“This man is under arrest by order of His Lord Almighty, King Reynold Safford,” the general announced.
“Under arrest?” My pa’s face was red with indignation. “What for? What has he done?”
“What great little actors you’ve found.” The general smirked down at me. “Or have you tricked these poor innocent people into believing your silly cover story?”
I was too distracted by the sword above my head to respond. General Canron apparently didn’t appreciate my silence. He kicked at the floor, spraying dirt in my face.
“It is good to see you on your knees,” he said. “There is no point in denying the truth, Izayik. You are clever, but not even you can hide from the king’s seers. She touched you with her own hands. You are definitely, absolutely, undeniably Izayik Delaren.”
Mel spoke from the doorway. “As in, Prince Izayik Delaren?”
General Canron turned his back on me. Facing my parents, he said, “You, Izayik Delaren, have been charged with treachery, conspiracy, murder, and treason.”
“What?!” This general must have been out of his mind. When would I have even had the time to cause that much trouble?
“Your punishment,” he announced, “has already been decided by His Lord the Magnificent, King Reynold Safford. You will be put to death.” He crouched down before me so I could see his face. He smiled so wide I could almost count his teeth:
“By beheading.”
Marcus gasped and released the rope he had been holding. The bale of hay dropped from the ceiling and landed right on top of the soldier who was standing over me. His sword clattered to the ground. I snatched it up and scrambled to my feet, holding it out before me.
I was definitely not a soldier. I had never held a sword before in my life. I hadn’t realized they were so heavy. Doing my best to look intimidating, I wobbled the blade in the general’s direction. He scowled at me with poison in his eyes.
The nearest soldier grabbed Marcus and held him. I pointed the sword first at the general, then at the soldier holding my brother, then back at the general.
“Get back!” I did my best to imitate the general’s powerful tone.
The general looked unimpressed. “How quaint,” he said. “Go ahead, Izayik, make a scene. I know how much you adore attention.” He waved his hand, and the soldiers behind him raised their bows, arrows already docked. I hadn’t even noticed they carried bows.
I was beginning to feel a lot less brave.
“Here are your options,” the general said. “You can come with me — quietly — or I will shoot you now and behead your dead body tomorrow. It’s all the same to me.”
“I am not who you think I am.” The sword in my hands trembled. “I have nothing but respect for our king. I have never hurt a soul.”
The general laughed.
My knees began to shake. “I have never even left this village.” I glanced at my family. My father was restrained by a soldier. My mother was white as fresh milk. Mel stood stalk-still with her hands clapped over her mouth.
I should not have looked at them. Canron saw the concern in my eyes and pounced on it like a barn cat.
“Is this how you want to die, Izayik?” the general asked. I assume he was talking to me. “You want to be shot to death in a filthy barn, slaughtered like an old, sick cow? Where is the honor in that?”
“I am innocent,” I declared.
Canron nodded toward the soldier who held Marcus.
My brother screamed as the soldier slit his side with his knife. My mother began to sob.
“That was not fatal,” General Canron told me as the soldier tossed my injured brother to the floor. “The next strike will be.”
I dropped the sword. I wanted to run to Marcus’ side and comfort him, but I was afraid the soldiers would shoot us both.
“I’ll come with you,” I said.
“Good boy,” said the general.
My captors led me to Lord Brenden’s estate, where I found even more soldiers guarding every door and window. Were there any soldiers left on the mainland?
Lord Brenden met us at the door. He was an older man, aloof, but I had always liked him.
“Don?” he demanded incredulously when the general shoved me ahead of him up the steps. I was surprised he knew my name. “This is who you came for? I’ve known this lad since he was a boy. He cries when we slaughter the chickens.”
That only happened one time!
“This is your fugitive outlaw?”
“Stand down, Brenden,” the general growled.
“You come in here like the very world is ending,” Brenden complained as the soldiers dragged me past him. “You terrorize my wife and children, and make a big show of yourself in the village. I swear to you, General Canron, if you’ve hurt any of my people, Safford will hear about it!” Despite my current predicament, I smiled. I had always liked Lord Brenden.
“Where can we keep him?” A soldier shook me by the shoulder.
“Keep him?” Lord Brenden’s face turned purple. “You can’t keep him here! This is my private family residence, not a jail house.”
Canron scowled. “We will leave at first light tomorrow. My men are tired.”
“Yes, I see that. It must be such exhausting work to eat me out of house and home.”
“Mind yourself, Brenden, or the king will hear a report about your hospitality.”
Lord Brenden looked at me with obvious confusion. I stared back at him, hoping to relay my innocence.
After a tense moment, Lord Brenden sighed and looked away. “You can use the wine cellar,” he said. “Just for tonight. Then I want all of you off my property.”
The haze of confusion was beginning to fade, making way for the sharp reality of fear. Lord Brenden could not help me. Who else would defend me? Was I really going to be beheaded?
I was led to the cellar and shoved unceremoniously inside. I almost tripped on the narrow steps. But rather than fall back onto the knife points of the soldiers behind me, I forced myself to stumble forward into the darkness. They offered me no light.
