“I’ll do it, then,” he said. “I’ll show them the truth. You can’t just let people die so you can pretend you live a normal life. You can’t...” Grei choked on his words, bowed his head. “You can’t just pretend they aren’t dying,” he whispered.
He turned away, and a flash of blue on the ground caught his attention. At first, he thought it was metal reflecting the glow of Baezin’s Voice, or a huge sapphire dropped as an offering.
Grei gasped. Between the fitted stones of the temple floor grew a blue rose. The whispers became voices again, loudly repeating the gibberish singsong.
Grei had been from one end of Fairmist to the other, through the Wet Woods, to the northern plains of the Lowlands. He had climbed the cliffs of the Highward and seen the mist-shrouded valley in miniature. He knew the South Forest like his little brother’s smile, and he had mapped out every bridge that ran through the city.
He had only seen a blue rose once before, just before the Forest Girl had kissed him:
Grei ran through the South Forest. The army of Highblades and refugees had just left Fairmist in the aftermath of the Slink War, and this was a dangerous place because there could still be slinks. But Grei had slipped his parents’ leash and gone exploring. He wanted to see a slink.
He pushed a wet limb out of his way, ducking under the shower of water, and stumbled into the glade.
A green Faia floated by a drooping willow, her wings flicking. She was miniature, barely two feet tall. Her pale skin glowed green, and her hair looked like it was made of cascading leaves. Her eyes were shining emeralds. She turned at the noise, saw him, and vanished in a shimmer of sparkles.
Behind her in the fading green light lay an injured girl, crumpled against the tree’s roots. Her heel had been ripped by something vicious, an animal’s claw, and it leaked blood onto the grass. Her black hair looked like it had golden cords woven into it, and her eyes were deep blue. Beside her grew a rose of that same deep blue, glowing softly.
The Forest Girl’s piercing blue gaze caught him, stirred something inside him he hadn’t known was there.
He whipped off his cloak and laid it over her, told her it was going to be all right, that he was going to help her. He tried to gather her into his arms and take her away, but she was too heavy. He stumbled, sat down heavily with her across his lap.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll stay with you.”
She leaned up and kissed him, lightly, on the lips. Blue light flashed through his mind, and he knew this girl, like they were twin souls in different bodies. Everything made sense: who he was and what he was doing here. He was here to protect her no matter what. She and he would walk hand-in-hand to the edge of the sunset. Together forever.
Then she broke the kiss, and her head fell back on his shoulder.
Father and Fern will look for me, he thought, settling down with the Forest Girl, keeping his arms around her. They will worry, and they’ll come for me. I will take care of her and wait for them.
Hours passed. Afternoon turned to dusk and then to dark, and still his father and step-mother didn’t come. Grei went to a nearby stream and rushed back with water in his cupped hands, but she barely drank any.
Night fell and the moon lit the forest. The blue rose glowed as though keeping watch. The Forest Girl slept, curled into him. He felt no fatigue, as though he had suddenly become a night creature, and he stared into the darkness, eyes wide.
Morning dawned, and still no one came. The day passed, and he talked to the sleeping girl in soft tones. As the sun fell on that second day, she opened her eyes and looked up at him again. He offered her the piece of bread and hard cheese he’d thought to bring with him, but she turned her head away.
“What is your name?” he asked her.
“I am no one,” she whispered, closing her eyes.
“I won’t leave you,” he said. “I’m going to protect you.”
She said nothing, but she leaned against him anyway.
The sun fell on the second day, and Grei’s stomach hurt from hunger. He tried to get her to eat some of the meager store of food he had brought, but she wouldn’t. He nibbled a little himself, saving the rest for her. Where were his parents? Why weren’t they coming?
He stared into the night, imagining creating a litter. Two long branches would do it. He would use his cloak to bind them together, then he could drag her—
Hooves shuffled in the woods, and Grei spun around.
