The Exalted

by Kaitlyn Sage Patterson

  She nodded and turned to go back into the woods.

  “Wait,” I called.

  Lei stopped and eyed me warily. These brats didn’t seem quite sure what to think of me, and fair enough there. They’d grown up with stories about atrocities committed by the diminished. By people like me. By contrast, despite the tattoos that so clearly marked her as a Shriven, they’d begun to treat Curlin with a kind of awed respect. After all, the Shriven protected them from people like me, didn’t they?

  “Tell you what,” I said. “If I find a dozen eggs in my hammock just before supper, and you still have your last flag, I’ll see that you get a special treat after the meal.”

  Lei grinned.

  “Go on now.” I waved her away. “Get.”

  When Lei had disappeared back into the jungle, I squatted, settled the pole across my shoulders again and tried not to cringe at the ache in my muscles as I stood. The buckets swung dangerously on either side of the pole, threatening to splash onto the dusty path. This was only my third trip up the mountain, and already my thighs were on fire.

  I wasn’t quite to the top of the hill when Aphra appeared once again, humming as she headed cheerfully back down the mountain. I kept my eyes down and tried not to fume at the apparent ease and untroubled delight with which she’d approached the grueling training schedule Curlin had imposed upon our little camp.

  “You’re not losing a drop from that bucket, are you?” Aphra asked, her mouth quirked in a smile.

  “Don’t start,” I grunted, keeping my pace steady as I hauled myself up the mountain. I wasn’t in the mood to be teased.

  Curlin and I had spent much of the last two nights stitching together every scrap of leather we could find to make a pair of large bags. By the time we’d finished, they were almost as tall as Lei. We’d waterproofed them by boiling water in the laundry kettle and dunking the bags into the water, tightening the seams, which we then sealed with beeswax.

  It had taken most of both nights, but by the time we were finished, we had two bags big enough to hold water for the whole camp for several days. Just as important as our training was making certain that, if we had to hole up in the camp—or in the worst-case scenario, if we were surrounded and stuck—we’d be well supplied. Plus, Curlin claimed we’d use the bags for training. I didn’t see how, but I also had no plans to ask her about it. Not with that dangerous, gleeful spark in her eyes.

  The bags were hung from beams beneath the stilted bungalows. They were heavy with water, each about half-full and swaying in the hot jungle breeze. I found Curlin crouched beneath one of them, rubbing beeswax into a damp seam. I lowered the buckets to the ground, breathing hard. I rubbed my aching shoulder with one hand, rotating it to work out the pain. My shoulder had healed, technically, but the hard work of the past few days had shown me just how much strength I’d lost.

  Curlin dipped a cup of water from one of the bags and offered it to me. Taking the cup, I tilted my head from one side to the other, and my neck gave a satisfying crack.

  “Shoulder giving you trouble?”

  I drained the cup and handed it back, nodding.

  “We’ll need to work hard to strengthen your muscles there when we have more time. For now, focus on knife work with the other hand. I’ll guard your weaker side. I always will.”

  She clapped me on the back and took one of my buckets to the water skin she’d already lowered. I heaved the other up and followed her, dumping my bucket in after hers.

  “There’s no good reason we can’t just go down to the spring for water every day, the same way these folks’ve been doing this whole time,” I said. “Why go to all the trouble of making these and hauling endless buckets up the hill?”

  “You said you wouldn’t question my training tactics,” Curlin said.

  “Come off it,” I huffed.

  Curlin hauled on the rope holding the bag off the ground, heaving it up nearly to the beam. She tied the end of the rope to a post and, grinning, pulled it back a step, her lean arms trembling a bit with the effort.

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “And?”

  She gave the bag a shove, and it came hurtling toward me. I jumped, but not fast enough, and it caught my bad shoulder. The wind rushed out of me, and the next thing I knew, I was on my ass, dazed and gasping.

  “I thought you, of all people, could dodge a hit,” Curlin chortled.

  “I didn’t see it coming!”