In the dark, I saw the shape of another man, but he made no response to my presence. I realized he was a spirit, unaware that I could see him.
“Let him get drunk,” the general said. “It will be his last chance.”
“One night,” Lord Brenden said.
The door closed on me.
I was left to sit alone in the darkness with my spirit friend. I had only the light streaming under the door to see by. It was only enough light to outline vague shapes.
I pictured Marcus in my mind, terrified and hurt. I worried for him. Then again, if my parents could manage to get me put back together after jumping off a barn roof, I imagined Marcus was in good hands. Mel would take care of him. She would sew him up with as much care as she would when she saw to the mending.
I tried to make sense of what had just happened to me. The general had called me by a different name: Izayik Delaren. Treachery, conspiracy, murder, treason — this Izayik character sounded like a terrible person. And the general was absolutely convinced it was me.
But that was impossible. There was no way I was this Izayik character. I had lived with my family all my life. My mum told stories about my birth. I was not some foundling they had offered a home to.
And yet, thanks to the seer and her horribly hot hands, I had a single vivid memory of a different father. Willian — the one who had given me to Roth-Scheen in the vision. Could it be possible that the first vision the seer had shown me was not a vision at all, but a memory?
I climbed to my feet and paced in the darkness, careful not to disturb the spirit. This certainly wasn’t how I imagined I would spend my last hours. For all the times I had risked my life to get Roth-Scheen’s attention, I had never actually considered what it would be like to die. I had always been so confident that Roth-Scheen would save me.
Roth-Scheen had once called me Izayik.
I was startled by sudden light flooding over me
as the door of the wine cellar opened. I was hopeful for a brief moment before I saw that my visitor was the general. He and two soldiers joined me at the bottom of the short staircase.
“Check him for weapons,” the general commanded.
The soldiers grabbed me and patted me all over. I didn’t bother protesting. I had nothing to hide and didn’t want them to stab me. While the two soldiers held my arms, Canron looked me over with a scowl.
“Do you remember me, Izayik?”
I hesitated. Was this a trick? I had only just met him earlier that day. How bad did he think my memory was?
“No,” I said at last.
He didn’t believe me. “Do you remember the way I begged?”
“Begged for what?” I asked.
Wrong answer.
The general punched me in the stomach. When I doubled over in pain, he grabbed my hair and forced me to face him. “I begged for their lives, you animal.” He was so angry that spittle flew from his mouth. “They were worth everything to me, even my pride.”
He twisted his hand, yanking my hair until I cried out. “You did yourself a great disservice when you killed them. Now I have nothing left to lose.” He pulled me so close I could feel his hot breath on my face. “I want you to think of my family when you die.”
“I didn’t do anything to your family,” I said.
He punched me again. The soldiers dropped me. General Canron spit on me, kicked me, and finally left me alone in the dark.
I rubbed my jaw where his second hit had landed. I didn’t bother getting up this time. What was the point? I lay on the ground and listened to the sound of my breathing.
The darkness in the cellar felt absolute. The spirit I had seen earlier was gone, and I felt overwhelmed with sudden loneliness.
I don’t know how long I stayed in the cellar before the door opened again. I scuttled away from the door like a rat, hiding in the shadows. The soldier standing in the doorway chuckled at my pitiful behavior.
“Don’t worry, you sorry muck-leech,” the soldier said. “It isn’t your time to die yet.”
I couldn’t see any details in her silhouette, but she sounded like a woman. She closed the door behind her and made a show of swaggering down the steps toward me. When she reached flat ground, she hung her lamp on a hook on the wall. I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness.
“They’re making quite a fuss over you,” the soldier said conversationally, reading the labels on the bottles of wine near her lamp. “Big ceremony tomorrow for your beheading. They’re going to stage it in the town square. Seems like you haven’t had a beheading in these parts in a while. I think they’re pretty outdated, meself. Anyway, they’re making this big ta-da about you. It’s like you’re actually the prince.”
“Prince?” I asked.
“Yes, prince. Prince Izayik Delaren. Don’t you know anything? There’s all these legends that the prince survived, which is impossible, you know? He was just a baby. And yet,” she said, wagging her finger at me, “it’s true. He’s alive alright, and he’s been terrorizing Safford and his lot for many winters — as if Safford doesn’t have enough to worry about with the deadmen and all.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
She ignored my question. “Do you like my boots?”
“Your boots?”
She gestured me closer. With a frown, I crept into the light of the lamp. Her boots didn’t match. One was just like every other soldier’s boots, brown leather with silver detailing. The other was made entirely of plated metal, far too big for her, with gold details that reflected the light of the lamp. She looked like some strange creature with feet two different sizes.
“Pretty, huh? Do you want to touch it?” She patted the metal boot like it was a pet she was particularly fond of. “Give it a good polishing as your last act before the king offs you tomorrow?”
“Why would I want to touch your boot?”
“Just touch it!” She grabbed my hand and pressed my palm against the metal. It was unbelievably hot. I cried out in pain and surprise.
The guards outside the cellar door shouted. I heard banging on the door. Had she sealed herself in here with me? Why?
“Well, we’re off, then,” the woman declared.
