Song of Edmon

by Adam Burch

  I am a fool. I’m worthless.

  The uphill climb through the town slows my run to a trudge. I finally reach the edge of the manse grounds high on the cliffs. I wanted to go somewhere no one would find me. Instead, all I’ve done is return to the only place I know how to get to: home.

  Fool. Lavinia’s voice still echoes in my head. Monster . . .

  I don’t enter the house but skirt the grounds to the edge of the cliffs. The sea sparkles below me, aqua green with white-capped tips. A crevice between two large rocks looks like it can get me closer to the edge, so I climb through the crack. There’s a hidden path just beyond. It leads to a shelf that juts out from the cliff wall a little lower down. I scramble down the tiny trail, skidding on graveled limestone. If I slip, I’ll tumble into the waves below. My chest pounds. I want to die, but when faced with actual death, I’m petrified. A strange feeling.

  I make it to the shelf and collapse on the edge, my legs dangling out into space. I pick up a stone and toss it angrily over the side of the cliff, expecting to hear a splash. I wait, but I don’t even hear the stone land, I’m so high up. I stare at the horizon where the white-hot sun never sets, and the world seems too big for me. I lie on my back and let hot tears stream unabated down my cheeks.

  You’ve just been disinherited, fool.

  You will forget what you saw here today . . .

  My thoughts are a tumble of despair. All I wanted to do was meet my father and impress him. Now, I hate him more than anything.

  “Hey!”

  A high-pitched shout startles me, and I scramble to my hands and knees. There’s a feral creature sitting on a rock above me. My heart leaps into my gullet.

  No, I realize. It’s no creature at all, but a girl.

  I try to stand, but I slip and fall forward onto my stomach. My chin smacks the rock. It breaks open bleeding. The gravel gives way beneath me, and I slide over the edge of the shelf. My hands claw for purchase, my fingernails tear into the stone, and my feet dangle over the edge of the long drop into the bright green sea.

  I’m going to die. I don’t want to die!

  The girl springs forward, dives, and clutches my wrists before I fall over the edge.

  “Help me, stupid!” she shouts. “You’re heavier than you look!”

  My feet kick, trying to find purchase on something, anything that will help me climb back up.

  “Stop!” she shouts. “Look at me! You need to calm down. If you keep kicking, you’ll pull us both over the edge. Relax.”

  Her words are confident and calm. I stop thrashing and hang limp while she strains against the dead weight of my body. Her feet spread eagle against two boulders on opposing sides preventing me from going over.

  “Take your right foot and lift it as high as you can. Search for a hold that you can step on.”

  “I can’t!” I shake my head.

  “You can. Because you have to. What’s your name?”

  “Edmon.”

  “I’m Nadia. Edmon, if you don’t want to die, lift your right leg.”

  I slowly do it. My toe finds purchase. “I got something!”

  “Good. Now, on the count of three, push with your right leg. One, two, three!” she shouts.

  I push with my leg as Nadia pulls. As I slide on my belly over the lip of the outcropping, the bit of rock I just pushed off breaks free from the cliffside. I scramble to higher ground while Nadia looks over the edge, watching the rock splash into the sea below.

  “Whoa!” she exclaims. “You almost bought it.”

  I huddle against a large boulder that doesn’t seem to be moving anytime soon.

  “Bought what?”

  “The kelp farm,” she says. “You’re not too smart, are you, little boy?” She hops on top of a rock and squats, gazing down, inspecting me. “Or too good on your feet.”

  No wonder I took her for a wild creature.

  I stand just to prove her wrong and slip on the gravel as I do. I grab the boulder again to steady myself. She laughs. It makes me angry.

  “I am Edmon of House Leontes. You had no right to sneak up on me! And I’m not little!” Even to my own ears, I sound like a petulant toddler.

