The Two Kings

by Marian Gray

  Tons of bodies filled the pathway. At times, we were stopped for ten to fifteen seconds. All the while, Astra shouted for them to move, but the singing and dancing drowned out her voice. It was like wading through thick mud.

  “If we don’t go any faster, we’re going to get caught. We stick out being on horseback while everyone else is on foot,” I said in Astra’s ear.

  “I know. I’m going as fast as I can without causing a scene.”

  But it wasn’t fast enough. Panic coursed through my veins as the storm pelted my body. The chilled water soaked through to my skin, but instead of cold, I felt heat. It had been so long since that warm tingle sparked beneath my flesh, I almost doubted its existence.

  “Halt,” a guard called to us as we approached the next gate.

  But Astra paid them no mind. She kept the horse at a steady pace, walking toward them.

  “Halt,” the guard said once again, this time with a little bit more force behind his word.

  Still, Astra didn’t stop. “King’s business,” she told him.

  As we neared him, the biggest grin spread across his face. “It’s a bit difficult to be out on king’s business when the king is dead.” He unsheathed his sword. “Dismount.”

  Without another word, Astra kicked our horse into a gallop. The tall steed rammed through the crowd. The sound of hooves against stone thundered around me. We blew past him with such speed that he had no time to react. I heard his voice shouting at our backs, but Astra pressed forward. An arrow whistled past my ear and struck the ground before us.

  I glanced over my shoulder, and a torch the size of a royal hearth flamed to life. “What’s that for?”

  “What?” Astra shouted at me.

  “The huge flame.”

  “It’s a warning. They’re locking the gates.”

  “We still have one more gate to get through.”

  “I know.” As much as she tried, Astra couldn’t mask the worry in her voice. “You have to do something.”

  “What do you mean? What do you want me to do exactly?”

  “I don’t know—maybe use your powers,” she roared.

  With the rain beating on my face, I felt utterly destitute. That wasn’t possible. The power fled me within the city. Or at least it had. Riding on the back of the storm, that hot sensation had returned to my veins. I doubted my ability to effectively wield it, but it was our only hope. As the final gate blossomed into view with its stone wall and metal mouth, I knew I had to try.

  “You have to act now,” Astra begged me.

  Cold water trickled down my face and dripped off my fingertips. I raised one hand and concentrated all the energy I had in my body to that one spot. I could feel it building behind my fingertips and palm, burning my flesh.

  “Halt,” the guards called out to us. Four men stood atop the gate with their bows drawn, while six guarded the mouth with swords out.

  But we didn’t stop.

  “Now,” Astra howled.

  I unleashed all the fire and fury I had inside of me. In a blinding blue white light, a scraggly lightning bolt shot from my hand. It struck the wall of soldiers and obliterated the barricade. The light from impact was so bright I had to avert my eyes. When the flash ended, only ruin was left. Flesh had been roasted, and metal melted.

  We rode through the rubble and escaped with our souls still intact.

  XXXVII

  Tiers & Gates

  The lazy rise of the sun burst to my right. It chimed out a new day, but to me, the past hours had all been one rolling confusion, locked into a continuous stream without any coherent break. When did yesterday end and today begin?

  We had spent the entirety of the dusk hours traveling. It had rained without stop, soaking us until our skin wrinkled and threatened to schlep off. Despite my misery, the storm turned out to be the perfect distraction. We had ridden unquestioned and unmolested. It was quite an admirable feat for two unaccompanied women in this land, wherever that was.

  With the surroundings so dark, I hadn’t noticed when we had ridden from dusty, arid terrain to cold, leafless trees. The hills were still grassy, but the long tendrils were no longer ripe green but sick brown. Had I really been gone that long? I had left at the onset of autumn, and now I stared out at the end of winter.

  Astra brought the horse to a stop near a slow running stream and dismounted. She held out a hand and helped me slide off as well. But the muscles in my legs were so numb, I couldn’t catch my own weight. I fell to the ground, but instead of a hard rocky base, my rear met a soft crunchy cushion. I had forgotten what grass felt like.

