by Maggie Platt
“I didn’t hear you or see you.”
“I know. You were pretty intent on shutting me out.”
“Why did you come after me?”
Silas sat down on a fallen tree trunk that made a perfect bench. “I thought you might need someone to talk to.”
She sat down and began to cry again, leaning her face into her upturned hands. The tears were severe. Violent. She shook with the ugliness of them.
Silas scooted closer. “I know it hurts.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’d be surprised how much I understand.”
Tovi raised her red-streaked face that was scrunched with anger.
Silas ignored the scathing look and continued. “You were saying goodbye to Avi, and this agony seemed to spring to life inside of you, threatening to rip you to shreds from the inside out.” Her puffy eyes widened. “It reminded you of how you felt when you lost your brother, which always leads to thinking about how badly you wish you knew your parents. All you could think about was getting as far away as possible, to outrun all of the pain you have experienced. Your instinct was to run, to press on until everything was gone. But then you got here, and the hurt followed you. You can’t get away from it, just like when you realized Tali was gone.”
Tovi sobbed loudly and turned away from Silas, collapsing onto her knees.
He followed her down, sitting on the ground and pulling her close to his chest, ignoring her attempts to push him away. After a few moments of struggle, she gave in, burying her face in the hollow between his chin and shoulder. He stroked her hair and let her cry. “This kind of running won’t get you anywhere.”
Her shoulders heaved with each ragged inhale.
Silas rested his chin on top of her head. She could hear his heartbeat beneath her ear. “You can’t make it go away on your own. You did the right thing earlier, except you went the wrong way.”
“What—what do you mean?” she asked.
“You were right to run. When you feel pain like that, run. Run as fast and as hard as you can. But next time, don’t do it alone. Next time, run toward me.”
Tovi continued to weep until the sun was well below the earth. Silas whispered tender encouragement and comfort as her spirit calmed and readied itself to return home.
CHAPTER 8
As the city darkened around him one light at a time, Leeto sat on the stone balcony of his family’s mansion, sipping red wine and organizing his thoughts. He had changed into his usual clothing for the mountain, discarding the homespun tunic and donning the stiff, white button up with the large circle cut out of the back. He enjoyed the feel of the red velvet cushion directly against his skin.
His eyes did not blink as he observed with distrust and disdain the magnificent home across the courtyard where Calix lived. Calix and his sister, BiBi, were inside the extravagant, brightly-lit dining room, finishing up what looked like a massive meal. They never drew the curtains. BiBi especially loved for all who passed to see their fine things.
Images of Calix lurking around the Tivkas’ home still played in Leeto’s mind. What was he up to? As a masterful schemer, Leeto hated when he could not deduce the plans and wiles of a lesser man.
And Calix was most definitely a lesser man, attempting to cover his childhood poverty and shaky upbringing with his pretentious tone and smooth words. It didn’t work. It was easy for the Pyralis family—along with the rest of the old, rich families—to see Calix didn’t really belong in Damien’s inner circle. It was annoying enough to see his comings and goings to his house on the courtyard, an area meant for only the very best. But it was worse when they were in the palace and Calix acted like royalty, like he was one of the royal grandchildren. Yes, Calix had grown up inside those walls, but as a child of a penniless, widowed nanny. He was no prince.
Leeto turned his eyes to the palace, ablaze in lights. He could see the silhouettes of the guards posted on balconies and in windows. After the events of the last week, Leeto was no longer content with winning Adia. He now had a plan and the means to not only rule the valley, but to reign over the mountain as well.
The ebb and flow of his confidence throughout the week had been extreme. He started one day feeling victory in King Damien’s competition was close at hand, had survived a series of crises, and then lucked into the most incredible information. It was unfathomable. Now, he knew he was ahead of his adversaries. There was no way anyone else could possibly know what he had learned.
He rubbed the front of his neck where it was still tender and bruised from the stranglehold inflicted by Eryx. What a strange week it had been. What a strange and wonderful week.
“Tell me, what has you up here thinking so deeply?” his sister, Rhaxma, demanded too sweetly as she sashayed onto the porch. She had thick orange hair tied back from her face, and her bright yellow eyes stood out against the dark makeup lining her lids. She was beautiful but severe. Most people were terrified of her until they realized how friendly she was.
While Leeto was short and skinny, the rest of the siblings came from a more robust stock. His brothers were tall and broad-shouldered, and they ranged from strong and solid to down-right fat. Rhaxma was not skinny like Leeto or fat like some of her other brothers. She also wasn’t muscular like her brother Thad. She could only be described as elegant and voluptuous—curvy and soft. Somehow her waist was still tiny, making her upper and lower body look bigger than they really were.
Rhaxma and Leeto’s minds were both calculating and strategic. The subtle difference was that Leeto used his calculations to control his actual circumstances while Rhaxma preferred to control other people’s opinions of her circumstances. She learned from an early age that as long as others thought you were the best, you were. It was that simple. Her image could give her access to people and fortune that others with lesser reputations could only dream.
