King of the Rising

by Kacen Callender

  She continues to look at me for only a second more before she turns forward again. She realizes that, with Sigourney’s kraft, I’ll know that she’s lying. She wants more. There’s a reason she came here to my room. She’s embarrassed by the thought that I might’ve realized her hopes, but she doesn’t say anything about this. I’m surprised. Kjerstin is usually much more forthright, but with this, she can’t meet my eye.

  “I wanted to thank you for saving me,” she says, changing the subject, her back straightened and humor gone. “The night of the ambush, when I took a machete to the side. I realized that I never did.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. Anyone would’ve helped you.”

  “Do you really believe that?” she says with a small laugh. “I’m pretty sure most would’ve left me for dead if it meant risking their own life. You didn’t do that. As Marieke described it to me, you left the safety of the other guards to search for me in the dark of night when there could’ve still been Fjern hiding in the shadows.”

  “You’re vital to this uprising,” I tell her.

  “Is that the only reason you saved me?” Of course it isn’t, she sees that, but she does also have a sarcastic sense of humor. She watches me for a moment longer, forcing herself to hold my gaze, her chest warming. She considers coming to the bed just to see what I will do. I can see images in her mind—flashes of what she’s imagined some nights already, how she would touch me, how she would kiss me—

  “I’m sorry, Kjerstin,” I say. The images abruptly stop. “I’m more tired than I realized.”

  She wonders if me saying this was purposeful. She wonders if I’m reading her thoughts at this very moment. I consider admitting that, yes, I feel her intentions. I consider explaining that I don’t desire her the way she does me. Not because she isn’t beautiful, but because I’ve never desired another person in the way others do. It’s strange and uncomfortable to feel this longing of hers. It doesn’t sit well inside of me. The thought of touching another person in the way that she imagines only brings me memories of Patrika Årud and other masters of Hans Lollik Helle, their beds and their hands on my skin, the salty taste of their bodies in my mouth, the excruciating pain that split apart my bones and filled my lungs. I consider explaining all of this to Kjerstin, but in that moment she sees how she wants me, but that I don’t want her. She’s hurt. It’s her hurt that inspires her next words.

  “Maybe you really do only have eyes for Sigourney Rose,” she tells me.

  She knows that she’s wrong. Both in fact and for saying something like this.

  “I have no interest in Sigourney,” I say.

  “It’s what most people assume. That’s another thing no one will tell you. Most of the guards left on our royal island believe you shared Sigourney Rose’s bed after all. They whisper that’s why she was able to escape. You helped her leave Hans Lollik Helle because you are the pet of a kongelig. There’s at least one man on this island who would like your followers to turn on you and drag you to the nearest tree to see you hang.”

  These aren’t false words inspired by hurt any longer. They are Kjerstin’s cold and formal observations. Facts, given by our newest spymaster.

  “I’ll just have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  She agrees and says good night as she turns to leave.

  “Kjerstin,” I say. She pauses but doesn’t look at me. She’s still too embarrassed to meet my gaze. “The night of the battle—the night that Zeger was killed…”

  She turns to look at me, surprised by the shift in conversation. I’ve surprised myself as well. But having spent time with Kjerstin and learning more about her, I’ve started to trust her. I’ve come to see her as a friend. There’s been a new feeling in me, since the night of Nørup Helle—a feeling that something has happened.

  “I keep thinking that I’m missing something, forgetting… The night that the Fjern ambushed us. How did they know where to attack? And Geir…” I pause. I’m not yet sure why Geir has chosen to hide his kraft, and though I trust him, with every passing moment I feel the urgency in finding him and asking him for the truth.

  “What’re you trying to suggest?” she asks.

  “I believe that there’s someone on this island. A spy, betraying us for the Fjern.”

  She doesn’t seem as surprised to hear this as I expected her to be. I can feel that she’s already considered the possibility herself. Kjerstin has grown to distrust everyone around her over the years. “Do you believe it’s one of us?” Someone in the inner circle, she means. “I could keep an eye on the others, if that’s what you’re ordering me to do.”