  Astra sat beside me as the horse drank with an insatiable need. She leaned back and closed her eyes, but her mouth gnawed on something, an idea.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “I hate being lied to,” she said. They were the first words either of us had uttered since our flight from Essony.

  I stared at the woman. She rested with her hands behind her head. Her back was stretched into a straight line, and the tip of her nose split the air. Several threads of umber hair were clumped with mud. A blotch of earth stamped her cheek.

  “Is anything that you told me true? Is your name even Derethe?”

  My mind flopped between whether or not to respond. I no longer had to answer to her or explain my every minute action in excruciating detail. I was not beneath Astra but her equal now. “You haven’t figured it out yet?” I teased.

  Her glare steered toward me, seething. Dark, heavy circles had lapped their way around her eyes. A light sheen of oil and sweat glistened across her forehead and dipped down her chest. Astra’s body appeared to be in exhausted shambles, and her expression mimicked it. She’d always appeared so poised and stoic back in the city.

  “I didn’t lie about everything.” I shrugged. “I am not of the north. I am a slave and come from Sairasee. That’s all true.”

  Astra’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Why didn’t you do it like every other assassin? Sneak in and kill him in the dead of the night?”

  I had no guidance or training. There was no code I followed or special caretaker that passed me notes, signed with covert names. I was a hunter, told to go and track my prey, or rather I’d been thrown out of my home and told I couldn’t come back until I killed the man. “I didn’t do it like every other assassin because I’m not an assassin. I just told you. I’m a slave.”

  “What would you call sliding into the king’s chamber and slitting his throat then?”

  “Murder.” I leaned back atop the grassy ground. My thighs were raw from riding. “But when you’re at war, what is it then?”

  Even though the ground was soaked, and droplets slipped onto my face from the leaves above, I loved every second of it. The sound of trickling water was sweet to me. It trumpeted my homecoming. Every second that passed brought me closer to Rekkesov, which was closer to Svotheim, who was the navigator that would bring me back to the pebbled shores and rocky mountains of home.

  “You used me. You took advantage of my kindness and hospitality.” There was marked desperation in her voice.

  “And you weren’t trying to do the same to me? You pushed for me to be moved to the King’s Keep. When you saw him lying there in his own blood, you asked to come along.”

  Astra sat up, rigid as a post. Her jaw locked tight.

  “You chose to come,” I repeated. My voice was very matter-of-fact. “I never forced you, nor threatened your life. You even said that you were helping me on purpose at one point. That my ascension was all a part of your design. So, don’t feign innocence.”

  There was no reply.

  “And if you believe leaving was the wrong choice, I suggest you turn back now. I won’t harm you. I won’t tell anyone about you. No one will come hunt you down.” I did my best to get the woman an out. “You can slip into the world like smoke dispersing into the sky. Maybe there’s someplace you’ve always wanted to visit or live? Go there.”

  Astra sighed, and h
er face relaxed. “Do you know why I did it? Do you know why I helped you?”

  My eyebrows climbed to my hairline. “No, I don’t.”

  Her eyes strayed away from me, hiding her shame. “I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t stomach it. The whole system is…” She shook her head. “Maybe they were right. Maybe not being full-blooded Esson had ruined me, because I entered the King’s Keep with the ideas of another culture and people.”

  “Are you talking about the Mont?”

  Her eyes widened; fire burned in her pupils. “No, it’s not all about the Mont! Did you never open your eyes and look past your own nose while you were these?

  “Insulting me doesn’t explain thing any better.”

  “It’s about the unbridled amounts of poverty in a jewel-encrusted city. Tiers and gates to keep those deemed lesser locked below them, in their rightful place.”

  “How can you of all people say that? I was sitting right beside you when you launched an arrow into some poor man’s gut.”

  “He attacked me.” She annunciated every word. “Rich, poor, man, woman—I don’t care. I will react if I am assaulted.”