Rhaxma and Leeto were the youngest in a family with five children. Their elder siblings had no ambition and lived off their family’s wealth, wasting their days with others who had the same lack of drive. One of them had even been seen frequenting a home of disrepute in the Bottom Rung, the poorest, most deplorable neighborhood of the city. It disgusted many of the Masters, but Leeto and Rhaxma loved their brothers too much to abandon them. Instead, they resolved to always protect their family reputation and their lofty way of life.
It hadn’t been until their teenage years when they discovered their identical drives and complementary ambitions. They could use one another and be spurred on by the other’s successes. After all, one’s success always bolstered the reputation and wealth of the other.
Leeto was the first to recognize it. During a festival honoring King Damien in the year that Leeto was eighteen and Rhaxma was sixteen, the other Pyralis siblings lounged on their family’s balcony, drinking dark wine and shouting insults at commoners as they passed below. Rhaxma was not there. Leeto was curious, so he stood at the railing to see if he could spot his sister’s bright orange hair in the crowd. He could. She was working her way through the people, conversing with everyone on their same social level or just below. It didn’t matter if they were old or young—she made time to chat and ask questions of anyone who could possibly be beneficial to her at some point in the future.
She was playing his own game. Instead of frightening him, it made him nearly burst with pride. As soon as she was back home, he pulled her into the parlor. “Where did you learn that?” he asked urgently.
“Learn what?” was her impatient reply.
“You worked the crowd brilliantly. I was watching. Where did you learn that?”
Her eyes began to smile before the corners of her mouth slowly turned up. “You’ve already recognized it, haven’t you? I was only following your example. I’ve seen you do it countless times.”
They had been allies ever since.
In the crisp night air on the balcony, Rhaxma wrapped an arm around Leeto’s chest, leaning over his shoulder from behind and kissing him on the
cheek. Leeto clasped Rhaxma’s hand and pulled her around so she could sit opposite him on the darkened porch.
“I have something to tell you, but you have to swear not to tell a soul,” he said, trying his best to make his tone convey the seriousness of the matter. He knew he could trust his sister, but only if she understood the gravity of what he was about to tell her.
“Of course,” she said, her brow wrinkling.
“This trip to Adia was different than the others. I planned for it to be nothing but the usual observations and preparation for when I finally make my move. But then things got completely out of hand. Silas confronted me, and then Eryx did as well. I also saw Calix moving in on the same target as Eryx. It was mayhem. Nothing stayed true to our plans. I came home in the darkest of thoughts and feeling defeated. But then the most incredible thing happened.”
“Don’t tease me!” Rhaxma cried. “Tell me!”
“His Majesty summoned me to the palace to discuss one of my students here on the mountain. But when I arrived, he was in a deep conversation with Prince Ajax. I listened at the door. He was talking about Tali Tivka.”
“The blue-haired one? The twin?” Rhaxma seemed confused and unsure as to why this could be so important.
“Precisely. He has been away from Adia for six months, since right after this contest began, and nobody knows where he went. But there has been an informant. I don’t know who reported it, but King Damien was telling Prince Ajax that Tali has been spotted. He was nowhere near Adia. They think he is completing some sort of mission for Adwin.
“Then, they started talking about something totally different, and I am trying to figure out how they are connected. We were only children when it happened, but do you remember the stories we’ve been told about His Majesty’s heirs?”
“How he killed them off because of something in the mural in the palace?”
“Exactly. There’s more to that mural than what we see in the light. It continues behind the curtain. I’ve never seen it myself, but I was told ages ago that the portion of the mural behind the curtain shows four people, two women and two men, joining Adwin and defeating King Damien. Nearly thirty years ago, Prince Ajax married Princess Thomae. First, they had a little girl, Princess Helena. No one thought anything of it. Next came a little boy, our friend Prince Jairus. That was when King Damien took notice. The two children had the exact same coloring—hair and eyes—as two of the conquerors in the prophecy. Princess Thomae conceived again. Terrified of what this could mean, King Damien knew he must watch this third child closely. If the baby’s coloring matched one of the images in the prophecy, he knew Princess Thomae must be put to death before she could bear a fourth.
“The night of the third birth was chaotic, and no one knows exactly what happened. The next day, Princess Thomae, the new baby, and Princess Helena had disappeared. Some say that Damien panicked when he saw the baby’s colors, and he immediately executed the mother and children, leaving only Jairus as an heir. But no one knows for sure what came of them. Princess Helena, the eldest child and rightful heir to the throne after Ajax, could still be alive. All of us have assumed she was killed that night, but we don’t really know. What if she ran away? What if she took the baby with her?”
He took another dramatic pause, then continued in a hushed voice. “Rhaxma, I can think of only one scenario that makes sense, why Damien was talking about both Tali and the children in one conversation. Adwin knows that the children survived, and he has sent Tali to find them and bring them back.”
Rhaxma’s eyes grew to twice their usual size, and a few beads of black sweat rose from her forehead. She dabbed at them with a stained handkerchief. “But what about the fourth conqueror in the prophecy? That child was never born.”
“Who says all four must be heirs to the throne? It could be someone else. The fourth could be you or me for all we know. If we could gather the three and get behind the curtain to determine the identity of the fourth, what is stopping us from defeating King Damien and taking control of this mountain?”
