by Natalie Mae
Melia rolls over on my other side, fingers pinched between her eyes. “Not late enough.”
“We should have gotten moving hours ago. Marcus was supposed to—”
He bolts out of the tent. I groan and turn on my back, not nearly rested enough for another danger-filled day.
“That boy is going to kill me,” Melia says, pulling herself up. “How does he even move that fast right now?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I think I’ll break something if I try.”
“Ah, we should probably check on them, in case something did happen to Marcus.” She pats my arm and pushes slowly to her feet. “If I had known. If I had known this was what I was signing up for . . .”
She grumbles and makes her way out. I yawn and stretch, every muscle in my body as tight as wood. My back feels like it’s made of knives, and I’m certain my rear has gone completely flat from riding. But I push to my hands and knees, even if I swear I hear my muscles crying, and finally to my feet. Melia’s low voice reaches me outside the tent, calm and chiding. Hopefully that means everything is fine, and I’m not going to have to resort to questionable tactics to save everyone again.
The night greets me with cold fingers. Overhead the stars wink and shimmer, and I rub my arms as I navigate bushes and climb the short path to where Marcus had set up watch. Jet and Melia are on their way down.
“He’s asleep,” Jet says, looking relieved. “We’ll give him a little longer, then start off again.”
“Yes,” Melia says. “And next time, do your panicking outside of the tent so the rest of us can sleep.” She pushes past him but winks at me. “I am going to rest a while longer. Let me know when mister ‘awake for a week’ is up.”
She brushes by me, and I turn with Jet to look out at the desert. It’s an entirely different landscape at night. Rie’s pale lantern shines over the dunes like they’re ice, picking up glints of silver in the sand. An ibis croaks nearby, but the wind is still, and I feel as though we’ve been captured in a painting. “The Last Night,” the artist would call this one, the last time the Whisperer girl in the story talks to the selfless prince, who she is doomed to never see again. At least, it had better be the last night. Not the second-to-last night. Not the last-night-before-she-dies night.
“Are you still tired?” Jet asks.
“I’ll probably be tired for the rest of my life,” I admit. “But I feel better than before.”
A smile. “Can I . . . would you walk with me? I don’t think I can go back to sleep.”
“All right,” I say, my nerves needling under my skin. This will be the first time we’ve had the chance to be alone while not running from some danger or other. Gods, don’t let me overthink it. It’s just a walk, it’s just talking. I pull my hands around my elbows, both to hold myself together and to ease some of the cold.
“You know,” I say, “I never thanked you for coming to get me. I kind of thought you were going to betray me again, so, you know. Thank you for not doing that.”
He grins. “Well, that’s just because you don’t know how seriously I take agreements. You still owe me a story about Nadessa.”
I laugh. “Nadessa! You’ll be lucky if I remember where I’m from after all this.”
“Are there peacocks there? And ceilings made of ice?”
“In Atera?”
He snorts. “In Nadessa.”
“You really want a story about Nadessa? Right now? You’re going to be there in a week!”
“But I want to remember what you’d remember.”
He looks over, and my blood leaps at the picture of him against the stars, his kind smile, his clever eyes. He could be the boy at the banquet again, coy and joking. And yet he is so much more than that boy now.
“Fine,” I say, smiling. “Maybe you can write to me if you find out the stories are true.”
“Maybe I’d like to write to you even if they’re not.”
This time when I look over he looks guilty, and I can’t help but laugh at how ridiculous we are, edging this awkward line, both of us knowing it soon won’t matter. But maybe hoping it will, anyway.
“All right,” I say. We round the side of the rock outcropping, where a small pond of spring rain lingers among a few reeds and a dozen storks. It’s already drying, the shore far receded from the original edges. But firebugs glint over its surface like tiny flames, and for now the water is glossy and perfect, a small piece of star-filled glass in an otherwise bleak landscape.
Much like my guilty-eyed prince.