  I knew Astra was lying. A part of her looked down on those in Essony that were poor. I saw the way Astra stared at them. It was the same stare I had received for ten years in Sairasee. “You wouldn’t have killed him if he were rich.”

  “Well, I guess I’m just proof that the city spits on the downtrodden,” Astra said through clenched teeth.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “So what, though? You think killing the king will change any of that?”

  “No, but whatever those in the court decide to do will. They’ll fight amongst themselves for the crown and go begging to allies for an army. In the midst of it all, Essony will topple over and a new reign will take over.”

  “Yes, and their actions will only injure the people further. And who’s to say that new reign won’t be worse than the one they had?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Does it really matter? We’re having this discussion as though I were the one who killed King Audrios.”

  “You may not have held the blade, but you did in a way. You put me at his side.”

  “Yes, and I did it to bring about positive change.”

  “And then ran away. You could have just returned to your bedchamber and pretended as though you never saw me.”

  That little sliver of knowledge cut deep. Her expression darkened, but she didn’t cocoon herself. “Patriarch Menaries would have crucified me, Derethe. The Keep, the Mont, and the city would have demanded answers. Heads will roll for those that made it possible for the king to be murdered in the first place. Mine would have been one of those.”

  “And what about the patriarch, then? He had a hand in it as well.”

  “Yes, but he’s the patriarch. Not some steward’s assistant.”

  I released a deep sigh as I stared upwards, wanting to push the whole tangled mess away from me. “So what now?”

  “I don’t know,” she mumbled. Her voice cracked, on the verge of breaking down.

  I didn’t push the conversation any further. The woman laying beside me was swirling with emotions. Reality was setting in, and she was beginning to accept that her former life was over, and a new, insecure future laid before her. It wasn’t very long ago that I was that woman—tired, angry, bitter, and restless. Astra at least had a choice.

  “What do you think they’ll do with me? Is the King of Rekkesov and his brother kind or malicious?”

  I didn’t have a clue what they were going to do with her. I understood the Northerners in broad terms. I couldn’t answer as to what specifically the Rekke would say and do. I believed Ark Ulfur would’ve taken Astra in and allowed her to live in the city, but would Erlend and Torram be as kind?

  “I’m not sure. The pair are dangerous, but they are also just.” It was the best I could give her.

  XXXVIII

  Heimer’s Toll

  I scooped her in my arms. She groaned from the discomfort of being jostled. Her back was wet and slick. It stained my hands a deep scarlet. Her head bobbled around before resting against my shoulder. She was weak, but I still felt her nuzzle me.

  My boots pounded against the floor, running out of the cave. Brungen’s voice shouted my name, but it was miles away, in another land and another time.

  Albin stood by the creek’s edge, showered in moonlight. “Did you do it?” he asked, rushing toward me. “Did you kill Heimer?”

  “Where’s a healer?”

  His eyes lowered to Irska, and his jaw dropped. He brought his hand to his face, covering his mouth before he hunched over and gagged.

  “We need a healer,” I screamed.

  Albin heaved again, and this time a watery stream left his mouth. He coughed, dragging his dingy sleeve across his mouth. “The Sama tribes are your best bet.”

  “Iver!” Brungen shouted from behind me.

  Albin glanced up at me while his hands still rested on his knees. “Torvik is too far. You won’t make it in time.”

  “Lead me to the Sama.” I didn’t care who was treating her. All that mattered was that she survived.

  “Iver,” Brungen said again as he appeared at my side with Cirithe using him as a crutch. The slave’s lively face had drained of all color, leaving a gray pallor in its wake. “She’s not going to make it.”

  My hold on her tightened. “But we have to try.”

  Brungen swallowed hard. Tears welled in his eyes. “It’ll just slow us down.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked as Dagur and Lars stumbled out of the cave with Sigmun’s body in tow. Ansel followed not far behind, limping. Sigmun’s head hung at an odd angle. The muscles in his neck had been shredded.

