King of the Rising

by Kacen Callender

  Before me sits Lothar Niklasson. In his eyes, I can see that he wants me dead.

  “Løren?”

  I’ve returned to the room, to the faces turned to me in concern.

  Marieke continues. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. I’m fine.”

  “You became stiff, suddenly—”

  The others still watch me, worry remaining. Malthe’s face is carefully blank, but I can feel the suspicion growing in him.

  I stand up. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day. I need to rest.”

  “You can’t simply decide to—” Malthe starts, but Marieke interrupts.

  “Go to your new chambers. I’ll bring you some stew and lemongrass tea.”

  I hate that this is how I leave the meeting room: like a child, Marieke caring for me. But as I walk, every time that I blink or close my eyes, flashes of imagery change around me. I stumble down the hall and up the stairs to my room. I burst through the door and nearly collapse on the floor, my head burning from the inside out.

  Lothar Niklasson sits before me—but not me, no. He sits before Sigourney. Her hands are tied, but she still straightens her back with dignity and poise. He’s been asking Sigourney questions. The interrogation has been conducted with the manner of a polite conversation over tea. This is something I could never stand about the kongelig or any of the Fjern: their false pretenses. They disguise danger and death with ribbons and lace. I prefer to see the sharpness of the dagger and the blunt truth of hatred and disgust than have it hidden away.

  Lothar treats Sigourney as if she’s his guest, with her hands tied in her lap. The man’s skin is sickly pale. His face is lined, white hair atop his head thinner than the beard that grows. He is a smaller man in comparison to Konge Valdemar when the king had been alive, but his size reminds me of a spider that can’t be seen but whose single bite poisons and kills. Lothar and Sigourney had already discussed the night of the first revolt. Sigourney explained how she was nearly killed but survived and was taken prisoner with Patrika Årud, who has surely already been executed, as Sigourney was supposed to have been as well.

  “I’m surprised you managed to live this long,” Lothar tells her. “And you were able to escape just as you were facing execution? Convenient, truly.”

  I understand the danger in this conversation with Lothar Niklasson. The man holds a kraft with an ability that compels anyone he speaks with to tell the truth. No lie is able to leave their lips. Once the truth begins, sometimes it’s impossible to stop. If Lothar asks Sigourney the right question, she could tell him everything that she means to hide. She could reveal that she is not on Niklasson Helle only as a fugitive, but on my behalf.

  The Fjern had declared that only those of kongelig descent were allowed to hold the divine gift of the gods by law. Any islander found with kraft was executed if we dared to, as the Fjern would say, steal what was rightfully theirs. I was lucky that my father wasn’t willing to kill me when he found that I had kraft in my blood. I was an islander and a slave, but he couldn’t kill his own son. Sigourney, though she is also an islander, had also been a member of the kongelig. Because of this, she was allowed to live.

  Lothar could easily declare that, with the killings of most of the kongelig and the insurrection, Sigourney is no longer protected by law. He could claim that she is merely an islander with a power that should not be hers. He could kill her with no fear of retribution. Maybe Lothar would not need such an excuse. Maybe wanting to see Sigourney dead would be enough of a reason for him to kill her, whether her death would be considered righteous by law or not.

  Sigourney can feel all of these dangers. This is why she decides not to speak as Lothar smiles.

  “I’ve always admired you in a way,” he says. “You somehow manage to find yourself in places where you don’t belong. No islander should have made it onto the royal island as a wife of the kongelig. No islander should have made it into the meeting room as adviser to Konge Valdemar. No kongelig should have been imprisoned on Hans Lollik Helle and lived as long as you did. And escaping by boat in the dead of night, to find your way onto my island…”

  “I’m blessed by the gods,” Sigourney says, and she does believe this to be true, or the words wouldn’t have left her lips.

  Lothar’s polite smile tightens. “Yes. I suppose you are.”

  Sigourney can sense that Lothar has decided he’s impatient and doesn’t wish to play these games any longer. Before she can think to prepare herself, he asks, “Why are you here on my island?”

