by Reilyn Hardy
I keep my head low and avert my eyes, no words escaping from my mouth. I wonder if I can even talk if I want to. I don’t want to either way. It doesn’t matter.
I don’t look up at him still, I don’t move and a deafening silence falls between us.
My eyes are darting side to side as I remain facing the ground.
Finally, I answer — but he isn’t going to like what I say.
“My name is Maestri Craft of Newacre,” my voice comes out weak, hoarse and pathetic sounding, but I don’t care. My throat is dry. “And I’m not a thief.”
I glance up at the king and watch as he flicks his wrist, like he’s waving my words away.
“Return him to his cell,” he orders his guards and unhooks his ankles. Pulling his legs back, he plants both feet firmly on the ground beside one another. “I’m tired of his lies.”
“I’m not lying!” I yell as the guards seize me by my arms, jerking me up from my knees. I scramble to get to my feet so they don’t drag against the floor. I try to find footing, but they start pulling me from the hall too soon. “I’m not! I’m not a thief!”
“You’re lying!” The king slams his palm against the corner of his armrest with such great force, that it cracks and crumbles beneath his hand, as he snaps forward in his seat. “For such disrespect, tomorrow on the platform, I will personally remove your head from your shoulders. You’ll die with your guilt flooding to your brain.” The black vertical slits of this king’s bright turquoise eyes remain fixed on me as the guards pull me out of his sight.
There aren’t any further words exchanged between us, and my feet drag helplessly, scraping against the ground with every step their stomping feet take. I gave up trying to find footing, it was useless.
Down the dusty steps they bring me, with my heels knocking each edge along the way, they throw me back into my cell and I drop like a sack of potatoes. I land hard on the ground and a muffled grunt escapes my mouth. I flatten my palms down and push against the floor to flip myself over onto my back. A cloud of dirt lifts into the air and it settles back down against me.
I stare up at the iron bars.
Dragons were known for their masonry and ironwork. True craftsmanship went into the structure of these cells, built to keep in even their own kind.
There is no escaping. Not that I plan to try.
I roll my head against the ground and look to the left as I listen to the iron door scrape against the stone when they close it, bolting it shut. There is an older woman in the cell beside mine. Her graying hair is frizzy and unmanageable. She’s laying on her side, knees tucked in with the chain of her shackled wrists resting against her shins. I keep my eyes on her. She is still as the dead, but she’s breathing. I can hear her wheezing.
But her stillness isn’t the reason for my staring. It’s her stockings that look too big, trying to hide her knobby knees. Near the seams, is an embroidery. I squint a little to take a closer look. I can’t really see it from where I lay but it looks like —
“Eh Mae, ya thirsty?”
I look to the other side at Vihaan. A man a while older than me and much larger. At full stance, he towers over me like a giant. He’s shirtless, his arms are thick and defined, and his skin is mud soaked. He is waving his metal cup through the iron bars of our joint cells and he sits back against the stone wall, brushing away strands of his dark brown hair out of his face with his free hand. There are creases at the outer corners of his eyes, most noticeable when he smiles or grins, but he doesn’t do that much. He has thick dark brows and a black scruffy beard that shadows his face and most of his neck. But his chest only has a cluster of hair at the center.
I don’t even have stubble on my lip beneath my nose. I barely have any hair anywhere aside from on my head. I don’t even have much on my legs.
Next to Vihaan, I feel like a boy. Not a man at all.
Not at all. I’m not a man.
I sit up slowly and drag myself over to his side of the cell with my palms. I can hear the liquid sloshing around in its metal holder as he sways his arm, and my throat becomes drier with every breath I take. Vihaan’s been kind to me; giving me his food and water. I don’t deserve it, but I take it anyway.
I grasp the cup with both hands just as my shoulder collides with the iron bars.
“What’s ya damage then?” He asks, and arches one of his thick brows while I dump the water down my throat.
