Crown of Oblivion

by Julie Eshbaugh

  “I’m not frightened,” I say. I try to remind myself how strong my Cientia is. Control your breath, I tell myself. Stay calm. But it doesn’t matter.

  “Self-doubt and fear. The perfect combination. I can’t wait to start this match. It’ll be over so fast, I’ll have time enough to catch a nap before the next one.”

  “Self-doubt, fear, and anger,” I say. “But please do underestimate me. It will make my victory all the sweeter.”

  Laughter explodes from the crowd—they’re laughing at me. But they don’t know what I can do. I glance at Darius, the one friendly face. He nods. You can do this, he mouths. The noise has grown so I can’t hear him. I can hardly hear Michaela, and she’s standing right beside me.

  “At my signal,” she shouts into my ear.

  “How will the champion know?”

  “His name is Orsino, and he’ll feel my intention. His Cientia is quite strong.”

  My heart hammers out of time, but I won’t let my body betray me. Kicking off my sandals, I shake out my limbs and reach out with my senses. “Wait,” I say to Michaela, and her face lights up. I realize she thinks I’m about to quit. But I just have a question. “Are there any limits on the magic I can use?”

  Orsino can’t hold back his laugh. “Little Outsider,” he says, “feel free to use all the magic in your arsenal.”

  I nod, Michaela’s arms come down, and the match starts.

  Time slows. The room shrinks down to the borders of Orsino’s emotions. I feel his pride, his sureness in the strength of his gifts. But I don’t sense his intention to swing his fist until I am staggering back from the blow to my chin.

  I catch my feet beneath me before I fall to the boards, but I’m rattled. Orsino takes advantage of my lack of focus. His foot flies up and lands in my ribs, and I fall hard to the floor.

  He must be holding back. If he’d hit me with his full strength, my ribs would have shattered for sure. He’s showing me mercy, and I need to make him regret it.

  The volume of voices in the room rises, but I use it to my advantage. It’s so loud, I let it become a cocoon of sound wrapped around me, blocking out all the details—Orsino’s shouted name, sympathetic voices calling for me to save myself, cries to stop the fight because I’ve already lost.

  With all that gone, I feel Orsino. His feet shuffle. Then he bends. A roundhouse kick. It’s coming. I prepare. . . . I duck. But not in time.

  His flying foot collides with the side of my head. I collapse to my knees. The lights in the room dim.

  Looking up, I see that the shadow falling over me is Orsino’s, as he bends down and shouts into my face. “Don’t get up,” he says. “If you want to stay conscious, stay down.”

  For a moment, I intend to follow his advice. But then I see Darius staring over the edge of the stage. Hear Darius call my name. “Let’s go,” he shouts. “You can beat him!”

  Before Orsino feels my attention shift, I climb to my feet and leap up onto his broad back. My arms wrap around his neck; my legs wrap around his chest. I lock my ankles and pull myself up, until I’m practically on his shoulders. My right hand balls into a fist that I drive like a hammer into the side of his head. Again, and again, and again.

  He staggers, but doesn’t fall.

  Instead, he explodes outward, throwing me off and sending me back to the boards. My head slams hard, and for a moment everything goes black. I hear Darius’s voice—my name on his lips—as if I’m hearing him through water. And I hear Orsino, too, shouting for me to stay down.

  But I won’t stay down. I pull myself onto my hands and knees and stagger to my feet.

  Something wet drips from my mouth. My bare hand swipes at my nose as I try to regain my balance. But before I can, Orsino lifts me over his head and slams me to the stage floor.

  Something pops as my shoulder connects with the wood. I sit up, half expecting my arm to drop from my body. Pain—not the dull toothache kind but the kind that sears like flame—radiates down my arm as I run my fingers over the dislocated joint.

  I crawl on one hand and two knees to the side of the stage. The crowd screams—some shouting their approval, others warning me to stay down, all swirling with a storm of pride pouring from Orsino—pride and a touch of something else.

