by Simon Archer
The thought of hundreds of little corruption bombs free out in the kingdom of Insomier sent a wave of fear through my whole body. I started to shake, and I knew it wasn’t from the cold.
“How am I supposed to kill a whole swarm of bees?” I asked my Merkin with wide eyes.
“Take the sword,” Ffamran advised.
“I’m not going to lie,” I said, holding out my hands in protest, “I don’t think that swinging a giant sword at a bunch of bees is going to do anything.”
“You misunderstand,” Ffamran said with a shake of his head. “Use the sword to cut the bond between Em and her bees. That will, hopefully, break the bees’ connection to the corruption.”
“The corruption is in Em?” I thought back to our only encounter with one of Hennar’s minions. “She supplies it to the merkin just like that guy did to his harpy?”
“I suspect that is how it works,” Ffamran said.
“But the sword can do that?” I gulped. “I didn’t know it was that powerful.”
“It is a sword, yes,” Ffamran informed me, “but its main purpose was to sever the bonds between merkins if that bond is abused.”
“That is…” I whistled. “That is a lot of power.”
“Maximus did not feel you were ready to know, but considering the circumstances, I think the knowledge will serve you well,” Ffamran said with a crooked smile.
“Speaking of Maximus,” I said, the thought occurring to me right then, “I need you to gather the rest of the clan.”
“You do not want me to come with you?” Ffamran said, a little hurt coming through in his voice.
“I always want your help, but I want to end this,” I announced. “Once I end Em, I plan to end Hennar. I don’t want to give him another chance to infect this court, this city, or anyone else.”
“You will call me if you need help?” Ffamran checked as he leaned forward and lowered his head to mine.
I placed my forehead to his and closed my eyes. I listened to our collective heartbeat, pounding in time with one another, and used that noise as my battle cry to recharge me and give me confidence as I headed into this impending battle.
“I promise,” I swore with as much conviction as I could.
Ffamran gently pushed me away from him and spread his wings. “I expect to see you soon.”
I gave him a reassuring nod before the dragon shoved his wings down and bolted into the air. He soared in the gray clouds. I allowed myself only a second to watch his magnificence before I headed off towards the castle.
I raced through the corridors at a full sprint. I tapped into Ninji’s grace so that I didn’t slide around corners or into other passersby. Without decorum, I burst into my room and dove under my bed. There, wrapped in the blankets, was the late King’s sword.
Flat on my belly, I shimmied the weapon out from its confinement and laid it before me. I found the hilt sticking out of the blanket, and I wrapped my hand around it. With one swift tug, I yanked the sword out and held it in front of my face.
The metal glowed as if it had recently been polished. It vibrated, almost like the sword knew it was headed into an important fight. I stood and looked at myself in the slim reflection of the sword.
A hard-faced man stared back. His blonde hair mussed upon his head. His eyes burned with determination, and his jaw was set. He twitched his nose slightly, itching away the prickle of nerves that settled on his skin. He inhaled once, twice before breathing on the glass and erasing his image from view.
Despite the nerves and the messy look, that man looking back at me was a king. It was about damn time I acted like one.
I turned the sword so that the blade lined up with my nose. I threw the sword up in the air with surprising ease, giving it a little flip. I caught the hilt in my right hand, letting the blade face the ground. Once again, I bolted out the door in a run.
On my way to Em’s quarters, I passed many people who I had to ignore rudely. However, there was one that wouldn’t let me pass without an explanation.
“Martin?” Diana said as I rocketed by on the exterior bridge leading to Em’s chambers.
When I didn’t answer her and instead zipped past, Diana dashed to keep up and eventually passed me. She grabbed my arm, halting my momentum and swinging me around to face her. The guard and I landed nose to nose, with our bodies pressed against one another, as Diana tightened her grip on my elbow.
“Look,” she started, her voice surprisingly low and husky. “I know you are angry with me, but I cannot stand you ignoring me like this. I need to--”
“Maria’s not the traitor.” The words left my mouth, completely cutting her off.
“What?” Diana’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline.
“Maria’s not the traitor,” I repeated. “I think it’s Emerald.”
“Em?” Diana repeated me. “How?”
In response, I used my free hand to grip her wrist and jerk it upward. I held it between our close faces, the back of her hand facing her so she could see her own healing wound.
“Want to know how you got infected?” I said, giving her all the evidence she needed.
Diana’s eyes widened with realization. She pulled away from me and stared incredulously at her hand. Then her gaze snapped up to meet mine.
“We have to confront her,” she declared.
“I’m going to confront her,” I corrected. “I need you to go tell Rebekah and the king.”
“No, you do not understand, Martin,” Diana said as she skirted around me. She jogged a little bit ahead of me on the bridge. “I just saw the king. He went to go visit Em. He is in her chambers right now.”
45
When we approached the door to Em’s chambers, it was locked.
“Step out of the way,” I commanded.
Diana hustled behind me and watched as I impressively kicked the door open with the precision of an FBI agent on a drug bust. We both filtered in the room and were immediately met with a half of dozen bees each in our face.
