The Immortal Walker

by McKellon Meyer

  “You smile like he does.”

  Kaislyn hastily assumed a solemn expression. “I was just thinking I might linger here for a while. I’m curious about what Ikaros will do next.”

  Athalia considered her for a long moment. She pointed at the tray. “In that case, I want you to taste my food.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t trust you. You might have poisoned it.”

  “Why the blazes would I do that? I’m not Ikaros!”

  “Then you have nothing to fear from eating my food.” The princess had resumed most of her composure, her fingers only occasionally trembling. She hadn’t said anything about poison until she’d heard about Fen. Was this part of Ikaros’ game? To poison his own daughter?

  “You’re smiling again.”

  Kaislyn tried and failed to suppress it. “I should warn you that poison doesn’t agree with me.”

  “I should think it doesn’t agree with most people.”

  Kaislyn turned her attention to the tray. There was a wide sampling of dried fruits, cheeses, and a roast in a dark red sauce. She dipped a finger into the sauce and watched it drip off her fingertip like a drop of blood.

  “Use a spoon,” Athalia ordered.

  Kaislyn hastily bent her head and busied herself tasting the rest of the food. She hadn’t expected searching for the moment Ikaros left his birth life to become so interesting. If she could get Athalia to trust her, maybe she would tell her what was really going on here. Perhaps she even knew about Ikaros’ immortal life and when he first visited the mountains.

  She felt Athalia’s sharp gaze on her. Looking for symptoms of poison no doubt. Speaking of which...

  “Don’t eat the meat or sauce, but everything else is fine. Except the wine. I haven’t tasted that and I’d rather not mix a stimulant in just yet.”

  Athalia leaned forward. “So soon you think you know if my food is safe? I do not believe you.”

  “You should.” Kaislyn set her spoon on the table. The cramps pulsing through her stomach increased. Her lungs seemed to be shutting down. Or was her throat swelling? She ran a sweaty hand across her forehead.

  The princess watched her.

  “A little sympathy wouldn’t go amiss,” Kaislyn gasped.

  “I admit you are far more interesting than the other servants, but why should I weep for your death? You die nobly for your princess.”

  Kaislyn sneered as she stumbled to her feet. “Enjoy your dinner, my princess. I’m going to go be very sick in the snow. I might very well freeze to death while I’m at it. I haven’t done that yet.”

  She staggered from the room. The snow was up past Kaislyn’s boots and it trickled into them as she shoved her way to the balcony edge. She clutched the railing with bare hands and pressed her forehead into the snow. The sudden cold relieved some of her temperature. A minute later, she threw up.

  The cramps faded next and her breath returned. Kaislyn almost felt normal again. Compared to other poisons she’d tasted, this was one was on the mild side, if still deadly. She re-entered the palace, stamping her boots clean of snow.

  Athalia looked up from the couch. She arched an eyebrow at Kaislyn. “You left the door open.”

  “It’s hot in here,” said Kaislyn, but she kicked the door shut. “Are you satisfied now? I might die of a cold too.”

  Athalia tapped her nails against her lips once. “You leave me with a serious problem. If my food was poisoned, one of us should be dead.”

  “Excuse me? If?”

  “Perhaps my food was never poisoned to begin with and you made a great show of being sick and near dying. Perhaps you are a spy for the king and seek to gain my trust.”

  Kaislyn choked. “Spy for Ikaros? Are you the mad one now?”

  “Very well,” Athalia said, nodding her head agreeably. “If I presume my food was truly poisoned, that leaves me with some very interesting thoughts, Immortal Walker.”

  “Oh yes?” Kaislyn said, suddenly uneasy.

  Athalia picked up the spoon and mixed her food all around the plate. “Let it be known that I was not feeling well and merely played with my food.”

  “And me,” Kaislyn muttered.

  Athalia’s eyes glinted in the light. She looked so much like Ikaros when he was feeling especially homicidal that Kaislyn took a step back.

  “Let my would-be assassin to try again; you seem eager for my trust. I will be very disappointed if you are not the one to bring my breakfast tomorrow.”

  “Wonderful.” Kaislyn made a sarcastic bow on her way from the room.

