by Jade Mere
He hardly felt his feet carrying him to his room or his hands as they cracked all the lighting roots he could find. He yanked out a sheet of paper, gripped his mother’s pencil, and then sketched rapid lines. He worked in a fevered rush. All other thoughts faded.
Steam was the solution.
Dyraien had been right all along. The river was a power source. All Tahki had to do was convert the water to steam.
Nothing mattered but this. He forgot about Hona, about Dyraien, and even about Rye. He saw only black lines and hard edges. Architecture filled his mind more completely than it had in weeks, in months. More fully than it ever had. He couldn’t just see the design in his mind. He could feel it. Every part of it, a grand, functioning thing, and as he drew, it was as though he breathed life into it. It came alive before his eyes.
Outside, thunder rumbled. A hard sleet roared against the roof. The world cried, flashing brightly, forcing itself over the castle like it meant to bring it down.
Tahki didn’t stop. Not when his hand cramped, not when he felt nauseated from the wine, not when his head pounded so badly he felt his eyes might bleed. He ignored the pain and worked until his blisters popped and exhaustion forced his head to the desk in a dreamless sleep.
Chapter 12
HE WOKE in a puddle of drool and charcoal. Warm light trickled on his face, and for a moment he forgot where he was. As he squinted into the light, he realized the sun had broken through the fog.
Tahki sat up. A paper stuck to his cheek. He gently tore it away. His head throbbed and his hand cramped. For a moment he’d forgotten why his rulers and pens and papers were scattered all over the place. Then his eyes found the design, and with shaky hands, he looked over his work. He’d never designed anything like it before. No one had. It was a product of pure ingenuity, and he knew then that if Dyraien didn’t like it, he’d be finished here, because this design had pushed his architectural abilities to their limit.
He stumbled out of his chair, eager to find Rye, when the events from last night treaded into his mind. His hand held him steady in the doorway. Though his fight with Rye still stung, there were other more concerning matters that plagued him.
Tahki took a breath and thought. So far, he’d lumped everything that had happened to him over the weeks as a series of unrelated events, but what did he really know? One, there was something strange about this castle. He’d hallucinated twice, and then a dead cat—a nonhallucinated dead cat—had come back to life and tried to kill him. Two, Dyraien had attempted to scam Gale, or it seemed that way, and might be hiding his true intentions for this castle. But he had no reason to believe the strange occurrences and Dyraien’s suspicious behavior were connected. In fact, last night Dyraien had been angered by Zinc’s treatment of Tahki. Even if Dyraien wasn’t honest about what he planned to do with the castle, he looked out for Tahki’s well-being. Why he tried to scam Gale wasn’t clear, but there could be a number of explanations. Gale was an admitted alcoholic as well as a washed-up judge. Maybe she had committed some crime against him, and this was a kind of petty revenge.
Maybe he could ask Rye about Gale once things between them mended, and showing he’d come up with a good solution was the first step.
He clutched his design and left to find Rye.
The boat room was empty, so Tahki tried his bedroom, but there was no answer when he knocked. Tahki bit his lip. Maybe Rye had gone to Edgewater to stay the night.
He jogged to the stables to see if all gingoats were accounted for. The morning air felt brisk against the bare skin of his arms. His boots sloshed through the puddles from the storm. The air smelled rich with rain, and he filled his lungs. The reflective sun off the pale ground hurt his eyes, so he shielded them from the rays with his papers and stepped under the slanted wooden roof of the stable.
He found Rye beside a gingoat, brushing her fur with a comb. Even before Rye looked up, Tahki felt an awkward air shift between them.
He didn’t have friends back home. Sornjia did, but not him. He played with the daughters and sons of visiting diplomats and joined the empress’s daughter for a swim in the oasis on occasion, but he hadn’t felt connected to them. He hadn’t been able to talk to them the way he talked to Rye. But Rye clearly had his own problems to sort through and needed space, so it would be best to keep things professional for now.
“I think I have something,” Tahki said. “A design idea.”
