Valiant

by Sarah McGuire

  The duke glanced at Galen. “Did you now? What did you want to tell him?”

  I pressed my palms against Volar’s hand. I needed him to listen. “I wanted to tell him that he was right. He heard anger and sadness in my voice. And he caught me in a lie—”

  Volar’s fingers tightened around me.

  The duke threw back his head and laughed. Then he held his arms wide as he shouted up to the giants, “Did I not tell you? They lie! You heard it from her own mouth! That is why I command you to kill them before they can speak, before they cause death with their words!”

  He turned again to face me as if it were part of some savage dance. “I am not afraid of you, Champion, and so these giants are safe. Speak on!”

  I paused, knowing I stood on the edge of a cliff. “As I said, Your Grace, I lied. I wanted him to know it. He was not wrong to suspect me.”

  I patted Volar’s hand. You were right. You heard the truth.

  “Stop it, Saville,” muttered Galen. “That’s enough!”

  The duke chuckled. “You’re not bringing him much comfort before he dies, Champion.”

  I swallowed back the fear. “I didn’t want him to doubt himself.”

  Leymonn scowled. “Your Grace, something is—”

  Volar interrupted him. “You are the champion?”

  He didn’t call me Hillock. My heart dropped away. One last time, I claimed the title I had never wanted.

  “Yes,” I said, looking at the duke, but speaking to Volar. “I am the champion of Reggen.”

  Volar’s hand around me loosened. A rumble of disgust swept the giants. Several of the Deathless drew their swords, the ragged tips flicking near me.

  “Shut up, Saville!” Galen shouted. “She’s confused, Volar! She isn’t the champion.”

  Leymonn yanked him back. When Galen stumbled, Leymonn kicked him in the back of his knee and he toppled. Before he could rise again, Leymonn lowered his crossbow to Galen’s chest. “You’ll stay there, Verras.”

  Galen glared up at Leymonn, and I saw his anger gather itself. But it melted away when he looked at me, his eyes worried, so worried. He shook his head: Don’t do this.

  I smiled so he wouldn’t see how scared I was. I have to.

  “Don’t let the regent’s outburst stop you, Champion. Continue.”

  I gripped Volar’s hand. I needed the strength he provided, even if he despised me. “I was dressed as a lad, Your Grace, when I met the scouts.…” My voice faltered and I prayed Volar believed the grief he heard in my voice. “I expected monsters, witless beasts. They weren’t. But they had a boy.…” Suddenly, I knew how to tell Galen that Will was searching for the duke’s heart. “A street brat with the unfortunate skill of discovering hidden secrets.”

  Galen’s eyes widened and I saw the question in them: Will knows?

  I nodded, a quick tuck of my chin, and looked at the duke. “Still, I didn’t want the boy to die, so I challenged the giants to a game of strength. I tricked them into believing that I could squeeze water from a rock and throw a stone so high it would never fall back to earth.”

  Volar murmured something, a mix of bewilderment and, finally, belief. He released me, and the morning air touched my wet gown. I wrapped my arms around myself, but I knew I wasn’t trembling from the cold.

  “Two good uten dead,” he rumbled. “My sister-son dead. Because the champion lied. Because you lied. What does it matter if you tell the truth now?”

  His anger had won. I was defenseless.

  It was easier to speak after that, in the emptiness on the other side of heartbreak. The worst was over. Volar believed me, believed me and hated me. All I had to do was make him believe the rest.

  “I didn’t know,” I said. It wouldn’t make a difference now, but I needed to say it all the same. “I didn’t know they’d be killed. I’m so sorry.…”

  The duke raised an eyebrow. “You’re boring me, Champion. And you have not yet told me why you came to my camp.”

  I wiped my cheeks and stood straighter. “I came to beg the high king, bearer of Halvor’s spirit, to stop this war.”

  The duke clapped his hands. “There’s a request I didn’t expect! I thought you’d ask for the king’s life. Or the regent’s. As bearer of Halvor’s spirit, I say … No.” He whirled toward me with a flourish, as if it were my turn to dance. “Now what do you say?”

