Walk Between Worlds

by Samara Breger

  For Kelsey

  West, west, west to the ocean

  Onward to the sea

  The steps we take, so in our wake

  Our subjects can live free

  A strong and watched o’er people

  Under our banner high

  West, west, west to the ocean

  Further, to the sky

  Chapter One

  When Scratch had envisioned this day, she hadn’t anticipated that her pants would be so tight.

  “Would you stop fidgeting?” James poked her with the back of his fork. “You look gassy.”

  “I’m not gassy. It’s the pants.”

  He scrunched his forehead, his robust eyebrows merging into one dense hedge. “The pants are gassy?”

  She frowned at him. “I know what you’re doing.”

  “What am I doing?” he asked, blinking his wide green eyes with an air of well-practiced innocence.

  “Trying to make me less nervous.”

  “Is it working?”

  “No.”

  Beneath the uncompromising waistband of the damned pants, her stomach churned. Her skin itched, hidden under three layers of military pomp. Around her, the sounds of feasting and revelry blurred to an unfocused din, like the hum of some monstrously large, drunk bumblebee. The banquet hall was massive, with its tall beams, vast tapestries, and wrought-iron torches casting shifting shadows against the ancient stone walls. Still, it seemed too full, too many soldiers packing the place with their ale-soaked cheers and slurred song. On a metal plate before her, a chunk of ham and a few wedges of potato sweat uninvitingly. She hadn’t taken a bite.

  “Eat something,” James urged, apparently reading her mind. “You look ill.”

  “Maybe I am ill.”

  “You aren’t ill.”

  “Maybe I’m dying.”

  “Scratch, darling.” He set a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We’re all dying.”

  She diligently cut herself a square of ham, chewing it for what felt an appropriate length of time, and swallowed it down, choking. It tasted like dirt.

  “Feel better?”

  “Oh yes, Jamie.” She chased the ham with a rictus grin. “Splendid.”

  “Come on now.” He smiled, flashing a retaining wall of perfectly white teeth. “It’s your special day, My Lady.”

  So it was, though very little felt special about it. She and James sat at their usual table, eating the usual fare, to the familiar off-key tune of the same-as-always minstrels. On the dais just ahead, the king and his court dined before a backdrop of stained-glass gods, reflective effigies flickering in the torchlight. The king was shouting, his face cheerful and ruddy with drink. His crown listed dangerously over his mane of yellowy-white hair, nearly the same shade as Scratch’s own.

  Come on, she thought in his general direction. Do it now.

  Predictably, the man did nothing.

  A drunken band of foot soldiers strolled by, bumping into her back, bonking her ribs against the table.

  “Evening, Bowstring!” they slurred in slippery chorus.

  “Evening, boys,” James replied, lifting his tankard to them. “Stay upright, yeah? Long night ahead.”

  Scratch scowled, watching them go. “Pleased, Bowstring?”

  “Oh, immeasurably.” He licked a droplet of amber from his weak attempt of a mustache. The God of Hair had wasted all the good strands on his eyebrows. “A good nickname, Scratch, is a story of its own. It’s a ballad.”

  “It’s a word.”

  “Two, you’ll find.” He wriggled his nose. “Or a compound word, at least.”

  “It’s cheating. You gave it to yourself.”

  “Did I?” He arched an eyebrow. “Or did Burnfen think of it on his own?”

  “No, you did. Remember, darling, we were out at the pub—”

  “Thank you, Scratch. If you could lower your voice a touch, that would be lovely; there’s a dear.”

  “And you said to Burnfen—after several pints of course, ‘I do love your new name for me.’ To which he replied, ‘What name’s that?’ And you said—”

  “Scratch, I will poke your eyes out I swear to the God of Threats.”

  “‘Bowstring, of course, because I’m tall and lean and I can use a—’”

  “If you’re picking on me to assuage your nerves, it’s very mean and small,” he sniffed, pointedly shifting away. “Go ahead, then. Be nervous. Big night for you. Are you really sure about those pants?”

