Crown of Three

by J. D. Rinehart

  Elodie’s mouth dropped open. A young man with a scarred face, riding close beside her, held out his hand to the archers.

  “Fast with your bows!” he told them. Then he called up to Tarlan, “Who are you?”

  “My name is Tarlan! Elodie is my sister!”

  A gasp rose up from the column. Tarlan felt a grim satisfaction that he’d gained their attention without getting shot. But he was painfully aware that at least fifty arrows were pointed straight at Theeta’s breast.

  “That is quite a claim, young man,” called the rider, who despite his young age looked more like a commander than a regular soldier. “And I will grant you look like her. I am Fessan, leader of Trident, and I am loyal to the young woman you say is your sister. Can you prove what you say is true?”

  “It’s true.” Tarlan licked his lips. He had no desire to get drawn into a debate. Only action would free his sister and take him one step closer to completing his pack.

  “So you say!” cried Elodie, driving her horse out of the line. Her dark eyes were shining. “Can you prove it? Do you have one of these?”

  Reaching inside her tunic, she pulled out a sparkling green jewel and held it aloft.

  Tarlan’s guts contracted into a hard knot. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

  It’s just like mine!

  What more proof did he need that he and this girl were kin?

  But it was proof he could not share. His heart sank as he thought of Lord Vicerin, staring up at him as he flew from the castle, boasting that he still had the jewel. No wonder he’d missed it so badly.

  “I lost it,” he blurted, all too aware of how desperate he sounded. “But I am your brother. You have to believe me.”

  “Imposter!”

  Tarlan didn’t see who shouted, but before he could respond, an arrow whistled over his head. He grabbed Theeta’s feathers and yanked her around just in time to avoid three more arrows as they shot past. He roared, a primal, animal sound. These humans pretended they loved words, but all they ever really wanted to do was fight.

  “Nasheen!” he yelled skyward. “Kitheen!”

  Theeta screeched as he pulled her around, ready to dive on the archers. On the ground, the troops clapped their hands to their ears. Elodie watched in silence, a rapt look on her face.

  “Fast!” yelled Fessan, riding down the line of bowmen. “Fast, I said! I will see no bloodshed here today!”

  Tarlan tugged on Theeta’s feathers, pulling her out of her dive barely a tree’s height from the ground. As she hovered, the shadows of the other two thorrods fell over them.

  “Wait!” said Tarlan, raising his hand. “Don’t attack yet.”

  Nasheen and Kitheen fell into formation, one on each side of Theeta. Their great gold wings beat the air with a slow, threatening rhythm. At the sight of them, more weapons rose from the ranks of Trident: swords and spears bristling along its length like the hackles of some threatened beast.

  “Let them land!” Fessan bellowed.

  Elodie whirled on the column. “And hold fast your weapons!” she shouted. “All of them!”

  With obvious reluctance, the archers lowered their bows and returned the arrows to their quivers. Slowly, the entire column relaxed. Tarlan was startled to see the power his sister apparently had over this army.

  “Safe now,” said Theeta.

  Tarlan had been worrying it was a trick, but the thorrod’s certainty gave him hope. Was it worth the risk?

  One look at Elodie’s eager face told him it was worth everything.

  “Down, Theeta,” he said. “Slow and careful. Don’t alarm them.”

  Leaving their companions circling overhead, they touched down beside Fessan. As Tarlan jumped from Theeta’s back, Fessan dismounted. Tarlan stood, his whole body tensed, as the leader of Trident walked a complete circle around him.

  “You have her face,” he said in wonder. He opened the collar of Tarlan’s tunic. “Your skin is very tanned, except for these lines. Once you wore something around your neck.”

  “The jewel, like I said,” said Tarlan. He wanted to sound defiant, but all the anger had drained from him.

  “Tell me again who you are.”

  Tarlan drew himself up to his full height. “I am Tarlan of Yalasti. I have crossed the Icy Wastes to be here. I am leader of my pack. And I am Elodie’s brother.”

  “Yes,” said Fessan, “I believe you are.”

  He turned slightly, performing the trick of talking both to Tarlan and to the watching crowd.