  It was time to step off the cliff. “I told you before, Your Grace: I didn’t come here to speak with you.”

  I turned to face Volar. “It’s true.” He wouldn’t look at me, but I saw the tilt of his head as he listened. “I’m the champion. But you … you heard truth in my voice. You heard it the first day. You heard my lie. Volar, you are the high king. Please, stop this war!”

  Volar’s eyes widened. The Deathless stood as though they’d been turned to stone, but Volar’s friends glanced among themselves. Iden even lifted a hand to touch Volar, as if he almost believed me.

  “She lies!” shouted the duke. “She’s trying to trick you all. Silence her!”

  I called to the giants, “You don’t need the duke to know if a lité is lying! Ask Volar!”

  “Silence!” The duke’s fist caught me on my left cheek.

  I never saw him move. There was only the explosion of light as I fell backward.

  I heard Galen shouting and the clang of his chains. When I opened my eyes, he was still in the dirt, struggling against the foot Leymonn had planted on his chest. Leymonn leaned onto his boot, twisting his heel until Galen cried out and grew still.

  “That’s better. His Grace was trying to speak.” Leymonn chuckled and gave his heel another savage twist. “I never thought I’d say this, but I like having you underfoot.”

  “Do you see what she’s done?” the duke cried. “She’s been here minutes and has already deceived Volar! I, alone, can hear the truth in a human’s voice. As the bearer of Halvor’s spirit, I tell you: she lies! Every word has been a lie!” He looked around and I detected a desperate note in his voice. “She’s not even the champion!”

  “You say now she is not the champion?” asked Volar. “But you called her by that name.”

  “She is not! It was a game, an insult.” The duke could not hide the tremor in his voice. “Every word she speaks is a lie. I hear it.”

  I wished I wasn’t the champion. I wished I had had no part in the deaths of the giant scouts.… Then I laughed. I could prove to the uten that Volar wasn’t deceived. I could prove I was the champion.

  I struggled to my feet. How had King Eldin done it, making it look so simple to stand after being struck?

  “I am the tailor who met your scouts,” I shouted, the words heavy as stones in my mouth. “I talked to them! One was young. He had blue eyes, blue as the sky. The older one had a beard and brown eyes.”

  The giants shifted their weight uncomfortably.

  “The entire city saw their heads!” screamed the duke. “That means nothing!”

  He struck out again. I saw it coming and twisted so his blow wouldn’t land as hard. My vision danced nonetheless.

  “Their eyes were pecked by the time the duke drove them through Reggen!” I shouted up at the giants. “No human but the champion could know about their eyes. Volar is right: I’m telling the truth. He could hear it. It’s the duke who lies! He’s done nothing but lie to you.”

  I stood in the center of the giants, turning in a slow circle to see their faces. The giants shifted as another joined them: Ober, the farmer Volar had told to watch Will.

  Will. He’d reached the tent. I remembered the boy holding a lock of my hair in his hand, telling me he liked to find things.

  I’d give him the time he needed to find one last secret.

  The duke drew a dagger, but I backed away and shouted, “The duke’s strength comes from an abomination, not from Halvor’s spirit! He’s cut his heart out, and he keeps it hidden. Holder of the Eternal Heart, that’s what it means. That’s why he’s so strong. You can’t kill him u
ntil you find—”

  The duke struck me again and the world became a roar of noise and light. I wished that, just once, I could faint. But I’d said all I needed to say.

  “Saville! Saville, do you hear me?” Galen’s voice came from a distance. “Get up, get up!”

  I forced my eyes open. The duke loomed over me, dagger raised.

  Fingers took the duke by his coat, plucked him off me, and dangled him above the ground. I pushed myself up on my elbows, blinking to clear my vision.

  Volar held the duke in the air, watching him as he flailed.

  He spoke two words: “You lie.”

  He looked at the gathered giants and bellowed, “He lies!”

  A whisper like the wind before a storm rolled through the giants, but they didn’t move. Volar himself looked stunned. He’d done more than simply challenge the duke. He’d claimed to be the high king. When I looked up at Volar’s face, I realized he believed it.