  That popped her bubble. She speared a potato, squeezing her fork so hard the blue veins on the back of her hand popped out. “Lake veins,” her mother had called them. The water of the Tangled Lakes flows through you. Purpose Keyes had been wrong, of course: Scratch was filled with blood, just like everyone else. Blood and bone and viscera, all turning to sausage within the casing of these ridiculous pants. If she hadn’t been wearing undergarments, they would likely have made their way up to her throat by now.

  “At least someone else looks as miserable as you do right now.”

  Scratch lifted her head. “Hmm?”

  James jerked his thumb towards the dais. Beside the king, the princess poked forlornly at her meal, nodding diligently as the king’s wizard whispered in her ear, his long, oily hair trailing on the wooden table.

  Scratch shivered. “I’d be miserable too if I had to sit next to Gorn.”

  “Nah. She likes Gorn.”

  “She likes Gorn?”

  He nodded. “Ferrin is guarding her now. He says she likes Gorn.”

  “Which Ferrin?”

  “Ginger Ferrin.”

  She scoffed. “Gossip.”

  “Sure,” he conceded. “But an honest gossip.”

  “Oh yes, a model gossip.”

  “The gods’ own gossip. Anyway, Ginger Ferrin says the princess likes Gorn and hates Levon.”

  Levon. Scratch spared a glance for the King’s Hand as he sucked on a bit of hambone, his craggy lips glistening with pork fat and the sticky remnants of ale. Heavy rings loaded his thick hands, the largest sitting atop his pinky like a silvery fortress.

  “Well, if given a choice between the two . . .”

  “And, if you please,” James leaned in close, batting his overlarge eyelashes, “Ginger Ferrin says the princess has a lover.”

  “What?” Scratch yelped, causing a few heads to turn their way. She grinned tightly back at them until her audience was properly convinced there was nothing to see. “How? She’s more protected than a holy relic.”

  “She’s had nearly eighteen years to figure out how to lose the guards, Scratch. What did you think she was doing all that time? Needlepoint?”

  Luckily she was spared having to admit that, yes, needlepoint sounded about right, by the scrape of a chair on flagstone commanding their attention. The king rose.

  “Oh shit, it’s happening,” she hissed. “James, shut up.”

  “I’m not saying any—”

  “Shh. Shut up.”

  “People of Ivinscont.” King Ingomar raised his arms. Under the flames of torches, his crimson garments glowed like lizard eyes in moonlight. “Tonight, we celebrate victory!”

  A hundred flagons slammed on wood tabletops, the racket nearly as loud as the pounding of Scratch’s heartbeat in her own ears.

  “Every inch of land we gain, our country grows stronger,” he continued. “Our nation grows prouder. The colors of our flag become known far and wide as a symbol of unshakable might! Only five years ago, we were a small country. A modest country. And now, thanks to the valiant efforts of our armies, we have grown ever larger, ever stronger!”

  Again, the flagons beat a rhythmless tattoo on the oak boards while a storm of voices shook the rafters with cheers. Scratch gave a
halfhearted “Woo!” James gave a wholehearted “Fuck yeah!”

  “And to whom do we owe this victory?”

  Flagons, tables, cheers. Scratch trembled like a baby chick fallen from the hen house, peeping into the cold night. It was now. Around her waist, the pants tightened nearly unbearably, her stomach roiling underneath. Now. Now.

  “To Lord High Commander Elwyn, of course!” King Ingomar grinned, cheeks turned to orbs of splotches and veins. He raised a meaty hand in acknowledgment of the Lord High Commander, who lifted a skeletal, shaking digit in return. “His planning is the reason that we have returned from the Western Wilds without any losses! His implementation of the great octagon, the clever maneuver that trapped the fighters in their own clearing, allowed for the most decisive victory in the history of our land. West, west, west to the ocean, Ivinscont! Further to the sky.”

  Her stomach sank. Okay. It hadn’t been then. But there was still time. It wasn’t over. Still, he could still say something . . .