  It wouldn’t hurt for her to keep an eye on all the rest. Malthe, Olina, Geir, even Marieke—but, of course, I also have to suspect Kjerstin herself. Any one of them could be a traitor hiding their thoughts from me. My ability is already weaker than Sigourney’s, and with her kraft, we managed to deceive her. Would it be so difficult to believe that someone on this island is doing the same to me?

  But I’m making assumptions as well. Someone with close knowledge of our decisions could be a traitor—but it could be anyone else on this island. All of the guards are suspects, too.

  Kjerstin understands my thoughts. “I’ll have my scouts keep an ear out around the island. If it’s true that there’s a traitor on this island, we’ll find them.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I have a restless night. I barely sleep, and when I do, I have fitful dreams. Dreams of a night sky on fire, water rushing and swirling onto a bay of black sand. My mother. She stares forward only, never looking at me, never showing her face. Her back is a maze of scars, crisscrossing and weaving across her skin. “You dare to forget,” she tells me. “You forget me. You forget your rage. If you remembered, you wouldn’t want to save them.”

  I wake to someone standing over me. The room is still black with night. I can’t see. I try to roll to my feet before I realize that, while I can feel someone is here with me, they have no body. It could be one of the spirits of Hans Lollik Helle. A kongelig, come for their revenge. The pain begins. It reminds me of the sharpness that’d attacked my senses when I was in the meeting room, but the pain fades into a distant ache, as if my body is growing used to the invasion. And this time, Sigourney hasn’t created such a strong connection that I feel like a spirit hovering beside her. She’s come to me.

  Are you paying attention, Løren? she asks me, her thoughts in my mind like they’re my own.

  I’m still half asleep, unsure if I’m awake or dreaming. But as breaths pass and my eyes adjust to the darkness, I realize what’s happening. I’m awake, and Sigourney is here with me.

  I am.

  I’ve been trying to reach you for some time. I have a warning for you.

  She says this like I hadn’t witnessed her betraying us. She hears my thought and I can feel her haughtiness.

  Do you really believe I would betray you? I did what I had to do in order to survive Lothar Niklasson.

  She would say anything for me to trust her. She could easily be lying, but she wouldn’t have been able to lie to him. His kraft wouldn’t have allowed it. She had to have been telling the truth when she said she would give him our secrets.

  And so I will. I’ll give him secrets that are inconsequential, not of any value. It was the only truth I could think of that would allow me to live. But I am still working for you, Løren. I’m still on the side of our people.

  I don’t believe her. She’s frustrated, ready to snap in her anger, but she pushes her emotion away. She thinks that she has no time. She wanted to speak to me for a specific reason. A warning.

  A warning, yes. There’s someone on the island who has betrayed you. I know no name. They only refer to the traitor as the islander emissary. They say the emissary works closely with you. The emissary has told them that you’ve moved into Herregård Constantjin. That you sleep there, alone and unguarded.

  My heartbeat rises. I sit up in bed slowly, listening carefully. She tells
me this, and that the Fjern have also realized that Kjerstin has taken Tuve’s place, but they see that she hasn’t moved quickly enough. She hasn’t taken to her role as scout leader because of her injuries, and before we left for the north to find more guards to help in our battles, she had not ordered her spies’ replacements to watch the seas. A fool’s error, on her part and my own, but in the confusion of the days before we left—Patrika Årud’s execution and my own illness in response to Sigourney’s kraft—

  Pay attention, Løren. I don’t need to hear your excuses. They’ve sent someone.

