by C. K. Brooke
To Dad, for taking me to Mexico in my youth, and thusly inspiring the setting of Axacola—well, for taking me all around the world, really, which is why there’s so much travel in my stories. (Also, I hope the cicada references made you smile. You always said I would use it in a book, someday!) To Mom, Jerry, Jeff, Victor, Michele, Erin, Jake, Becca, Lauren Chon, and all of my siblings and family—I couldn’t do it without my amazing cheerleaders. Gracias!
Lastly, to everyone reading this: thank you. I am honored by your readership and hope you enjoyed the adventure. Stay tuned for more!
C.K. Brooke is a stay-at-home mom and author. She has lived all over the U.S., from the east coast to the southwestern desert, but her heart is in the Midwest. When not writing novels or spending time with her husband and young son, she enjoys reading, singing, playing the piano, and long walks with the stroller.
For more about C.K. Brooke,
visit her at:
http://CKBrooke.com
Like her Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/CK.Brooke
THEY WERE CONDEMNED TO DIE. Their heads hooded in sacks of black burlap, each pair of hands bound with rope, the royal family of Jordinia bobbed soundlessly, unseeing in the wooden wagons that carried them into the mouth of the Knights’ Forest. After a nine-month quarantine in the Garden Palace, the monarchs and their remaining loyal staff were enduring the last moments they should ever live on that bitter winter’s morning.
Side-to-side the royals were lined against a row of pines, as the Revolutionary soldiers drew their rebel swords. The Emperor of Jordinia, Dane Ducelle, was the first to be run through, followed by his wife, the Empress Néandra, weeping wildly for her children. Their royal staff was screaming; there was scrambling, shouting, blood everywhere. Many tried to run, but the soldiers chased after them, swords aloft.
Next to be struck down were the three young dukes, who fought valiantly despite their bound wrists. The soldiers bellowed to the staff and to one another, their orders contradictory, their sword-work inaccurate, their actions disorganized.
In the midst of the wailing and bloody turmoil around him, rebel soldier Francosto Eco found himself facing the youngest Ducelle, wee Eludaine, the three-year-old Duchess. There she stood on the frigid, dormant winter’s grass, her head enshrouded, chubby wrists bound before her.
Eco squinted and slowly raised his sword. He then exhaled, unable to summon the will to lower it. He glanced about at the surrounding chaos. His comrades were shouting at one another and to their dying victims, dodging attempted attacks from members of the royal staff, wrestling their swords through the bodies of those not perishing swiftly enough. Blood pulsing in his ears, he looked again to the tiny Duchess. His heart ached in his breast. This was not possible. He could not murder the child.
His opportunity was imminent. He had to act now, lest her innocent blood stain his hands, and that of his comrades, forevermore. With one last surreptitious glance about him, the soldier made up his mind and snatched the child up into his arms. Unseen, he slipped into the woods and broke into a run.
He did not know how long he’d been running when he finally came to a narrow precipice hovering over a deep, wide creek. Eco slowed, stepping through the sparse clearing with uncertainty. To his astonishment, he spied a flimsy, mossy boat ambling its way toward him. Inside sat two dark-skinned women, manning the oars leisurely as their hanging fishnets skimmed for craw crabs and other aquatic delicacies. Heppestonians, Eco felt sure.
Hastily, he removed Eludaine’s hood and unbound her wrists. He waved frantically at the drifting boat until the two women noticed him. “Where are you going?” he called out to them.
“Home, to Heppestoni,” they replied, confirming his suspicions.
Leaning over the bank, Eco offered them the crying Duchess. “Please,” he implored them. “She is not safe here. You must take her.”
The women exchanged glances. And then slowly, they rose in their boat and reached across the clearing to rescue the girl from Eco’s clutches. His breathing steadied as they busied themselves with shushing the girl’s cries, wiping her tears, and pressing her to their dark and plentiful bosoms. The Duchess would now be safe.
“You must leave with haste,” he insisted, trying to convey his urgency while keeping his voice low as possible. “Go, or she will be killed!”
The women nodded vigorously to show that they understood, and began rowing away, Duchess in tow, with graceful speed.
And that was the last Eco ever saw of Eludaine Ducelle.
He hurried back through the woods, returning to the execution site. There he rejoined his fellows, albeit fairly removed, and made a show of digging a small grave. No one questioned him, or checked to ensure that the pit indeed contained her body. Eco imagined that the others wished for no further role in the murder of a small child.