Rye glanced at the papers. For a moment, Tahki thought he might not take them, but he set the brush aside and tugged them free. Then he stepped from the stables into the light and examined the paper.
Thirty seconds passed. A minute. Two minutes. Rye held the designs high toward the castle, as though to overlay the pencil marks with the real thing. Finally, he folded the paper and turned to Tahki. Tahki wished he was better at reading faces, because a complicated emotion seemed to fill Rye.
“How did you….” Rye ran a free hand through his messy hair. “What makes you think this would work?” The words didn’t sound harsh but inquisitive. Cautious.
“I read about the steam locomotive last night after—” Tahki paused. “Well, the idea came to me last night. I saw the locomotive at the fair, and after reading about the explosion, I realized steam power might be the answer. If we could convert it into a conduit system, we could turn the entire interior of the castle into a power source. I want to use pipes to funnel steam, but not bamboo pipes. Copper pipes. By forcing steam into a series of metal pipes, we’d be able to bring energy to any part of the castle.”
Rye pinched his brow. “A steam conduit.”
Tahki nodded. “The center, here, is the power source. The castle will become a mechanism that could do anything from launch projectiles to send concentrated steam jets across enemy lines. With the river below us, we have an endless supply of energy.”
“We’d use a firebox to fuel the distillation,” Rye said. His eyes grew wide with excitement.
Tahki swallowed. “So, is it good? Will it work?”
One of the gingoats snorted and swished her tail. Tahki reached up and scratched behind her ear. She didn’t try to bite him this time but instead leaned into his touch.
Rye rubbed his jaw. “It’s good. It’s really, really good. I’ve never….”
Tahki couldn’t repress his smile, or the wobbly feeling in his knees, or the way the skin on the top of his scalp tingled. But he’d be foolish to get too excited. Dyraien still needed to approve it.
“Dyraien is leaving for Edgewater soon,” Rye said. “We need to show him this now.”
Tahki nodded, and together they walked back to the castle in silence.
They found Dyraien in his mother’s room. Rye told Tahki to wait outside while he went in to fetch him. A strange wail sounded beyond the door. A mix between the wind inside a tunnel and the yowls of a cat. He shivered.
When they emerged, Dyraien grabbed the design with both hands. He mulled over it, his eyes darting quickly from corner to corner. Tahki held his breath. Dyraien looked to Rye, a little wide-eyed, like he was afraid to question it. Rye nodded slightly, and relief flooded Dyraien’s face. He turned and yanked Tahki forward by the shoulders, drawing him in for a firm embrace.
“This is brilliant,” he whispered. “You are brilliant.”
When he pulled away, Tahki was left flushed. After weeks of doubting his skills as an architect, he’d proved himself.
Yet as Dyraien started babbling about logistics, Tahki couldn’t help but wonder what the design would really be used for. Sornjia said Dyraien was dangerous, and Tahki had just handed him a powerful weapon. What if they somehow used it to attack another country? What if that country was Dhaulen’aii? But all Dyraien had ever talked about was how he loved his people, how he wanted to protect them. The castle wasn’t designed to attack; it was designed to defend.
“You know,” Dyraien said. “I almost doubted you. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I thought you’d lied to me last night when you said you had an i
dea. But now I see I was a fool to doubt you. I can’t tell you how proud I am of you, Tahki.”
Tahki smiled, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the design Dyraien held. Now that he’d earned his praise and the initial excitement had worn off, an unwanted feeling of doubt settled over him.
“But we can’t celebrate just yet,” Dyraien said. “I will write up the order list and send a message to the capital to have the parts forged. In three days, I want you two to travel to Edgewater to see the delivery is complete and up to our standards. Understand?” Tahki and Rye nodded. Dyraien smiled at both of them, a childlike giddiness on his face.
Dyraien said, “I want you to know that my mother would be very pleased with both of you. No matter what happens after this, you should both feel proud today. Together, we will accomplish something great. Together, we will change the world.”
THREE DAYS inched by, and Tahki helped prepare the castle for the installment of the conduit system. Dyraien said most of the parts would come preassembled, so all they’d need to do was secure everything in its proper place and it would be ready to test.
