The Heartwood Crown

by Matt Mikalatos

  Baileya jumped to her feet in frustration. “Was she dead when she said this to you?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Then how could she blame you for her death? You blame yourself, but she did not. She could not. You don’t see the depth of her love for you, because of your own lack of love for yourself. You say, ‘Oh, she blamed me,’ because you blame yourself, and you cannot hear her words of love which say you were a good brother and did all that could be done.”

  He thought he was out of tears, but they came again. “I loved her,” he said.

  Baileya crouched beside him, her eyes tinged with sadness. She took his face, made him look at her. “You have not only lost someone you loved . . . you lost someone who loved you. Why else would the wound run so deep? You do her a disservice, saying she blamed you. When you say these words, you deny the strength of her love.”

  Jason was sobbing now. Baileya’s words felt like truth, but his mind rebelled against them, fought them, denied them. Baileya spoke again. “You say you are an ordinary man, and yet you convince my brother to let you live—an impossible feat—using only words. You say you are nothing, and yet you befriend a unicorn, you become betrothed to a Kakri warrior, you are at the center of the great changes coming in the Sunlit Lands. You have made fast friends with Break Bones, a Scim who has never loved a human before these days. You are loved by so many . . . David and Kekoa and Shula and, yes, Madeline, and do you not see that when you keep saying you are nothing, you are unimportant, that you make a mockery of their love?”

  “You’re ending our engagement,” Jason said. “They love me, but you don’t.”

  Tears sprang into Baileya’s eyes. “How little you think of me! I have never loved so deeply as I love you. I have father, mother, brothers, sisters, cousins, and I have loved none of them—none of them—so deeply as I love you.” She stood, went to her weapon, leaned on it for a moment as if she didn’t have the strength to stand, then came back to him. She didn’t crouch down this time. “I cannot have a husband who will not receive my love. You do not love yourself, and so you have no room in your heart for love such as mine. My love falls away. It is wasted on you.”

  “So we’re done, then,” Jason said. “You’re going back to the Kakri lands.”

  Now she did crouch down. He couldn’t look at her, but she didn’t speak for a long time, until he did. Tears streaked her golden cheeks, and her face was twisted with sorrow. “Find a better story,” she said. “Then come find me again.” She kissed him, and he tasted the salt of her tears. He felt the sobs rise from within her, and her hand tenderly on his face. Then she stood and walked north.

  “Baileya,” he called.

  She stopped. “Yes, Wu Song?”

  “Before you leave . . . would you make sure Yenil and Shula and David are okay?”

  A smile came to her lips. “Even now you are concerned for your friends, Wu Song. You are a good man.”

  “So you’ll do it?”

  “For you, my beloved, yes.”

  She walked away. He didn’t call after her a second time.

  Jason didn’t know how much time passed. Hours. He still waited beside the lake. He couldn’t see the sun, because the smoke had moved in, covering the sky. He had a hard time breathing. It reminded him of Madeline. He realized how bad it must have been for her. His chest hurt from coughing. He knew the Elenil could come across him here, or animals running from the fires. He didn’t care. He didn’t turn when he heard the crashing in the trees.

  Break Bones came out of the woods, covered in soot and blood. His grey skin was black and red. He saw Jason but didn’t say anything at first. He walked to the water’s edge and sluiced off the worst of the ash. He splashed water on his face. “She was a good woman,” Break Bones said. “Strong. Smart. Kind.”

  “She died to give the Sunlit Lands another chance.”

  “Yes.”

  “Baileya broke up with me,” Jason said.

  “This surprises you?”

  Taken off guard, Jason actually laughed. “I guess not. I spent our entire engagement surprised she was with me.”

  “Was it because of your puny arms?”

  Jason threw sand at Break Bones. “No!”

  “Your big mouth, then. Or your disgusting breakfast food, the brown one. Pudding?”

  “It was most definitely not the pudding, though I couldn’t get her to try it.”

  “Then why, Wu Song?”

  “Because she loves me too much, and I don’t love myself enough.”