He never felt guilt, as he knew he should have, for betraying his comrades and the New Republic of Jordinia in this manner.
AS HER SOLE SURVIVING KIN, Eco wrote presently, fifteen years later, his mouth dry as the parchment across which he dragged his quill: you deserve to know, Comrade Gatspierre, that your niece was not killed that day. He moistened his lips and heaved another shuddering cough before continuing his script. Where she is now, I know not. But it is likely somewhere in Heppestoni.
By candlelight, Eco penned his scroll to Hessian Gatspierre, elder brother to the deceased Empress, and uncle to the Duchess Eludaine, divulging all that had transpired on that fateful morning when the royal family was assassinated. Having succumbed to the fatal gray fever, Eco’s remaining time in this world was limited. But his secret could not die with him. God willing, and despite his aching fingers, he would finish his scroll tonight, and his rider would deliver it with haste to Hessian Gatspierre’s place of exile the following morning.
Pray for Jordinia, he wrote, weathered hands trembling. Pray for Eludaine, wherever she may be. And may the Eternal God have mercy on my soul.
“INCONCEIVABLE.” HESSIAN GATSPIERRE PORED over the newly arrived scroll a third time to ensure that he had not misread a single word.
“What do you intend to do, my lord?” inquired Maxos, his advisor, uncertainly. He was still skeptical of the scroll and its implications therein.
Gatspierre’s emerald eyes shone. “We shall organize a search party,” he declared. “Summon the scribes. I want notices posted in every town square from here to Heppestoni, proclaiming the truth that my niece, the Duchess Eludaine, lives!”
With rising elation, he formulated his plan. “A reward of fifty pounds of gold, along with her marriage hand, shall be offered to the first man to bring her forth,” he decided, hurrying to his desk and knocking askew an inkwell in his haste. “A fine incentive, wouldn’t you say?”
“You are certain?” His stout advisor reached up to mop the beads of perspiration from his balding crown. “The New Republic will be furious to learn she survived. Assuming this is true,” he added, his tone clearly betraying his doubtfulness. “If so, you must think of the girl’s safety. After all, would the Republic not wish to finish their job if we find her?”
“Nonsense,” barked Gatspierre with an unconcerned wave of his scroll-clad hand. “Häffstrom is a neutral nation. The New Republic cannot touch her here. Just as they have never touched me, for all of these years,” he added, with some satisfaction.
Maxos groaned. “That’s because they’ve had no reason to touch you,” he reminded the man. “You are not a threat to the Republic. You possess no Ducelle blood.” His nasal voice grew louder as he wagged a stout finger in his master’s direction. “Eludaine does.”
“I know this, Maxos,” sighed Gatspierre. “Come now. Enough politics; today is cause for celebration! My niece is alive! Somewhere out there, Ducelle blood is flowing through a young woman’s veins. Scribes!” He clapped his hands together. “Let us share the news,
and begin the search.”
Resigned, Maxos bowed his head and departed his master’s study.
THE RAINY SEASON CAME UPON the Beili Dunes of Heppestoni in the fall and spring times. Without warning, the muggy, pendulous air would release a downpour of saline rain, leaving behind a fresh yet mildly fishy odor.
Her bare feet dodging jagged rocks and kicking up eddies of damp sand, Dainy hurried out of another sudden rainfall and into the tiny bamboo shanty. She slid the wobbly door shut, wiped her brow and lowered her hood, shuddering as a draft swept past the bare nape of her neck. Realizing that she’d been holding her breath, the young woman exhaled, peering around the hut.
Together, Dainy and her foster aunts ran one of the many beachfront inns in the Beili Dunes, theirs directly on the Maleilan shore. The Beili Bungalow was small, but as Dainy often boasted (although perhaps she was biased), her aunts’ cooking was the best in all of Heppestoni.
Water splayed out from beneath the flimsy door as a fresh sigh of wind heaved her way, and Dainy made haste to mop it up before someone should slip. Her stomach gurgled as she inhaled the aroma of fresh plantains sizzling over the hearth. Aunt Paxi was no doubt preparing another of her mouthwatering recipes.
“Child!”
Dainy jumped at the call, looking up from her mopping.
“Dainy-girl,” exclaimed Aunt Paxi, rounding the corner and reaching out to stroke Dainy’s ebony hair with her equally dark fingers. “What have you done with your hair?”
Dainy beamed. “I cut it!”
“Obviously,” cried Aunt Paxi, clearly not partaking in the young woman’s mirth.