  “Why are you wet?” Gav asked when Kaislyn returned.

  “I got lost on my way back. The princess wasn’t hungry tonight. She kept complaining about a headache.”

  “She does that,” Gav said, taking the tray and depositing it on a table. “Come.” He led her to a side kitchen used for baking bread and set her in front of the fire. He handed her a mug filled with a steaming liquid that smelled of honey. “Now stay out of my way.”

  “Will do,” Kaislyn promised. She fell asleep in front of the fire.

  4 | Blood and Poison

  Kaislyn woke on a pallet. The ceiling above her was low and made of crisscrossing beams. “Blazes, no!” she cried, leaping to her feet. She rushed from the room and crashed into a servant in the hallway. Kaislyn focused on the servant’s brown and green dress. “Where am I?”

  “You’re in the servant wing of the palace.”

  Kaislyn looked at her clothes. No cotton shifts. Nice sturdy boots. She ran a hand through her hair. Hidden dagger still there. Not the Fourth City. The Second City. Ikaros’ Ti-em.

  “What time is it?”

  “Past noon.”

  Not bad considering the amount of poison she’d consumed. She rolled her shoulders in a circle, loosening stiff muscles.

  “The princess was furious when you didn’t bring her food this morning. What’d you do to make such a good impression on her? She usually hates all the servants.”

  “She decided I was expendable,” Kaislyn said with a scowl.

  The servant looked at her uncertainly, not sure if she was joking or not. When Kaislyn didn’t elaborate, the servant directed her to the communal washroom and made her own escape. Kaislyn attempted to tidy her appearance as best she could. There was very little she could do about her wrinkled and stained clothes without changing into a dress. She thought of the Fourth City. No. It’d have to take something extraordinary to get her into a dress again.

  The snow had stopped sometime in the night and Kaislyn thought she could get through it with a good pair of snow boots.

  Gav eyed Kaislyn appraisingly when she arrived in the kitchens for something to eat. “There,” he said, pointing at a tray of food. “The princess threw a vase at the other servant who tried to serve her this morning. I guess she likes you.”

  Athalia was lying on the couch when Kaislyn arrived. “Where were you earlier?”

  “Sleeping.” Kaislyn set the tray on the same table.

  “Sleeping.”

  Kaislyn smiled at the glacial princess. “Darling, you may have been too busy to notice, but I was poisoned. Sometimes I need extra sleep afterwards.”

  “I shall keep that in mind.” Athalia turned her head away from the tray and closed her eyes. “Take that away. It smells disgusting and I’m really not feeling well today.”

  “You didn’t eat anything earlier did you?” Kaislyn said in alarm.

  “I’m not stupid. Come back tonight. Perhaps then I will be feeling better.”

  “Certainly. I wouldn’t dream of missing the opportunity to nobly sacrifice myself for my princess.” Kaislyn picked the tray back up and marched across the room.

  Athalia’s voice, soft and reflective, reached her at the door. “You two are very similar you know.”

  “Who?”

  “You and the king. You both are distracted by your own self-importance.”

  “I am nothing like that madman!” Kaislyn cried, insulted
, and left. “‘Very similar.’ Ha! Do I talk to myself? No. I do not. Do I talk to phantom birds? No, I do not! Nor do I dress in ridiculous clothes and prance around for attention.”

  She slammed the tray onto a table in the kitchen. “Very similar? She’s the one related to him.”

  “Fell out of favor with the princess already have we?” said Gav.

  “I see you smirking,” Kaislyn said and stomped from the kitchen.

  With nothing else to do, Kaislyn resumed her explorations. Her bad mood vanished quickly once she was alone. She decided to search out Ikaros instead of risking meeting him by accident.

  She listened to a very long, and very boring, meeting between Ikaros and several councilors. She noticed the same edge to his voice. What was he trying to control? Or hide? She needed to get an actual look at him but didn’t yet dare him seeing her.

  Athalia seemed much perkier that evening when Kaislyn arrived with her dinner. She became even more so when Kaislyn was poisoned in the fruit.

  “Blazes!”

  Athalia pushed the fruit around the bowl with a long nail. “What are you feeling?”

