King of the Rising

by Kacen Callender

  “This isn’t enough reason to kill the man.”

  Geir took a great risk by suggesting such a thing to me. I could have him executed for betraying a member of the inner circle. It was a risk that he considered for some time. While I traveled to the northern islands with Kjerstin these past few days, Geir weighed the options. He must either be confident that I wouldn’t take his life or he must think the issue is urgent enough that he would risk everything. I sense that he leans more toward the urgency of the situation. I remember Malthe leaving me to die on Valdemar Helle after the attacks of the Fjern guards. I think of the hatred that’s burned in his eyes for me. With Geir’s kraft, I see that he’s right: It would make the most strategic sense to have Malthe killed, no matter the question of whether it is right or wrong.

  Geir’s kraft flickers in me with another thought. I don’t meet his eye as I consider the possibility. Geir could be the emissary. It would be a calculated move if he were to convince me to kill Malthe for posing a risk with his hunger for power. Perhaps then he could tell me that Marieke’s devotion to Sigourney Rose is a danger we cannot risk before having her hanged. He could claim that Olina means to betray the islands to the northern empires, and he could accuse Kjerstin of having been the emissary all along with her grip on all of the secrets of the scouts. Geir could be working a strategic plan to turn me against my own allies until everyone is dead and only he and I are left. This would make it easier for the masters he still serves to take this island.

  Geir can’t read my thoughts, but he can sense something has shifted in me. Something that could potentially be dangerous to him. He curses his decision. He should have found a better way to bring his concern forward. He should have waited until Malthe made a grave error before bringing the idea to me. But he didn’t want to wait. He worries that with every passing day, Malthe plots to take control of the revolution. “You don’t have to make a decision now,” he tells me. “Think on it.”

  He leaves without waiting for me to speak.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Geir is careful not to look my way as the inner circle meets and discusses our plans. We sit at the mahogany table. I describe to them my and Kjerstin’s experience on the northern islands and explain that Voshell will not allow us any of the guards of her island until we have at least one hundred to fight the first battle of Niklasson Helle. The discussion quickly disintegrates into an argument of whether we should act without the numbers, or wait until we can attack Niklasson Helle and win with better certainty. We make the same arguments that we have for the past weeks. Frustration builds in me. We need to make a decision, but we’re all too afraid that the next move, if it’s a mistake, will be fatal for all of us in these islands. We’ve worked too hard and for too many years for the uprising to come to an end so easily. Marieke watches me expectantly throughout the meeting. She’s waiting for me to say what we will do with the finality of a true leader.

  I ask for the night to consider and leave the meeting room with the promise that I will give them my answer with morning’s light. I decide to take a walk to clear my mind and give myself the space to make what I think will be the best choice. I leave the manor as the sun quickly sets. The sun always moves fast in the days following the storm season, with longer nights and shorter days. I think that my dull headache, a pressure between my brows and behind my eyes, is just from listening to the others argue for hours. The pain is softer than the times Sigourney has tried to reach me, so I don’t realize it’s her until I hear her whispering my name.

  I walk to the bay and to the rocks where I have spent many of my days and nights, wishing that I had the courage to jump beneath the waves and realizing the cowardice in wanting to die instead of fight within the same breath. I’d hated the islanders around me who refused to fight because they were too afraid to die. I hated my own hypocrisy more. The sharp edges of the rocks cut into my feet and the saltwater is warm as it foams onto my skin. I close my eyes.

  Sigourney is alone in a room. I’m surprised that it isn’t a dungeon or a jail cell. The room is closed, with no balcony and only one window, through which Sigourney can hear the squeaks of fruit bats and chorus of crickets. The night breeze is cool. She sits on the edge of a hard bed, breathing in and out. She wonders if I’m here, and I tell her that I am.

  Relief fills her. She doesn’t think of me as a friend—she isn’t so delusional—but I am still friendlier than the Fjern that surround her. She hates being on Niklasson Helle with no allies in sight. They’ve given her a bed, but she’s still a prisoner. There’s a guard standing outside of her room at this moment. The man’s name is Kalle. He’s an islander who still works for the kongelig. There are islanders who remain slaves on these islands, afraid to join the rebellion. It was only luck that they were spared after the first night. The kongelig had rounds of interrogations, whippings, and executions. The Fjern didn’t believe that everyone they killed was a part of the revolt. The Fjern publicly carved and maimed the slaves only to show what would happen to those who tried to defy their power—to show what would happen to me and everyone else on the islands we’ve managed to take. Sigourney recognizes that this is what might happen to her as well if she isn’t careful.