The slink emerged from between the trees, enormous. Its bloated torso was mottled by bark-like skin, black and brown in the darkness. Enormous arms hung low, twisted with powerful muscles, and its knuckles almost touched the ground. Its head was long and slender like that of deer, with thick horns curling up to uneven points above. It saw him and the girl, and a blast of froth shot from its nose. It raised its enormous head, its dark gaze boring into Grei.
“No!” He leapt to his feet, standing between it and her. “Back!”
“Run...” the Forest Girl said. “Run now!”
He grabbed a stick from the earthy floor and swung it at the slink. “No!” He raised it over his head.
The slink snorted, watching him, but it did not charge. Instead, its eyes glowed, changing colors. Brown first. Then yellow. Lavender. A rainbow swirled through the glade. Grei staggered back, dizzy.
“Please...” the Forest Girl said, her voice stretching long and thin, wrapping over his head like a gossamer shroud. Then he was falling.
That was all he saw. That was all he remembered.
Grei stared at the blue rose, dumbfounded. The Forest Girl had been gone when he had awoken, the rose too. He had found himself alone with whispers in his head, like his ears were ringing from some great noise he couldn’t remember. He had shouted for the girl, searched for her. He had finally fallen to the earth, weeping uncontrollably because he had failed her. She had died and he had lived, just like with his mother. He had raged at the trees, throwing sticks and rocks and shouting until his throat was raw.
His father had found him like that, fingers twisted into the thick grass, rocking back and forth and crying. For his father, almost no time had passed. He claimed he’d been searching for hours. For Grei, it had been days. But in truth, something far stranger had happened. His breeches and tunic, dirty with stains not of his making, smaller on his body than they should have been, told a chilling story: He had grown, perhaps a year’s worth of days, and he had no memory of it.
His father and Fern had hidden Grei for a month, claiming that he was ill. When he emerged from his “illness,” his friends and neighbors commented on his sudden growth spurt, but none suspected it was magical. The whispers faded away after the first week.
Grei reached out a hand, then hesitated to touch the blue rose, afraid it might vanish. Instead, he leaned over it, his face only inches away. The whispered words grew louder, more distinct, as though something was coming. They sounded like—
“Not supposed to be in the temple after nightfall,” came a deep voice.
Grei started. A hulking figure stepped into the blue glow of Baezin’s Voice, and Grei’s heart sank. It was Meek Furrows.
Grei was fourteen when he first decided to fight the Debt of the Blessed. Four years of watching it rip families apart was enough. That had been the first time he’d started asking questions. It had made him an outcast. Childhood friends were told by their parents to shun him. Adults who had been kind to him his entire life shut their shutters when he walked past. Then one day at the edge of the South Forest, three boys Grei’s age had cornered him, pushed him about, told him he ought to shut his mouth. Meek had been their leader, and Grei’s first and only punch had bloodied the larger boy’s nose. Meek and his friends had beaten Grei senseless afterwards. And it wasn’t the last time.
No adults would stop them, not even his father. It was everyone’s way of showing Grei that they disapproved of his actions. Meek and his friends made the most of it. Grei took beating after beating. He had a scar on his
head where Meek had thrown him onto a rock.
He’d endured more than a year of it, stubbornly refusing to give in, and that was when the delegate’s men came for him. The torturers. They kept him for days in a dark room with the droning voices, the pain at unknown times. His birthday passed some time during his stay. When Grei emerged into the daylight at age sixteen, he played the normal boy, worked diligently in his father’s shop. But the nervous tick at his eye had lasted for months.
The torturers had been more than a year ago now, longer since Meek had beaten on him. Neither would ever happen again. Grei stood up.
Meek came a step closer. He wore the battered blue tunic of a Young Blade with its stylized raindrop, which meant he had been admitted for training as a Highblade. Young Blades, as they were called, were given castoff uniforms and short swords, and often the less-coveted jobs, like policing the streets after dark.
“Meek,” Grei said.
“Saw you,” Meek said. “Knew it had to be you. Crazy Grei. Heard you’re talking treason again.” He smiled. One of his front teeth was brown.
