flesh puffy around it. Wisely, he chose not to heal himself, for fear of giving away his secret.
With one and a half eyes, he stared at the gray-cloaked sky. Spindly gray branches crisscrossed overhead, borne by chalky tree trunks that appeared more dead than alive. A strange finger-like fog seemed to cling to everything, making visibility poor.
“Why do you both laugh and scream in your sleep?” a voice asked.
Roan tried to get his hands under him to push to his feet, but found them tethered firmly behind his back. Something metal clanked. When he tried to separate his feet, the result was the same.
He sighed. Royals, he thought. Were they the same everywhere? The irony of the thought made him laugh, despite his pounding skull.
“Did I inadvertently jest?” Prince Gareth asked.
“Everything you say is a jest,” Roan muttered, turning his head to find the prince sitting on a log beside a campfire, roasting some kind of meat on a metal stick. A smoky aroma swept into Roan’s nostrils and he felt ill. It’s an animal, not human, he reminded himself, but the thought did little to quell the sick feeling.
Nearby, the other men from the boat were keeping busy—polishing armor, collecting firewood, hauling water from a creek—although he suspected they were listening.
“Like I said before,” Gareth said. “Rude. If not for the fact that we found you in the Barren Marshes and you called yourself ‘Born From Dust’, I would hazard to guess you were a westerner.”
Because westerners are rude, Gareth thought. Ha. “I’ve spent my entire life in Calypso,” Roan said. Well, mostly. It was close enough to the truth that he was able to hide the subtle lie.
“You skin is about a hundred shades too light to be Calypsian.”
“And yet, I am.”
“Well, despite your appearance, I’m not surprised,” Gareth said. “You have the stink of Calypso on you.”
“Maybe,” Roan said, “or it could be the diseased stench of Dragon’s Breath.”
“I have to hand it to you, you’re able to keep a very straight face when you lie through your teeth. Which makes me wonder whether I can trust a single word from your mouth.”
“I’m not lying.”
“And this is a dragon’s tooth?” The prince smirked, raising the fang over his head with one hand.
“It saved my life,” Roan said. The truth is always easier to speak when everyone thinks it’s a lie.
“How’d you get it?”
“A dragon tried to bite me.”
“Where?”
“My leg.”
“Which one?”
“Left.”
“If a dragon chomped on your leg, you wouldn’t have a leg.”
“Like I said, it tried to bite me. Luckily it was only a glancing blow.”
“How long ago?”
Roan had no choice but to lie now. He wouldn’t be able to explain his miraculous healing without revealing his secret. “Eons ago. The scar has faded.”
“And you carry it around with you everywhere?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
The prince shook his head. “No. I would mount it somewhere in my father’s royal halls in Ferria. Put it on display.”
“How grand,” Roan said.
“You should be more mindful of your tongue, you know. Our countries are at war.”
Roan nodded. He couldn’t argue with that. Then again… “There is always war. There was war before the two of us were born, there will be war our entire lives, and there will be war after we are long dead. But regardless of war, we are just two men talking.”
The prince laughed his infectious laugh. “And yet one of us is feasting on wild boar”—he took an enormous bite of meat, continuing to talk as he chewed loudly—“and the other is in chains.” He tossed Roan a hunk of thick white bread, which hit him in the stomach, rolling to his feet. With no hands to use, Roan was unable to pick it up.
Roan was happy not to be feasting on boar, and as hungry as he should be, the smell of cooking meat had stolen his appetite. “And yet they’ll stick us both in the ground when we die,” he said.
“Bravo,” Gareth said. “You have a quick tongue. Regardless, if you’re a southerner, why were you so far to the east?”
“I told you—”
“Yes, yes, the plague and all that rot,” the prince said.
“Sometimes, Your Majesty,” Roan said with mock servitude, “the road beneath our feet is unchangeable.”
The prince raised his eyebrows. “That's such a pathetic way of thinking. If I’m on a road I don’t care for, I turn around.”
If only it were that easy, Roan thought wryly. He felt as if his entire life had been forced upon him, a series of paths paved in regret.
The prince went on. “In any case, it’s a good thing we found you first. Had one of my other platoons chanced upon you they might have shot first and asked questions later. Now back to the question that started this interesting conversation. Why were you both laughing and screaming in your sleep? Was it the comedy and tragedy of your situation?”