  “I managed to escape Hans Lollik Helle—”

  “I believe that you were a prisoner on Hans Lollik Helle under the rule of that Jannik boy, as you said,” Lothar lets her know. “And so you would have technically escaped. This doesn’t mean you weren’t also released. Did the Jannik bastard send you here to Niklasson Helle?”

  “I came here to Niklasson Helle for help.”

  “Did you come here, in agreement with Løren Jannik, to spy on me and aid in the slaves’ insurrection?”

  He’s trapped her. Her mouth is open, false words unable to leave her tongue, no matter how much she tries to force them out. She fights the sensation of heaving that trembles through her body. Finally, “Yes,” she says. “I came here to spy on you and aid in the insurrection.”

  Lothar watches her and waits for more of the truth to come.

  “They’re desperate,” she says. “Trapped. The latest battle nearly destroyed them, and now they’ve lost Valdemar Helle as well. They still haven’t decided which action they’ll take next, but Løren Jannik hopes that I can send him information to help their decision.”

  “Send him?” Lothar asks, quick to pick up on her choice of words. “How do you plan to pass along this information?”

  “Løren Jannik has kraft,” she says. Lothar’s eyebrows twitch in surprise. My father and brother and the Elskerinde Freja Jannik had known about my ability, but this was something that shamed them. They were embarrassed that the slave boy with Engel Jannik’s blood had power. They were embarrassed that they still allowed me to live. Lothar almost doesn’t believe Sigourney, even though she wouldn’t be able to lie with his kraft. This is how deep the Fjern’s reluctance to see our power runs. But he realizes that my power must be true. He considers his memories of me. Had there ever been clues to the fact that I had an ability in my veins? He thinks of the way my father had always taken such pleasure in beating me—of the rumors he’d heard of my brother’s attempts to kill me, of the depth of the Elskerinde Jannik’s hatred for me. He wouldn’t expect any of the three to love me when I’m an islander and was their slave, but he wonders if they would have given me more peace if I didn’t have a power that threatened them. He thinks all three are fools. They should’ve killed me when they had the chance.

  “Our kraft links us in a way that has been previously unseen,” Sigourney says. “I didn’t understand the power’s strength. I can hear his thoughts, and because he has the ability to mimic the kraft of those around him, he can hear mine. Even now, he listens to your questioning. He hears what I’m saying. He sees you, as I do, sitting before me.”

  Lothar watches her without speaking. In the beats that pass, I can see that he’s allowing this information to stew. The possibility that I could be listening to this interrogation without being anywhere near is unsettling to him. He’s already unused to the idea that any islander could have an ability, and especially one as powerful as this. For two islanders to have a kraft that combines and doubles the strength in power is unnerving.

  He leans closer. “If you can hear me, Løren Jannik,” he says, “I want you to know that I’m going to enjoy destroying your play at revolution. Your child’s game will not last. Your people will be slaughtered. You will be captured. I’ll enjoy taking my time killing you. Do you hear me, boy?”

  I can’t answer, but Sigourney still says that I can hear him. Lothar sits back in his seat with a satisfied smile. “Good. Your link will be severed once you’re beh
eaded,” he tells Sigourney.

  But Sigourney has never given up so easily. Not if it meant she might have a chance at life. “I didn’t have any choice but to come here,” she tells Lothar. “It was the only way I could think of surviving Hans Lollik Helle.”

  “Then you were right in that you would survive the royal island,” he says, “but wrong in that you might survive me.”

  “I can be helpful to you,” she says.

  Lothar nearly laughs. “Do you mean to betray your slaves already?”

  “Yes,” she tells him.

  “Isn’t your friend still listening?”

  She tells him that I am, but that she doesn’t care. “I can use the connection that we have. I can invade his thoughts, his mind, his plans whenever need be. I can help you stamp out this insurgency.”

  “You’re desperate, Sigourney,” Lothar says. “It isn’t a pleasant look.”

  “I want to live.”

  “Do you really believe I’d need your help? I’m already close to winning the war.”

