The Firebrand Legacy

by T. K. Kiser

  “Your Majesties,” Limly said, gasping for breath as he treaded water like a drowning dog. “We’ll enter the castle through the garden in the back. We cannot walk on shore without first knowing what is going on.”

  Carine looked over the marketplace into the Grunge. The gray skies hung low over the city. The noise came from Bastion Park, but the Grunge to the north had an air of abandon to it.

  “I’m going home,” Carine said. Home wouldn’t be the cozy shoe shop she had always known.

  David swam back. “Wait a minute. You’re leaving, just like that?”

  “We are as disposable as hair to you,” Giles said, the slightest of smiles revealing an intended joke.

  As much as she regretted ever leaving her parents, if she hadn’t boarded the ship, she never would have met David and Giles. Now, they would disappear into their royal lives and she could return to peace with her family.

  “Goodbye,” she said, heart aching. She met David’s eyes one last time and gave a small smile to Giles.

  Carine couldn’t take any more, so she ducked underwater, making use of the last hour of the merfolk kiss, watching the sand as it rose closer and closer to the water surface.

  She swam between the ships anchored at the port and stepped onto dry sand, dripping thick drops onto the shore.

  A splash of water made her turn.

  Princes David and Giles stood behind her, dripping wet in their ruined royal clothes. Limly swam slowly behind them.

  David looked at his brother. “We decided to come with you for moral support,” he said. “You know, just in case.”

  Just in case her parents were dead. Just in case the baker had killed Mom and the Heartless One had killed Didda.

  Carine met their eyes, joining them in ignoring Limly’s disapproving shouts. “Thank you.” She turned to walk home as David and Giles flanked her on each side. “Let’s go.”

  22 A Window

  “Lovely street,” Giles said.

  Carine shushed him and clutched her arms as an evening chill made her soaked dress freeze. Even with all the activity in the city, the streets were still littered and abandoned. Windows were boarded and doors bolted shut. It wasn’t lovely. It was broken.

  “Soot and ash,” said David beside her when they found the end of Carine’s street. The shoe shop was intact, but the window was gone, and the door marked by Selius swung wide open.

  Carine swallowed hard. No one was there.

  Her mind spun. Despite what she knew about the danger they were in, Carine had still expected her parents to be waiting for her at home. Deep down, she had counted on it.

  “I’m so sorry, Carine. You okay?” David said.

  Her vision blurred as she stepped inside. The room was dark, and it still smelled rank from Festival. Her father’s green cloak was missing from his hook. He had taken it when he went to get the pig’s heart. There was no more food in the house than there had been during Festival.

  “Is this the whole house? What happened to the window?” said Giles, kicking shards of glass aside with his shoe. David elbowed him, but Carine looked closer.

  “Selius happened to it,” Carine said.

  “Yes,” Giles said. “I’ve been thinking about that. Has it occurred to you that it might not have been the Heartless One whose body you saw? Is there any chance you saw a look-alike? a twin?”

  Carine frowned. The possibility hadn’t occurred to her. But now, looking over the glass on the floor, she saw that the shards glinting blue in the early moonlight were spread unevenly.

  “They’ve been back here,” Carine breathed. “At least, someone has.” And there, right at the base of Didda’s overturned stump were a pair of boots, the very same ones that Selius had stolen.

  Carine stepped back. It didn’t make any sense. Selius’ corpse had been barefoot, but at first she thought nothing of it. What did it mean for his shoes to end up back here? It could be some enchantment or some trick.

  “I’m not surprised your parents aren’t here,” said Giles. “It sounds the whole city is in South Esten.”

  “So you do think it’s a riot?” David blurted.

  Carine wiped her eyes. Giles had better be right. She immediately replaced her shoes with a dry pair, one with azaleas engraved in the toe. She pulled her other surcoat and undergarments out from under her bed.

  “Here,” she said, pulling out the last two of Didda’s garments. “Put these on.”

  Giles grimaced.

