by Joel Ross
The queen introduced all three possible heirs, but Ji forgot the other two kids’ names immediately.
“They just look like Crabgirl and Silkyboy to me,” he muttered.
“Hush,” Roz whispered.
The queen spoke for a few more minutes, too softly for Ji to hear. He kept staring at her, though, unable to look away. Then she lifted her arms—
A geyser rose from the middle of the pond. A pillar of clear water stretched toward the ceiling, as wide around as the trunk of an ancient oak.
26
JI YELPED AND flinched backward. So did all the other servants, except for Sally and Chibo. Chibo stared toward the geyser, his nearsighted eyes wide with curiosity, and Sally flinched forward.
Ropy streams of water braided around the trunk of the geyser, then rose higher. They branched again and again until a tree of water loomed overhead, almost reaching the ceiling. The tree rippled and flowed but somehow stayed in place.
“Behold.” The queen twirled her wrist and a circle formed among the branches, like a watery headband. “Only the true heir can survive the diadem’s touch.”
“Huh?” Chibo whispered behind Ji. “The die-uh-what?”
“There’s a minicrown in the middle of the tree,” Sally told him.
“I thought that was a tree! I didn’t see it there a minute ago.”
“It wasn’t there a minute ago,” Sally whispered. “It rose up from the pond.”
“So the first kid to grab the minicrown becomes the heir?” Chibo said. “This is awesome.”
“It’s history,” Roz whispered.
“It’s holy,” Sally whispered.
“It’s making me nervous,” Ji whispered.
“Whoever wears the diadem,” the queen told Brace, Crabgirl, and Silkyboy, “shall one day take the throne. To rule and to protect our realm, the last best haven of humankind.”
She clapped, and the water tree wove together around the diadem, hiding it inside a snarl of branches.
“Whoa,” Ji murmured.
“Extremely whoa,” Roz agreed.
The gong sounded again, and Silkyboy stepped onto the pond. Instead of sloshing around his ankles, the water supported his weight. He peered at the liquid “branches” of the watery tree, then turned to his servants in the hibiscus ponchos.
“Come along!” he called to them. “Chop-chop!”
The kids trotted forward . . . and hesitated at the edge of the pond.
“Come here!” Silkyboy stomped one foot, then pointed a brawny kid toward a low watery branch. “You! Hold that one down.”
“Just grab it, m’lord?”
“Of course, you cud-lipped commoner!”
The brawny kid stepped onto the pond and reached out with trembling hands. His fingers wrapped around the branch like it was solid. When he pulled down, the tree reacted: the watery limbs flowed into new shapes, like a brook streaming around a boulder.
The servant kids murmured, and Ji felt his heart thumping his ribs.
“What happened?” Chibo peered forward. “What’s going on?”
“When you move one branch, the whole tree randomly changes shape,” Sally told him.
“Not randomly,” Roz murmured. “There are laws that govern the motion of fluids. . . .”
When Silkyboy yapped orders and insults at his servants, they nervously climbed the trunk. New branches sprouted and old ones flowed as Silkyboy clumsily followed. After a minute, he reached the tangled snarl that wrapped the diadem. His servants tugged on the branches, making the tree writhe.
“They’re pulling the branches apart,” Sally whispered to Chibo. “So his little lordship can reach inside for the crown.”
“Is it working?” Chibo asked.
“Kind of,” Ji told him. “Every time they unwind one branch, another wraps around— Oh! They opened a slit.”
“Wider!” Silkyboy demanded, balancing on a limb. “One, two . . . three!” He reached inside the slit. “Almost there! Two more inches—”
The tree heaved and the branches whipped.
Silkyboy shrieked and flew through the air. A lashing branch caught him in the ribs, and Ji heard bones snap. His servants crashed to the solid pond and lay there moaning.
“We have to help them,” Ji said, and started to rise.
Roz touched his arm. “Look at the queen.”
On the balcony, the queen swept her hand sideways, and a wave crashed across the pond and through the tree, washing Silkyboy and his servants toward the far shore, where medics waited with stretchers.