  Break Bones grunted. “She is a wise woman.”

  “She was too good for me.”

  “What would she say to that?”

  “She would call me a fool. It’s those sorts of comments that let her know it wasn’t going to work.”

  “You need to learn a new story,” Break Bones said.

  “Yeah.” He threw a rock in the water. “An old woman told me once that if I wanted to leave everything and come and learn, I could go to the desert. She said maybe I would find what I was looking for there.”

  “Then let us go there, friend. The fires are coming quickly and moving faster than you run. We will need to find a place to go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere while Madeline is still on that island,” Jason said.

  Break Bones raised his eyebrows. “Her body is still there?”

  “I can’t get there myself. The island is using magic to defend itself.”

  “I made you a promise once,” Break Bones said. “Do you remember?”

  “Yeah, you said you were going to murder me.”

  Break Bones laughed, remembering it fondly. “No, another promise. I promised I would deliver Madeline Oliver’s lifeless body to you.”

  Jason regarded the Scim warrior. “It’s not like you to break a promise.”

  “Indeed not. When I return with her, will you join us? We three? We will leave this forest behind.”

  A hundred replies danced through Jason’s mind, but he just said, “Yes.”

  The Scim picked up his ax and walked to the water. It pushed him out. He tried again, and his feet sank. The third time he backed off a good distance, ran at the lake, and dove in, ax in hand. He didn’t surface. Jason jumped to his feet and ran to the water’s edge, where he could see Break Bones beneath the water, swimming. He didn’t break the surface, he just swam with great frog kicks until Jason couldn’t see him anymore.

  The smoke was getting worse. Jason could hear the crackling of the fire moving through the forest now. There were big crashes as trees fell over, and a wall of increasing heat pushing at his back. Strange animals came running through the forest, panicked, headed north. Jason moved closer to the water. “Break Bones!” he shouted, but there was no reply. He thought he saw, once, Baileya watching from across the river, but he couldn’t say for certain.

  Jason stepped into the water, dipping in up to his chest, so he could pull the wet T-shirt over his mouth. His eyes burned. He couldn’t stay here long. The fire made a sort of halo over the trees. There were popping sounds and bursts of glowing green sparks shooting up over them like fireworks. The magic, probably. He hoped Dee and Yenil and Shula were safe. And Baileya. Of course Baileya.

  As the flames advanced, he moved farther into the water. It wasn’t resisting him anymore. The moment he realized it, he swam as hard as he could for the island. Swimming in his clothes, with his sneakers on, was harder than he thought it would be. Plus the smoke and his general fatigue didn’t help. He hadn’t eaten since that fruit Baileya had given him, and he couldn’t remember his last full meal. When he got to the shore, he pulled himself onto dry land. He couldn’t see across the water in any direction, it was all smoke. “Madeline? Are you here?”

  Break Bones came out of the haze, carrying something in his arms. Someone. Break Bones had been weeping, something Jason had never seen before. He knelt down in front of Jason. Madeline looked so small in his massive grey arms. Her head was turned to the side, he
r eyes closed, like she was sleeping, her blonde hair nearly dragging the ground. On her head was a delicate oaken crown, made of interwoven branches and just covering her brow. “Hold out your arms,” Break Bones said.

  Jason shook his head. He couldn’t. He couldn’t do that. But Break Bones said it again. Then a third time. He put his arms out, and Break Bones slid Madeline into them. He collapsed over her, putting his cheek against hers. Her cheek was cold . . . and stiff, like cooled wax. The weight of her in his arms reminded him of that day—it seemed so long ago now—when she had fallen in chemistry class. How he had picked her up to carry her to his car, to get her to the hospital. To save her. To be there for her. And where had he been this time when she needed him? Across the river, crying.

  Break Bones stood and quietly walked away.

  “Oh no,” Jason said. “Oh no, no, no.” He didn’t know what he was saying, but he kept speaking to her, telling her what he liked about her, what he would miss, how she had changed him, repeating over and over his love for her.