  “Don’t be so proud,” Carine said. “If there is a demonstration going on, I have to find my parents in the crowd, and if you plan on joining me, you’d better not be wearing those clothes. Drenched or not, they’ll give you away.”

  Giles took the clothes with reluctance, and Carine closed the front door while they changed.

  The princes jumped out the open window in their common garb. For Carine, seeing her father’s clothes on the boys panged her heart. They didn’t wear his clothes right. They weren’t him.

  23 Dishonor

  “Dishonor to the Cowardly Marcels!” yelled one of the many protesters as Carine and the princes neared Bastion Park. They threaded through the crowd, stopping only so Carine could stand on tiptoes, looking for Didda’s green cape or Mom’s long, unbraided hair.

  “I don’t see them,” she said, but neither David nor Giles answered.

  They had been following her through the maze. David’s hair was still damp, and his eyes were shiny saucers as he watched and listened. His mouth hung slightly open, as though in shock, and he read each sign and listened to each chant as though certain he were dreaming.

  “Who is Heartless? The king who hides!” yelled a woman with a toddler on her hip. Tear stains on her dirty cheeks spoke to the loss she’d suffered.

  Giles kept his lips taught and chin high.

  Of the faces and heads, none of them were Didda’s or Mom’s.

  Carine pulled David close to her side. “You okay?”

  His face contorted, as if he were waking up from a nightmare. His jaw tensed. “I’m fine. I don’t know what’s worse: that my family name is being attacked or that I resent the Marcels as much as everyone here.”

  Giles tripped over someone and spoke up from behind. “That’s the problem with Grandfather, isn’t it? He can do politics. He can come up with legitimate moves, but he’s slow with them—too slow, in this case.”

  “We want a centaur king!” chanted the crowd.

  This silenced both of the princes, so Carine weaved on and they followed silently, threading through the people, slowly approaching the looming Bastion. The way Navafort was established, with harmony among centaurs, fauns, and men, the folk kinds ruled on rotation. It was supposed to start with menfolk, for as long as the line of the first King Marcel could go unbroken by blood. Once that line was broken, the ruling centaur family would take their place as kings. The fauns would follow.

  “I can’t find them anywhere,” Carine said. “Maybe they already left the city.”

  Giles raised his eyebrow. “If nothing worse has happened.”

  Carine glared at him. “They would have gone south, over the southern bridge.”

  A woman next to them pulled her sign down and said, “The south bridge is out, dear. He obliterated that as well.”

  Carine turned. “Who? Selius?”

  The woman shivered at the name. “No, the other Heartless One.” Her silver hair fell in a single braid to her waist, which was tied with a shimmery belt of South Esten quality. “He never says his name. He’s the one that killed Selius. Haven’t you heard?”

  “We’ve been hiding.”

  The woman’s eyes fluttered over the boys as Carine held her breath. Fortunately, she didn’t recognize them. “It’s a good thing. This Heartless One barges in. He’s been in every house in my street. Shadowy, he is. Silent, he is. My husband and I held each other tight as he unlocked the door without a touch. He crept around the house like he was smelling it, almost like he was looking for some
thing.”

  “Looking for what?” Carine said.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. No one knows.”

  “His heart?” Carine suggested, remembering Selius’ obsession.

  “Maybe,” said the woman. “All I know is he’s getting more and more frustrated, and even though no one’s seen him in two days, I just know he’ll be back. He’ll smell out all those who are hiding. He’ll unlock all the doors, creep into all the homes. But this time, he won’t let anyone go. I just know it.” She brushed back a tear. “Which is why the man who is our king must fight. We need defenses. We need action. Or—”

  “Has he killed anyone?”

  She held up her picket sign. “There’s been a lot of people dying, dear.”

  Carine could barely breathe. Her parents had no safe place to hide themselves, and this Heartless One, from the sound of it, would seek them out. Of all people, they wouldn’t have what he was searching for.

  David’s face was as white as the torch’s dragon. Giles clenched his jaw.

  “Let’s go,” Giles said, pulling her arm in the direction of the castle.