  “If you carry her the entire way there, we might not make it in time.” Brungen nodded toward Cirithe’s shoulder. His shirt had been torn from his body, exposing five deep gashes in his flesh.

  “You want me to lay Irska aside to die in order to ensure that Cirithe lives?” I couldn’t believe what he was saying.

  Brungen didn’t respond, avoiding my gaze.

  “How can you ask that of me? He’s a slave.”

  “He’s my friend.”

  “Horse shit,” I spat. “If he was really your friend then he wouldn’t be your slave. You don’t enslave your friends, Brungen.”

  “Men,” Albin said, raising his hands to quiet us.

  “That’s rich coming from the man raised by a slave.” Brungen rolled his eyes at me.

  “How dare you! I set her free as soon as I could.”

  “Men!” Albin’s voice rose.

  “With no gold, no belongings, no housing, and nowhere to go! You sent her to die.”

  “I was seventeen! I didn’t have anything to give her.” Tears blurred my vision, but I couldn’t wipe them away. I still had Irska cradled in my arms.

  “Convenient excuse.”

  “Men!” Albin shouted. His voice was so loud, it silenced the forest.

  “What?” Brungen barked.

  Albin nodded toward me. “The woman,” he said in a small voice. “I think she’s…”

  My eyes fell upon Irska, and my stomach dropped. A deep cry built inside of me, ready to explode. “Irska,” I whispered as my arm jostled her head to wake her up. She was the same silvery color as the moon, lying there peaceful and quiet.

  “Irska,” I called to her once more, shaking her. Her body flailed about in my grip for several seconds before her arm dropped, limp and lifeless. “Come back.” Tears warmed my cheeks as I hugged her to me, desperate to feel her move. I pressed my face to hers. Her cheek was cool, too cool.

  I couldn’t hold it in any longer. The cry burst from me, knocking me off of my feet. I collapsed onto my knees, hugging my best friend. “Irska,” I breathed. My forehead pressed against hers as I stroked her hair. My entire insides felt like they were shrinking, being crushed by some unseen force. It burned. Pain shot through my stomach as the tears spilled from my eyes
. “You can’t leave yet.”

  “Ark Iver,” Dagur said. “We need to set our dead aside so we can save those who are still with us. Both Cirithe and Ansel are injured. If they don’t get help, they might not make it through the night.”

  I heard him, but I couldn’t process his words. The weight of her body was heavy in my arms. It pulled at my heart, wrenching it out of my chest. My lungs burned.

  “Iver.” Cirithe said my name.

  I shook my head. “I can’t just leave her here.”

  “Irska is no longer here,” he told me in Sairan. “Her life cycle has ended. Lay her aside. She will not be left here. Varund will welcome her once again, even if I must carry her there myself.”

  My gaze lifted to his face, and he gave me a reassuring nod.

  “I swear it on my life, which may or may not be worth much depending how long it takes us to reach the Sama.”

  I took a deep breath, trusting he was telling me the truth. It took all the strength I had, but I climbed back onto my feet and carried her into the cave. The animals and insects would get to her if I left her out in the open. Ansel and Dagur placed Sigmun beside her with the small creek splitting the pair.

  With Albin leading, the five of us headed into the woods. My mind slowly returned to me, but my heart still bled in my chest.

  He looked so serene laying on the cot. His arms rested on either side of him, and his chest rose and fell in an easy rhythm. His pale skin had been wiped clean, leaving him spotless.

  “How is he doing?” I asked Dagur. “Has there been any update?”

  Dagur sat on the window sill with his hands resting in his lap. “The healer said he’ll keep his leg, but he’ll have trouble walking and getting around for a few months.”

  I ran a hand through my hair. We were so far away from Arus, I didn’t have a clue as to how we would get Ansel back home. At some point during the battle, he had broken his leg. Fortunately, the gods spared him the pain, and he didn’t feel it until after Heimer had been slain.