  He knew who he was.

  Chapter 39

  The duke thrashed against Volar’s hold. His clothing ripped and he fell to the ground. When he stood, his shirt hung open. A net of scars covered his chest like a purple-edged spiderweb.

  Galen and I had bet our lives that the duke had followed in the footsteps of the deathless knight, but I still gasped to see the proof. He’d cut his heart from his body.

  Galen lay under Leymonn’s boot, gaping.

  For a moment, I thought the duke would run. I thought the Deathless would leave him. Then he stood and calmly straightened his ripped clothes. He acted like he’d had a tussle with boys, but now the fun was over and he needed to go back to his business.

  The duke shouted up to Ynnix, “Fetch the humans.”

  Ynnix saluted and signaled two Deathless to carry out the command. The duke turned to me, still sprawled on the ground. I scrabbled back.

  Volar pushed the toe of his boot in front of me. The duke might have been immortal, but he was not stupid.

  The battle for the uten wasn’t about the champion of Reggen anymore. It was between Volar and the duke. He turned away, as if I wasn’t worth considering, and looked around at the giants who were murmuring like a storm gathering on the plains.

  “Quiet now,” said the duke softly, and it carried far more menace than his shouts. “I will have silence when I speak.”

  And there was silence. The still before the storm.

  I glanced at the rotting, crimson tent, flapping in the breeze, and hoped Will was inside. Let the duke be as foolish as I was. Let him hide his heart where Will can find it.

  I stood up slowly, making sure that my legs could hold me. The dizziness passed, but I rested a hand against Volar’s leg. He nodded but did not take his eyes from the duke.

  “See how they listen?” the duke said. “They recognize Halvor’s spirit. I don’t have to grope after it. You are no king. Your mind is weak. It has been twisted by this tiny lita.” He chided Volar as if he were a wayward child. “I will forget your insolence. I will forgive that you laid hands on me. I only ask that you leave.” His bicolored gaze flicked to me. “You may even take this human you have chosen to protect. I will grant you both safe passage.”

  Before Volar could answer, the ranks of the giants behind the duke rippled and broke as the Deathless brought King Eldin and Lissa forward. Princess Lissa’s arm was wrapped around her brother’s waist and he leaned against her for support. His hands … Sky above, his hands. What had Will said? The duke wanted to show them that a human couldn’t squeeze a rock.

  The king’s hands were mangled, crushed. He held them up in front of him, away from his body. They appeared broken in a hundred different places.

  “You must sit,” the princess told her brother.

  “No.” He shook his head. “I will stand.”

  The duke clapped him on the shoulder. “You grow more and more brave, Little King.” He laughed when Eldin flinched, then shouted up at Volar. “I will even let you take the king, though he should be put to death for his attack on me.” The duke tilted his head, as if considering something new. “Yes! If you leave, you may take the little king and the champion. If you do not, then …” He flipped his dagger in the air again.

  I thought I saw movement inside the duke’s tent.

  Will?

  Galen must have suspected the same thing. He nodded once. A moment later, when Leymonn looked toward the tent, Galen shifted his weight, recapturing his attention.

  Leymonn dug in his heel again. “Verras, will you never learn? Be still!”

  Galen grunted, hands twitching toward Leymonn’s boot, but he did not move. His mouth curved into a smile.

  Please. Find it, Will!

  “Well, mountain-breaker? Will you accept my offer? It’s more than generous.”

  Every soul—human and uten—looked at Volar. I almost believed that the sun would stay below the horizon until he spoke.

  “You lie.” Volar looked down at the duke, eyes narrowed. “I hear it. You do not forgive me, and you will not grant anyone safe passage.”

  Not a sound, not a breath from the giants. For the first time, the duke looked small among them.

  “Ah,” he said, “there you go, trying to sound like a king again. You cannot kill me, and yet you claim to be heir to the high king?”

  “I do.”

  A roar of surprise from the giants so loud I jumped.

  Volar raised his right hand for silence. It was given.

  “I did not seek this,” said Volar. “But I will not let you disgrace the throne.”