“He wants to behead me,” I say and tilt my head back, holding the cup over my face. I shake it violently. I want every last drop of water. “Himself.”
The metal cup muffles my voice but he seems to hear me just fine.
“Is it because ya won’t tell him the truth?”
I stop fumbling with the cup and throw it back onto his side between the iron bars. It knocks against the farthest wall and clatters against the floor before spinning to a stop.
“I did tell him the truth! What do you know?”
He doesn’t threaten easily. Our sizes are incomparable. But we’re separated by iron bars and he can’t hurt me from here. I know I can speak freely, and there’s nothing he can do about it.
“I know a lie when I hear one and ya definitely not a ‘Maestri’.” There’s amusement in his voice, like he finds this all to be some sort of joke.
I huff and run my hand over my face, I can feel my fingers leaving traces of dirt against my skin.
“What am I then, Vihaan?” I ask, clanging my chain around to try to make myself seem larger. I probably look stupid. But I was just told I’m going to get executed.
What do I care anymore?
A smirk peeks at the corner of his lips, but it is barely noticeable in the dark of the dungeons, paired with the scruff that shades the bottom half of his face. I attempted to make my voice sound like his, deeper. More intimidating. But I didn’t make it. Our voices differed too greatly in pitch. His is deep, low like the roar of a lion.
“Why don’t ya tell me?”
“What’s it matter to you for?”
I am barely a man yet. I sound like a cub.
He shrugs. He leans forward where he sits and rolls up his black trousers that barely reach his ankles. “Ya will be dead tomorrow anyway. What’er ya got to lose?” He drapes his arms over his thighs and sits up a little straighter.
“It’s a long story,” I say, collapsing against the wall beside him.
“Ah.” Vihaan grins now and leans toward the bars. “So there is a story. Well, we’ve got all night. Unless ya in a rush to die.”
I don’t want to die.
I don’t even want to think about it.
“What happened to her?” I ask, trying to shift the conversation off of me and onto the woman in the dungeon with us. She hasn’t moved at all, not even with all of the noise I was making since I returned. She just remained as she was, with her shallow, wheezing breaths. Her body barely moves as she breathes.
“Dunno,” he says. “She was like that when they brought her in and hasn’t moved at all.”
“Not even while I was gone?” I ask, looking at the metal plate of untouched food that sits near the door of her cell, just out of my reach. Even if I stretch my arm through and scratch along the ground, I won’t be able to reach it. Not even with the tips of my fingers.
“Not at all,” he says. “Ya hungry?”
As if on cue, my stomach growls at the mention of food. I tear my focus away from the metal tray and look over at Vihaan like a helpless puppy. He suppresses a chuckle that escapes as a scoff, and he reaches into his pocket, pulling out a bread roll. It looks tiny in his palm. He drapes his hand through the bars.
“What are you in for?” I ask, grabbing the roll without second thought. I tear a piece of bread and pop it into my mouth. I want to make it last as long as I can.
“Treason,” he says. He’s nonchalant about his crime and my mouth falls open, half stuffed with the chewed, unbuttered bread.
“And they’re letting you live?” I raise my eyebrows before c
ontinuing to chomp on my bread. I chew and chew till it melts in my mouth.
“I made a mistake, I’m paying for it now.”
“King Solomon thinks I’m only a thief and wants to behead me. Actually separate my head from my shoulders. You committed treason and you get bread and water?”
“The guards say ya tried to steal the Heart of Mithlonde.”
“I didn’t steal it! I was trying to bring the dragons back home.”
“What? We are home.”
“I meant back to Aridete.”
“I’m not following. I don’t understand how —”
I shrug. “It’s complicated.”
“Ain’t it always?” He leans back against the wall. I finish the roll before I realize it’s gone and there’s nothing but breadcrumbs in the creases of my palm.
Vihaan’s staring at me.