  “You don’t know that for certain,” Sigourney says. Lothar pauses. The ultimate danger in Lothar is that he’s a man who is willing to listen and learn. “The islanders have always been stronger than we think. The fact that they are underestimated is their greatest strength. Isn’t it true that three times, you have attacked the royal island, expecting to win, and three times they have held Hans Lollik Helle? I heard they had only five fighting guards on Valdemar Helle, and yet the majority of the islanders managed to escape with their lives.”

  “Yes,” Lothar says, and it pains him to admit this. “But we’ve also weakened them. One more blow, and they will topple.”

  “You’re underestimating them yet again,” Sigourney says.

  Lothar watches her carefully. “Fine,” he says. “Tell me what we need to do to destroy them.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The link between me and Sigourney is cut. I’m trembling on the marble floor. I can hear Marieke and feel her hand on my shoulder as she attempts to guide me to my feet, but my vision is still blurred, a pain behind my eyes piercing through my skull. She’s afraid as she speaks to me. Her words sound far away, but her worry washes through me. If I’ve had a hidden illness or if I was injured in the battle without anyone’s knowledge, and I die, then she’s certain that the war will be lost.

  She helps me to the edge of the bed and I sit, lowering my head. Speaking hurts, but I force air into my lungs. “Sigourney.”

  “What happened?” she asks.

  “She’s made it to Niklasson Helle,” I tell her, but I’m not sure how much more I should say. It wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone else that Sigourney has already decided to betray us, but Marieke would refuse to accept this as the truth. I’m having a hard time coming to terms with it. A part of me expected this from her, but another part also had hope that she really did mean to prove herself changed. But this is the reality. Faced with the possibility of death, Sigourney chose the only avenue she could foresee that ended with her survival. She offered herself to Lothar, claiming that she could be helpful to him, freely giving him information against us. The only comfort is that she isn’t sure of our next plans, since we still haven’t made any definite decisions. She’ll have to lie to stay useful, and with a man like Lothar and his kraft, I don’t know how much longer Sigourney will last.

  “Niklasson Helle,” Marieke repeats. “Is she safe? No, that’s a silly question. Of course she isn’t safe. But is she to be killed?”

  “They’ve taken her prisoner but don’t mean to kill her. Not yet, at least.”

  Marieke is relieved. “Are you still connected to her?” she asks me.

  “I’m not.”

  Marieke is amazed by the strength of our connection and that I could see so much, as if Sigourney was only a few feet from me. This kraft originated with Sigourney. Using her kraft is like an echo of her ability, and mine is much weaker. When I try to connect with her, I can only see blurs and a vague sense of my surroundings. Sigourney, however—when she wants to connect with me, her power comes fully realized. Before she left, I don’t think Sigourney realized the full extent of what our connection could mean. That even so far away, she could make me see through her eyes as clearly as if I’d been in the very same room. This ignites questions. If she really has betrayed us and she still has her power over me, does that mean she can control my body, too? Would she be able to use her kraft on me if I’m unprepared and unsuspecting, and force me to harm myself or anyone else around me? It’s an answer I’m not eager to discover. I was a fool to trust Sigourney. I’m still a fool. A part of me refuses to believe that she would so easily betray her people. She’s wanted acceptance and approval from us for so long. She’d been genuine when she said she wanted to prove that she could change. I’d thought that this could be her chance at redemption. I still think that it is her chance. I tell myself that this is only a ploy for Lothar Niklasson. When she has a moment she’ll reach out to me to explain her actions.

  I try to leave my room to return to the others. There’s still much to discuss. But Marieke insists that I rest. “You’ll do no good to us dead,” she says. She promises that everyone else has already left the room to rest as well, with plans to meet again in the morning.

  “Perhaps it will do you good to think about which path we’ll take,” Marieke says. “We’re running out of time. The Fjern will attack again. We need to decide which plan we’ll move forward with.”