  “How old are you?” She laughs in my face, and for the first time, I really notice her. She’s maybe a year or two older than me. She has dark skin and bright mahogany eyes with flecks of green in them. Her dark brown hair falls in tousled strands across her oval face. A little mole on her cheek is the only mark on her otherwise unblemished skin. She’s pretty. All of a sudden, I feel nervous and tongue-tied.

  “Nine!” I say with mock bravado.

  “You sound two,” she retorts. “Anyway, I’m turning eleven.” She says this as if it means she wins. “And I just saved your life, Edmon of House Leontes. I’ve been coming here since I was six. So this is my spot. And I can do whatever I want.”

  “This is my island. It belongs to my father, Edric Leontes, who was granted the deed by the High Synod after winning two Combats! That means I own everything on it.” I try to use the words I’ve learned since the audience with the emperor to sound smart, but next to this girl, a commoner with no fancy educational equipment, I feel dumber than a stick in the sand.

  Nadia snorts derisively. “People can’t own places.”

  “Don’t you know anything?” I counter.

  “I know lots of things,” she says archly. “Like how to not fall off a cliff. In fact, I’m the best climber on Bone,” she boasts. “I can crimp a snag on any crag you see on this island. The whale’s tooth, the siren’s hump, the manta face. I even crack-climbed the high fathom.”

  I have no clue what any of these things are, but I don’t want to let her know that. “Who taught you that?”

  “My brother, Yanoa,” she says sadly. “He was taken to Meridian by the emperor’s men and forced to participate in the Combat.”

  I thought competing was always voluntary. I’ve never heard of them forcing people like Nadia’s brother before.

  “I’m also an excellent dancer,” she adds before I can get a word in. “Hey, if you own this island, does that mean you own me, too?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so. At least my father does.”

  “And you own everything your father owns?”

  Honestly, I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything anymore. I’ve been disinherited. I still don’t even know what that means exactly.

  “Nobody owns me!” Nadia shouts. “One person can’t own another. I climb where I want, and I dance when I want.”

  “You don’t know anything. Have you been to Meridian?” I ask.

  “You have?” she jabs back.

  I nod.

  “But you’re a Daysider?” she asks.

  “I don’t know what I am.” I slide to the ground, my back against the rock. “My mother’s a Daysider. My father he’s . . . not.”

  “Oh.” Realization comes to her face. “You’re telling the truth. Edmon Leontes . . . you’re the half-Nightsider who lives in the mansion.” She points to the top of the island a little way away. “I’ve heard of you, but you don’t usually come into the town to play.”

  She lowers herself from the top of the boulder and bends down. She looks at me more closely.

  “You were crying?” she asks.

  “No, I wasn’t!”

  “You were,” she says. “You are!”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” What I really want is someone to tell everything to.

  “Fine. Don’t tell me.” She walks away.

  “Wait!” I shout, and she turns back.

  I tell her everything. I tell her about Alberich and the sondi flying over Meridian. I tell her about seeing a city and twilight for the first time. I tell her about the throne room, Old Wusong, Lavinia, and Phoebe. I tell her about the Fracture Point and the strangers, a new place called Lyria and chocolate. I tell her about the curious boy with red hair. I tell her about Olympias and about Edgaard, my brother, the new heir of House Leontes. Finally
, I tell her how my father beat my mother in front of everyone as they laughed.

  “That’s it. That’s all there is.”

  The star of Tao shines hot above us. It’s a second or two before either of us speaks.

  “Do you hate Edgaard?” she asks.

  I should hate him, shouldn’t I? He took my place, but he’s just a boy with a smiling face. How can I hate a boy I don’t even know?

  “It’s not his fault.”

  Nadia nods. “I think your father would want you to hate him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you hated him, wouldn’t you want to prove that you should be the heir and not him?” she asks.

  “I guess,” I say slowly. “How would I prove that?”

  “How do you think?” asks Nadia.

  My father said that there was only one path before me, that the island would not prepare me for what I needed to know.

