The Green Ember (The Green Ember Series Book 1)

by S D Smith

  “It was magnificent,” Uncle Wilfred said, “among our happiest days. That is when we all began to believe that anything was possible with this heroic king on the throne.”

  “He won many other wars,” Lord Rake continued, “with the help of his incredible band of warriors, like Lord Perkin One-Eye. He had Harlen Seer, Stam, Pickwand, Fesslehorn, and Gome the Agile. Never before, and not since, has there been one to compare with him. We believed him indestructible.”

  He paused and shook his head sadly. “We were wrong.” Now he was at the eighth window, and he hung his head.

  Heather studied the scene. The center showed King Jupiter and the grey rabbit, the very familiar-looking grey rabbit—even from behind—as they surveyed the open horizon with shattered instruments of war at their feet. Peace. Liberty. Rest. The window was a scene that would inspire any who saw it. Unless they knew more, she suspected.

  Uncle Wilfred stood before them, trying to smile. “There’s no use delaying, children,” he said. He pointed at the grey rabbit. “This is Garten Longtreader.” He almost spat the name. “He was King Jupiter’s chief ambassador. Together, they brought peace to the known world. Before the Lords of Prey came, their policy ruled. King Jupiter held the world together, and Garten Longtreader was his thread. For years he traveled far and wide, spreading King Jupiter’s peace. The Longtreaders were all employed in this service, and Garten was our captain.” Uncle Wilfred shook his head and closed his eyes, as if he might drive the reality from his mind.

  “It truly was marvelous work,” Lord Rake said into the silence. “Until the turning.”

  “This is my brother,” Uncle Wilfred said, indicating the image of the grey rabbit, Garten Longtreader.

  “No!” Picket shouted, tears streaming. “Father would never do that. He wouldn’t betray the king; I know it! He couldn’t have!”

  “Now, now, son,” Lord Rake said. “Let your uncle finish.”

  “Picket, no,” Uncle Wilfred said quickly, frowning. “Your father never did. No, son. Not your dad. Garten is our oldest brother. Your father and I were his lieutenants.”

  Heather sobbed, relieved to learn that her father wasn’t the betrayer pictured in the eighth window. “So our father is innocent?” Heather asked.

  “No,” Uncle Wilfred said, “no more than I am. He and I both feel—and deserve to feel—tremendous guilt over what happened.”

  “Too much guilt,” Lord Rake said.

  “Never!” Uncle Wilfred roared. “We should have known; we should have found out. There were clues we should have followed. We could have saved the king.”

  “No one who knows the truth can doubt your loyalty, or that of their father,” Lord Rake said. “It’s only those who don’t know the full story who still doubt.”

  “And that’s almost everyone,” Uncle Wilfred said. “I’m so sorry, children. Heather, Picket, I beg you to forgive me. Our family name is hated. Longtreader is a curse word. Because of my inaction and misplaced faith we have lost our family reputation. We have lost our king. We have lost all.”

  The children wept and clung to each other. Heather thought of Nick Hollow and the wonderful ignorance of her life. She longed to go back, to forget all she was learning. She wanted to close her eyes to the truth, to walk away and spend her life forgetting.

  Uncle Wilfred pulled the cover off the ninth window.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Jupiter’s Crossing

  The scene was awful. The center circle of the ninth window showed a clearing between two woods, an open crossing between the two places of cover. The field was full of hideous birds—hawks, eagles, owls, and falcons. In the center an enormous black hawk loomed over the form of a brown rabbit, a crown of flames on the ground beside him.

  “For me, this is the worst of it, my dears,” Uncle Wilfred said. “I was there, but my brother, the villain Garten, did not kill me. He betrayed the king, delivered him up to Morbin himself, and stained our family forever.”

  “What happened?” Picket asked, almost inaudibly.