In truth, Roan had no clue he’d been laughing, and, given all that had transpired in the last day, he could find nothing humorous about his current situation or how he’d managed to flop from the frying pan into the fire. As for the screaming…that was certainly due to the nightmarish memory. “A fair maiden was tickling me,” he lied. “Then I realized she resembled your mother, so I screamed.”
&nb
sp; The prince didn’t miss a beat. “That’s some fetish. My mother has never been called fair considering she has a beard and is stronger than my father!” Gareth roared with laughter, and his men paused what they were doing to join him. With an abruptness that left Roan’s head spinning, he stopped and said, “We will find out who you really are, you know that, aye?”
Roan shook his head, which only made it pound harder. Eventually the prince would demand real answers to his questions, particularly the one about Roan’s identity. “Look, I truly don’t know my surname. I was born a bastard and my father wanted nothing to do with me.”
“Aye, that doesn’t surprise me,” the prince said.
“Which part?”
“Either one.” The prince took a bite of an impressively large leg bone, and Roan was forced to look away. “Your father—he must be a westerner. I’m betting that underneath that sun-kissed skin o’ yours you’re as pale as a western pigeon.”
Roan knew he was entering dangerous territory. Easterners reserved a special contempt for westerners, a feeling that was all too mutual. Far too much blood had been spilt along the border at the Spear, and memories were long and passed down for generations.
“I never knew my father,” Roan said neutrally.
The prince’s eyes narrowed. In the firelight, the edge of his sword, which was propped up on a tree stump, glittered dangerously. Then, as usual, he laughed. “I don’t need to be a sorcerer to conjure the full picture in my head,” he said. “So your father couldn’t resist the seductive beauty of some hip-swaying Southron girl, could he? He took a long tumble in the sand, and months later out popped a squalling bastard named Roan Born-From-Dust, aye?”
“Aye.” Let him think what he wants.
“There’s no shame in that. He won’t be the last man to be bewitched by a southern seductress. But leaving you there to be raised by them? Now that is the act of a man without honor. What of your mother?”
Roan paused, but then eventually said, “She died in childbirth.” It was near enough to the truth that he felt confident saying it. If not for his birth, she would likely still be alive. One of his heartstrings was plucked and the note was as somber a sound as he had ever heard.
“Ah. I’m sorry, poor lad.” It was the closest thing to sincerity Roan had heard in the prince’s voice thus far. For a moment he saw a different person, one who might be kind under the right circumstances. Something stirred inside him, but he quickly pushed the feeling down.
Roan couldn’t linger on this topic any longer. “Where are we?” he asked, gazing around at the dead trees of the strange forest. It wasn’t close to winter yet—the undergrowth should’ve been thick. Stranger still was the fact that the only sounds were from the crackling fire, the men moving through the trees, and their own voices. No birds sang. No creatures rustled. There wasn’t even the slightest breeze to help dry his damp clothes. It was as if the air was frozen in place. This truly was a dead place.
“Barrenwood,” one of the men answered. “Past the town of Rue.” Roan wondered whether this man was the one who’d cracked his skull with the hammer.
Roan groaned. Why was everything in the east named ‘barren’? The answer was obvious. Everything was dead. Including me, if I don’t find a way to escape soon.
“Why do the trees look like that?” Roan asked.
“You mean, why are they dead?” the prince said. “They’ve been like this since the savages sailed from the Dreadnoughts and led a battle against the king’s army in these woods. It was just after the Dragon Massacre in Ferria. In the Battle of Barrenwood, many died on both sides. After that, the fog came in and never left. Few venture through Barrenwood, as it’s believed to be haunted. If I told you of some of the atrocities committed in this place you would not laugh in your sleep ever again.”
Of course, Roan had heard of the Dreadnoughts, a long chain of islands in Dragon Bay. It was where his own guardian had come from, a place where it was said that blood could not be spilled on the land, or great horrors would arise. It was another legend he’d never given much credence to. Now, after his run in with the two-headed dragon, he feared the ‘spill no blood’ legend was just as true.
“How long ago was that?” Roan asked.
“Near on eighty-five years,” the prince said, using a bone to pick at his teeth. Roan’s stomach curdled. “Don’t you know your land’s history?”
“I didn’t have royal tutors growing up,” Roan said. He knew more of the west than he cared to know, but little of the east; except, of course, for the fact that they’d been at war with the west for hundreds of years. He changed the subject quickly. “Where are we going?”
The prince raised a well-manicured eyebrow. He threw his bone at Roan, who had no choice but to let it glance off his chest, joining the chunk of bread at his feet. “Ferria, of course, to my father’s eastern stronghold. You’re our prisoner, and you’ll be tried as a southern spy.”