  Curlin snorted and then began to cackle as I picked myself up off the dusty ground. The bag swung toward me again, but this time I was quick enough to roll out of its way. Curlin caught the bag and steadied it, still laughing.

  “That’s the point. You won’t always see what’s headed your way in a fight. Everyone’s reactions have to be faster, and these kids have to learn how to take a hit. Half of them were punching with their eyes closed this morning. These bags will teach them to dodge, and they can whale on them a fair bit. Toughen up their dainty little fists before we start letting them hit each other.”

  “Do we really have time for this? Even if the others decide to wait on attacking the temple, they won’t wait long enough for us to do much more than cross our fingers and hope.”

  The words I didn’t say hung in the air between us. This is hopeless. These people can’t possibly be trained well enough to have even half a chance of surviving the Shriven. What have we gotten ourselves into? “We need to compensate for our weaknesses, not try to beat them into submission.”

  Curlin flew at me, and before I’d had time to set my feet, she’d knocked me off them, landing hard on my hips, one fist raised and a wicked grin spreading across her face. I just knew there was something clever on the tip of her tongue. But that was Curlin’s weakness—she always had to say something clever before she broke someone’s nose. I’d seen her do it too many times to’ve not learned my lesson.

  I threw my knees up and into her back, where they hit with a satisfying thump on either side of her ribs. At the same time, I shot a hand up and jabbed it into her throat, more to startle her than hurt her. Curlin’s smile collapsed, and the tattooed lines on her face went suddenly straight and hard. I wriggled like an eel, trying to free myself from the iron grip of her legs. Her punch landed not on my face, as she’d likely intended, but on the top of my arm. A spike of pain shot through me, and my arm went numb. I caught her in the back again, the shoulder this time, with a knee, and got an elbow under me.

  It was enough to wedge my hips up and shove Curlin off balance. I flung myself up and on top of her. Curlin’s fists went flying, and instinct kicked in. Rather than trying to block the flurry of blows, I forced one of her elbows to the ground and pinned it with a knee. Her fist pounded my thighs, but that was a hell of a lot better than my face. Ignoring her snarling, I planted another knee on her sternum and struggled to get hold of her other wrist. Curlin’s muscles strained, and she was the color of berries beneath her tattoos, but I gritted my teeth and kept her pinned to the dusty earth. I finally managed to grab her wrist and twisted it at an awkward angle, crowing triumphantly.

  A cheer went up all around us, and I snapped my head up, startled. We were surrounded by more than half the camp, their eager faces peering at us between the stilts that held up the little bungalow above us. Two brats’ faces, one dark brown, the other bright red, hung upside down from the porch with wide white grins, looking like eager little bats. I smiled back at them, let go of Curlin’s wrists and eased myself off her. I stood, knees and spine creaking all the way up, and offered Curlin my hand.

  “See,” I said to the gathered crowd. “It is possible to take on one of the Shriven.”

  Curlin took my hand with a smirk, and before I knew it, she’d yanked me off balance with one hand and swept my feet out from under me with a leg. I landed flat on my back in the dust, laughter filling the air like a thunderstorm. I groaned.

  “And that,�
�� Curlin said, “is why you never call a battle won until you’ve burned all the bodies and found your way safe home.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Bo

  “There’s nothing I can say—nothing I can do—to alleviate the wretched state of my shredded heart. Nothing, except to march numbly forward.”

  —from Bo to Vi

  There were eight of them, and they all had the same kind of virtue names that our mother had bestowed upon Vi and me all those years ago: Remembrance, Clarity, Amity, Chastity, Forbearance, Temperance, Patience and Stillness.

  The woman certainly stuck to a pattern.

  Brenna—the girl who looked so much like Vi—rattled them off with a shrug, then proceeded to introduce her siblings with the names they actually used. She and her twin, Lair, were fifteen. They’d been born just a year and a half after Vi and me, and from Brenna’s description, it seemed like they supervised most of what happened in the family.