  “We mean your sister no harm,” Fessan announced. “We protect her, just as we will protect you, Tarlan. You are the second of three, and we will not rest until you and Elodie are reunited with your lost brother. We march with the strength of not only weapons but the power of the prophecy. Your arrival has doubled our hope, Tarlan—the hope that we will overthrow the cruel king of Toronia and return this realm to the peace it deserves.”

  He paused. Tarlan held his breath, expecting a cheer. Instead, there was an expectant silence.

  Fessan spoke again, this time pitching his voice so low that only Tarlan could hear. Just for a moment, the rest of the world faded to transparency.

  “Will you join us?” said Fessan.

  The young man’s expression was so earnest, his gaze so piercing, that Tarlan was transfixed, as if he’d been pierced by one of the bowmen’s arrows. He was suddenly aware of the vastness of the forest around him, and of all the rest of the great kingdom beyond that, of the heavens above him and the hidden underworlds below. What were human squabbles over a crown compared to this?

  “I don’t want—” he began.

  “Tarlan!”

  Elodie was running toward him, filling his vision, suddenly and undeniably there before him. Her face was streaked with tears. Spreading her arms wide, she pulled him into a tight embrace that went on and on. Her chest heaved against his, hitching in breaths and letting them out in faltering sobs. He allowed his own arms to close around her back, wondering at the force that drew them in, and held her.

  Eventually they parted. She gripped his shoulders, holding him at arm’s length, staring with wonder into his face. Her eyes shone.

  “I didn’t want to believe you existed!” She laughed. Her voice sounded familiar. How could that be when they’d never met? “When I first heard about you, I was so angry. . . . Can you imagine? But since then . . .” Her face fell. “A lot has happened, Tarlan. Now that you’re here . . . I feel like I’ve found myself.”

  Tarlan tasted again what he’d been about to say: I don’t want any part of your war; Just let me leave with my sister; Leave us alone. The words were bitter to him now.

  “I’m glad I’m here,” he said.

  “Well?” said Elodie, glancing at Fessan. “Will you?”

  “Will I what?” Tarlan asked.

  “Join us!”

  Something broke inside him. It cracked like winter ice left too long in the summer sun. Whatever it was, it splintered into countless tiny shards that melted and flowed invisibly away.

  This is what Mirith would want.

  “I will,” he said, “but on one condition.”

  “Condition?” said Fessan.

  “My pack comes too.”

  Elodie looked puzzled. “Pack?”

  Tarlan whistled. Filos and Graythorn burst at once from nearby undergrowth. Clearly they’d ignored his instruction to keep their distance. Tarlan grinned. He was pleased.

  Several people cried out at the sight of the animals. One of the archers raised his bow, but lowered it again as the tigron and the wolf bounded around Tarlan’s legs.

  Tarlan waved Nasheen and Kitheen down. They alighted with soft thuds on the trail beside him. Reunited, the three thorrods clustered together, cooing softly in the language that only Tarlan could understand.

  “Yes, we’re going with them,” he told his pack. “We’re going with Elodie.”

  “You can talk to them?” said Elodie in wonder.
>
  “Yes.” Tarlan felt a swell of pride. “They’re your pack too,” he said.

  Now came the cheer. It began at the head of the column and raced all the way to the far end. Weapons rose again, this time not in threat but celebration. Tarlan stroked Filos’s back, and scratched Graythorn’s ears, and stared and stared at his sister, wondering if the smile would ever leave his face.

  “Two of the three are with us!” Fessan shouted, stilling the uproar with his raised hand. “The third we know is waiting for us in Idilliam. So to Idilliam we march! We march for the prophecy! We march for the kingdom! We march for the crown of three!”

  CHAPTER 25

  Gulph spent the morning in a daze of swirling dust and blazing light. The sun was a furnace, beating down on the back of his head through the clouds of powdered stone. His arms ached, right down to the bone; his hands were covered with huge blisters. With every blow of his pickax on the rocky ground, his body rang like a bell.