  “Pop it back in,” I shout at Darius. I slide forward, rolling onto my back and turning my wrecked shoulder joint toward him. “Pop my shoulder back into place.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Do it!”

  Darius’s hands guide my arm up over my head and the ceiling tiles disappear behind big white spots. A scream flies up from my lungs so terrible, it’s a sound that belongs only in nightmares. I squeeze my eyes shut and tears flow down my cheeks, but then the pain eases. The joint is back in place. I get to my feet. People are chanting, but my ears are ringing and I can’t make out their words.

  With my senses fading, my Cientia sharpens. The thing I feel in Orsino—the thing alongside his pride—it’s shame. Regret at hurting a young girl. He’s off balance. I feel it, and I see my chance.

  I leap up, but he knocks me back down. Again I’m on my feet, and again I hit the floor. My vision dims. I shake my head and get up, but just to my knees.

  “All the magic in my arsenal!” I call out. “You asked for it!” And I raise my hands, close my eyes, and see the match glow to life. I grunt out a breath, the match goes out, and I hear Orsino groan in pain.

  The crowd silences. Orsino is on his knees. But even through the pain of Projectura, he crawls toward me.

  I can’t hesitate. I don’t know how long the pain will last and hold him down. A leaping scissor kick connects the heel of my right foot with the bridge of his nose. Blood sprays. He slides onto his side. Arches his back.

  Then lies still.

  Michaela returns to the stage. Someone in the crowd calls out. “She cheated! You can’t use Projectura in Hearts and Hands!”

  My head flips up, my heart racing like a thief’s. “But I asked—”

  “You heard her ask if there were limits on the magic, did you not?” Michaela shouts. “And his invitation to use all the magic in her arsenal?”

  The heckler silences as a murmur runs through the crowd, but no one else speaks.

  Michaela counts it out—one, two, three. Loud slaps reverberate through the room. Then she grabs my arm and raises it above my head.

  My shoulder explodes in pain.

  I cry out, Michaela drops my arm, and I search the crowd for Darius. My head’s so full of fog I can’t trust that my victory was real, but I know the look on his face will confirm it.

  But I’m wrong. Darius is not looking up at me with approval.

  He’s dropping to his knees, the crowd parting to give him room. His hands fold over his eyes. The room is too loud to hear him, but it doesn’t matter.

  I feel his scream in my bones.

  Twenty-Three

  Behind me, Orsino gives off nothing—no shock, no pain, no confusion. He’s out cold. But the crowd ripples with sensations—surprise, and then fear—as several people bend down around Darius and try to help, try to simply learn what is wrong, but get nowhere. His body contorts, his eyes press into slits, his voice modulates from a scream to a moan to a scream again.

  Cradling my elbow to support my shoulder, I bend down to try to talk to him, but he doesn’t respond.

  A doctor comes in. The crowd makes room so he can give me an injection in my shoulder, which is quite welcomed, and fit my arm into a sling, which is unwelcomed.

  The doctor gives Darius a long look, the kind you would give a horse that’s gone lame. “A racer too?” he grunts at me. I nod. “What do you know about memory sickness?”

  “That it’s terrible,” I say flatly.

  “That’s more than most people know. Most people have never even heard of it. Only former racers, and I don’t think too many people who survive the race like to talk about it later. Anyway, when a large dose of Oblivion begins to wear off—a dose the size they
give you racers—the forgotten memories usually come back in waves of pain. But I guess you know that now.” He struggles to his feet. “I’ll send someone in with a stretcher. Not much to be done for him but wait it out, I’m afraid.” He glances up at me. “Good luck to you, if you continue.”

  He leaves. The click, click, click of his heels fades away, until the room goes silent.

  I’m kneeling beside Darius, holding his face still between my hands, not knowing what else to do, when someone taps me on my good shoulder. I turn to see a man and woman dressed in white smocks, with concern in their eyes and rubber gloves on their hands. They set a stretcher on the floor beside Darius. I lift my head. The room is empty. The crowd is gone.