The pair of us froze in place to take in the scene playing out before us. Sitting on the lengthy window seat was Em, with King Atlus’s head resting on her lap. She had the head of her cane in her hand, and her fingers gripped around the carved bee. Instead of the normal capped tip, the cane now sported a twelve-inch black spike with a tip as sharp as the sword in my hand.
That spike was pointed at the king’s throat.
Luckily, Atlus appeared to be asleep, resting peacefully in the grey light of the sky outside. Due to the cold, all of the windows were closed, unlike the last time I was in these quarters. I swallowed my gratitude that none of the bees seemed to have an obvious means of escape.
“I knew you were coming,” Em said casually like she was expecting us for tea. “When my merkin saw you in the greenhouse, I knew it would not take you too long to piece everything together, especially if you talked to this one.” Em took a brief second to point her deadly weapon at Diana before it quickly returned to Atlus’s jugular.
“Em,” I said slowly, still eyeing the six bees in front of me, “I just want to talk.”
“Oh, yes,” Em said jovially. “That is why you broke my door in carrying a large sword when I have never seen you wield a weapon before.”
“Okay,” I admitted with a small frown, “maybe more than talk, but we can start there.”
“What is there to talk about, Martin?” Em asked with a one-shoulder shrug. “I am rather annoyed with you and do not exactly feel like talking.”
“What did I do to annoy you?” I prompted.
“What did you not do?” Em spat accusatory. “You actually beat the master at chess. You healed the king. You have been healing the court left and right, even when you know they do not deserve it.”
Memories of conversations about the nobles between Em and I came rushing back to my head. “Is that why you did this? Because they deserve it?”
“I thought you would agree with me,” Em said as she rolled her eyes. “They only ca
re for themselves. Anyone different from them is made to suffer. After all that they put you through, I could not believe that you would still run about saving their lives. The world does not need such elitism.”
“I do agree with that,” I said with a nod in her direction, “but I do not agree that eradication is the appropriate punishment.”
“They will not learn otherwise!” Em shouted. I apparently pushed the right buttons. “Instead, they will continue to disseminate, hide away, and thrive while others suffer at their insolent hand.”
Em leaned forward a little, clutching the bee stinger with white knuckles. “I have lived my entire life in this court, and they have treated me like garbage. My parents isolated me because they were ashamed of my illness, my weakness. When I bonded with a creature, they were so disappointed it was a pathetic bee.”
“Bees aren’t pathetic,” I offered, trying to sympathize.
“To them, it was no better than an ant or a chipmunk,” Em snarled. “They wanted something grander, something to be proud of. Something that would heal me when I never needed to be healed. But they and the rest of the court never saw it that way.”
“They are pigs about the whole thing, aren’t they?” I said, continuing down the sympathy path. Diana gave me a sidelong glance, but I didn’t return the look. I hoped she could catch on to what I was doing.
“Yes, they are,” Em agreed. “I want a world without them. I wanted the power to show them that they are no better than any of us. So, in my isolation, I made a friend.”
“Hennar,” I answered.
“He listened and understood my plight,” Em continued, her face brightening at the thought of the false king. “He promised me a world that we could create, and it could be whatever we wanted. First, we had to destroy the world we are currently in.”
“See,” I hissed, “that’s where we disagree.”
“It is a shame that we do,” Em said as she leaned back and rested her head against the window, almost as if she was tired. “I tried to appeal to you, I really did, but you seem to think you owe something to this world, that it is worth saving. Insanity, especially when you are not even from here!”
Em released a bark of a laugh. “Yes, he told me as much, that you are both from the same world. The technology and medicines are extraordinary. He said that in his world, they could heal me. They could make me strong. Isn’t that funny? I would think to myself, Why would Martin ever want to leave a world like that and come to this shithole?”
“This world gave me a home that I had lost in that one,” I said, my own frustration rising. “There is no such thing as a perfect world. That one had its problems too.”
“I do not believe you,” Em snarled. “It sounds wonderful, and when I am finished obliterating this one, I will create a world just like yours. I am sorry that you will not be around to see it.”
Upon that declaration, Em plunged the stinger in King Atlus’s neck. Diana released a wretched scream and barreled forward, forgetting about the bees. I reached out for her and closed my eyes tightly.
“Johan!” I shouted in my mind.
At the mention of the dragon’s name, his green armor erupted around me and rippled across my skin. It traveled in waves along my body until it covered the tips of my fingers and toes. Then the scales migrated to Diana’s body, blocking her face from the bee attack.
Diana took one look at her scaly limbs and then whipped her arms to scatter the bees that targeted us. We fought against the swarm as they surrounded us like a tornado. However, Johan’s borrowed armor protected us from any of their stings. I slid my hand down Diana’s arm so I could more comfortably grab her hand. She clutched onto me, knowing that it would mean death if she let go.
When the bees realized they couldn’t penetrate our skin, they retreated around Em. She rose to her feet and left the stinger in King Atlus’s neck. The swarm surrounded her like an aura.
“Clever trick,” Em complimented with a cock of her head. The bees followed her movement in tandem.
“Thanks,” I replied without meaning it. “This ends here, Em, I will not let you corrupt anyone else.”