To add insult to injury, Dainy spun in a dancelike circle, accentuating the absence of her once flowing curtain of dark locks. “Do you like it?” she asked cheekily, well aware of her aunt’s answer as she executed an exaggerated curtsey.
This earned her naught but Paxi’s solemn stare. “I am not amused,” the older woman announced, grabbing again at the stubs of raven hair that had formerly been the girl’s crowning glory. It now extended to only just beneath her ears. “Well, Dainy-girl,” she said ominously, “all I can say is, I don’t want to be here when your Aunt Priya sees this.”
“Sees what?” chirped a voice from the loft, already sounding wary despite its musical accent. “Is that you, Dainy? What trouble have you gotten yourself into this time?”
Dainy folded her arms. She enjoyed the noticeable lack of heaviness when she moved her head. Without her former mane of hair, she felt lighter, freer. “I see how it is,” she teased. “Even though this is my eighteenth spring, which makes me a woman,” she accentuated the word, “I shall always be treated like a little girl around here.”
“That’s because you act like one,” snapped Aunt Paxi, jabbing a black finger at Dainy’s pale shoulder. “Disappearing onto the beach and cuttin’ your hair,” she muttered, taking up the mop to finish the job herself. “And you said you was going crab digging.”
“I was, Aunt Pax! Honest,” insisted Dainy, although with a hint of mischief in her luminous green eyes. “Only it was too wet out.”
“Mmm-hmm. But not too wet to butcher off them beautiful tresses with my crabbing knife.”
There came a heavy sigh, and Dainy and Paxi turned to watch a second middle-aged woman descending the loft ladder. Her creamy brown skin glistened with aromatic oils, and her copious brown hair, adorned with beads and some streaks of gray, fell down her back in shining sheets. With a soft thud, her bare feet landed gracefully upon the bamboo flooring.
She squinted at Dainy, moving closer, until tossing up her bronze arms with a frown. “Dainy, how could you?”
The girl ran her fingers through her freshly cropped hair once more, the better to proudly display it.
“Now how shall we ever find you a husband, when your hair is like a boy’s?” Aunt Priya scolded her.
“Well.” Paxi grinned. “Her hair may be like a boy’s, but certainly not her—”
“Aunt Pax,” squealed Dainy, crossing her arms over her chest. “Why this talk about husbands all of a sudden, Aunt Priya?” She rounded on her other aunt. “Are you both so eager to be rid of me?”
“Ah!” exclaimed Priya. “Impossible girl.” She babbled something in her ancestors’ language before intoning a chant and tossing corn husks into the fire.
“Priyalaksma.” Paxi’s voice cracked like a whip across the hut. “Them silly superstitions ain’t going to protect Dainy from her own foolishness!”
But Dainy threw back her head and laughed, and her aunts both forgot their frustration for a moment as they paused, watching the young woman in her moment of levity. They had always delighted in her laughter, a lovely sound like the clinking of bells, or water trickling through a fistful of seashells.
The two friends had still never told Dainy the strange truth of how she had come to live with them. Paxi had always imagined the bizarre ordeal to be the result of some domestic quarrel gone horribly wrong. Priya, however, held that Dainy was a gift from the gods, sent to bring them luck.
When she’d first been entrusted to their care, fifteen years prior, the little child had introduced herself as something that sounded to the women rather like “Dain.” So Dainy they called her, though the poor girl never did receive a surname, seeing as she had no father to speak of. At any rate, it didn’t take long for Priya and Paxi to kindle a mother’s love for the fey little child who had found her way into their lives and hearts.
Presently, Dainy extended an alabaster hand to Paxi. She gently upturned her aunt’s palm and placed within it something cool and heavy. “I will go and check on the plantains,” she whispered, before traipsing over to the hearth.
Paxi looked down at the dull silver coins now resting in her hand, and her heart sank to her navel. So that was what Dainy had meant by severing her hair. She’d sold it, and for no more than a mere four pieces of silver. She was clearly worried for their welfare during the rainy season.
Paxi watched as the petite yet curvy youth stood over the fry pan, and fought to keep her tears at bay. She was grateful for the gift, yes. And of course, Dainy’s lovely hair would grow back. But she hated to see the young woman bear such a burden. Sure, it was only hair, for now. But if they continued taking in as little income as they had of late, what other parts of herself might the girl resort to selling next?
Shuddering at the thought, Paxi traced a circle on her brow and offered up a silent prayer, that Dainy would find a husband to care for her, who would ensure that she never found herself in want of anything again… and soon.