  I’m already on my feet, moving for the door, when I realize that I’d dismissed the feeling of someone else being in the room too easily. A man is here, a shadow against the dark, a glint of his blade in the dim moonlight. He moves with the breeze, and I grab his hand out of the air. He releases no sound as another hand swipes for me. I can feel the tip of the second blade pierce the skin of my shoulder before I manage to grab the other wrist with my free hand. We fall into a silent struggle, him pushing the blades toward my chest and my neck. I bring up my knee, driving it into his gut. He bends over with a gasp, and I twist away behind him, pulling his hand to his throat. The blade goes through skin and flesh. The man gurgles and gasps, falling to the ground.

  “Who brought you here?” I say quickly, desperately, sinking to the ground with him. He won’t be able to speak, but his mind could answer for me. “Who has passed the Fjern information on the island?”

  But his mind is unclear, hazy with pain, death coming fast. Sticky wetness floods the floor and wets my hands and knees. He’s dead.

  I curse, standing. I try to feel for Sigourney’s presence, but she’s gone as well.

  She helped me. She didn’t have to. She could’ve let the assassin cut my neck as I slept. I feel a gratitude I can’t control. Not only this. She warned me about the emissary. She told me that, whoever it is, works closely with me. It could be Malthe, Geir, Olina, Kjerstin, or Marieke.

  Right now, I don’t know who to trust.

  I find Geir near the barracks at daybreak by the ashy remains of a campfire. The sky is a soft blue with wisps of clouds. The air is filled with the sounds of early-morning birds singing from the treetops. The salty breeze still holds a chill from the night as it blows over the ocean. Geir stands alone, watching the guards train under Malthe with his arms crossed. The guards rise before the sun and work endlessly under Malthe’s watch. The guards will likely exhaust themselves to death in days without proper meals and water and shelter to save them from the heat of the sun. Before, Malthe would take no opinion on how to handle his guards—but I have the power to command him to let the guards rest. No amount of training over the next few days will prepare them for the battle of Niklasson Helle any more than they already have. It’s an order I’ll have to give, but it’s a conversation I’m not looking forward to.

  Geir isn’t surprised that I’ve come to him, but Geir isn’t surprised by much. He reminds me of Voshell, as does Marieke. They’re all a generation older than Malthe, several generations older than me and Kjerstin and Sigourney Rose. Geir is one of the elders of the network of whispers. In his memories, I can see that he’d been only a child himself when he heard of the plans for a rebellion. Not one of the quick skirmishes for death in the fields, where the islander never had any real intention of living. A true revolt—one that would force the Fjern from these islands. Those whispers were as much a part of our history and culture as the prayer songs the elders would teach us on the bays. Not everyone was invited to join. It was a task Geir inherited from his own father. It had taken generations, the slow building of murmurings and meetings and plans, all with the goal of spreading the whispers to only those that could be trusted, poisoning the islanders who showed hesitance when told the truth of the insurrection to stop them from going to the masters. Every person, on each island, knew their role when the time would come. They knew which among them would kill the masters in their sleep, who would set the fires to the manors, who would be prepared with the machetes to battle the guards and the Fjern villagers.

  They also knew that they would have to wait, across all of the islands, to rise as one. Geir had been frustrated when he was my age. He wondered why they waited. They all had their roles. They all knew the plan. His kraft had developed by then, and he knew that there was no strategic reason to not attack. He could see that, no matter how long they postponed their plans, there would always be a higher chance that we would lose to the Fjern. Still, the islanders waited for the right moment—the sign, some said, which would come from our ancestors. Marieke believed that the sign was Sigourney Rose. We have yet to learn whether she was right.

  Geir barely glances at me before he turns his back, walking away from the remains of the campfire and the barrack walls so that he can go farther into the groves and brush that still remain after the fires of the battle. The mahogany trees give patches of shade from the rising sun overhead. Cockroaches, attracted to the mahogany and smoked out from the fires, dash over the fallen and dying leaves and branches that crack beneath our feet.