  “I won’t say all here,” Uncle Wilfred said, “but such was King Jupiter’s trust in my brother and your uncle, Garten Longtreader, that he met Garten at the crossing without any cause for alarm. I was with the king, but as we drew near I was sent on an errand to Lookout Point, a fort in the trees overlooking what we now call Jupiter’s Crossing. I was roughed up, gagged, and tied to a post. I could see it all. I watched as the king was set upon, almost totally without aid, by wolves, evil rabbits in Garten’s employ, and the Lords of Prey. Redeye Garlackson was there. Morbin Blackhawk, their king, was there. I heard every word that passed between them. Morbin was sneering, proud. He looked eager to humble the king. I don’t think he meant to kill him, but he had a plan of even more wickedness devised to bring about his evil ends. But the king provoked Morbin.

  “‘You are betrayed, Jupiter,’ Morbin said in his triumphant, spiteful rasp.

  “‘Yes,’ the king said, ‘but it will not hold. All will be well.’

  “‘Well? Well?’ he sneered. ‘You are captive, O great and mighty king. You will die,’ Morbin said.

  “‘Yes, I will. But already an answer to this treachery and murder forms in the mouth of the Great Wood.’

  “‘Then I will burn the wood,’ Morbin sneered.

  “‘Even if you burn the Great Wood down, Morbin Bird, among the smoldering embers they will find that one is green. This is the seed of a new world. It will yield in time a Mended Wood, greater even than what I have seen.’

  “‘A happy fantasy,’ Morbin said, cackling.

  “‘Yes,’ the king said. ‘I am my father’s true son, and my son is true. Let your talons strike; let the sky blacken with your cursed foul army. You cannot kill an idea. You cannot murder a dream. You will fail, Morbin, because—’ But he was allowed to say no more. Morbin did his foulest deed,” Uncle Wilfred spoke through tears. “And so ended the reign of King Jupiter the Great.” Uncle Wilfred could say no more.

  Lord Rake picked up the telling. “And so ended the golden age of the Great Wood and the Hundred Warrens. Morbin did burn the Great Wood. The afterterrors, as you have some idea, were a true horror. Wolves, led by Redeye Garlackson, were let loose to kill, ruin, wreck, and ravage. Birds of prey, led by Morbin’s lieutenant, Gern, were death from on high. It was awful. Most of the army, by Garten Longtreader’s design, was far away on what turned out to be a clever and cruel diversion. There was really no one there to oppose the rampaging force of blood and fire that overwhelmed the Great Wood, even to the First Warren itself.

  “The king’s family fled; everyone fled. I was, to my enduring sadness, away with the army. By the time I got back, all was a ruin. That’s when we did all we could to save who and what we could, formed the secret citadels, and went into hiding. I persuaded as many artisans and farmers as I could to come here. The one place I knew about that Garten Longtreader didn’t. But that’s another story.

  “I agree with Wilfred that they had meant to keep the king, to manipulate him for their ends. But when provoked, Morbin did his awful work, and Jupiter’s Crossing has been a hallowed, horrifying place ever since. It is the site of our evilest hour, our greatest pain. Jupiter’s Crossing is sacred, terrible, and …” He hesitated.

  Uncle Wilfred spoke again. “Jupiter’s Crossing is the end of the world.”

  Heather felt anger stir inside her. Unfair! The word blasted through her mind. Unfair! She hated the work of Morbin, hated him. Hated all the Lords of Prey. She resented Garten Longtreader, betrayer of the king, ruiner of their family. Father and Mother had fled far to Nick Hollow to escape the name of Longtreader. Selfish as it was, she felt most angered by the unfairness of having never seen King Jupiter in his day, in his glory. She felt like she had all the bad and none of the good the world had to offer. She felt profoundly betrayed, and yet still guilty. Longtreader. Her own blo
od. Her name. Betrayers. Traitors.

  “I’m sorry, children,” Uncle Wilfred said. “I wish I could have stopped it. If I could go back—ah, I have imagined it a thousand times!—and rescue the king. Oh, there would have been a war, yes. The most difficult one yet, against the coming of the Lords of Prey. But King Jupiter would have prevailed. Without him, and with his lords and captains away with the army, the rest were easy to scatter.”