  “The Combat?” I think it out. “If I hated Edgaard, I’d want to prove that I’m better. I’d try to be a fighter like my father wants, and I’d enter the Combat.”

  “If you win, you’ll join the College of Electors and might be voted into the High Synod. That’s how Edric founded House Leontes. That would earn his love and respect. Is that what you want?” she asks.

  “No,” I answer. “I hate him. Not Edgaard. I hate my father. I’m going to kill him someday.”

  “Maybe that’s also what he wants?” Nadia suggests. “If you hate your father and want to kill him, he wins,” she says solemnly. “He wants for you to be a fighter, a killer. That’s not balance.”

  “I don’t care!” The words burst out of me. “What he did to my mother—”

  “He should be punished,” she cuts me off. “But not by you.”

  “Why not?” I ask curiously.

  “I don’t think you want to be like him.” She stands, head tilted to one side. “What is it you want to be, Edmon Leontes?”

  Her question catches me off guard. I just stare at her dumbly for a moment. It’s the same question the emperor asked me.

  “I want to be a musician. But I don’t think music is something that people think is useful.”

  “Who says?” she asks defiantly.

  I shrug. “Old Gorham has taught me to play quarter and eighth notes. I can play an upbeat. I try to practice scales. None of it is useful. It doesn’t help catch food or clean the house. What good is it?”

  “Well, why do you want to be a musician?” she repeats, not letting it go.

  Again, I’m not sure what to say. I stop thinking and just blurt out, “Because I’m good at it. Because it’s beautiful. Because it makes me feel good. Because maybe it makes other people feel good, too. One time, I played, and my mother danced. The whole crowd cheered. I love to play, and people love me when I do.”

  “You think that’s not useful?” The wind brushes strands of hair across her mahogany eyes. “I’d like to see you play sometime.” She turns to leave.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  She walks up the path. “Home, Little Leontes,” she calls back, mocking me with the words of Old Wusong.

  “Don’t call me that!” I snap.

  She laughs. “You don’t own me. I can call you whatever I want.”

  She disappears between the crevices in the boulders at the top of the path.

  “Hey!” I hear.

  I turn back to see her head peek through the crack. “If you aren’t your father’s heir, you should be who you want to be instead. Maybe I’ll see you here tomorrow?”

  Then she’s gone.

  For the first time in the whole day since I left Bone and returned, I’m happy. I feel free again.

  It doesn’t last.

  CHAPTER 3

  COUNTERPOINT

  For three years, I live in blissful ignorance of the machinations of my father and the Pantheon. Days are spent swimming in the ocean and fishing. When I was little, my mother taught me to read, but it never seemed as fun as watching aquagraphics. Since my trip to Meridian, though, I devour everything I can. I want to know everything, not only about my world, but about the many worlds of the Fracture that were only hinted at by those strange travelers. I love the legends and myths of the Daysiders. I ask for more. I read during afternoons when others take their naps. My mother finds tomes for me from off-world, histories and fictions of other places, other times. The Pirates of Nonthera, The Lost Anjins of Miral, The Prosperan Countesses, History of the Chironian Civil War are some of my favorites.

  Nadia and I meet by the cliffs almost every day. I tell her about the books I’ve read. She tells me the news of the daily market. We talk about Old Wusong and the day of the christening often. She makes me describe the strange visitors from off-world over and over again. We dream about where they came from. We invent new people and new planets as a game to pass the time. I tell her what I’ve learned from my reading, how the great scientists think that our universe is only one of an infinite number of universes, shaped like amoebas that sometimes touch or bubble off from one another.

  She says I’m an idiot.

  “Everyone knows that in the beginning there was just the Chaos Sea. The universe burst forth from a giant egg, creating the sky and stars. Then the ancestors were born who whisper into the wind of all things.”

  “Well,” I say. “They do think that the dimensions of hyperspace are like a roiling sea, and universes are like foam bubbles constantly forming and springing up. Most universes probably don’t have life. The only reason we know this one does is we’re here to observe it.”