As he worked, he expected to feel confident, to feel victorious, but those feelings had only lasted a moment, and then they were gone. This should have been his golden moment. The moment he’d yearned for. The moment someone—not someone, but the Prince of Vatolokít—had acknowledged him as a brilliant architect. After weeks of stress and constant rejection, he’d come up with a solution. But his thoughts were stuck on Dyraien, the way his thirsty eyes moved over Tahki’s work. No one got that excited over a gift.
Still, he knew nothing for sure.
He visited Sornjia once, but his brother only spouted more nonsense about danger and black clouds and dark ravens. He wanted to mend things with Rye but didn’t want to force conversation. Tahki needed to be patient. If he’d learned anything over the last few weeks, it was that rushing things never helped.
When the day finally arrived to leave for Edgewater, Tahki felt better, like he had a goal to focus on again. After stuffing down a quick breakfast of apple cobbler and sweet cream, Tahki found Rye holding the reins of two gingoats outside the front door. Rye had avoided him since he’d approved the design but hadn’t protested traveling with Tahki, which gave him hope.
They mounted their goats and headed for the high road. Mudslides from the storm three days ago had blocked the lower trail, so they’d been forced to take a less traveled path that followed the river. A thin layer of clouds shadowed the sun, but the day still felt warm. He had missed the sun. Maybe not the intense heat of home, but the world looked better in the bright light of day. A few mothsnails even crawled out of holes in the sand.
The muddy path sucked and splattered as they tromped along. Tahki’s mount threw her head and snorted. He hadn’t ridden her in a while and forgot to lunge her this morning.
“Calm down, girl,” Tahki said. He yanked left on the reins. Usually Rye helped him when she acted up, but not this time.
Tahki relaxed his shoulders. “Easy, girl. Easy.” He petted her neck gently and she calmed. He noticed Rye glancing his way, but when Tahki looked up, Rye kicked his mount into a trot and sped ahead.
As they traveled farther, his gingoat grew restless again, agitated by something he couldn’t see. It was almost as though she sensed a predator nearby. Tahki fought with the reins, so immersed in his struggle with the beast he forgot about the Misty River, until spray dampened his skin and he looked up. The gingoat stopped ten paces from a wooden bridge.
The river thundered by. The dark bridge looked slick from the toiling white waters and only wide enough for one goat to cross at a time. If he threw a stick in the water, it would be carried down, all the way back under the castle, until it dropped a hundred feet over the waterfall.
Tahki tried to swallow but couldn’t. His mouth felt dry, and his breath left his body in ragged huffs. He had thought he could manage the river crossing, but he hadn’t expected the bridge to be so long, the river so dangerous. It wasn’t nearly this vicious by the castle.
When he looked up, he saw Rye had made it across already and was stopped on the other side, fiddling with his bag. Rye didn’t look back or try to make eye contact, but he was delaying, the same way he’d delayed the first day they’d met, on the hike to the castle.
Tahki needed to cross. He’d overcome worse these last few weeks. The bridge in his path was nothing. It might take him five seconds to cross if he ran. Five seconds, and they’d be on their way again. He took a breath and dismounted his gingoat. With her acting up, he didn’t want to be on her back while they crossed. He stepped toward the bridge, sliding his feet as though the ground was made of ice. Every inch closer drew out another bead of sweat across his forehead. The instinct to run throbbed through his legs. He tried not to think about the night he’d almost drowned, but the harder he pushed those memories from his mind, the stronger they appeared.
Another foot closer. River water splashed on his lips and he licked it away. Rye had made it across just fine. He could see his outline through the spray but couldn’t hear him over the howls of the river. He focused on bridge, now within reach. All he needed to do was reach out and grab it.
With one shaky hand, he grabbed for the railing, eyes focused on the dripping wood.
And then his gingoat reared. The reins tugged free, and the animal stumbled back. Tahki felt himself start to fall, but his hand flailed and grabbed the railing. He fumbled a moment and then found his balance. His heart pounded, eyes wide as he glanced into the river he’d almost fallen into. He breathed deep and then shoved away from the bank toward his gingoat. She pranced, fearful of him.