The water tree shimmered and flowed into a new shape. Roz made a soft huh as the pond stilled, calm and motionless. Quiet fell except for the weeping of the injured kids as they were carried away.
Then the gong sounded again. It was Crabgirl’s turn.
“Move in!” she barked at her servants, the livery kids. “You two, anchor the branches, there and there!”
The biggest livery kids dragged two branches downward. A narrow limb unfurled, and Crabgirl sprang forward, planted one foot on a servant’s back, and leaped onto the branch. Balancing like a cat, she raced toward the trunk. She dived through a thicket of flowing twigs and landed on a wider branch.
“No way,” Ji breathed.
“I bet she can joust,” Sally said.
“I can’t see!” Chibo said. “What’s happening?”
“The lady’s in the tree above the diadem,” Sally told Chibo in an awed hush. “Her servants are hacking at the knotted branches with hatchets.”
Splinters of solidified water spat at the livery kids as they chopped. Shards jabbed their skin and tangled in their clothing before melting back into the tree. The kids grunted and muttered, but they kept clearing a path toward the diadem. The branches writhed, and one of the servants shrieked and almost fell.
Then Crabgirl leaped forward, slashing with her sword like a warrior cutting down enemies.
“She’s doing it,” Sally said. “She’s opening a hole. . . .”
Crabgirl stabbed her blade deeply between two branches. She tugged mightily and then, with a piercing war cry, she reached into the snarl—
The tree buckled and spat her out.
She hurtled through the air, arms and legs flailing wildly. She crashed to the pond and lay there moaning. Her servants smashed down around her, gasping and groaning until the queen sent another wave rolling across the pond.
“You know what this means?” Ji muttered. “We’re next.”
“Awesome!” Chibo said.
“Not awesome, you beetlehead!” Sally said. “Did you see what happened to the others?”
“Not really.”
“Well, you heard the screams.” Sally looked to Ji. “So what’s the plan?”
Ji took an unsteady breath. “Serve Brace, like Mr. Ioso said. And pray that he knows what he’s doing.”
The gong sounded, a deep throbbing note in the pavilion hall, and Brace stepped onto the pond. The water rippled beneath his bejeweled court boots, and he prowled around the tree. He looked strong and confident. Maybe serving him wouldn’t be so bad. Plus, if Ji helped snaffle the diadem—like Roz accused him of snaffling books at Primstone—Brace would owe him. Heck, maybe King Brace would owe him.
Brace circled the tree three more times before beckoning to Ji and the others. Sally trotted down the slope. The pearls crunched under her boots, but she didn’t even pause at the water’s edge; she just stepped onto the pond.
Ji paused, though. He’d rather clean swan poop than climb into a sloshing tree and get clubbed by water-branches.
“Here’s one more for you, Lord Brace,” Mr. Ioso called, and gestured toward a side entrance.
Chains clinked as three soldiers dragged someone into the pond room. A bruised, battered, shackled someone with bright yellow hair and dull yellow eyes. With white horns and white fangs. And a grotesque red face that Ji recognized.
“Nin,” he breathed.
Scrapes covered Nin’s face, black bruises
marred his red arms. A chain was wound so tightly around his wrists that he bled. Ji forgot his aches and stiffness. He forgot his fear and worry. He waited until Nin’s teary yellow eyes met his own, then gave a tiny nod. It wasn’t much, but it was all he could do.
“I say!” a nobleman called, from the balcony. “That’s an ogre!”
“Only a juvenile.” Mr. Ioso dragged Nin toward the pond. “Here’s your anchor, Lord Brace. Tell me where you want it.”
Brace frowned. “An ogre, so far from the mountains? What’s it doing here?”
“We asked it that very question, my lord,” Mr. Ioso said. “But it doesn’t speak human.”
Ji glanced at Chibo. They both knew that Nin didn’t speak normal, but he certainly spoke human.
“Give me a moment,” Brace said, and strode around the water tree once more.
Despite the failures of Silkyboy and Crabgirl, Brace seemed confident and commanding. He frowned at the highest branches, he touched the lowest twigs, he watched the current flow inside the tree’s watery bark.