  A bearded man stood over him. He wore simple homespun clothes and a twist of holly on his head. He had the look of a woodsman, maybe, and his eyes were kind. “I am sorry, Wu Song, but I must take her now.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Like you, I am one of Madeline’s friends,” the man said. “Now I must take her body. Do you see the glow?” There was a glow, a green light, coming from the center of Madeline’s chest. “That is the Queen’s Seed, and it is time to plant it.”

  “I can’t let her go,” Jason said.

  “Walk with me awhile, then, and I will show you where to lay her.”

  The man helped Jason to his feet. Jason followed him, struggling to carry Madeline. Break Bones fell into step beside him, and he did not speak a word. Break Bones did not try to help Jason with the weight of his friend, and Jason was strangely thankful for this. They walked toward the center of the island, where there stood a very old, very tall tree, with golden fruit hanging from it and rotten fruit on the ground all around it. The core of its wide trunk was gone—it was a hollow space, dark and cool, with only maybe six inches of living tree under the bark. A throne was carved into the living part of the tree. It seemed to jut out from the main part of the trunk, beside the wide crack where the hollow center could be seen.

  “This is the place,” the man said. “We must tear down the old growth to make way for the new.” His eyes went to Break Bones. “Will you push against the tree, friend?”

  Break Bones did not answer, but he moved to the back of the tree and, grunting, pushed against it. It creaked. Break Bones strained against it, and it cracked in half, falling over and shattering into many pieces. Part of the lower trunk—including the throne—still stood.

  “Here is where we must lay her. In the hollow space, Wu Song.”

  Jason stepped inside the hollow trunk and laid her gently on the ground. It was soft, like moss, and her body sank into it a little.

  The man said, “It is time to say good-bye.”

  Jason kissed her on the cheek. “Good-bye, Madeline.”

  She sank into the ground, soft and slow, and she looked so quiet and still and at peace. The green glow from her chest increased as she sank, and soon her body was gone, but the green glow remained, spreading through the ground. A tender shoot sprang up from the center of the space, and in a matter of moments it thickened and grew taller and became the white trunk of a slender, beautiful sapling with golden leaves. Jason ran his hand over the smooth bark.

  “She is called the annagini vasagi, the Queen’s Tree,” the man said.

  They watched the tree as she grew. She continued to reach gracefully for the sky, and there was a sparkling shimmer to her bark. It wasn’t quite white, Jason realized, but a golden color so light that it almost appeared white. When the tree reached about ten feet tall, she slowed and then stopped growing, at least visibly.

  Break Bones came to Jason. “She was a good woman,” he said. “I know she was a kind of family to you.”

  “Yes,” Jason said. “I didn’t even know her that long.”

  “I want to share something with you,” Break Bones said, and as Jason watched, his war skin melted away. It was a bizarre sight, as if Break Bones had a thick layer of mud over his entire body and Jason was watching it be washed away. His tusks shrank and then disappeared. His massive forehead receded, his monstrous muscles sluiced away, to be replaced by smaller ones. He looked distinctly . . . human. Black tattoos covered his arms. His hair was black and plaited down his back, and his skin was a dusky brown, not the concrete grey Jason had grown accustomed to. “I have never shown my true face to anyone but the Scim. Not even to Darius, who is nearly Scim himself.” He took Jason’s forearm in his. “I am called Croion. From this day, we are brothers, Wu Song. When you call, I will answer. When you go to war, I will be by your side. I shall have secrets from you no longer. My true name, my true face, all these things are in your hands now.”

  “Croion. Thank you for sharing your true name. I will keep it safe,” Jason said. “I am Wu Song. Everything you have said is true for me, too.”

  “You told me your name when we first met.”

  “I am a very trusting individual,” Jason said, grinning.

  Croion roared with laughter. “I will wait for you on the other side of the river. Think on where we will travel next, and I will chart a path for us.” He bowed low to the bearded man and said only, “Your Majesty.” Then he was gone.