  “Lair does odd jobs as they come to him. Sweeps chimneys, takes in laundry, does a bit of pickpocketing in the rich bits of town, that sort of thing.” Brenna winked at me. Daring me to react, just like Vi would’ve done. “I’ve apprenticed myself to a welder down at the docks. We need a steady income around here, and the brats can only do so much.”

  Brenna went on. There were only two boys, Lair and Tie, and I found myself studying their faces, looking for a reflection of myself in them. I didn’t have to look hard. Lair’s curls were walnut to my soot, but they sprang away from his square-jawed face in the same unruly tangle. And he and Tie both cocked their heads to the side as they listened to their sister—something I might not have noticed, except that Runa had spent the last few weeks scolding me for the same habit.

  The thought of my grandmother brought the ache of her loss rushing back, but I forced myself to focus on Brenna’s introductions. On the half siblings I’d only just discovered.

  The auburn-haired boy was Tie, and his sister was Chase. They were fourteen, tall and gangly in the way that teenagers who’ve only just grown into their limbs can be.

  “Tie’s too clumsy to be as good a thief as our Chase, but he’s fair smart,” Brenna said. “Finished his schooling and keeps the books for some of the shopkeepers down the road. We all pull our weight.” A deep flush crept up Tie’s neck, but his smile was full of shy pride.

  Fern, Trix, Pem and Still were the girls who’d taken off to sell my ring and stock up on supplies. They all had jobs. Even the littlest ones, Pem and Still, who were barely eight, managed to bring in some income. As I listened, I began to realize that very little, if any, of the money my father’s estate had paid Ina over the years had gone to supporting my siblings.

  Recollections of my own privileged childhood burned me through with embarrassment. How could my father have let this happen? How could I, for that matter? I’d known about these children—my family—and still, I’d pushed them out of my mind in my single-minded quest to find Vi.

  “What about you, then?” Brenna asked. “How’s it that a brother of ours turns up here dripping in silks and jewels, anyhow?”

  I cleared my throat. “It’s a long story.”

  Tie raised an eyebrow at me, a gesture so perfectly Vi that it startled me. “Gathered that. Who’s this, then?”

  My eyes widened, and I made an apologetic face at Swinton. “Gadrian’s nose! I’ve no manners at all, have I?”

  Swinton’s perfect lips quirked in a half smile, and his eyes sparkled in response.

  “This is Swinton. My, erhm...” I looked to Swinton for help. We’d never really defined what we were to one another. We just...were. He gave me a wicked look, obviously enjoying watching me flail. “My...paramour?”

  Silence hung heavy over the table. My siblings exchanged sidelong glances with one another until Swinton snorted. His snort turned into a cackle, and then raucous laughter that spread like wildfire to everyone else in the room—except me. I buried my face in my hands. What the hell else should I’ve called him? My lover? My sweetheart? I groaned, waiting for the laughter to die down.

  Eventually, Swinton laid a broad hand on my shoulder and squeezed, still wheezing with laughter.

  “Your paramour?” Brenna asked with a giggle.

  “He’s no idea what he’s talking about,” Swinton said. “I’m his boyfriend. Swinton. From Ilor. Pleased to meet you all.”

  “Ilor.” Chase rolled the word around in her mouth. “When did you immigrate?”

  “Do you know Vi?” Lair asked.

  “What business’ve you got in Ilor that buys jewels like that for your sweetheart?”

  Swinton pressed his lips together and looked at me expectantly. We’d told so many versions of the truth to so many different people, but we’d never anticipated this.

  “Could you excuse us for a moment, please?” I asked.

  Brenna barely had time to nod before I stood and pulled Swinton out of the room, down the hall and onto the front porch.

  “Well, what’ll you tell them?”

  “I don’t know,” I said helplessly. “I don’t know what to do. If I tell them everything, there’s a chance that word will get out, and I’ll lose the throne entirely.”

  “Half the city’s already gossiping about the chance that you’re not singleborn. Can they really take the throne away from you that easily?”