“I am eager to see you try,” Em said with a menacing grin.
The noblewoman then yanked the stinger out of Atlus’s neck. A small droplet of blood dripped from the king’s wound. Em held out the weapon like a sword and surged forward. Supported by the bees, she had more agility and speed than I ever saw from her before.
With my superior reaction time, I pulled on Diana’s arm to sweep us to the side, out of reach from Em’s lunge. As we moved, I lashed out with the King’s sword to parry her strike for good measure. The metal of my sword clanged against her stinger with a resounding bang. It was complemented by an eerie squeak, as if the metal ran along glass.
Now on the offensive, Em struck again. I gathered the sword closer to me to block her. However, the scales were rather heavy and slowed my movement. She was going to get the upper hand soon due to my lumbering motions if I didn’t attack back.
Fighting tied to Diana didn’t help matters. I clutched her right hand with my left, which prohibited her from pulling out her own weapon and aid in this battle. Instead, she was kind of like dead weight I had to whip around.
Another strike from Em, though she swung the stinger over her head and threatened to split our connected hands. I bumped into Diana, shoving her to the side as I raised King Garham’s sword horizontally over my head. Our weapons crashed into each other, but Em didn’t relent as she pushed downward, trying to drive the spike into me.
Em pushed down on me, and I shoved up at her. I relented only slightly to give her false confidence and me a little bit of bend to my knees. Then I popped up with a violent shove and sent Em tumbling backward. The girl stumbled into the table that we once played chess on before she regained her footing.
Rather than stalking towards her, I turned to Diana and caught her eye.
“I need you,” I said in a low whisper.
Her eyes responded with confusion.
“I need you,” I repeated. Internally, I knew that being connected like this meant I could call upon some of Diana’s charging power regardless of her consent. But I wouldn’t do that, not until she gave me permission. I refused, even now, to take advantage of her in that way.
Diana’s mouth opened slightly, but then she quickly nodded. I responded with a smile and a small squeeze of her hand. When I did that, a surge of power raced up my arm, and instantly, the light appeared. It zoomed across my armored skin, for the first time glowing a different color than white. With the armor, it mirrored a paler green than Johan’s forest color.
I channeled that energy and powered forward. With the light radiating off me, I could see other strands of light that I hadn’t noticed before. All around me, thin yellow strings connected the bees to Em. They looked exactly like the strands Jin said connected me to the clan. I chanced a quick glance at Diana and noticed one thick one protruding from her. Even King Atlus had one. Instantly, I recognized these as the bonds between the Merkins. They were right there, out in the open.
Now I had a target.
However, during my realization, Em recovered. She now stood on top of the table with her stinger raised high in the air.
“Don’t you see?” Em shouted, her own power culminating in the violent buzzing from the bees. “You cannot defeat me. I am the Queen Bee.”
After the declaration, Em launched herself down upon us. She aimed right between our connected hands, like a game of Red Rover.
My gaze flitted to Diana, who never took her eyes off me. As if reading her mind, we let go of our hands. Instantly, the armor melted off Diana’s body, and the glowing light vanished from mine. There was nothing left for Em to land upon, so the girl hurtled for the ground, her spike slamming into the wooden floor. Meanwhile, Diana and I spun ourselves so that we turned to face Em on the floor while raising our opposite hands in the air above her.
Together, we clutched the hilt of King
Garham’s sword. The green armor returned to Diana’s body, and the light surged through me once more. We stood over Em, sword piercing the air above us. The thin bonds between her and the bees flowed off her like a long wedding veil, flattened against the floor in a spider-web like display.
“As impressive as that may be,” I said, responding to her previous proclamation, “I’m the King of Dragons.”
Then I lowered the sword, Diana’s hand accompanying me, in a downward arc and slashed through Em’s bonds with the bees.
When the blade cut the yellow strands, the buzzing roared in a thunderous clap. Em’s own screams chorused in time with the bees’ agony. All the yellow strands recoiled into Em’s body, like a measuring tape snapping back into place. On the end of each of the strands was a blackened bit dripping with darkness, the corruption Em was pumping into the bees, now cut off with her bonds.
Then there was a brief clattering like a five-second hailstorm. I looked behind us at the source of the noise and witnessed the corpses of hundreds of bees tumble to the ground. Their bodies littered the ground, a disgusting insect graveyard.
Suddenly, a gasp of breath came from the king. He jerked upward and coughed like he was trying to get water out of his lungs.
“Go to him,” I tilted my head in the direction of Atlus, and Diana didn’t have to be told twice.
With the immediate danger over, I released the scaly armor, sending a short thank you to Johan for letting me borrow it. Now unburdened, I turned my attention back to Em, who curled into a shivering ball on the ground. Placing the tip of the sword on the ground, I crouched down to be closer to her while still keeping some distance in case she had one last surprise.
“You’re under arrest for treason, attempted murder, and domestic terrorism,” I said to Em, not caring if she understood me. I still got a sense of satisfaction from accusing her. “I’m sure I could convince the king to reduce one of those sentences if you answer me one question.”
Em didn’t respond verbally. She shot daggers up at me with her eyes and snarled.