  Progress was agonizingly slow. Occasionally a shelf of rock would detach itself and plunge into the chasm’s dark depths. But Gulph had no sense of whether the work would take days or weeks or even years. Perhaps in the very next moment the last surviving section of the bridge would collapse and Idilliam would be cut off from the rest of Toronia forever.

  Or perhaps he would be toiling here for the remainder of his life.

  A bugle call cut through the haze. Gulph ignored it and focused his attention on swinging his pickax, only slowly realizing that all around him the other prisoners were stopping work.

  “Take a break, lad,” said Ossilius, resting his hand on Gulph’s arm. Like Gulph’s, his palms were oozing blood. Caked from head to toe in fine white dust, he looked like a statue come to life.

  Exhausted, Gulph leaned on his pickax. The sandy air scoured his throat. He must look as bad as Ossilius, he thought, if not worse. His fine court clothes were in rags and his hands and ankles looked like raw meat.

  A battalion from the King’s Legion had taken up position at the outermost edge of the bridge. A smaller group of armed men appeared through the murk, escorting a robed figure: King Nynus. The smooth gold mask seemed to float in the air, not part of the young monarch’s body but belonging somehow to another realm altogether.

  Drawing near to Gulph, Nynus stopped.

  “Take heart, you who work in the name of the king!” he cried. His voice, muffled by the mask, seemed to come from a great distance. Though he spoke to the crowd, his eyes—clearly visible as bright beads through the mask’s eyeholes—remained fixed on Gulph. “Now is your chance to be free!”

  Despite everything, Gulph’s heart rose in his chest. But what the king said next turned his hope to despair.

  “I mean free to return to your cells, of course,” Nynus went on with a thin, metallic laugh. “Behold—your savior approaches!”

  Two legionnaires appeared behind him. All eyes turned to them. Between them they were carrying a slim figure wearing only a torn gray shift: Limmoni. Her bare feet dragged on the stony ground. Her head lolled. Her arms were covered in bruises.

  When they reached the king, the legionnaires released her. At once Limmoni fell to her knees. Gulph started forward, but Ossilius held him back.

  “You cannot help,” the captain said.

  “But she can’t even stand!”

  Yet, to Gulph’s amazement, Limmoni struggled to her feet. She stood before the king, her body swaying, her legs looking ready to buckle at any moment. Her head hung, hiding her face. But she stood.

  “You are recovered,” said Nynus. “You will finish what you started. You will destroy what is left of the Idilliam Bridge. Do this, and you will be free to leave this land, on the understanding that you never return. Refuse, and you will die.”

  Slowly, Limmoni raised her head. The sun, breaking through the dust, sculpted her face with light. When he saw her look of determination, Gulph’s breath caught in his throat.

  “I am a true wizard,” she said. Her voice was cracked and desert dry, but it echoed in strange ways, seeming to come from many different directions at once. Gulph touched his hand to his ear, unsure of what he was hearing.

  “Yes!” snapped Nynus. “And you will use your powers to serve the king!”

  “No true wizard would ever do what you ask. To bring down the Idilliam Bridge is to bring down Toronia.”

  “I ask nothing of you, wizard! I command! Upon the king’s order, you will destroy the bridge!”

  “If it is destruction that you desire, King-of-the-Mask, then destruction will be upon you.”

  Limmoni raised her hand. The rest of her body was trembling, almost out of control, but her hand remained utterly still. Light flared, spreading from the center of her palm to form glowing webs that scintillated between her outstretched fingers.

  The words she’d spoken seemed to linger in the air. As the light expanded from her hand, Gulph felt the echo of her voice boring into his skull. All around him, men were dropping their tools and clamping their hands against their ears. The air buzzed. The ground softened. Somewhere—perhaps everywhere—people started screaming.

  One of the legionnaires was drawing his sword.

  “No!” shouted Gulph. Again he lunged forward, desperate to save the young woman who’d shown him who he really was. Again Ossilius held him back.

  “They’ll kill you!” he hissed. “And you’re no good to her dead.”

  Gulph shook him off, tried to run toward his friend, but the chains stopped him, yanking at his wounded ankles and dragging him down to his knees.