  I rolled my neck, and a series of crackling pops ran up and down my spine. “I don’t think so. I don’t think the law explicitly states that the leader of the empire has to be singleborn. It’s the Book of Gadrian that goes on and on about the power and supremacy of the singleborn, I think. But I’m not a scholar of imperial law. It could be in there somewhere.”

  “I think the bigger question is, do you trust them?” Swinton’s green eyes, the color of fir needles, bored into me, and I did my best to hold his gaze.

  “I suppose I should—they’re my family, after all. But Claes and Penelope were family, too, and they couldn’t have turned out to be less trustworthy.” I bit my lip. The memory of Claes’s deathbed betrayal still ached each time it came up, like a bruise yet unhealed.

  He continued to stare me down. “It’s a simple question, bully. Do you trust them?”

  I ran a hand through my hair. “I don’t know. I know that you’re supposed to trust family, and it won’t serve me to hold everyone at arm’s length my whole life. But...they owe me no loyalty at all. Do I leap in, consequences be damned, and tell them everything? Or should I be more cautious?”

  “Did you tell Vi everything all at once?”

  I glared at him; he knew that I hadn’t.

  “And was your relationship stronger because you kept that information close to your chest?”

  I sighed. “You know it wasn’t. But what if they tell someone about Vi? About me?”

  “What if they tell someone you’re a twin?” Swinton’s smile was patient and just a touch condescending. If I weren’t so very fond of him, I would’ve had a hard time not hating him in that moment. “Weren’t you planning to tell the whole world at some point? What’s more, who on earth would believe a half-starved brat from the End?”

  Swinton’s words—an echo of Vi—hit me like a blow to the chest. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and looked away from him, down the frigid street lined with falling-down row houses. I had to force back the tears that threatened to well up in my eyes.

  Swinton sighed. He pulled me into his arms, but I stayed stiff as a rod. “I’m sorry, bully,” he whispered into my hair. “That was rough of me. You’ve had the worst kind of day, and I should’ve been gentler with you.”

  I let myself sink into his embrace and wrapped my arms around him in return. “I just don’t know what to do. I feel like the world is collapsing in on me, and I’ve been tasked with holding everything in place. Any moment, it’s all going to come crashing down, and it’ll be all my faul
t.”

  Tears ran hot down my cheeks, dampening the wool of Swinton’s borrowed military jacket as he held me tight against his broad chest. “You have me. I won’t let you stand alone, bully. Tell your family who you are. Trust them. You don’t have to keep the world spinning all on your own.”

  Taking a deep breath, I nodded and wiped my face with the back of my hand. Swinton fished a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to me.

  “It’s astonishing that the future leader of the Alskad Empire manages to so often be without his handkerchief,” he said. “Now. Give me a kiss before you go inside and properly introduce yourself to your family.”

  I wrapped my arms around his waist and did just that.

  * * *

  Lair poured boiling water into a chipped porcelain teapot and added yet another spoonful of tea redolent with spices. The warm scent radiated through the cozy little kitchen, simultaneously unidentifiable and comforting. This would be the third pot the six of us had consumed, and each had been stronger than the last. Lair poured the last of a jar of honey into the pot as well and stirred, regarding me with narrowed, thoughtful eyes.

  “So now that the queen is dead, you’ll be the king.”

  I nodded.

  “Our brother, the king. Has a nice ring to it.” Chase took the pot from Lair and poured fresh tea into everyone’s mismatched teacups. “But you’re afraid to go back to the palace because the guards who shot the queen were aiming for you.”

  “Swinton saw them with his own eyes,” I said.

  Tie plucked at Swinton’s sleeve. “Ain’t hard to come across a guard’s uniform, is it?”

  “I can’t say as I’ve been impressed by the overall security at the palace,” Swinton said. “But to be fair, it’s not as though there’s been much of a need. Even though the singleborn nobles have been out for Bo’s throat since he was toddling around in diapers, no one’s ever gone after the queen. It’s a game of power and prestige. Anyone can be the heir, but it’s the queen who does all the real work, and not many of the singleborn are willing to wrap their heads around the idea of actually working.”