  “And all was lost in the Great Wood,” Lord Rake said. “It’s true. High costs all around,” he said. And Heather saw for a moment what the afterterrors must have meant for Lord Rake’s own family.

  “Many horrors. The ruin of our family being only one,” Uncle Wilfred said. “A small thing, yes. But to us, it’s like a sentence of death.”

  Heather and Picket cried, not knowing what else to do. They felt the crush of this news, the weight of a hated name. “So we are Longtreaders,” Heather said. “And we betrayed King Jupiter the Great.”

  “Our name is a ruin,” Uncle Wilfred said, embracing them. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You might take another,” Lord Rake said, “if you believe it is so spoiled.”

  “Never,” Uncle Wilfred said. “My life’s work has been and will continue to be the restoration of the name of Longtreader to its former place. A name synonymous with Kingsbuck.”

  “I have never gone by the name Longtreader,” Picket said, trying to control his tears, “but from now on I will never go by another.” He seemed to somehow relish this news, as if it confirmed the place he had suspected he ought to occupy in the world. All the joy this day had held was gone, and the bitter, gloomy Picket returned, still more shattered.

  “How can we show ourselves around here?” Heather asked, suddenly panicked. “Do people know who we are?”

  “Many do,” Lord Rake said. “You have no doubt had some scornful looks, some disapproving stares, especially when with your uncle. I’m very sorry to say that everyone associated with Garten is suspicious to most. This is especially so in the citadels, but it’s also true here.”

  “I’m sorry, Uncle,” Heather said. “It’s not fair.”

  “I believe it is fair,” Uncle Wilfred said. “I deserve the scorn. You two and Smalls don’t, however.”

  “None of you do,” Lord Rake said. “Don’t be fools. We’re all on the same side. And we all have the same goal: the Mended Wood that King Jupiter foresaw.”

  Uncle Wilfred and Picket nodded somberly. Heather looked up at the ninth window. The center image was of Jupiter’s Crossing, alive with birds of prey, wolves, and other creatures. The captured king was in the center. The image above showed a great black hawk with a golden face—Morbin, she supposed—beside the grey rabbit, Garten Longtreader. They looked down on the body of the king, Garten bending to pick up the fallen crown. The wreathed flames of the crown glinted in the sunlight; the jewels shone brightly. But she noticed something amiss.

  The Green Ember was missing.

  The bottom image of the window was a burning wood; homes were destroyed and rabbits fled in terror as birds swooped in and wolves attacked. She winced, recalling her own awful experience and imagining it multiplied across thousands of homes.

  “What’s behind the cloth of the last window?” she asked.

  “It is unfinished,” Lord Rake said.

  “Unfinished?”

  “For the present,” he said.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The Rising

  Heather woke to noise outside her door. Picket’s bed lay empty. She cautiously crept along the wall, listening. Shouts, angry and insistent.

  She cracked the door and peeked down the long stone hallway. She saw Pacer, Lord Rake’s lieutenant, arguing with Gort, the cook, and some other rabbits dressed in livery she did not know. She shook her head and closed the door.

  It had been a week since their initiation, and tensions were high. Everyone in leadership was on edge. Emma had warned her that things were coming to a boil. Cloud Mountain was hosting a conference of most of the lords of the various secret citadels. They had brought along their top captains and plenty of soldiers. The place was teeming with unfamiliar, unfriendly faces. She expected to learn any day that they were all going to have to flee the mountain and find their own way in the world. Or maybe just she and Picket would go. Being a Longtreader was hard, even dangerous, at present.

  She had stayed in her room, sometimes going to read in the libraries. She often saw Picket there, on an assignment from Helmer, of course. He studied old books of war tactics and personal combat and pored endlessly over maps. Picket said that Helmer wanted him to know how to get anywhere and do anything. Heather thought about mentioning what low expectations Helmer had, but she held her tongue. Her brother was, as Mrs. Weaver said, who he was. She would have to deal with that.