“So tell me then, Maestri. Who’re ya? How were ya supposed to bring us back to Aridete? How did ya even get here? It’s no easy feat getting to the land of the dragons. The Grim Reaper made sure of that years ago, and don’t try giving me crap about it being out of the goodness of ya heart. Ya seem like a good kid, but I know it’s not. Why’re ya here?”
“You sound like King Solomon now.”
“I’m just a curious prisoner.”
“So he says,” I scoff.
“So I do,” he agrees.
He didn’t argue with me. Probably because there is no argument. I don’t have anything to lose now. I have already lost it all. So what if I spill my secrets to him? I will be dead tomorrow, and none of it will matter. By the end of tomorrow — maybe even before the day truly begins — my head will be removed from my body. Separated from my shoulders by the dragon king himself. It is a promise I want him to break, but I know he won’t.
I shuffle back and nestle against the stone wall as comfortably as my body will allow. My dirt-colored tunic bunches up at my shoulders behind me, but I don’t care till a cool breeze seeps through the bars of the dungeon and chills the skin of my lower back.
I reach behind and tug the material down.
I click my tongue and look around in the darkness. I don’t know where to start. There are so many places to begin. I feel like I’m searching the dungeon ceiling for an answer — a starting point or something — anything.
I sigh.
“You’re right,” I say finally. “My name isn’t Maestri and I’m not of munfolk.”
Out of the corners of my eyes, I can see him sit up, but I don’t turn to look at him.
“My name is Artemis, and I’m the son of Father Time.”
He will know the truth.
“I’m a chronomancer.”
CHAPTER TWO
the vernal equinox
It was supposed to be a Spring like all the rest. It was Jace’s — my best friend’s — favorite time of the year and we never missed a Vernal Equinox in the Woodlands. I tried every year to keep him out of my room, and every year, my attempts failed.
“Wake up, sleepyhead!” Jace shoved me in the shoulder. “We’re gonna be late.”
My eyelids fluttered and I rolled from my stomach onto my back. I tried to pull the covers over my head, but he ripped the sheets from my grasp. I opened one eye and quickly pulled away when I was greeted by his foot.
“Get your foot out of my face!”
“Smells good, don’t it?” He grinned while he wiggled his toes. I swatted his foot away and sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes with the bend of my finger.
“What are you even doing in here? I locked my —” I spotted my doorknob hanging loosely in his grasp. “You broke my door? Jace!”
“It was an accident,” he said, and tossed it to the side. It collided loudly with the floor while the door swung freely in the wind behind him. “Next time, don’t lock me out.”
I met Jace when I was nearly twelve years old, and his strength had increased significantly in the past few months. He broke more things around the house than he meant to, and sometimes he’d even rip the whole door right from the wall. At least that hadn’t happened this time.
“You have to be more careful or everyone will know.”
“No one suspects.”
“Not yet, but you turn two decades soon.”
“And then I’m outta here so it won’t matter anyway. And even if they did find out, no one’s gonna actually try to hunt me down.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I said as I swung my feet off of my bed. “I could name a few — more than a few — fathers who don’t like you. Then there’s Mr. Jameson, and you’re far from being his favorite. I bet he’d try to hunt you.”
He just grinned at me and tucked his long dark hair behind his ear. After a while, he had refused to cut it. Jace didn’t look like most of the people in Newacre. They were all blonde hair with blue or green eyes. Pale white skin, the sun’s rays unable to really pierce through the veil of ash that polluted the skies. But he was still as tan as the day I had met him, only now his hair was a lot longer. He was Native, with family from the East and he stuck out like a sore thumb. Not that he cared. Me, on the other hand, I hated to stick out. I hated when people looked at me for too long. I wasn’t white either, at least not fully, but I could pass for it better than he could.
I wasn’t ashamed or anything, I just didn’t like being different.
“Come on, freckles,” he said and threw me a shirt. “Put some clothes on and let’s go.”
I pulled the shirt over my head. I stuck my arms through the holes and only caught a glimpse of my hands before I had to do a double take. I groaned.