  “Wait!” Carine pulled from Giles’ grip and turned to the woman. “What did you mean when you said he destroyed the bridge?”

  “From what I hear, it exploded into a cloud of white dust.” She raised her eyes to the sign as though praying to it or praying that the king would see it and do something.

  A man in front of them turned. “That was no random act, I say.” He had a faded orange smock and high white socks. “The Heartless One is trying to trap us all here in Esten. No news in and no news out. The reason he hasn’t been seen in two days is he’s been polishing his methods, slaughtering horses and such things. Once he has us all trapped here, he’ll do whatever he likes.”

  “A massacre,” said the woman, eyes wide.

  “By then, even the king won’t be able to offer any help,” the man said.

  “He has to act now.” It was David who spoke, a strong line in his jaw that matched Giles’ for once. “Let’s go.”

  “What about my parents?” Carine said.

  “If we don’t help the city, where they are now won’t matter,” David said.

  “I have to find them.”

  “We’ll go to my tower,” said Giles. “I have a telescope you can use to look down into the crowd for your parents. Fair?”

  “Fine.” She hoped it would work.

  “Your tower?” said the woman, inspecting the boys closer. Carine pushed David and Giles forward into the crowd, but it was too late. “It’s the princes! It’s the two young princes!”

  24 Faces in the Crowd

  The crowd turned. One by one their noses faced David and Giles, assessing them. Their signs fell as questions flashed in their faces: is it true? Were the princes out here? If yes, why? Why was their hair wet and why were they wearing Grunge-dweller clothes?

  Carine shrunk under their eyes. As strange as her family was to Esten, never had so many people looked at her with such conflicting expressions. The crowd in front of them had turned to see, so Carine and the twins were trapped in a circle of onlookers.

  David forced a smile.

  “What’s going on?” said a man finally, but before either of the princes could answer, the others shouted their questions.

  “Where is the king?”

  “Won’t you do something?”

  “What happened to the Heartless Ones?”

  “Will you let us be murdered when he comes back?”

  They pressed in, until someone reached out and touched David’s arm, begging him, “What will you do to save my children?”

  “Hey!” Prince Giles unsheathed his sword, which he’d strapped beneath Didda’s surcoat. It shimmered in the sunlight, sharply contrasting with the dullness of Giles’ clothes. A hush passed over the crowd as they stepped back, out of the diameter of his reach. “This is not how you address your leaders.”

  Carine pulled his sleeve and whispered, “Let’s go.” Now was the moment. The crowd had been paused just long enough to warrant an escape.

  David glanced from Carine to Giles, who hesitated, eyebrows furled as he glared over his subjects.

  “His Royal Highness is a lazy coward!” yelled someone, who like a coward didn’t show his face over the crowd. The ones nearest the princes looked back to find the speaker, but he did not reveal himself.

  Giles’ fingers twitched on his hilt. Carine pulled his sleeve. “Let’s go, Giles.”

  David frowned. “You don’t know who you’re talking about. His Majesty King Marcel and my brother know that serving you—yes, even the coward who dares denounce them—isn’t just a job. It is their life.” When David spoke, unlike Giles who wore even Didda’s rags as fine garments, he looked more like a baker or shepherd than a king. But his words trembled with a loyalty that Carine had never witnessed before. “Honor to the Great Marcels!” he shouted, lifting his fist. “Honor to the Great Marcels!”

  No one joined his chant, so David did not shout again, but his reverence settled over the crowd.

  Carine met his eyes. He had made his point. It was time. “Let’s go.”

  Prince David stood with the same puffed chest and tall neck as Giles, who kept his sword drawn as the princes moved through the hushed, parting crowd.

  Suddenly, someone among the sea of people grasped Carine’s shoulder and swirled her around. “And who are you?” The woman had beady eyes and a sweaty forehead, like she’d been out here a long time. Anger boiled in her gaze.

  “I’m…” Her voice trailed off, not from nerves but from the ugliness of the woman’s attitude and claim.