  But she hated the suspicious looks of the lords and captains of the citadels. She seethed at the whispers, the cold and angry distance. Emma told her not to pay attention, but she couldn’t ignore it. Picket grew more sullen and determined with each judgmental look. He had been doing double the ordinary training sessions with Helmer, and each night he came back exhausted. He continued to meet with Mrs. Weaver, but he said little to Heather about it. His foot was fully healed, and despite the bruises from his training, he was physically healthier than ever.

  Heather’s unease grew daily. Since the arrival of the citadel leaders, the whole community had changed. Where it had at first felt so warm and inviting, it now felt like a bubbling stew of uncertainty and anger. Maybe the assembly tomorrow would help.

  Lord Rake had called an assembly of all the community in the master hall in the morning. It would mark the thirteenth anniversary since the fall of King Jupiter. That was all she knew. That was tomorrow. She had no idea what to do today. Since their night in Lighthall, where they learned their family’s story, she had sulked in her room. She was ashamed to admit it, but that was the truth. She had tried to distract herself with reading and actually had learned quite a bit more about King Jupiter and the Great Wood, but she knew she would have to act soon. The storyguild was there, waiting for her to come in and shock them all by how powerfully dumb her stories were. They could laugh at her and then ridicule her for her traitor’s blood. She shook her head. I’m not ready for that. Not strong enough yet. The voices of consolation came, telling her she was right. There was no rush. Later, they said. Later, when you’re ready. Too much uncertainty in life now. She dressed and headed for the Savory Den.

  When she arrived she noticed that there were more soldiers than usual nearby and that many of them were unfamiliar to her. They must be from the citadels. Some scowled at her. Most ignored her.

  “Heather!”

  She turned to see Uncle Wilfred. He had been in the corner and was just now leaving. “Hello, Uncle Wilfred,” she said.

  More scowls.

  “I’m sorry we haven’t had time for more lessons, or anything, this week,” he said, putting his arm around her. “It’s been a tough week. I’m sorry. You have needed me, and I haven’t been there for you or Picket.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, loving the comfort of his embrace. “We’re doing okay. Anyway, you have bigger things to tackle at present.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry I do,” he said. “Things are a little, well, uncertain.”

  “I’m picking up on that.”

  “It’s getting,” he bent to whisper, “so tense that we may need to make a plan to get you both out of here. It hasn’t come to that, but I just want to warn you that it may. I’m so sorry.”

  “I understand,” Heather said.

  “I wish I could tell you that everything will be all right, Heather dear. But you know I can’t be sure of that.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, do keep your chin up,” he said. “We all have hope of the Green Ember rising and the dawn of the M
ended Wood.”

  “Yes,” she nodded. She didn’t want to discourage him. She put on a brave face.

  “Of course,” he said, exhaling, “then things will only just have started.”

  “I don’t know if this helps, Uncle,” she said, unable to avoid looking over at the leering soldiers, “but I’m proud of you.”

  “It means the world to me, dear,” he said, a tired smile forming on his lips. “I’ll take encouragement anywhere I can get it, but most especially from my bright, beautiful niece.”

  “All this suspicion is a heavy load, I’m sure, especially for you.” She raised her voice so that those nearby could hear. “All these rabbits all on the same side filled with resentment and mistrust. It’s frustrating.”

  “It is,” he said.

  “It will not be so in the Mended Wood,” she said.

  “In the Mended Wood,” he repeated, his hand over his heart. “Heather, there’s more to you than what’s easy to see.”

  They hugged and he hurried off. As she turned to find some food and a seat, she noticed that the leering guards had looked away. She sat down at an unoccupied table.

  As she ate, Kyle came in. She hadn’t seen him for days.

  “Hi, Heather,” he said. He looked exhausted. His usually carefree attitude was replaced by tired eyes and uneasy glances all around.

  “Hello, Kyle,” she said. “Are you okay? You look so—”

  “Awful?” he said, bringing his smile out again. “I know. I should be.”

  “Been doing tireless noble deeds?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

  “Not very often,” he said. “Listen, Heather. If someone really changes, do you think they can be trusted again? Even if they’ve done bad things in the past?”