  We stop beside one of the largest trees. Its branches overhead are sturdy and thick, the sort used for hanging. I remember as a boy watching the hanging of other islanders. My father, before he died of storm-season sickness, seemed to hang men out of habit. If enough time passed where he hadn’t killed one of the men he owned, the loathing he had would build until, finally, an islander unlucky enough would be chosen. It didn’t matter the reason. For not moving quickly enough when given an order, for not looking him in the eye when spoken to, for daring to look him in the eye when spoken to, for allowing themselves to be noticed as they stood against the wall with their heads bowed. My father didn’t care about the reason. He’d choose men only. He had other purposes for the women in his home. Once a man was selected, he’d make the hanging an exhibition of the power he had over our lives. He’d have everyone gather in the fields, and he’d make us watch. The men never bothered to fight. I was angry that they didn’t. It took me years to realize what they must have already known. There isn’t any point in fighting a battle you know that you will not win.

  Geir didn’t speak as we walked, but he does once we’re under the shade of the mahogany trees. He’s nervous as he looks at every shadow that moves.

  “You want to learn why I keep the secret that I do,” he says. His voice is gravelly and dry, more than usual. He sounds like he hasn’t had water for days. “You’ve wanted to learn for some time.”

  “It didn’t ever seem like there was a moment to ask you alone.”

  This amuses him. He allows the twinge of a smile. “Do you really trust me so much that you were willing to wait?”

  “I never got the sense that you were a traitor.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “It’s one of the positive effects of my kraft,” I say. “I can sense when someone is lying and when someone isn’t.”

  “We managed to trick Sigourney Rose,” he tells me. He doesn’t look at me as he speaks. He keeps his eyes out on the fields, where Malthe trains his guards. His barked orders echo to where we stand. “Anyone could trick you as well.”

  “Should I not trust you?”

  “I’m only telling you to be careful,” he says.

  I ask him why he chooses to hide his kraft. “I have to admit. You choosing to hide your kraft didn’t always make you the most trustworthy person in the room.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t figure the answer out for yourself,” Geir says. He doesn’t mean this to be insulting.

  “Maybe I should have,” I admit.

  “The reason is strategy,” he says.

  This both confuses and interests me. “What strategy could there be in hiding your kraft?” The only purpose for strategy I’d considered was for the war—the strategy behind our decisions in attacks.

  As the question lingers between us, his answer comes to me. It’s a simple reason in Geir’s eyes. Malthe has never liked anyon
e he considers more powerful than himself. The commander of the guards doesn’t have kraft. This is something Geir suspects the man has always resented.

  “If Malthe realizes that my talent for strategy is actually kraft, his opinion of me will diminish. And for a man like Malthe, to be a person that holds his poor opinion is a dangerous position to be in. I might find myself without a head in the coming days if he were ever to learn the truth.”

  I’m skeptical. “Do you really think Malthe would have you killed just because you have kraft?”

  “I wouldn’t like to find out the answer to that. Would you?”

  He pauses. He’s already realized that I’ve felt the tension with Malthe—that I’ve feared that Malthe would have me killed. It’s a fear that anyone with sense would have, and Geir considers me a sensible man.

  “Malthe would consider me a threat to his path to power, just as he considers you a threat,” Geir tells me. “I don’t believe Malthe is the one on this island who has betrayed us. I don’t think he’s smart enough to have deceived all of us as the traitor does, to be perfectly honest with you. But Malthe can’t be trusted. He will be the end of this revolution—the end of us, if we’re not careful. I suggest that you find a way to have Malthe executed.”

  I knew that this is what he would suggest moments before the words leave his mouth. But I’m still surprised that he’s said them. Shocked that he’d consider this. Malthe isn’t the leader of this island, but the declaration still feels like treason.

  “It is, strategically, the best course of action,” Geir tells me. “Kill him, before he gains too much control and power over the guards.”

  “But who would continue to train and command them?”

  “You would, of course,” Geir says. “You’re already a better commander than Malthe is. You hold respect, while he relies on fear. Guards following a leader they respect will fight harder. You inspire them.”