  The light exploded from Limmoni’s hand. But even as it tore a jagged hole in the air on its way toward Nynus’s mask, the legionnaire thrust his sword into Limmoni’s back. Gulph looked on in horror as the tip of the blade, red with blood, emerged from her chest.

  At once the light winked out. The bolt of lightning Limmoni had hurled at Nynus contracted to a dazzling line—a scratch against the sky—then vanished altogether. Her face stiffened and her eyes grew wide. Blood trickled from between her lips.

  Gulph clenched his fists, heedless of the pain as a dozen blisters burst on his palms.

  And Limmoni continued to stand.

  “Do not kill her yet!” said Nynus. He stalked up to her as she stood balanced in the dust. The legionnaire had released his grip on the sword’s hilt, but the weapon was still inside her—through her. Slowly, a dark stain was spreading from the wound, turning her gray shift the color of wine.

  Nynus’s whole body was shaking with rage. Spittle flew from the mouth of his mask as he shrieked at the woman on whom his entire plan had rested.

  “You dare to defy me?” he howled. “You had the chance to save yourself and this is how you repay me? Well then, you will die indeed!”

  “I am already dying,” Limmoni gasped. Each word was accompanied by a bubble of blood.

  “Perhaps. But there is still time for you to take your place among the traitors of the realm. Beside the biggest traitor of them all, in fact. Legionnaires! Take her to the mausoleum. I think it’s time my father had a little company!”

  Gulph looked on in horror as Limmoni, still impaled on the sword, was hauled through the dust and rubble to the foot of the towering mausoleum. The rows of people who’d come to watch the spectacle of the bridge’s destruction—from the highest courtiers to the lowliest peasants—fell back to watch her pass. A few called out curses and insults. Most just watched in silence.

  Using the stepped stonework on the mausoleum’s curved wall, the soldiers manhandled Limmoni’s limp body up onto the roof. By the time they were halfway up, her slack face and dangling limbs had convinced Gulph she was already dead. But as the two men dragged her over the parapet and onto the upper dome, her eyes opened.

  The person she sought out in the crowd—and with whom she locked her gaze—was Gulph. Her expression was taut and anguished. Gulph had never seen anyone look more wretched.

  “Do something!” he muttered under his breath. “Mak
e your magic! Save yourself!”

  But her eyes filmed over, and her gaze dropped.

  “Put the wizard in her place!” shouted Nynus. He was pacing to and fro, marking out a cell-sized patch of ground.

  The legionnaire threw Limmoni down onto the sloping surface of the roof. She landed beside Brutan’s rotting corpse. The crows that had been feeding on his remains flapped their big black wings and took to the sky, squawking angrily at having their meal disturbed.

  Limmoni raised her arms.

  “Please stop this!” she cried, her voice stronger than it had any right to be. Gulph assumed she was about to plead for her life. Instead, she went on: “Kill me if you must, but not here. Not like this. You do not understand what you are dealing with. The forces—”

  Limmoni choked on the blood streaming from her mouth. Gulph pulled uselessly at his ankle chains. He couldn’t believe she was still alive. Any ordinary person would have been dead long ago.

  But Limmoni is no ordinary person.

  “Enough!” Nynus yelled. “Take off her head!”

  The legionnaires exchanged puzzled looks. The first was armed only with a pair of knives; the sword belonging to the second was still buried in Limmoni’s chest.

  Shrugging, the man who’d stabbed Limmoni kicked her over, grabbed the hilt of the sword, and pulled the blade with one swift movement out of her body.

  Limmoni lay slumped for a moment before rising slowly to her knees. She spread her arms and lifted her pain-racked face to the sky.

  Arching his back, the legionnaire raised the sword over his head. At the top of his swing, he paused. The sun flashed off the blood-covered blade.

  He brought the blade down.

  Gulph closed his eyes. Bending double, he clamped his hands over his belly, seized by a sudden, dreadful pain. He moaned: an incoherent cry of helpless anguish.

  There was a stunned silence. Then someone in the crowd cried out.

  Standing up straight, Gulph opened his eyes. On the roof of the mausoleum stood the legionnaires, one still recovering his balance after swinging his sword, the other holding something triumphantly in the air.