I felt like I was being turned inside out. I could no longer tell up from down. I was overwhelmed by sudden nausea.
And then we stopped. Stopped moving, I guess. When I opened my eyes, we were no longer in Lord Brenden’s cellar. We were in a small room cramped with tables, chairs, and shelves of books. Papers were strewn all about, tacked up on the walls and weighted down by odd paperweights. Loafing about were some of the most ferocious looking ruffians I had ever seen.
“Here he is,” the soldier said, shoving me to the floor. I cradled my aching hand, too stunned to speak. “He was the lousiest passenger I ever took! He screamed and hollered, and I practically had to carry him the whole way — like the boots didn’t even work on him. And he’s a lunatic deadbrain, too. Doesn’t even know who the Delarens were. Had no idea why they was after him. Complete deadbrain.”
“This is him, then?” One of the ruffians knelt beside me on the floor. He reeked of alcohol and animal urine.
“He screamed!” the soldier woman complained loudly. “Winters of settin’ up that story, and now he’s gone and blown it all. They’ll know it was me. I can’t ever go back. Blasted lunatic deadbrain. Screamed like a howling deadman.”
I was beginning to believe she wasn’t actually a soldier.
“Look at his hand!” The man beside me pried my arm away from my body. My hand was red and blistered as if I had just touched a pot fresh from the fire pit.
“The boot hurt you?” Someone else crowded nearer. “Look at that. Strangest thing I ever did see. Burned him like it was on fire.”
“He deserved it,” the soldier grunted.
“Zarra, relax.”
“Don’t you tell me what to do. It weren’t your story that just got blown, now, was it?”
“Don’t get righteous on us, Zar.”
A door opened. There was a flurry of movement as everyone scooted away from me. A man stepped into the room. He wasn’t nearly as roughed up as everyone else looked. In fact, he was immaculately clean and sported a tunic of fine purple fabric with gold embroidery around the collar. A tunic like that would have cost my family our entire winter’s share.
“Well, well,” he said with a charming smile. “If it isn’t my unfortunate double.”
Double? This frilly little scarecrow looked nothing like me.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I am Izayik Delaren.” He winked at me. “The real Izayik Delaren.”
Relief washed over me like a cool breeze after a hot day in the fields. Here was the real Izayik Delaren. This was all just a horrible misunderstanding.
“Oh, good,” I said, “then you can take me home, and you can be beheaded tomorrow.”
The ruffians laughed. Grasping a nearby table with my uninjured hand, I pulled myself to my feet.
Izayik chuckled, flipping his dark hair out of his eyes. How could I have ever been confused with this man? The two of us were complete opposites. He was slender and angular and dark, a head shorter than me and about half as wide. A sword hung in its scabbard from his waist, and he wore basic leather armor over his fancy, but faded, clothing.
He sized me up at the same time. To his gang of ruffians, he said, “Look at him. Look at his clothes. Clearly from the outlands.” He smiled and said, “Welcome to the mainland. You’ll find it quite enjoyable if you fancy dead things. At least you are fortunate enough to have a charming host.”
“Forgive me if I don’t grovel,” I said. “I’ve had a couple pretty unfortunate first impressions of you.”
“Ah, my infamy precedes me. How exciting.” His eyes danced with merriment. I wanted to like this man, but I couldn’t. He reminded me too much of a snake.
“General Canron sends his blessings.” I rubbed my ja
w. “I got hit a couple times on your behalf.”
Izayik smiled broadly. “Good old General Canron — still desperately hunting me, I see. His antics have become all the more entertaining since he lost his family.”
“He said I— He said you killed them.”
“I did.”
Oh.
“Oh, don’t look so aghast, farmboy. Canron and I go way back. We’ve tortured each other for winters, but he’s never got a good look at me. It drives him crazy — crazy enough to believe I’d look as ugly as you.”
“Ouch.”
Izayik chuckled and patted me on the arm like we were old pals. He seemed friendly and sociable enough. But there was a sharpness, an edge of danger, thinly veiled behind his too-wide smile. He made me more nervous than the general did.
Izayik cocked his head as he studied me. “Hmm, but why you?” he murmured. “I always thought I would take after my mother. But you clearly have the king’s looks. You’re so … dowdy.”
“And you’re so frail,” I retorted.
His mouth twitched. He nodded to a burly man lounging in a corner.
“Check him,” he said.
The large man hurled himself from his seat and seized my arm. He pulled a knife from his jacket and sliced a gaping hole in my sleeve.
“What are you doing?!” I gasped.
“He’s got the Mark,” the big man said, spinning me around to show Izayik my bared upper arm. He jabbed my skin to indicate the small dark birthmark I had always had.
“The Steward’s Mark.”
Izayik looked surprised.
“That’s a birthmark,” I explained. I tried to pull the pieces of my sleeve back together, but Izayik slapped my hand away.
“Hold him,” he commanded. Two of his thugs grabbed me and held me still.
Izayik touched the dark spot on my arm with the gentleness my pa used with injured animals. “Look at this,” he said. “You see that? It’s so small, but … brilliant.” He rolled up his own sleeve to reveal a large mark on his bicep.
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