“What?” Jace asked.
“Zoirin painted all of my nails,” I said while staring at the black nail polish that coated my fingernails. He laughed while I chipped at them.
“You’re the one who let her do it.” He held up his thumb, index and middle fingers. “She started to do the same to me but I stopped her.” He turned his hand and folded his fingers over to look at his nails. “At least it’s black, could’ve been worse.”
“I’m never watching her again,” I declared and crossed my arms.
“Yeah, tell that to her mom. It’s just nail polish, Mae. It comes off.” He chipped a little off of his thumb. “See?”
“That’s not — I don’t want to give Ferris another reason to bully —”
“Don’t worry about him.”
“Easy for you to say.” I sighed and got to my feet. “He doesn’t bother you.”
“He does. It bothers me when he bullies you and I’m gonna make sure he doesn’t.”
“You’re not always going to be around,” I said and grabbed my jacket. I directed my attention to Jace, who was only a little taller than I was. “You’re outta here when you turn twenty, remember? Or did you already forget that?”
“I can’t stay —”
“I know,” I said quickly, cutting him off. I wasn’t trying to make him feel guilty. I’d figure something out. But then a smirk crept across Jace’s face. I instantly backed away from him fully knowing what was coming. I hated when this happened.
“No,” I started, “don’t you —stop!” It was too late. Jace looped his arm around the back of my neck and pulled me down while he dug his knuckles deep into the center of my head. “Let me go!” I struggled to break free, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to until he decided to release his hold. He was too strong.
“What was that?” He asked, pretending not to hear me as he tightened his arm around my neck.
“Jace! Let me — go!”
We nearly fell over when I struggled harder and he finally obliged.
“Are you getting stronger?” He teased me with heavy sarcasm in his tone.
I rubbed the center of my scalp and ran my fingers through my thick, curly black hair. I tugged on it a little to try to ease the pain.
“No, but you are,” I grumbled.
* * * * *
We left the house as quickly as we could and I followed him to the hole we had
dug. The Woodlands were fenced off from Newacre and the only person to have come out of the forest and into town, was Jace.
He was wearing a loose shirt with the sleeves torn off and I could see the scars on his back, reaching out to his shoulders from when he tried to crawl beneath it the first time. If I moved faster, maybe he wouldn’t have them.
As a kid, I knew Jace as the boy who lived in the forest. For weeks, we met everyday at the fence. We talked while we dug the hole that we’d crawl under someday. It was like having a brother again.
But one day, he was late.
It was already dark when he came running, and a flesh-eating horse galloped closely behind him. He was shouting at me to pull the fence, but I was frozen where I stood. My own nightmares were crashing down on me. Nightmares about the gorgons — killing David and kidnapping my brother. I couldn’t move. Then the stench of blood filled my nose and I was yanked from my thoughts. I looked down and saw the fence tearing through his flesh as he tried to crawl beneath it. Digging his nails into the dirt, pulling himself to the other side, while the metal tried to hold him back.
If I pulled the fence back when he asked, he wouldn’t have those scars. He didn’t blame me, and he didn’t know I blamed myself.
It was severely bent now, from the two of us constantly pulling it back to allow passage every Spring, every year after. Jace went through first, and asked me about the forest spirit once I joined him on the other side. He was always hopeful he’d see it again, but I wasn’t convinced. I was pretty sure he wasn’t real. He hadn’t appeared during any of the other times we went to the Woodlands, and I knew this time wouldn’t be any different.
“I still think you made him up to make yourself seem more interesting,” I said.
Jace scoffed. “You’re the one who wanted to talk to me, remember? I was — no I am plenty interesting.”
“I still don’t think he’s real,” I said.
“Do you have faith in anything? You probably wouldn’t believe me even if he was staring you right in the face.” Jace ran his fingers through his hair as he pushed it out of his face and tucked it behind his ear. “I saw him, Mae. Just believe me.”