Finally, he circled toward Ji and murmured, “All those years of strategy games finally pay off.”
Ji bowed his head—he was angry about Nin, but that wasn’t Brace’s fault. “Just tell me where you want me, my lord.”
“You see that branch there?” Brace pointed to the center of the tree. “Climb up and attach the ogre’s chain to the end.”
When Ji took the chain from Mr. Ioso, he gulped at the sight of Nin. Up close, he—or cub—looked even more monstrous and nonhuman. An actual ogre. With white fangs and glossy red skin and a gleam of hope in cub’s yellow eyes.
“Stonefriend,” Ji whispered, without moving his lips.
Nin bowed cub’s head, then shuffled toward the tree, which loomed high and smooth as a glass statue.
“Stable girl,” Brace said to Sally, “climb between those limbs. And you, Chimpo?”
“I’m Chibo, m’lord!” Chibo said. “I used to live at Primstone! You once gave me a toy soldier that you—”
“You’re the lightest. Climb to that fork at the top.”
“Chibo doesn’t see well, Lord Brace,” Roz said.
“Then direct him,” Brace told her. “The first part of the puzzle is placing my servants correctly.”
Watery limbs stretched above Ji like crooked icicles. He draped Nin’s chain around his neck and grabbed the lowest branch. It felt like a polished marble snake. He heaved himself into the tree, then climbed higher, tensing every time the tree shifted, waiting for the branches to thrash him into a pulp.
The chain rattled and clinked. Ji straddled the right branch, then scooted to the end. Smaller branches sprouted everywhere as he looped the chain into place.
“Tighter!” Brace called from below.
Ji looped the chain tighter, which tugged Nin’s shackled wrists higher. Ji mouthed, “Sorry,” but Nin didn’t see.
“Now climb to the heart of the tree, where the diadem is hidden,” Brace called. “Sally, push those branches apart. Yes, good!” The tree shifted and shimmered as Brace called orders and corrections and praise. Then he said, “Roz, climb onto this branch here.”
Ji stopped beside the central snarl and frowned downward.
“I—I’m not entirely dressed for climbing, my lord,” Roz said, smoothing her pink dress.
“I need your weight.”
Roz flushed with embarrassment. “Is it proper for a—”
“Now, Roz!”
“A little privacy might—”
“You’re an upper servant,” he snapped, “but still just a servant. Never forget that.”
“No, my lord,” she said, and reached for the lowest branch.
The anger that had simmered inside Ji when he saw Nin’s face—the anger that had simmered inside him for months and years—started to boil over. You’re just a servant. Roz was better than Brace in every way that mattered. What gave him the right to talk to her like that?
Nothing.
Just a servant? Ji had wanted to help Brace, he’d wanted to serve. Mostly because he wanted Brace to owe him, but still—now he’d show him exactly what a servant could do. A snarl of stupid watery twigs was nothing to a boot boy.
Ji yanked on one branch, unwove two more, and felt the tree shifting around him.
“Stop!” Brace yelled from below. “Ji, stop that!”
Ji tugged at the snarl. “I’m getting you the diadem, my lord.”
“You’re just a servant!” Brace repeated, climbing into the tree. “It’ll burn you like fire.”
“Just a servant,” Ji muttered, as a new branch sprouted into the knot. “Roz! How do I keep this knot from reknotting?”
“I don’t know!” she called. “How would I know?”
“Because it’s a puzzle. You rule puzzles!”
“But I rule you!” Brace yelled, climbing closer. “And I order you to stop!”
“You want the crown? I’ll give you the crown. You want a servant? I’ll serve.”
“Stop or I’ll—I’ll cut you down!”
“Sally, stay where you are!” Roz called from beneath Ji. “Chibo, kick the branch behind you! If I push against the trunk here . . .”
When Ji untangled another water-branch, it stayed untangled. Ha! He knew Roz was smarter than Brace. He yanked and twisted . . . and the snarl loosened.
The diadem glinted through the thicket of branches. Just a few more seconds . . .
“Brace is drawing his sword!” Sally shouted.