  They’ve allowed her to live, for now. It was a tense discussion between Lothar Niklasson and the Fjern who follow him, looking for favors through allegiance and loyalty. The Fjern under Lothar Niklasson argued that Sigourney was a danger to them all and that she should be executed, but Lothar had considered her offer. He didn’t think the Fjern truly needed her help to defeat us. Still, her kraft could be useful. If Lothar managed to learn how to control Sigourney properly, then she could be suitable to him and his control over the kongelig and these islands. Others argued that she wasn’t worth the risk. They wanted Sigourney Rose dead.

  The Fjern have re-created the court of Herregård Constantjin. They haven’t officially named their new king yet, but Lothar Niklasson gives his commands all the same. Sigourney is allowed to move about the manor and the island as long as her guardsman, Kalle, is always beside her. I had been Sigourney Rose’s personal guard, but Sigourney shares that this man is unlike me in many ways. I have the blood of the Fjern, as does Sigourney, but Kalle’s blood as an islander seems to never have been tainted. This is rare. So many of us were born from mothers who’d been forced into the beds of the Fjern. Instead of joining the revolution, Kalle remains loyal to his masters. He believes that the insurgency is a child’s game conceived by fools. It’s because of us that innocent lives have been lost—not only the Fjern, but islanders as well. Islanders who had no knowledge of the rebellion, punished and sacrificed for our mistakes. The only similarity between me and this guardsman Kalle is the hatred we share for Sigourney. She finds this amusing.

  She’d left the room where she’d been locked away. She didn’t want the Fjern and former kongelig to think that she was afraid, even if she was. She strolled through the courtyard of the main Niklasson Helle manor, Herregård Sten. From afar, Niklasson Helle seems to be a sharp rock jutting into the sky, but the island itself has valleys and sheer cliffs. Niklasson Helle never relied on agriculture in the way that most of the other islands have. The Niklasson family’s military, one of the strongest in the islands, created its own power.

  The Fjern who are at Herregård Sten were not families that lived on the island, but the families of other surviving kongelig. The storm season had officially ended, but they seemed to think it was best to stay together on the most fortified island of Hans Lollik. Lothar’s manor is on the very edge of a cliff, a square fort with four long strips of rooms with a courtyard and garden in its center. There are no frivolous decorations of lace and marble. Everything is hard gray stone, including the walls and floors, and there are few windows. The entirety of the manor reminds Sigourney of a dungeon. This is also partly why she decided to leave her room to walk through the manor’s halls. She couldn’t stand to be trapped inside of her dank, dark chambers.

  She walked the
halls, ignoring Kalle, who followed behind her, until she made it outside and to the courtyard, where she also found a gathering of Fjern enjoying the sunshine. It was clear Lothar had little practice with entertaining guests. There was an islander playing a stringed instrument and a few others holding trays of sugarcane wine. It was a wonder Lothar made any effort to entertain his guests at all when his focus was so obviously on winning the war. But the other Fjern didn’t seem to understand that there was a possibility they could lose against us. They drank and laughed, confident that this uprising was only a brief interruption in their lives; that, once the islanders were killed and their complete power over the islands was restored, they would return to their homes.

  When Sigourney stepped into the courtyard with Kalle at her side, there was a pause in conversation. The pale Fjern knew that she was on the island and knew that she was their prisoner, but there was still surprise that slicked the air—anger, that Sigourney would dare to roam the premises as though she had her freedom, like she were still one of the kongelig. There was anger at Lothar, too, for allowing her to do so. Many felt Sigourney should have been killed the moment she set foot on Niklasson Helle. But others were amused. It was an amusement that Sigourney was familiar with. It was the same feeling that greeted her when she first arrived to Hans Lollik Helle at the start of the storm season. Amusement, that she could consider herself to be equal to the Fjern.