  How long have I been leaning over Darius? How long has the only readable emotion been coming from Michaela, seated behind me on the edge of the stage? Orsino is nowhere to be seen. If he woke up and walked out or was carried away, I have no idea.

  I stand by as they load Darius onto the stretcher, and I have to bite my lip to keep from telling them to go easy. But his whole body is like a clenched fist, and I doubt he feels a thing. They carry him a short distance down the hall to the infirmary. I guess it makes sense that it’s close to the gym.

  “He can’t go on. At least not yet,” Michaela says when we’re alone. “If you’re going to continue in the race, you should go now, without him.”

  I feel a bit of pity for Darius, which only makes me angry at myself. After all, I’m the one who just got the tar kicked out of her. I earned the right to get on that train and be chauffeured to the next checkpoint. And now the decision of when to leave Darius has been made for me, which is a relief, to say the least.

  A man walks into the gym—an older man with tattoos decorating the scar where his embed once was. He tells me he’s been sent to lead me back to the train.

  “Good luck. I think you may have a real chance of winning this race,” Michaela says.

  “I got what I wanted. I earned my ride to the next checkpoint,” I say. But then I wiggle my slinged arm at her. “Hopefully, I didn’t pay too high a price.”

  “You have an injury. So what? You’re quite resilient,” she says. “I saw you lose to Orsino more than once today. Everyone knew you had lost, except for you.” This is a strange sort of praise, but I’ll take it.

  When we get back to the train, my guide shows me to a paneled sleeper car with all the amenities: a bed under a thick red bedspread, a bureau with a mirror, even a sink with running water. “Is the trip so long that I’ll need a bed?”

  “I watched that match. I’m sure you could use some rest,” he says. I catch sight of my reflection. I could use a scrubbing, too. “And it’s long enough. You should be able to get a good nap in, at the very least.”

  I nod, and he’s gone.

  I shrug off the sling and stretch my arms over my head. My left shoulder aches, but whatever was in that injection, it’s killed the swelling and made the pain tolerable. I throw the sling in the trash.

  At the sink I wash my face, comb my hair, and reposition Mary’s hair clip. Then I sit on the edge of the bed and wait for the train to move. I try to concentrate on the future—try to make a plan for how I’ll search for the next clue once I reach the Village of Falling Leaf—but my mind is too restless to let me sit. I decide to go for a walk around the train, maybe find my host and ask if he’s got anything to eat, but when I try the door, it won’t open. Either it’s stuck, or it’s locked from the outside.

  “Hello!” I call, slamming my palm against the window in the door. “Can someone come help me? Hello!” I call louder and louder, but nobody appears in the hallway. My voice is hoarse from screaming when the train jerks forward and I’m knocked backward onto the bed.

  I can’t quite smother the suspicion that I was intentionally locked in, even though I try to tell myself it was an honest mistake.

  I raise the shade that covers the window, and I’m greeted by a view of the moon rising over the sand. If I’m stuck in this room, at least I’ll get a chance to learn the terrain, in case I need to come back this way after I find the next clue. I prop myself beside the window and stare out, willing myself to stay alert, but exhaustion weighs heavy on me and I fall asleep instead.

  When I wake, the door to my room is standing open. It’s still dark out. The train is electric, and the night is eerily silent.

  I’m not sure why the door is open now, but I don’t hesitate to leave my car and look for someone who can tell me when we’ll reach Falling Leaf. One, two, three quiet sleeper cars, the shades pulled down over the doors. The fourth car I come to is a dining car. Like the walls of my compartment, these are covered in dark paneling. The car is empty except for one occupant—my host, still wearing his rumpled suit.

  He sits bent over a teacup, reading a sheet of paper by a single lamp, and I’m not sure he hears me. While I stand here unnoticed, I feel in him the anticipation of a confrontation. I wonder if it’s because I was locked in.

  “I’m hungry,” I say, which makes him look up.

  “Well, it’s the middle of the night. There won’t be breakfast for hours, and by then, you’ll be off in Falling Leaf.” He walks to the far end of the car and opens the door of a small refrigerator. “Do you like eggs?”