“I only know a few stories,” I say, leaning back against the rocky wall. “But the ones I’ve heard are amazing.” I pull up my memories of the travelers with their gloved hands and gossamer wraps, fabric so thin it looked like sheets of light. “The Nadessan palace has an entire garden made of jewels. Garnet roses, sapphire ponds, topaz tree trunks, emerald leaves. One of the early kings captured a Wishing bird and made the wish as a gift to his daughter. Walking through it supposedly brings you peace for a week.”
“A garden of riches,” Jet muses, leaning on the wall next to me. “And the emperor shares it? Is that why we rarely hear of trouble from the east?”
I tilt my head, considering. “I don’t know. The traveler said she stole a ruby from there, which makes me think she probably wasn’t invited in.”
“Ah.”
“The other story was about the food.” I don’t know if it’s the memory of it or that I’m just remembering how long it’s been since we ate, but my mouth starts watering.
“I’m beginning to see a trend with you.”
“They have the most amazing-sounding delicacies. Creamy drinks sprinkled with mint leaves. Spiced rice. Pears and moonmelon, cakes made with figs and cinnamon . . .”
“So, hypothetically, if I’d brought chocolate with me when I came to rescue you, you’d have forgiven me right away?”
I straighten. “You have chocolate?”
He laughs. “No, but if that will keep me in your good graces, I’ll buy you an entire stall’s worth at the next city.”
I consider him carefully, as if he weren’t already tethered in those graces. “Then I think you really have no other choice.”
“Why?” His mouth quirks, and he leans closer. “Am I in danger of falling out of your graces again?”
I don’t trust myself to look over. He’s far too close, and I will do something rash. “No,” I say, clearing my throat. “But I’ve decided that’s the least you can do for keeping me out here another day.”
He laughs in disbelief. “I kept you out?”
“If you could just handle yourself and stop being so popular with dangerous people, I could be home right now drinking juice and getting my hair braided.”
“Drinking juice?”
“Well, I’d use your money to buy wine first, but then I have to throw it in my ex’s face, for him thinking I would die out here.” I shrug. “So, juice.”
He chuckles and settles closer, his shoulder leaning against mine. “You know you could buy more than one bottle of wine.”
His fingers trace my hand, and whatever I’d planned to respond scatters in an instant. I open my palm, and he draws circles in it, feather-like touches that send fire up my arm.
“Maybe I would,” I say, swallowing. “If I had occasion for it.”
“Like celebrating being home?” He twines his fingers through mine, and my heart pulls with wanting to pause this moment, with wishing it was the first of many nights like this, not the last. I close my fingers around his and look pointedly out at the pond.
“Like celebrating a good king,” I whisper.
It’s daring of me, and Jet stiffens as soon as I say it. But he doesn’t pull away. I don’t know where I get the nerve to go on, but I’m desperate to know whether I’m the only one who feels changed, or if he feels the same shift. May
be this doesn’t have to be the end. Maybe there could be a future for us that isn’t spanned by a handful of letters and a few thousand kilometers.
“Jet,” I ask, looking over. “What made you change your mind about ruling?”
I reason it’s safest to start there, with the what, and not the why. Not to mention I’ve been haunted by the look he gave me when he said he’d never go back to what he was.
Jet exhales and rubs his thumb over mine. “I don’t know if I should say. I feel like we just set my father in the right light again.”
“It was something he did?”
“It was . . . yes and no.”
“All right,” I say, shrugging. “Tell me a good story about him. Then tell me what happened.”
He thinks for a moment, his eyes on the dark horizon, and finally nods. “All right, well, before he was sick, my father liked to paint. He said every good ruler needs an outlet they don’t share with anyone, so for the longest time, Sakira and I were convinced he had a thousand masterpieces hidden away in his rooms. We told him we wanted to inherit them.” He smiles. “As you’ve probably gathered, my father is a very serious man. But when we said that, he burst out laughing. He said, ‘Are you sure?’ Of course we were sure. So he led us to his painting room and showed us . . . stick figures.”