  Sigourney saw with surprise that her husband, Aksel Jannik, was also in the courtyard. He stood alone near the gardens, stinking of guavaberry rum. A quick read into him showed that, after leaving Hans Lollik Helle, he’d returned to his own home on Jannik Helle. He’d expected to leave for the northern empires after taking care of a few affairs, but the insurrection began. He had been awake, drinking in the night, when he saw the fires of Larsen Helle in the distance. He could hear his guards coming and could hear their whispers as they searched for him. He was drunk, but Aksel knew that he had to hide or he would die. He climbed from a window and ran from his manor, moving through the rocky fields and into town, which was already on fire by the time he arrived, Fjern slaughtered on the docks and blood leaking into the sea. There were still some alive, continuing to fight against the islanders who had picked up their machetes. Aksel forced his way onto a boat filled with Fjern desperately trying to escape. He should have stayed and fought for his island, but he was a coward, so it was no surprise to anyone that he would leave. It was only because reinforcements were sent from Solberg Helle that the Fjern held the island at all.

  Aksel saw Sigourney as well when she walked into the courtyard. She could feel his disgust and embarrassment, since everyone knew that he had married the islander, and that she had used her marriage to him to get onto Hans Lollik Helle. Everyone thought Aksel a fool, and he was one—but their judgment today wasn’t as harsh as it has been in the past, not when they knew how Aksel mourned Beata Larsen. She’d been the first of the kongelig to die in our plan of killing each kongelig one by one, and he hadn’t been right in mind since that night. Aksel left the courtyard, ignoring the stares to see how he might react to seeing Sigourney, and ignoring her, too, as he passed her by.

  There was one woman who was a cousin of the Nørup family, Gertrude Nørup. Though Erik Nørup had not survived Hans Lollik Helle, and though Alida Nørup had fled the islands for the northern empire of Koninkrijk, there were still members of the family who remained, squabbling among themselves to see who would take the position of heir of the Nørup family. Gertrude was considered plain by the Fjern’s standards, with a small mouth and thinning hair. She was only slightly older than Sigourney and about the same age of her friend Jytte Solberg. Elskerinde Solberg and Dame Gertrude Nørup stood together by the rosebushes. The sight of Elskerinde Solberg shocked Sigourney just as much as it shocks me to see the woman alive in Sigourney’s memories. I’m sure that Sigourney had been tricked, or misunderstood her own vision, and that the scene is being filtered to me incorrectly. Elskerinde Solberg should be dead. The night of the revolt, Agatha had cut her throat.

  Sigourney assures me that Jytte Solberg is truly alive. Sigourney reached into the woman and saw that Agatha had cut Jytte’s neck and left the woman for dead, but she hadn’t cut deep enough. Jytte is the sort of person who will fight for life as blood leaks from her throat. She’d stumbled and gasped through the fighting and foray. She made it to the bay, where Fjern were escaping the island. She was brought on board before she lost consciousness. She was brought to Niklasson Helle, where all of the kongelig had fled, to be nursed back to health. There was a chance, over the next passing days, that she wouldn’t survive—and for a while, it seemed that she wouldn’t. Fever took her and she wavered in and out of consciousness, whispering to people who weren’t really there. The neck wound did not kill Jytte, but there was a chance that Lothar Niklasson would. He could have had poison slipped into the tea of herbs that were brewed for Jytte Solberg. He could have decided to claim she’d betrayed the kongelig the night of the uprising and had her dragged out to the courtyard for a public execution. I can’t see why he chose to keep Jytte Solberg alive, but it was bad luck for us that he did—bad luck that, days later, her whisperings stopped and she opened her eyes.

  Jytte could still speak. The knife had missed her vocal cords. She and Gertrude Nørup had been discussing plans of potentially taking control from Lothar Niklasson. Jytte and Gertrude were two ambitious women, but no one would take either seriously because of their sex. They knew it was safer to be seen in the gardens, drinking their sugarcane wine as if they were frivolous girls who didn’t take the war seriously. Lothar knew the rival he had in Jytte, but he was not in the courtyard, and Jytte enjoyed discussing plans to take control right under the noses of the other Fjern who underestimated her. She wore her kongelig dress of white and had a bow tied around her neck to hide the thick purple scar. She hid it because she knew others would recoil from her in disgust. To the Fjern, a woman must be unmarked. They didn’t find scars beautiful, and a scar like the one that wrapped around Jytte’s neck would remind them too much of the scars that rose along the backs of the brown slaves that surrounded them.