  Before Carine was forced to finish, David wrapped his arm around Carine’s shoulder. His flat, dispassionate expression made the woman step back. He did not smile or even twitch his mouth, the Bastion growing larger before them as the crowd observed and calculated their next move, and the people disappeared into a whispering throng behind them.

  The Bastion’s shadow enveloped them.

  The knights at the gate concealed their surprise at the princes’ strange arrival and their guest, so Carine passed through the entryway into the crown jewel of Esten architecture and under the warm arm of Prince David, her friend.

  “I thought you agreed with them,” Carine said softly to David, following Giles through a maze of narrow brick hallways past elaborate paintings, stationary knights, and the rich tapestries and furniture of the elite.

  “I do,” said David. He took his arm away and breathed until his face relaxed into that characteristic lopsided expression. “But they’re still my family.”

  Just then, Giles opened two double doors and walked into a great hall, which despite its floor-to-ceiling windows still felt dim, illuminated by lit candles on silver candlesticks next to mirrors and potted plants. In the center of the room was a single chair, a throne of curling dark wood, indigo velvet, and silver glistening threads. Beside the throne shivered Limly in wet clothes, tripping over rapid words to the one seated in the throne.

  Honor to the Great Marcels.

  25 Royal Plea

  King Marcel was thin and bald with wrinkled skin like a toad, but his crown and posture made him regal.

  “I thought we were going to look for my parents!” Carine hissed, but Giles ignored her. He stepped forward in boots that Didda had carved and sewn, as though the shoes had finally found their rightful place on the feet of a prince, on the floor of a castle.

  “Are you going senile?” Giles asked.

  King Marcel rolled his eyes and dismissed them with a wave of his hand. Limly must have already informed the king of what happened at sea. ”Get them out of here,” the king said to no one in particular. Limly calculated if he should carry out the task, being the only servant present.

  “If you don’t get a hold of your people, our reign will fall to the centaurs,” Giles snapped.

  King Marcel inhaled. “I have delivered my son to safety. That is all I can do.”
>
  David’s face contorted. Prince Marcel wasn’t the king’s son but his grandson, and David and Giles belonged as much to that title as Marcel did. They hadn’t been kidding about King Marcel’s favoritism toward their oldest brother.

  “Grandfather, the people are scared out there. They think the Heartless One will slaughter them. They think there’s nothing we can do. They think you’re not even trying.”

  The king pulled himself from the arms of the throne with pale, wiry arms. “They’re right.”

  “How can you say that?” asked David.

  “What about my parents?” Carine hadn’t meant to speak aloud, let alone to the king.

  His gaze flickered over her for a moment, but did not stay there. “I shall die a hero to my kingdom,” the king said.

  “But, sir, Your Majesty, sir,” said Limly. Whether his dripping clothes or the subject made him shiver, Carine couldn’t tell. Her clothes were dry, yet she joined the servant’s trembling. “Remaining here without fighting is a death sentence. You can’t submit to death, Your Majesty, sir.”

  “As a mortal, it is all I can do.”

  “What about everyone else?” David asked. “What about us?” He caught his breath, meeting Carine’s eyes.

  “You came back on your own, against my orders. This is your own doing.” He waved them away, this time settling back in his chair.

  “What about Kavariel?” David said.

  “I am dismissing you,” the king said.

  “What about the dragon?”

  Limly answered, “He isn’t coming, Your Majesties. Sirs, he’s over in Wyre, bleeding to death.”

  “I knew something was wrong.” Ute, a Wyrian centaur, hadn’t brushed down her hide or flicked the dried mud off her headscarf. Her purple eyes widened as she spoke, as though she saw everything over again. She was trembling in the Rosette Room, where Limly told the princes they would find her.

  In the room’s corner, a faun garden servant strummed a lute. The result was spectacular: thorny roses bloomed over each wall, stems interlacing in a web of fragrant reds, yellows, and whites. Despite the anarchy outside these walls, the castle seemed to operate as normal, as though death weren’t a mere scratch away.