  I agree, and she leaves. I dread the meeting tomorrow. Not because of the choice I must make. I already know my decision. I dread it because I’m worried someone will ask me about what happened this evening. If asked, I won’t lie. I’ll tell them how Sigourney had taken hold of me and how it seems that they were right—she betrayed us the first chance she was given. I would admit that I had helped her escape Hans Lollik Helle. Malthe would probably use this as the proof he needs that I’m not ready to lead. There’s a high chance that Olina and Geir would agree. A part of me agrees as well. I don’t think I have the competence or the natural leadership that Marieke or any of the others on this island see in me.

  But I can’t step down, because the only other person who would take control is Malthe. While he is a natural commander, I don’t agree with his choices. I don’t believe that he would hold to his promise of freedom for our people. He doesn’t see the truth in himself, but I can see it clearly in the man he has become: Malthe is much closer to Sigourney Rose than he realizes. He, like her, might think of excuses after the war is won. That there’s still a need to rebuild, and that there should be a single class of people separated from the rest to continue working as slaves while everyone else is given a chance to live freely and like kings. Malthe wants to see himself sitting on the throne. I can’t allow that.

  When I sleep, my mother visits me on the shore. She would visit me at times when I was a child. On nights when I prayed to the ancestors, she would come to me, even if she didn’t always speak. I would wake up with flashes of images in my mind. She would stand in the shallows as she does now with her back to me, showing the carvings of her scars. The tide rises. It moves quickly. Seawater floods around my legs and my knees and my waist. My mother tilts her head toward me as the water grows to my chest and my neck and fills my mouth and nose and lungs. “Do you remember?” she asks me.

  There’s something I’ve forgotten. A face in the shadows, eyes rising to meet my own. It’s like the remnants of a dream at my fingertips, slipping away the more I try to remember. But I must remember. Forgetting will mean the death of our revolution. I feel the truth with this growing inside of me as I sink in the dark of the sea. Bright light shines through my eyelids. It’s morning. Yellow sunlight fills the room and the open balcony doors. I feel the heaviness of a dream clouding my mind, the urgency of a message, but it’s already begun to escape me.

  In the meeting room I don’t acknowledge falling ill the night before. I can feel Malthe waiting for an opportunity t
o speak on this and suggest that I can’t handle the stress of my position. Geir’s only loyalty is rightfully to the success of this rebellion, and he would likely agree. Olina tends to sway with the tide, and my small moment of weakness could return all power to Malthe. Before he can speak, I announce my decision.

  “We discussed the options of leaving Hans Lollik Helle and attacking Niklasson Helle,” I say. “I’ve made my decision. We will not abandon Hans Lollik Helle, and we will not attack Niklasson Helle—not right away.” Malthe takes in a breath of frustration, tapping the surface of the table, but I continue.

  “I’ll be going to the northern islands with anyone not in the guard. I’ll evacuate them to safety and establish contact with each of the northern islands to request the help of any fighting guards so that we can prepare to attack Niklasson Helle as one. After winning Niklasson Helle and cutting the head from the body of the Fjern, we will attack Solberg and Jannik and Larsen and Lund until, finally, we will take control of all the islands of Hans Lollik and kill the remaining Fjern.”

  Geir is hesitant, but any plan would make him hesitant. There is no clear plan that we can form that will end in our absolute victory.

  Malthe shakes his head, but he’ll voice his dissent at whichever path I choose to take. “We shouldn’t waste time traveling to the northern islands.”

  “They are a part of this rebellion, too,” I say. “We’ll have the ships prepared. I’ll leave today.”

  “And what of the islands, left without the protection of the guards?” Malthe asks. “If they die in battle, the other islands will be left without defense.”

  “If they don’t help us win this war,” Geir says, “then they will die by the hand of the Fjern anyway. Better to risk possible sacrifice now than inevitable slaughter later.”

  Marieke is glad that I’ve made a decision. She has worried that my uncertainty may have meant that I wasn’t ready for this role after all. She nods her approval. “You’ll need to find the lead contacts,” she says. Each island had a lead contact in the network of whispers, who, following the night of the first revolt, should have become the leaders of each island as well. The leader of Skov Helle is a man named Lambert; the leader of Nørup Helle, a man named Martijn. The leader of Årud Helle is a woman named Voshell.