“Easy,” he said. She wouldn’t calm down. “Come on, girl.” He jerked forward and grabbed the reins before she could bolt. A breath escaped his lips, and he rubbed his face. After he composed himself and his mount, Tahki turned back toward the bridge.
He froze.
The black cat stood in front of the bridge, as real and clear and absolute as the river.
Tahki stared, stunned. The leather reins slid from his hands. Air caught in his throat. It was as though a spell had been cast on his legs. A numbness settled over him as he looked into the cat’s eyes. They swirled like the heavens, like stars colliding. His nose tingled. The scent of spiced curry bread filled his nostrils. The sound of the river became the chatter of people, hundreds of people, like he stood in the middle of a crowded foyer and listened as they spoke of the weather, of fishing, of the land and the sea. He felt pine needles brush his skin and coral rub against his teeth. His stomach bloated like it was Dunesday and he’d just eaten an entire baked lamb pie. The sensations had a dreamlike realness to them, pleasant and nonthreatening.
It wasn’t until the cat stepped around him that the strangeness shattered, and he was left with crippling fear in its wake. The black beast did not roar or pounce or lunge. She moved her sleek body like the sun moved shadows, a lulled pace that took both a lifetime and a second to reach him.
She stood beside him now, her body more massive than he remembered. He felt strangely at peace.
But it didn’t last.
The cat lowered her massive head and growled. Then with the same fluidity as before, she raised one giant paw and shoved Tahki’s chest. The motion felt both controlled and forceful, so quick he hardly had time to let out a scream as he fell down the bank and into the river.
The water consumed him. He fought to find the surface, propelled by the swift and violent force. Cold water filled every part of him. He couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. The current thrust him forward, pulled him under. He scrambled to find anything to push off from with his legs, but the water moved too fast. He tried to fight it as fire tore through his body. His lungs burned, and blackness seeped into his mind. First his arms stopped moving, then his legs stopped kicking, and suddenly none of his limbs worked.
He couldn’t fight it.
And then he felt his body resist the tug of wate
r. Something dug into his flesh, and he pictured the black cat clawing at him. It had jumped into the river to finish him off. But then he realized the burning had stopped.
He felt hard ground beneath him. Somewhere, a voice yelled, but he couldn’t make out the words. Something warm pressed against his face, against his ears and nose. There was pressure on his stomach and chest, rhythmic and a little painful. He wanted it to stop, but it persisted, until he felt the river churn inside him. Suddenly, his body convulsed and he threw up water. He coughed and spat and gulped in air. At first he couldn’t see, but as his eyes adjusted, he noticed dirt and rock walls on every side.
When he turned, he saw Rye hunched over him, eyes wide with panic. Tahki tried to pull himself up.
“Don’t,” Rye said. He set his hand on his chest. “Don’t try to move.” Tahki obeyed. Rye’s hands shook a little. He wiped his nose. “What kind of idiot falls in a river?” He tried to smile, but it came out a trembling grimace.
“Sorry,” Tahki whispered. His throat felt raw.
“Sorry?” Rye repeated. He shook his head. “You weren’t breathing.”
“Sorry,” Tahki said again. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Rye laughed a humorless laugh. “You really do have a thing for the dramatics, don’t you?” His voiced sounded thick. His entire body shook, his eyes full of fear.
As Tahki regained consciousness, he pieced together what had happened. The black cat had pushed him into the river. Rye had not seen it, but he’d probably heard Tahki scream. He must have jumped in after him, and the river had towed them somewhere dark, maybe under the castle. But one certain thought stuck in his mind.
Rye had saved his life.
He felt dizzy. Rye wasn’t angry at him anymore but fearful, which wasn’t any better. With each day that had passed since Tahki had come to live at the castle, his relationship with Rye grew more complicated, more confusing. But at that moment, Tahki needed simplicity. He needed clarity, and he knew no words could express his feelings.