  “Thirty years ago, the Koravians tried to claim our lands. They burned up half our nation before we beat those brutes back. Well, look at us now, eh? Larger and greater than ever before. If the Koravians come again, we’ll send them back weeping. Now, be merry. Long live Ivinscont!” the king declared, and sat.

  The room fell silent.

  No. It couldn’t have, because there were the flagons, there were the tables, there were the open mouths wailing to the ceiling with jubilation. But Scratch couldn’t hear a damned thing, save for a distant ringing and something that thrummed like a heartbeat, but too quick. Maybe a hummingbird’s heart, tiny and faint and too fast, too fast.

  She regretted that one bite of ham. It was now charting a speedy course back up her throat—with ice picks, by the feel of it. Her palms sweat and her cheeks burned and the pants, the fucking pants, gripped her so tightly she thought her eyes might pop out of her head.

  “I have to get out of here.”

  James clamped his hand over hers, green eyes dark. “I know. I know, I’m sorry. But you can’t leave so soon. People will know.”

  “I’m gonna—”

  She was ready to say “be sick” but that wasn’t it. It was terribly, horrifically worse.

  She was going to cry.

  She felt eyes on her like finger pads, peeling back her clothes to peek at the skin underneath. Everyone was looking, or else her imagination had run wild and nobody was looking and, gods, which was worse?

  “Just a minute, Scratch,” James murmured. He was so rarely gentle, but when he turned it on, the man could be a blanket. Somehow, that made it worse. “Just a few moments. It’s all right. Just plaster on a happy face. You’re fine. You’re fine.”

  She wasn’t fine, but that was hardly the point. The point was getting through the rest of this meal without bursting into flames. The point was her ten years of service, of good service, without a damned scrap of respect. The point was becoming a godsdamned knight.

  “I’m leaving.”

  “Scratch, where are you—?”

  But she wasn’t listening anymore. She was barely seeing. She moved as if in a trance, boots slapping against stone floor as she burst from the hall and into the moonlit night. It was gentle weather, chilly and starlit late springtime, but it slapped her in the face like winter winds. She gasped, choking down the freshness, wishing away the soupy rage that clotted her throat.

  She kept moving. She wasn’t entirely aware of where her body was taking her, but when she finally arrived, she wasn’t surprised. There was a corner of the palace grounds, a strip of garden between two hedges, that housed only a stone bench and a patch of weedy grass. A place the gardeners forgot, where a soldier could breathe, unnoticed and unbothered, for hours at a time. Few people knew of it—at least she assumed so because nobody ever bothered her here. Not in this little spot outside of time.

  She stood rigid, waiting for the pain to pass. It didn’t. Instead, it morphed, hot anger and wet shame melding into a many-toothed chimera, canines splitting her skin while molars ground her to pulp. She deserved the pain. She had known that there were no guarantees, that this disappointment was always a possibility. Hoping for anything different was entirely her own fault.

  Hope wasn’t one of her usual vices. It was bad strategy. When she planned, she did so with all possible outcomes in mind, none weighted more heavily than the next. It was a rule: prepare yourself for every eventuality and you will never be caught off guard. But today, as she had tied her hair back with meticulous care, rolling all possibilities in her callused palm like marbles, she couldn’t help but notice that the shiniest path was also the likeliest. As long as the king knew that Scratch had orchestrated the octagon, she would leave the feast as Lady Commander.

  She balled her fist and slammed it against her thigh. It hurt, and it felt like justice. Someone had to pay; who else could she blame?

  She could blame James. “You rewrote the books,” he had said. “This is history.” She should have known better. James only read fiction.

  “Odd place for a bench, isn’t it?”

  If she hadn’t been a trained fighter, Scratch might have shrieked and launched herself in the air. Thank the gods for the Academy. Instead of wailing, she managed to turn slowly around, her deft hand coming to rest on her sheathed sword.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Relax, Sergeant Major.” A crimson-clad figure materialized from the dark, tall and slender, a wiry golden crown perched atop her head. “I’m peaceful.”

  Scratch dropped so quickly her knee made a divot in the earth. “Princess Frances. My apologies.”

  “Rise.” The princess waved a lazy hand and plopped on the bench. “Join me.”