I snort. “Stick figures?”
“Hundreds and thousands of stick figures. Gods, he’s an awful painter! But he let us each take one, under the explicit promise we’d tell no one who made it. That’s the day I learned we came before his pride . . . and that you don’t have to be good at something to enjoy it.”
His grin widens, and I snicker. “You told someone right away, didn’t you?”
Jet scoffs. “Have more faith in me than that.” His lip twitches. “You know it was Sakira.”
I laugh. “Of course it was.”
“But he took it well.” Jet shrugs, and his smile fades. “I still have that painting in my quarters.”
Another piece of him he’s left behind. I let the silence stretch between us, wondering if he’ll answer the other half of my question, and suddenly thinking it might be better if I don’t know. I like the image of the Mestrah laughing with his children, enjoying his bad paintings.
“As to what changed my mind . . .” His brow furrows. He pauses so long that I nudge his side.
“It was the same thing, wasn’t it?” I say. “You saw those stick figures, and you thought, if this is my future—”
Jet laughs and squeezes my hand, but the sound turns pained. He leans his head back on the wall and closes his eyes. The moon silvers his brown skin; darkens the shadows beneath his brow.
“I want to start by saying my father is a good person,” he says. “Most of the time. But sometimes a good person doesn’t make a good king. And sometimes a good king isn’t exactly . . . good.” He looks at me, and whatever he sees there, he seems to decide something. “What did your tutors tell you of the Ending Drought?”
I grunt. “Absolutely nothing. Whisperers don’t have tutors, Jet.”
He winces. “Gods, sorry. Another thing I—it doesn’t matter. The Ending Drought happened in our grandparents’ lifetime. It was seven years long, and we lost thousands to starvation and thirst. Hundreds more died in the fights over what we had left. And then one day, it just . . . stopped. My grandmother delivered carts of food to every city in Orkena, claiming the gods had answered her prayers.”
A twinge of fear pulls my heart at his choice of words. “‘Claiming’?”
He keeps his eyes on the desert. “The food wasn’t from the gods. It was from the countries outside Orkena’s borders.” His hand tightens on mine. “Pe, Wyrim, Eiom. My grandmother sent our armies to raid them. We devastated their soldier ranks . . . civilians died, too. It was easy. We had magic, they didn’t. Our remaining neighbors immediately approached us with trade agreements that promised food and other valuables, eager for peace, fearful of the consequences. This is the backbone of our reputation. Of why our armies are so feared.” He sets his jaw. “To save us, others had to die. I can’t make that kind of trade, Zahru.”
I swallow and follow his gaze. “I wouldn’t want to decide on people’s lives, either.”
“And another big decision is coming. Those men today? I know Wyrim hired them. It seems the guard towers along that border aren’t worth much if they’re finding others to do their work.” He sighs. “Wyrim has never forgiven us for what we did. They’ve been rallying support against us for years, urging our trade partners to cut ties, saying we bullied our way into unfair contracts. They’ve made it their life’s work to invent a metal that neutralizes magic. So far no one has joined them for fear of us, but if they’ve succeeded . . .”
“There will be war.” A shiver runs up my arms as I imagine an army darkening Atera’s horizon. “But couldn’t you renegotiate the contracts? Make the terms fairer and appease Wyrim?”
He shakes his head. “That’s the thing. The more I learn about politics, the more I learn nothing is as simple as it seems. If we back off on the trade agreements, those countries will think we fear Wyrim, and might press for unfair terms in their favor. Or we may lose them entirely. Especially if they sense I’m the kind of king who’s afraid to go to war.”
Gods, politics aren’t nearly as straightforward as I thought they were. A friendly move should be met with friendly acceptance. It seems entirely unfair that even the peaceful solution could end in war, and I don’t blame Jet for not wanting to be the cause of so much suffering. I’d much rather leave that to someone older and wiser.