  It was only when she was alone in her room that she would untie the bow and stare at the scar in the mirror. That scar gave her a power she was surprised to feel. A rage, an anger, in this simple reminder. Jytte Solberg had always wanted to own these islands. She wanted to be a queen. But, now, she understood Sigourney Rose more than before. She understood this desire for revenge. The end of the insurrection and executions of the slaves was not just a stepping stone to the throne for her. She couldn’t wait to kill each and every single one of us.

  Jytte couldn’t let Lothar Niklasson take the title of the king. She and her friend had already agreed on the simplest plan: allow Lothar to win this war. Remain loyal to him and grant him any number of guards he desires. When the insurgency is at its weakest, and there is no other possible outcome but for the islanders to surrender, Jytte and Gertrude will leave to begin preparations for battle on Solberg Helle. Niklasson will already be weakened from its battles. Solberg will not hesitate to attack immediately, taking power from Lothar. Gertrude will help. The Nørup clan doesn’t have nearly as many guards, but they do have resources, and Gertrude has been forthright with her lack of ambition to take the throne. “There is such a thing as too much power,” she’s said. She only wants to be the head of the Nørup family. This is something Jytte will declare once she’s won her crown.

  Sigourney approached them both in the gardens. Kalle tried to order her to remain where she was—not to approach the Fjern, she was a prisoner and it wasn’t her place—but she ignored him as she walked to Jytte and Gertrude.

  “Aren’t you worried Lothar will suspect you?” Sigourney asked. She’d decided she would not stand in embarrassment, isolated at the edge of the garden. She faced Jytte Solberg directly to prove that she wasn’t scared of the woman. Sigourney remembered well what Jytte hoped to do once she became queen. She wan
ted to make Sigourney her slave. Jytte would keep Sigourney at her side like a pet. She would use Sigourney’s kraft, which Jytte didn’t believe any islander should rightfully have. This is what Jytte had threatened during the storm season.

  Gertrude was shocked, affronted that an islander would approach them. Embarrassed, she looked at the gazes of the Fjern who watched. Jytte’s eyes narrowed dangerously. Though she pretended to be bored with Sigourney, there was a danger in the islander’s words. If Sigourney declared to all what her kraft had discovered, there was a chance that Lothar Niklasson would question her and see what Sigourney claimed was true. He would have Jytte and Gertrude executed. The man has been waiting for a chance to kill Jytte, knowing that she still vied for the crown.

  “There’s nothing to suspect,” Jytte said.

  Sigourney smiled. She knew she had Jytte in her hands. “I wonder if Herre Niklasson would believe the same.”

  “Why are you entertaining this?” Gertrude asked Jytte. “The slave must have storm-season sickness if she thinks she can speak to us this way.”

  “I’m not a slave, Dame Nørup,” Sigourney said. “I may be a prisoner, but I’m still Elskerinde Jannik, and I still have power over you. You are not a member of the kongelig.”

  Gertrude, already pink in the heat, turned red with anger. “I should have you whipped.”

  Here, Sigourney paused—for though she wasn’t a slave, there wasn’t anything that would stop Gertrude from ordering Kalle to have Sigourney whipped, here and in front of all the Fjern and kongelig. Sigourney wouldn’t be able to so obviously manipulate those around her without them realizing her actions and having her killed—not like when she’d been able to slowly, calculatedly influence the previous Elskerinde Jannik. There would be nothing to stop her from having Sigourney humiliated. She’d never been whipped before, not as I have, not as all of her people have been beaten by the Fjern’s hand. She hasn’t felt the sting of a lash over her back. She had ordered the whippings of her people before. She’d ordered mine. A part of me, a dark and angry part, wishes she had been whipped. I wish that she’d learned that pain and humiliation, to feel like she’s reduced to an animal. But there would be no purpose to this. I feel ashamed at the very thought. I can’t wish for the freedom of our people and simultaneously hope for one of our own to suffer, no matter who they are and no matter how they’ve treated me.