  When I shrug, he pulls out a small dish and carries it to the table. Despite the unevenness of the track, he doesn’t lurch from side to side, but moves with the fluidity of a snake gliding through grass. That’s about how much I trust him, too. He sets the dish down in front of me. It contains three chicken eggs, boiled and peeled.

  I sit down, uninvited, and pick up one of the eggs and eat half with one bite. It’s delicious, in the way food can only be delicious when you’ve been hungry for too long. “Who are you?” I say, my mouth still full. Right now, I can’t be bothered with manners. “And what do you know about my past?”

  “You don’t believe in small talk, do you?”

  “I don’t have time to waste.”

  “True. We’re almost to Falling Leaf station.”

  Though this information is welcome, it doesn’t answer my question, and I point this out.

  “You haven’t changed, I can tell you that,” he says. He turns his eyes toward the window, as if the view of dark fields under intermittent moonlight is preferable to the impatient look on my face. “My name is Jayden Jael. I’m your brother.”

  I can’t hold in the laugh. “You’re Jayden Jael? Another one?”

  His eyes fly back to my face. “I’m sorry? I’m not sure what you mean.” Confusion stirs in him, but that’s not all. He’s insulted by my laughter.

  “I already met a boy who said his name was Jayden Jael. He also claimed to be my brother, just before he tried to kill me.”

  His eyes move from my face to the window and back again.

  “You have no embed,” I say.

  “I cut it out. A long time ago.” He tugs down the neckline of his shirt to show me his thin, faded scar. He cocks an eyebrow. Like mine, his eyes are dark—almost black—and his straight black hair reminds me of the boy I was told was my younger brother.

  Could this be my older brother?

  The sudden reminder that my little brother already died in the race makes my heart hiccup out of rhythm, and all at once I know how I can tell if my host is really who he says he is. “If you really are Jayden, what can you tell me about Marlon?”

  He tries to keep his reaction small, but it’s obvious I’ve surprised him with this question. “Marlon?” He stands, picks up the paper he was reading when I came in, and sets it down again. He takes a swallow from his cup and then cradles it in his hands. “I can tell you that I remember him as the sweetest seven-year-old I ever knew. I can tell you that he loves you fiercely, but loves our papa more. I can tell you that he’s probably never forgiven me for walking away.”

  He pauses and crosses to the window so I cannot see his face.

  “He has a vocal tic,” he says. “He does this thing where
he repeats what he hears. Because of it, people underestimate him. You were always trying to stand up for him and tell people he’s just fine, which usually made him so embarrassed and angry that he shouted at you, which generally proved your point.”

  Outside the window, red lights flash. We’re passing a crossing. White headlights momentarily light the room. It feels odd, to know that outside this train, people are going on with their normal lives. “So he repeats things?” I ask. “Like what?”

  “Like one line of a song he would sing over and over. Or a sound he heard. The most annoying was when someone would ask him a question, and he’d repeat it right back. That used to drive me crazy.”

  My mind fills with the memory of the boy standing in front of me in the roadhouse, echoing my words. I remember how angry it made me. I don’t speak, but my host must notice something in my silence, because he turns around to face me. When he sees the tears in my eyes, he stops, and I know that he is really my brother.

  “Why are you crying? What’s wrong with Marlon?”

  I drop my eyes and shake my head. My throat is so thick I feel I might choke, but I manage two words. “He’s dead.”

  “Stop that. That’s not funny.”

  “You think I’m being funny?”

  “I know you have no memories—”

  “Not from before the race. But this happened during the race. Marlon entered. He didn’t know I had entered, too, and . . .”

  “What happened to him?”

  “I heard that he died on the road between the roadhouse and the outpost. Exposure, I guess.” I remember the words the stranger said. She described a boy she’d seen dead on the road. A boy with black hair. A real young kid.

  My head spins. I seize on the truth in this story that may prove it’s a lie.

  “The person who told me this . . . It was the same boy who said he was my brother Jayden. So this could be a lie, too. . . .”