  Scratch peered toward the boundary of her little nook. No guards, just a princess walking the palace grounds alone at night. If someone found them here, they’d both be in trouble.

  Frances tapped the bench. “Come sit. I’m having a smoke.”

  Scratch watched in stunned silence as the princess pulled out a pipe and a small hempen bag of pinkish flowers. Wait, if they were pink—

  Frances held out the pipe. “You?”

  “I, uh . . .” Reason dictated she say no. Aside from ale, it was forbidden for members of the King’s Guard to alter themselves. Besides, it was the truth. Scratch never touched the stuff. She had the sudden urge to laugh. All of that tedious rule-following had been in service of becoming the best little soldier she could be. And what had that led to?

  “Um, sure.” She slithered from ground to bench (the waistband of her pants wailing its disapproval) as Frances packed and lit the Roselap pipe. The orange flame flickered over the Princess’s dark, wily eyes and piebald hair, streaked black and white, spilt ink on parchment. Maybe it was that Scratch had never been this close to the girl, or that she had only seen the composed image of “Princess,” but, in this moment, she wondered why she had never realized how deeply Frances resembled a badger.

  “Thanks.” Scratch took the pipe—a slender, elegant thing—and inhaled. The smoke was sweet and earthy, and filled her lungs like sunshine. And then she coughed.

  “Oh, shit.” Frances took the pipe back. “That was a lot. Don’t worry about the coughing; it’ll pass.”

  Scratch managed a watery nod of thanks as she sputtered out her innards, sopping the leaky bits of her face with her handkerchief. This took a minute or so, as all the bits of her face had suddenly become leaky bits.

  “That’s better,” the princess declared when Scratch was through. “How do you feel?”

  “Uh.” She stretched her fingers and toes. “Warm.”

  “That’s the intended effect.” Frances grinned through the curling smoke and took a drag. She didn’t cough at all as she released a rosy plume into the night. “Strange to have a bench here, don’t you think? Not much of a view.”

  “No, but the privacy is nice.” She froze, the blood rushing to her face. “Not that I mind, I mean—”

  “It’s all r
ight. I followed you here.”

  Her mouth went dry. She had heard this was a side effect of the Roselap, but this dry mouth felt organic. No, organic wasn’t the word. What was it again? Oh, yes: Panic.

  “You did?”

  Frances nodded, lighting the pipe again and inhaling deeply. Thankfully, she didn’t offer any more to Scratch.

  “I hoped he’d give you a command, too.”

  Scratch didn’t speak. She must have misunderstood, or maybe she hadn’t heard clearly. Perhaps her desire was so desperate, so totally consuming, that she had unwittingly immersed herself in a hallucinogenic daze on the wings of one puff of Roselap.

  Then again, if this were a pleasant hallucination, Scratch would probably have found herself in more comfortable pants.

  The princess dumped out the burnt petals and hid the pipe away in the folds of her dress, a secret pocket just for pipes and drugs.

  “I know you planned the octagon.”

  Scratch swallowed sourly over a throat like an open wound. “It was a team effort.”

  “Don’t lie. I know it wasn’t.” Frances stared at the hedge as though it were a vista overlooking the Royal City and not clumps of leaves in darkness—as though she could see past the castle hill straight to the city limits, the new mills and factories sloshing and burping out paper and logs. “And I know you kept Sir Yunnum’s regiment together. That kid is a mess.”

  “That kid” had five years on the princess, but he was younger than Scratch and had already been leading his own regiment for six months. Then again, his father was some sort of duke. So what if he couldn’t fight his way out of a box of kittens? In the eyes of the kingdom, he was born to be great.

  Scratch hated that kid.

  “Thanks.” She coughed into her hand. “Thanks for noticing, I mean.”

  Frances waved her away. “Oh, it’s not about noticing. Everyone noticed.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Sure. All the regiment commanders, obviously. You presenting them the plan all at once, that was clever. That way Yunnum couldn’t take credit.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Stop thanking me. And then Sir Onbriars told Lord High Commander Elwyn and he told the king.”