“If only more people were listening,” Grei said, wondering where Meek’s partner was. Young Blade patrols always traveled in twos.
Meek nodded his head, smiling, as though Grei was singing his favorite song. “You’re going to make me a full Highblade, is what you’re going to do, when I turn you in. You’re a conspitior.”
“You mean ‘conspirator’.”
Meek’s lip curled in a snarl, and he stepped forward, crushing the blue rose under his heel as he balled up his fist.
The rose’s death burst inside Grei like splattered oil, and he staggered back. Bile rose in his throat, and he wanted to vomit.
Meek swung for his head, and Grei ducked, his fingers closing over the polished club he’d kept in his belt since the night he met Ree.
He yanked the stick free and smashed it on Meek’s helmeted head with all his strength. Meek reeled and Grei got both hands on the stick and brought it down hard again. With a cry, the ox dropped to his knees. His helmet fell off and rolled to the side.
The whispers, so joyous before, had gone quiet. He could barely hear them. The crushed flower’s stem had been severed. Destroyed. He knelt down and picked up the rose while Meek moaned. Rage boiled within Grei, and he glared at Meek, wanting to hit him again.
Meek tried to rise, lost his balance and fell over, slumping onto his butt. “No, don’t...” he said, seeing Grei’s fury. He waved one arm in a weak gesture of warding. “Don’t kill me.”
Grei gripped the club tightly. He could barely see Meek’s face through the red haze over his vision. The flower’s death coursed through him like poison.
“Kill you?” he growled. “I’m not a Highblade.”
He pushed his anger down and forced himself to come to his senses. This wasn’t just a scuffle between boys. Meek represented the delegate, the empire. He glanced around again for Meek’s absent partner. Young Blades always traveled in twos.
He had to go.
He turned and ran. Meek shouted after him, but that was all the chase he gave.
Grei raced across the canal bridge onto Milkmist Street and south. He didn’t bother with his cowl, and the floating water droplets splashed across his face, streamed down his cheeks and neck.
The innumerable waterways born of Fairmist Falls ran through the city like veins, and Grei knew all of them. Most of the streams had covered bridges, some open bridges, but many required boats or ferries to cross. He avoided the ferries. Depending which side of the river the ferry had been left, it could take five minutes to pull it over. If Meek decided to give chase, that would be a perfect place to catch up.
So Grei weaved his way through the city, leaping over the smaller streams and finding bridges to cross where he could not jump. He reached the edge of the city and plunged into the South Forest.
He charged through the trees, feeling the wet slap of the ferns against his legs, ducking leafy branches that showered water on him. Finally, he came to the place he had forsaken seven years ago and, breathing hard, fell to his knees.
He sat in the wet grass trying to control the shakes. His tongue tasted like blood. He tossed the club away and opened his other hand to reveal the beleaguered little rose.
He looked around the glade where he’d seen the Faia and the Forest Girl. He hadn’t been here in years, but he could have found it with his eyes closed.
He dug a hole in the moist earth, put the rose’s stem in it and pushed the dirt over, packing it delicately. The rose lay limp on the grass.
“I won’t look away ever again,” he said. “Not for anyone.”
He let out a breath and stood up, watching the hopeless flower for a long time.
The whispers in his mind suddenly became deafening. He stumbled, tripped over himself and fell sideways into a thick, moss-covered tree.
A lost fair lady cried out in alarm
The Whisper Prince offered his arm
They both ran away
And never did say
Why a princess lay down for his charm
It repeated. When it finished, it started again. He leaned against the tree, squinting as it barraged him.
Everyone knew The Whisper Prince. Fern had sung it to him and Julin when they were children. Every mother had sung it to every child since the beginning of time.