  “That seems self-centered.” She sighs, unconvinced. I shrug, but she’s adamant. “Some things just are, with or without you.”

  “Scientists think black holes might hold entire universes inside of them,” I say.

  “Next time you’re in a black hole, let me know!” She punches my arm.

  She is thirteen, still a tomboy, all knobby elbows and knees, but several centimeters taller than me. It might as well be a mile. I blush at the touch, even though it’s a punch.

  We watch silver streaks of rockets burn through the atmo overhead. Even though Nadia says I’m an idiot, I know she, too, dreams of flying beyond the day sky.

  We’re told the rockets carry men heading to the deep Nightside where it’s so dark and cold it’ll freeze your bones. That’s where they drill for minerals and ore. Nadia and I sometimes talk about where we’d go if we stole a rocket. The cracks of the Fracture could take us anywhere in the universe.

  “If you leave, won’t you be afraid you won’t be able to find your way home?” she asks one day.

  “No,” I say simply. “If I was lost, I’d never have to worry about my father ever again.”

  I change the subject. I ask her to show me how to scale the boulders. She’s been showing me the intricacies of how to climb sideways. She calls it traversing. Sometimes I feel like that’s what she and I have been doing, just moving sideways instead of up. That’s okay, though. I’m happy and would stay like this with her forever if I could, best friends just moving sideways.

  A week later, I’m in town with Mother when I see Nadia manning a cart in the market. She stands with a small, kind-looking man selling fish. Mother stops by the cart and asks the man if she may buy some dried octopus. The man gives her a price, and Mother haggles. I look at Nadia, but she won’t meet my eyes.

  The haggling becomes heated.

  “Surely you don’t expect me to pay ten. This is clearly a third-rate specimen.”

  It’s not an insult my mother gives. It’s just the island way of doing business.

  Nadia’s eyes are still glued to the ground. Have I done something wrong?

  “Mother,” I interject. “Give him double.”

  Both adults stare at me, shocked. My mother’s brow furrows.

  “This is the best fisherman on the entire isle,” I say.

  “How do you know that?” she asks incredulously.

  “Because Nadia
is my best friend. She saved my life,” I reply, and indicate Nadia, though she’s looking at the ground.

  Mother looks at me curiously. I’ve kept my time with Nadia secret. I don’t know why. I guess I figured she was a confidante, someone I could tell everything to, even the things I can’t tell my mother.

  Cleopatra turns to the fisherman. Her face is not exactly the same as it was before her horrific beating, but she is still beautiful, and she still commands respect.

  “This is your daughter?”

  The fisherman nods.

  “Is what Edmon says true?”

  “Yes, m’lady,” Nadia replies, eyes downcast.

  My mother hands the fisherman double his asking price. “For the finest fisherman on Bone.”

  The fisherman bows and accepts the payment. He pulls the octopus from the clothesline, wraps it in cloth, and hands it to my mother. We amble up the winding road toward our home. I wave goodbye to Nadia, but she stares in the other direction.

  As the Eventide feast commences, the shades are pulled low to mimic night, and the fireglobe is placed in the pit in the center of the floor. My mother presides, welcoming the guests. She sits at a high table and discusses politics and gossip with the other islanders. I smile at the woman she is, fiercely proud of her people, a leader.

  Then it begins with the beat of a drum. Flutes and pipes sound. Strings take up the melody.

  Gorham has been teaching me the flute, but I can play the drums and strings, too. Singing is actually my favorite, but Gorham says that if I can make an instrument sing like it is my own voice, my true singing will become deeper than the ocean and rise higher than the Elder Stars. So I practice my flute with focused determination.

  “Feel the rhythm,” he instructs as always. “Melody first. Make the tone as pure as you can, unchanged. Then change it. Find variations.”

  I try it on the flute.

  “Your song is part of the whole. Listen to the others. Complement them.”