  “You will not let me?” The duke laughed. “What authority do you have? Can you depose me? One word from me and the Deathless will kill you.”

  Volar’s hand tightened around his pick. “They can try.”

  The duke laughed again, as if he really were king, as though it were only chance that he was small enough to walk around Volar’s feet.

  “I will show you the power of life and death! Since you value his life so little”—the duke pointed at Eldin, crouched over his shattered hands—“Ynnix, the little king!”

  Ynnix raised his sword over the king and Lissa, and swept it down.

  Volar’s pick arced through the air, and Ynnix toppled back like a felled tree. His boot twitched once and then he grew still.

  The duke laughed—laughed as if he’d never heard so great a joke.

  “Well done! But you cannot kill me. How, then, do you claim to be high king?”

  “You cannot be killed because you are an abomination. The uten should not be led into war by one who bleeds but cannot die.”

  The duke stopped smiling. “If it’s blood you want … take him!”

  The Deathless stepped forward, but so did Volar’s friends. I saw Hylag with his spear and Ober with his scythe. Somehow, as they stood beside Volar, I believed they could match the Deathless. Perhaps it was because they believed it themselves.

  The Deathless did not move.

  “Take him, I say!” The duke was so preoccupied with the giants before him that he did not see the tent flap move.

  He did not see Will peek out, cautious as a turtle emerging from its shell. The boy watched, and when he saw that no one but me would notice, he eased out of the tent.

  He held a small box of stained wood wrapped with metal bands. It was too heavy for Will to hold with one hand, and yet he needed both to maneuver his crutches. I edged toward him.

  Galen saw, and slowly raised his hands, positioning them so that the chain connecting his manacles slid over the toe of Leymonn’s boot. All the while, Galen’s gaze flashed between Will and Leymonn, tracking the boy’s progress, watching to see if Leymonn noticed.

  I took a step toward Will … and another … keeping a hand on Volar’s boots as I crept behind him. He needed to know where I was.

  Almost there. I circled behind Volar and stood by his right heel. There were only ten strides to Will—all of them in the open. I paused, glancing at the duke to be sure he was still preoccupied wi
th Volar and the Deathless.

  When I looked back, Will smiled triumphantly. But when he tried to move toward me, one of his crutches caught on a tent peg and he tumbled to the ground, still holding the box. He didn’t cry out, but everyone turned at the clatter of his crutches.

  The duke paled when he saw the box in Will’s hands. “Get him!”

  The world dissolved into motion. Galen grabbed Leymonn’s boot and rolled beneath the advisor, wrenching his leg from beneath him. Leymonn toppled and dropped his crossbow as I darted toward Will.

  I scooped him up and he dropped the heavy box. Leymonn was back on his feet, but so was Galen, the fury he’d suppressed for so long released. He charged the advisor, driving him back. Leymonn fell on his back and kicked Galen away as he reached for the crossbow.

  The bolt swung toward Will and I twisted to protect him, to take the brunt of the blow.

  There was a rush of wind—

  A great boot caught Leymonn and flung him back. He tumbled through the air, until his body slammed against a Deathless’s leg. He crumpled to the ground, eyes lifeless, his neck at an odd angle.

  “What …?” I looked up.

  Ober. Volar had commanded him to guard Will.

  Will squirmed in my arms. “Let me go, Sir! The box!”

  Galen was already there. He picked up the box, turning it over and over, trying to find a way to open it, fumbling because of his chains. “Saville! I don’t see how to open it.…”

  “Kill him!” the duke screamed. “I must have the box!”

  One of the Deathless raised his boot over us. I darted back, dragging Will with me, but Galen didn’t move. He looked up at the boot, watched it begin to fall—

  At the last moment, he dropped the box—right underneath the giant’s massive boot—and rolled away.

  Galen looked at the boot, then at me, eyes wide. Surely, nothing could survive a giant’s footfall. How fitting that the duke should be killed by one of his own Deathless!

  We watched the duke, wondering how he would die.

  He didn’t even stumble. “Stand away, Nulaq!”

  The giant lifted his boot and stepped back, revealing the unbroken box. Galen darted forward and pried it from the earth.