The poem repeated endlessly, and Grei felt a chill. Rat Mathens, one of those who had gone crazy after the Slink War, mumbled constantly that his dead wife was still alive. A dozen people had seen her ripped apart by slinks. But Rat endlessly repeating the story he wished was true: she’s still alive; she just went to the north, that’s all. Rat was a cautionary tale. Dwelling on the Slink War drove a person mad.
Grei shoved the thought down. He hadn’t gone mad. He hadn’t—
An image of the blue rose flickered across Grei’s mind, and he spun around.
The rose had risen, its stalk firm and strong, its petals open to catch the floating droplets that touched it.
“By the Faia,” he whispered, falling to his knees.
The rhyme quieted, repeating gently.
Chapter 5
Adora
Adora knew the rhyme The Whisper Prince like she knew her own heartbeat. She had heard it almost every day for seven years, since the Debt of the Blessed had begun stealing one Thiaran child a month, since the Slink War. She had studied the long version, had studied the short version. The old men of the Order had made her memorize it.
The Whisper Prince was in every household. Mothers and fathers sang it to their children. Lovers changed key words and repeated it to each other, giggling at their cleverness. It was as much a part of Fairmist—and the Thiaran Empire—as roads and houses, water-catchers and city symbols, Highblades and Ringblades.
To everyone else, The Whisper Prince was just a child’s poem like Milly and the Mouse or Seven White Towers. It caught in the memory, a beloved rhyme everyone had heard since they were little.
But there was a deeper truth behind it. The Whisper Prince wasn’t just a poem. The original version was much longer, a prophecy handed down to humankind by the Faia over a century ago. Only a handful of people knew of this prophecy which, if fulfilled, could save every man, woman and child of the Thiaran Empire.
Today, Adora was a traveling merchant’s daughter. She had tucked her black and gold hair under a kerchief and dressed in working clothes: a dun apron and brown skirts, a white blouse that looked fancy to a lowland farmer, maybe. But a duke or delegate would not notice her anymore than he would notice a chair.
If someone thought long enough, they might consider her blue eyes or the gold streaks in her black hair. In the imperial city of Thiara where most were dark-haired, it would have made her more conspicuous. But not as much in eastern Fairmist, where the light-skinned northern savages sometimes came, sometimes raped women and gave their babies blue eyes and yellow hair. Adora had learned that the trick to hiding in the open was to sh
ow people what you wanted them to see, to fill their mind with what you offered and replace their own notions.
Today Adora would be introduced to Fairmist in her own right, under her adopted name. She had visited many times before, following Shemmel in his guise of a traveling merchant, as his daughter. Or more recently with Lyndion, escorting him as his young courtesan. The Bright Speaker had enjoyed that charade all too much.
But this was the next task. This was when she began her own life, separate from the Order. Today her new name would become her real name as others in Fairmist met her, defined her. Today she would begin the fulfillment of the prophecy. No more studying. No more learning. The Event that would herald the coming of the Whisper Prince was nearly here.
Today she would begin the journey that would end with the slinks’ destruction.
She waited quietly by the tavern wall, darkened by years of pipe smoke. Shemmel talked with the owner of The Floating Stone, a man named Seydir, who was wiping out a mug behind the bar. A large painting of the Sunset Sea hung behind him, a long-necked monster rising over Seydir’s head.
The tavern master could have been a blacksmith with his wide, hairy forearms and thick-fingered hands. He was balding, with prominent black eyebrows and bushy sideburns. He glanced at Adora around Shemmel’s head. She expected him to look at her figure. Lyndion had warned her about the way the outer world would appraise her. Men would want to take her to bed. She had resisted rolling her eyes at him. As if she did not know that already. Every man in the Order besides Shemmel already looked at her that way. She wanted to tell Lyndion that he looked at her most of all, but she didn’t. She’d nodded politely, knowing it was the only way to make the “tutorial” end.
Adora was a woman now. She understood what it meant, so when Seydir looked at her, she pretended not to notice. Strangely, though, he didn’t surreptitiously steal glances at hip and thigh, breast and neck. He looked at her face, and she was compelled to look back. He watched her eyes.
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