  “Pain? Lots of pain?”

  “Why aren’t you trying to throw up again?”

  “Because this one is different! This one...” Kaislyn wrapped her arms around her middle. She glared at Athalia from her spot curled on the floor. “I know this one. This is the Weeping flower. It’s from the mountains. Everything about it is highly toxic.”

  “How can you recognize the symptoms?”

  “I was bored one day and got into a stupid contest with Ikaros. He was bored too. He tricked me into eating the Weeping flower.” Kaislyn chuckled through clenched teeth. “He thought he’d won but I gave him fire seeds. You should have seen the hives on him! I guess we came out even from that fight. Grehesh didn’t speak to me for an entire week for being so stupid.” Kaislyn groaned and clutched her stomach harder. “Besides, the flower isn’t all that deadly. It looks very pretty.”

  “Why aren’t you dying?”

  “I am dying!”

  “Why aren’t you dead?”

  “Maybe I’m a god,” Kaislyn snarled. “Does this amuse you?”

  “A little,” Athalia admitted. “You babble a great deal when you’re in pain and it’s very interesting.”

  “I hate you,” said Kaislyn.

  Athalia laughed.

  Having had enough of Athalia and getting poisoned, Kaislyn stole a pair of snow boots and tromped to the mountains the next morning. She’d gone to Ti-em to find out when Ikaros first Shifted, and instead had gotten wrapped up in whatever political game he was playing with Athalia. She ought to leave them to it and keep searching.

  Girl, when did she ever leave something alone?

  She couldn’t resist playing too. Ikaros would have an advantage as king, but he didn’t know she was there yet. That gave her some wiggle room. It ought to be interesting, the three of them dancing around each other.

  Kaislyn’s smile faded into a frown. Ikaros had the phoenix. Why was it allowing him to poison Athalia? Wasn’t the phoenix supposed to regulate the ruler, temper any moral corruption of power?

  “If that were the case, it’d never have gone to Ikaros in the first place.”

  Not three dancers then. Four. The phoenix was playing too. She needed to find out what the rules of this game were. She wouldn’t be able to cheat otherwise.

  Kaislyn Shifted to the Second City with a happy sigh. The sun was out and the summer air warmed her chapped skin.

  She ran into Zarif inside the palace gates. “Blast the mountains, Zarif! What’s wrong with you?” Kaislyn croaked.

  Zarif blinked at her. “Are you sick?”

  “No. Yes. I have a cold.”

  “You look like you fell off a cliff.”

  Kaislyn gave a cackling laugh. “Trust me, Captain. This is not what I look like when I’ve fallen off a cliff! I was in the mountains. I want something for my head.”

  “No one’s stopping you.” Zarif continued toward the gates and Marn.

  Kaislyn raided the kitchen of every herb she could find that was supposed to help with colds. Then she took a bath and fell asleep.

  She woke in the evening and when she joined the guards’ game table, clutching a mug of tea, everyone had been playing for a while. Aiden declared he’d never seen anyone with such a bad cold in the middle of summer. “You look like you’re dying,” Marn added helpfully.

  “That, or I fell off a cliff,” Kaislyn said with a glance at Zarif. For a moment, she thought he was going to smile, but he only turned back to the game.

  She lost most of the games, but was too tired to care. Zarif said very little. She thought he spent more time watching her than he did the game. To her dismay, he not only quit after the same round as she did, but also exited the hall in the same direction.

  “You cheated in that last game,” he said, breaking the silence. “I saw you palm the white stone.”

  “If I did, I would hardly admit it to you. You won the—” she broke off and grabbed Zarif’s arm for support.

  The royal captain looked down at her in surprise. “Kaislyn?”

  Unable to speak, she sagged to her knees.

  Zarif picked her up by hunched shoulders and deposited her in the shelter of a narrow alcove. His large body blocked her view of the hallway. Hid her as a servant appeared and passed by with no more than a polite greeting for Zarif.

  Losing feeling in her legs, Kaislyn slid to the floor. Each breath sent an agonizing ripple of pain through her, radiating out from her chest.

  Zarif crouched down in front of her, a mixture of attentiveness and worry on his face.