“Leeto, that sounds extremely dangerous. And it would mean joining forces with Adwin.”
“Only until the mountain is ours. Then we could get rid of the old man.”
Rhaxma sat back against her overstuffed cushions. “What will you do with this information?”
“Nothing, at this point. I’m going to continue my quest to mark an Adian and bring her to the mountain. I want His Majesty to send his armies to conquer Adia and set me up as king. In the meantime, I’m going to search the same area where Tali was seen. Damien said something about caves in the foothills north of here. If I can find Tali, there are ways of forcing information from him. I will find out what he is up to.”
“What will you do to him?”
“Leave that up to me.”
CHAPTER 9
Tovi’s hands rested on her knees as she caught her breath. Another dream about Tali, another run to the ridge, another morning filled with anger and disappointment. She sat down, smoothed her hair away from her face and made her daily examination of the distant horizon. No movement. No sign of Tali.
An image from when they were young popped into her mind. They were about thirteen years old, and Silas had excitedly told them to come see something he had discovered in the woods. It took them an hour, but the hike was worth it. A wide, shallow creek meandered lazily through the forest, and four enormous trees grew on the banks, two on each side. Their branches reached across the water, tangled and woven together. By swimming in the creek and diving below the lowest limbs, the trio emerged inside the tangle of branches. Sunlight escaped between the leaves and sparkled on the water below, reflections dancing all around them. Tovi remembered being so in awe that she had trouble catching her breath.
Tali threw his arm over her soggy shoulders and sighed happily. “Things like this couldn’t come from nothing. Someone thought this up. Someone made this. I’m going to spend the rest of my life looking for places like this. Then I’ll find Adwin. I just know it.”
In that moment, she could almost believe like him. She could almost feel the way Tali did, hope in something that she had been taught but had never seen. Almost.
A throat cleared behind Tovi, interrupting her thoughts, and she turned away from the ridge expecting Silas. A dark-haired stranger stood close behind her, and her heart thudded in sudden fear. She scrambled to her feet, sending loose rocks plummeting toward the boulders below.
“I’m so sorry to startle you,” he apologized, holding his hands out as if to prove he meant no harm. Even in her terrified state, the first thing she noticed was there was no heart on his palm. “I was walking by, and you looked upset. Are you all right?”
Tovi was nervous and on high alert, but one eyebrow rose in curiosity. He looked to be about her age, maybe a few years older. Her eyes darted to each feature, trying to get used to his unfamiliar face. She took a step backwards. One of her heels was now over empty space. A few inches further and she would teeter over the edge.
He had black hair just long enough to ripple in the breeze and eyes that looked like they were wells of thick ink. His soft lips shouldn’t belong to such a masculine face. His jawline was distinct, leading her eyes to the small cleft in his chin.
Silent for too long, Tovi shook herself. “Who are you?”
“Calix,” he said, his smile revealing straight, white teeth.
He sat down and made himself comfortable, and Tovi’s heart skipped a beat. “You’re wearing shoes,” she accused, circling around him toward the safety of solid ground.
“Yes. And why do you look so afraid of them?” He chuckled. “I promise they are perfectly harmless.”
“I’m not afraid!” she said with more bravado than she felt. “You’re from Mount Damien.”
For a moment his eyes hardened, and his displeasure was evident, but he quickly smiled with delight. “You’ve heard of it? That’s wonderful!” Calix held out his palm in a gesture of openness. Where the heart shoul
d have been, his skin was criss-crossed by dark veins just below the surface. “I know there’s been some bad blood between our kingdoms, but surely you’re not one of those people who blindly believes the old tales.”
Tovi crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “I don’t blindly believe anything.”
“Hey, now, I’m not accusing you of anything. I think we started off all wrong. My name is Calix,” he said slowly, as if he was introducing himself to a child. “I’m from Mount Damien. I decided to spend a few days exploring a little more of the world below the cloud to see what adventures I could find.”
“And have you found any?”
He paused for a brief second, twirling a piece of grass between his fingers. “No,” he drawled, looking at the blade, then smoothly glancing up to catch her eye, “But I think that’s about to change.” He gave Tovi a half smile full of intention.
Her pulse quickened. The implied danger of this man from the mountain intrigued her. Thrilled her. Made her feel alive. Hiding this sudden excitement, she sat beside him and picked flowers from the grass, stealing furtive glances every few seconds. “So, tell me about Mount Damien,” she commanded, nodding toward the distant granite walls.
He looked toward the wide, low mountain silhouetted against much larger ones behind it. “We live at the very top. You can’t see it from here, but the city is beautiful.”
“More beautiful than Adia?”
Calix cocked a condescending eyebrow. “This place isn’t even close.”
“Amazing that the great Adwin would want to leave the mountain then,” she said with disdain.
Calix tilted his head to one side. “So you do believe all that Adwin nonsense.”
“Of course,” Tovi said. “Well, kind of. A little.”
“Why?”
“Someone has to be in charge of it all, right?”
“Have you ever met him?”