“And I’m getting him his crown,” Ji muttered, yanking on another branch. They couldn’t escape, or lie or steal or cheat. But they could show Brace—show everyone—that they weren’t just servants. “I’m almost done.”
“He’s almost there!” Sally called.
“I am here,” Brace said, climbing beside Ji.
A roar sounded from below. Then Nin bellowed, “So am I!”
Brace gaped down at Nin, who strained against the chains, bright red muscles bulging. “The ogre! It talks!”
“It rarely shuts up,” Ji said, untangling the last two branches.
“I’m coming, Sneakyji!” Nin hollered. “I’m fishexcellent!”
“Ji, duck!” Sally yelled.
Ji ducked, and Brace’s sword flashed overhead. The flat of the blade whacked the watery tree trunk. Chips of water stung Ji’s face, as hard as diamonds.
He lunged forward and grabbed the diadem.
27
THE CIRCLE OF water felt icy in Ji’s palm.
A shock of frostbite ran up his arm and into his chest. When the numbness reached his head, the world turned bright and still, like sunlight shining on snow. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t move. Nothing remained but the crackle of ice in his ears.
Ji felt the tree around him, he felt the tree inside him. His watery roots plunged into the earth, flowing through the mountain and across the entire valley.
Feeding the crops, filling the wells.
Protecting the realm.
Defending humanity against the hordes. Against the creatures, the beasts. Against the twisted nonhuman monsters that threatened everything.
And with a frozen clarity, Ji knew that he needed to seize the power of the tree. The queen had created the tree not just with her magic, but with her goals and needs and vows. And with those of every king and queen who came before her. That was what Ji felt now, the urgent commands of every royal who’d ever ruled.
He needed to accept the diadem. He needed to wear the crown and destroy the enemies of humankind. Every last one, until no ogre lurked in the mountains and no goblin dug in the earth. Until no mermaid swam, no sprite flew, and no troll bellowed.
He’d pay any price to defend his fellow humans. Like Mr. Ioso said, the cost of freedom was high—but that didn’t matter. Ji needed to protect his realm. He’d rule the humans wisely, safely, powerfully. He’d never bow again, he’d never serve again.
Instead, they’d serve him.
And in return, he�
�d do anything to protect them. He’d do everything to protect them. He’d enslave the goblins and wipe out the ogres, he’d weave children into tapestry looms and—
“No!” Ji shouted into the silence. “I won’t!”
The snowy brightness turned clear as a mirror, and the queen’s face appeared in his mind. Larger than life and more commanding.
“Thou must wear the diadem,” she said, her voice echoing in the snowy white blankness. “Inherit the throne, and protect the people.”
“I’m not—” He swallowed. “I’m just a boot boy.”
“Wear the crown, and become a king.”
“I can’t,” he said, in a small voice.
“A mighty and unyielding monarch,” the queen continued. “An unconquerable shield against the monsters.”
Ji’s heart thrilled at her words. He longed to take the crown, to wield the power, to prove that he mattered. But he made himself say, “I can’t. I won’t. I won’t kill them. I won’t enslave them.”
“Selfish child! Thinking only of thyself.” The queen’s eyes darkened and her voice boomed in his mind. “The people need protection.”
“Is there anything you wouldn’t do, to protect them?”
“Nay,” the queen said. “Nothing.”
“If there’s nothing you won’t do,” Ji asked, “then what are you?”
“A monarch.”
“A monster,” he said. “Worse than any ogre, worse than any—”
“Thou must rule! Wear the diadem, and complete the rite!”
“Never,” Ji said, and the queen’s face vanished.
His senses returned in a jagged burst: the water tree swayed, the lords and ladies gasped, and the diadem burned his fingers. Agony throbbed down his arm. When he tried to hurl the circle of water away, it stuck to him. He screamed and shook his hand until the diadem tore a strip of skin off his palm and sailed between the branches of the tree.
And through teary eyes, he watched Brace snatch it from the air.
“Brace, don’t!” Ji sobbed. “You don’t know what it’ll do to you!”
Brace lifted the diadem in triumph. “I told you it burned commoners.”