  Kaislyn squeezed her eyes shut so she couldn’t see him.

  She didn’t move and he didn’t speak.

  The immediate pain of the Shift attack ended in a whirl of dizziness which Kaislyn discovered when she opened her eyes and saw Zarif’s kneeling form spinning around her. She groaned and closed her eyes again.

  “Here.” Zarif’s arms wrapped around her as he tried to pick her up.

  Kaislyn pushed him away. “I can walk just fine, Captain!”

  He froze, then stepped back from her. Kaislyn used the wall for support to get up. She swayed on her feet. “See? Just... fine.”

  “If this is you doing fine, I’d love to see your definition of doing poorly,” said Zarif. “Stay here much longer and someone else will come by and then everyone will know you’re prone to fainting spells.”

  “Prone to... I don’t... I have never fainted for real in my life!”

  “Pretend to faint, do you?” Zarif rumbled. “Come on.” He took her by the arm and half towed, half carried her down the hall.

  She needed to say something, explain this somehow... She remembered her reason to Jaden in the Third City. “I was born too early,” she said. It hurt to talk. “Sometimes my body... fails me.”

  There was a rumble from Zarif.

  “I can’t hear you,” said Kaislyn.

  “I didn’t ask for an explanation, true or otherwise.”

  He hadn’t, Kaislyn realized. What was wrong with him?

  Zarif deposited her gently at her door and Kaislyn eagerly welcomed the privacy of her room. She was more worried about Zarif’s lack of curiosity than she was about the violent Shift attack.

  Kaislyn felt much better the next morning, her sudden cold all but gone. Her shoulder remained stiff from her Shift attack. There were definite advantages to sleeping off many of her ill symptoms, she thought cheerfully. Before starting back for Ti-em, Kaislyn raided the storage rooms for proper winter clothing.

  She suffered the guards’ jokes at the palace gates about her dressing in winter clothes. Zarif was there too, leaving orders for the day. He said nothing while the guards teased Kaislyn. He followed her into the city.

  “What’s this for?” Kaislyn asked, surprised and suspicious. Was he going to ask about last night?

  Zarif glanced at her. “There’s
been some diamond smuggling lately, and the thieves were described as being heavily clothed, blonde, and arrogant.”

  Kaislyn snorted. “Not my doing.”

  “You look like a fat sheep waddling down the street.”

  “Why thank you, Captain. I dressed specially for you today.”

  They walked in silence through the Second City and into the open markets. Zarif said nothing when Kaislyn took the road toward the mountains. She offered him a parting, mocking salute.

  As soon as she was out of sight of Zarif, Kaislyn shed some of her layers, carrying them over her arm. It was hot today. It had nothing to do with looking like a fat sheep. The walk to the mountains went quickly and Kaislyn sighed happily as she passed the invisible line of the mountains. Home.

  She walked a little further up the hills before Shifting to Ti-em. The sky was bright and cold above her and the snow from her last path clearly marked in the snow below her. It would be easier going to Ti-em than it was leaving. Still feeling warm from her hike, Kaislyn bundled her extra layers under an arm and started down the hill.

  At the bottom, a dark shape crouched in the snow. As Kaislyn neared, it stood, turning into Ikaros. His robes were in tatters and the skin on his arms were covered in long gashes. His wild, blue eyes were bloodshot and the beard covering his face was tangled with dried mud and blood.

  Kaislyn shied back from him. “What happened to you?”

  Ikaros was nearly foaming at the mouth. “You knew!” he screamed at her. “You knew and you never said one word!”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Ikaros sneered at her. “As if you didn’t have a hand in it.”

  “Do tell. If I’ve done something to cause you discomfort, I certainly want to know about it!”

  “I’ve been banished! That upstart, pretentious girl-child who has the effrontery to call herself a queen managed to produce an actual curse and banish me. Me! From my own cities!”

  Kaislyn took another step back and wiped some spittle from her face. Only now did she notice that Ikaros’ wrist was swollen and red. No. She blinked. Actually red. Five red stones were burned into his flesh. Ikaros had just come from the Royal City after Raina claimed the phoenix seventeen years ago.