  Jason stood looking at the tree for a full ten minutes before the man spoke again. He said, “She loved you very much, you know.”

  Jason smiled. “I know. She told me.” His eyes met the man’s. He felt helpless, lost, without direction. Madeline was gone. Baileya, too. Even Dee was off with Yenil somewhere. Of course there were still people trying to kill him. One fewer these days now that he had talked to Bezaed, but still: the Elenil, the Scim, and the Zhanin. Still lots of angry magic people. He didn’t even have to stay in the Sunlit Lands anymore. He could return home if he wanted. He wasn’t sure what should be next. “Where will I go now?”

  The man clapped him on the shoulder. “You have a good heart, Wu Song. Follow it.”

  33

  ASHES

  We must cast it in the flames

  or be consumed ourselves.

  FROM “THE SEED,” AN ALUVOREAN POEM

  Flames. Fire. Death.

  Shula ran through Aluvorea, bringing these three things with her. Flames crackled from her skin, lighting the underbrush on fire. Behind her, close behind, came the magically induced conflagration of the firethorns, exploding like fireworks . . . complete with the popping sound of the launch, the crack of the release, and the sizzling sound of magic falling to the ashen ground. And death? Death she always carried with her.

  She did not know if she was crying, did not know if tears were trying to make tracks down her scarred face. If they were, they were licked away by the flames. She only knew that she must run, must spread this fire within her to every flammable thing she could find.

  A small herd of white deer burst from the bushes in front of her, leaping and running and trying to stay ahead of the flames. She did not care, just kept running, the hot wind at her back, the sparks of the magic fire overtaking her, lighting the path ahead.

  Soon the flames had passed far enough ahead of her that she could see only fire in every direction. The last time that had happened she’d been in her apartment. She saw the people jumping through the flames, catching on fire. Saw the man who had cut her face, the way he looked at her in the light of the flames.

  Why don’t you leave Syria? That’s what people asked her. So many of her friends had gone. So many of the families they knew. But her father said he was a pastor, and he would stay. Her mother would say with some bitterness, “The question is why so many other Christians would leave.”

  Their church shrank away to nothing, but then the local imam said the mosque didn’t have anything more to c
are for people, refugees or locals or anyone, and to “go see if the Christians will help you.” They did. The church grew and swelled and grew again, and soon there wasn’t room for more. Shula’s youth group went from five to sixty, most of them Muslim. The volunteers and her father and others in the church kept reminding one another, “This is a blessing. When did we think we would have so many Muslims in our church?”

  What else changed? Not much. It was harder to have enough toilet paper. People kept taking it, for one thing, but also there was just so much needed. They didn’t have enough food, enough anything but air. The electricity came and went. The only thing that stayed was her family, and a few others.

  The Russians were bombing them. The terrorists were on the streets. The government soldiers weren’t any better. Shula’s best friend moved when a tank set up in front of her house and started shelling another neighborhood. It’s hard to believe that your family will be safe when a tank is sitting outside the entry to your stairwell.

  The man with the knife—she couldn’t even allow that story in her mind. Couldn’t bear to see him coming at her out of the darkness, the knife in his hand. Didn’t want to remember the smell of stale garlic on his breath, the feel of his gut as she punched him and ran, or the sound of his feet behind her. When he caught her . . . he thought the feel of his blade on her face would make her quiet, would make her stop fighting—and maybe on any other day the fear would have taken control, but on this night she had seen, she had heard the bombs, and they were in her neighborhood, and even though he threatened and cursed and then sliced her face, she fought him. Someone walked past them—walked past!—and did nothing, and she shouted and finally bit him, and when he dropped the knife, she picked it up and told him that if he came near, she would do more than slice a cut, there would be chunks.

  She had hidden in an alleyway, panting. She could not stay for long, could not stop, had to get to her family, had to make sure they were alright. That’s when Hanali had approached her. When she saw him coming out of the shadows in his pale-green jacket and cream shirt, she had prepared herself, holding the knife toward him. His gloves were scarlet, she remembered that.