But then I think of who those “older and wiser” people would be.
Kasta, who’s paranoid everyone in the world is out to get him, and isn’t above twisting the gods’ will for his own purposes. He’s already made it clear he doesn’t care who suffers, so long as he gets what he wants. Or Sakira, who thinks ruling is parties, daring feats, and handsome company, and who can’t even take the Crossing seriously enough to prevent me from riding away.
I can’t imagine Kasta backing down on the contracts or doing anything but rising to the challenge of war. Neither can I imagine Sakira yielding, especially since she wants to prove she can bleed as much as any man. They will send our armies. I don’t know much about war, but I know a magic-neutralizing metal would be devastating for soldiers who’ve spent their lives training in magic alone. And if the palace runs low on warriors, they’ll draft anyone who can fight. My friends back home. Hen. And anyone no longer useful in their current station . . . like my father.
I could be getting home just in time to see them off. Forever.
“And this war is unavoidable?” I ask, realization gripping me like a python.
“Most likely. Even if we were able to renegotiate the contracts, Wyrim is out for blood. They’ve long boasted their science can outdo our magic. This would be their chance to prove that.”
I look at him, wondering how he can risk his own life multiple times to save mine, but not see what fate he’s leaving to the rest of his people. “So, instead of facing this responsibly, as someone who respects how serious war actually is, you think it’s better to leave our fate to the boy who cut a gods’ symbol into my wrist or the girl we left passed out in the sand?”
“I—” He gives me a betrayed look and groans. “Not you, too.”
“Look, Jet, I was on your side until you started talking about unavoidable war. There are things I don’t like about my job, either. I hate it when an animal is too sick or too hurt for me to help. It’s the worst feeling to know there’s nothing I can do. But if I quit, I’m completely forgetting the dozens more I’ve helped. The dozens more I could help.”
He lets go of my hand and shoves off the wall. “It’s not like I’m leaving the palace abandoned. Sakira will charm our allies into defending us, and Kasta . . . will do much better without me there. Orkena will pull through
as it always has.”
“Maybe, but at what cost? My father’s life? Mine?”
“It won’t get that bad.”
“You don’t know that. But you could know that, you could control it, if you were the one in charge.”
Jet crosses his arms. “I’m not going to argue with you. I’ve made my decision.”
“But you would be fair. You’d make the right decision when it came to Wyrim.”
His voice sharpens. “I said I’ve made up my mind.”
I cross my arms, too. “Well I don’t think you’ve thought this through.”
“And I don’t think you’re remembering the very reason I can’t.”
“All right then, what am I not thinking of? What are you really afraid of?”
The glare he casts me falters immediately. He kicks a small rock into the edge of the pond, and his arms drop in defeat.
“Changing,” he says.
I blink. “Changing?”
“You asked what I saw in my father that changed my mind. And I told you he has a good heart, and he’d do anything to protect his country and his family.” He rubs the back of his neck. “But I do mean anything.”
The night freezes on my skin. “Like your grandmother?”
“Yes.” Jet winces and looks down. “When I entered my fourteenth summer, my father took me to visit a Wyri prisoner.” His hands tighten around his elbows. “The man was a carpenter. He had two young daughters he wouldn’t stop talking about. But he was the brother of a woman who was researching the anti-magic metal, and he knew things.” His voice cracks. “When we left, we had a name and a location, and the man was bleeding from his eyes.” He closes his own eyes. “But it was my father’s face I couldn’t stop thinking about. How focused he was as he dragged the man’s unwilling memories from his mind. As if the screaming didn’t affect him at all.” He swallows. “The information helped us set back Wyrim’s research by years. But I can’t do that. Look what I did to my brother when duty called for it.” He shakes his head. “I can’t fall again.”
He looks ill, his fingers clenched around his elbows, and this time I don’t care that we only have another day left—I move to him and slide my hands around his jaw, tilting his face to look at me. Reassuring him I’m here. That he’s here, and not in that room.