Roan was about to protest that he was no spy when the clip-clop of horse hooves silenced him. A rider was moving fast through the mist, his green cloak billowing behind him, his chestnut mare cutting a path through the white trees. He eased to a trot and then stopped completely when he reached their camp.
“Ho, messenger,” Gareth said, standing. “What news bring you?” The prince’s men had already formed a staunch barrier around him.
The rider wasted no time, remaining in his saddle as he delivered his news. “I come from Rue, where we’ve just received tidings from Hammerton.” His voice was slightly high pitched.
“What say the barrel-chested men of the smith village?” Gareth asked.
The man threw back his hood, and Roan was surprised to find a young lady hidden beneath the cloak, her hair so silver Roan wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it had once been struck by a moonbeam. Her lustrous locks curled around her pointed chin.
Even more surprising was her attire, which was a complete set of polished silver armor, molded so finely it appeared to have grown around her slender form, even forming intricate patterns beneath her mouth, along her delicate jawbone, and swirling past her strangely yellow eyes to her forehead. She’s as spectacular as the prince, Roan thought. Maybe more so.
“We received a stream from our spies in Castle Hill.” The young woman paused to let the chain of information sink in. “They’re saying the Dread King of the North is dead.”
For a moment there was complete and utter silence in the forest. And then the men cheered.
Five
The Northern Kingdom, Castle Hill
Annise Gäric
Her punishment had been cut short. More than that, her father’s orders to flood the streets of Castle Hill with traitors’ blood had been halted before it could be carried out.
The death of a king had that sort of effect. Still, it felt odd to Annise that the death of one man could actually save numerous lives.
The news had spread like an ice storm throughout the city, and Annise was certain it would swarm throughout the rest of the Four Kingdoms with equivalent speed as streams were prepared and sent. Soon their enemies would know. They would gain strength from the news.
“They will attack us,” Annise said, with certainty.
“Not right away,” Arch said. “They’ll wait to see what transpires. Even then, our borders at Blackstone, Raider’s Pass, and Darrin are strong. We’re safe in Castle Hill.”
Annise closed her eyes, trying to erase the images of the last several hours. Her father’s unexpected appearance in the tower, his typical brutality, the ghostly apparition, and his sudden tumble down the tower steps. Numb with shock, she’d raced down the winding staircase, horrified at how slick the stone was with her father’s blood. When she’d reached the bottom, one of the soldiers of the King’s Defense was in the process of covering what was left of the king’s body with a sheet, but not before Annise had caught a glimpse of his face, which was bruised and bloodied, his skull caved in, so different to the man she’d known h
er whole life, the man she’d feared and hated with every breath and beat of her heart.
And when she’d seen him like that, so weak, so broken, she’d felt nothing but joy, which scared her a little. Then her brother had arrived, ushering her away to his quarters, where they’d been hunkering down ever since, sitting cross-legged on his bed across from each other, thick as thieves, the way they used to be as children.
As Arch had cleaned the blood from her face from where their dead father had hit her, she’d told him everything the king had said to her, and what had transpired on the staircase afterwards, leaving no detail out. Well, except for the strange spirit who had appeared. The boy who she swore looked like a paler, weaker, younger version of her brother. Clearly, her eyes had played a nasty trick on her, and talk of ghosts would only cause her trouble. Plus, her brother was obviously not a ghost, even if he acted ghoulish sometimes.
She’d also left out her mother’s unexpected visit. She was still trying to make sense of it herself. Annise could almost feel her mother’s arms around her, hear the echo of her whispered words in her mind. I am proud of you.
Stark realization hit Annise. “You’re the king,” she said with a gasp.
“Yes,” Arch said. There was no surprise in his voice, as if he’d known it from the moment he’d seen their father’s corpse.
That’s when something else occurred to Annise. Her brother had lived his entire life with the knowledge that one day he would be king. That understanding had been his constant companion, hidden behind his easy, confident manner, his never ending laughter and jokes, his adolescent nature.
“What will you do?” Annise asked.
Arch laughed, as if the question was an invitation to a party. “What I’ve been born to do. Rule. Protect the north. Improve the lives of our people.”
“You will be a great king,” Annise found herself saying, to her surprise. Even more surprising to her was how much she meant it. Despite their everyday childish bickering, she believed in her heart that Arch would be everything her father was not: good, fair, honest, loved.