Twelve Ways to Die in Galadore, Volume I

by Coleman Alexander

  “Why did you do it? Why did you lie to me?” he asked.

  Adrika raised her eyes. “About what?

  “About the fact that you’re an abomination. I swear you’re the last person I would have expected. The last person.”

  Adrika didn’t bother answering. Fear was beginning to rise within her, fear that she couldn’t master with her mind. This was a deep, primal fear that took root in her stomach and rose within her like some sort of depraved creature trying to choke her out before anything else could. It drove her to eye the water against her will, instinctively searching for any movement below the surface. The city walls were crowded with a thousand onlookers, all doing the same. The water reflected back the noonday sun, green and white waves like scales upon the bay. Her heart felt like it was in her throat. She had never imagined that this would be the way she would go. With every breath, she thought she was going to be sick.

  Markus leaned forward. “I trusted you, Adrika. I deserve answers. I raised you to a standing no woman has ever held. I put you in charge of my house, my blood, and my family’s blood, and this is how you repay me?”

  Adrika eyed the crowd on the walls. All eyes were on her. She saw many faces that she recognized, mostly among the court and the King’s guards, men and women she had served or served with. Some watched her with hatred. Some with indifference. Some with tears in their eyes.

  “You don’t even have the dignity to answer me, do you?” Markus asked.

  Adrika looked back at him, meeting his eyes. She felt an anger rising in herself that Markus could never understand. As King, he thought he served the kingdom, but he only truly served himself. If he only knew what it was like to truly sacrifice.

  “I protected your family with my life,” Adrika said. “Is that not why I am here?” Her manacles clanked together upon her lap, and she swallowed a dozen other words that threatened to bubble up, noticing the glances of the oarsman as she spoke up.

  “Quiet, witch,” Gabe said.

  Markus shook his head, still looking at Adrika as though she was some creature to be understood. Nothing of their long friendship remained. There was no bond of kinship that she had once imagined.

  “You lied to me. You betrayed me,” Markus said again.

  Adrika tried to bite her tongue, but the words came out nonetheless. “If you only knew. . .” she muttered. “You dumb, ungrateful bastard.”

  The oarsman nearest to her nearly lost his oar at this.

  “Watch your tongue, Adrika,” Gabe said.

  Adrika eyed him without any fear. “Or what? You’re going to put me to death?” She scoffed. She had never liked Gabe, and Markus had known that, which was probably why he’d been promoted. It was a mistake, putting a dog in charge of guarding the house, but who was Adrika to have a say now?

  Gabe scowled, hand going to his dagger. “Keep it up, and I’ll cut your tongue out before we get to that part.”

  “Be my guest. Come and get it,” Adrika said.

  Gabe stood up and drew a dagger. The boat, sturdy as it was, shook side to side and the oarsmen glanced about nervously. Markus raised a hand to Gabe but kept his eyes locked on Adrika. His head guardsman sat back down.

  “Ungrateful?” Markus snorted, seemingly at a loss for words.

  “I saved your daughter’s life,” Adrika said. “I kept my duty, right to the very end. She would be dead by now if not for me.”

  Markus suddenly slammed his hand down on the planks of his seat. “It should never have gotten that far! By all accounts, you were twenty yards away when it happened. If you’d have been at her side—where you belonged—then none of this would have happened!” He took a deep angry breath and leaned back. “It doesn’t change the fact that you’re raff, a witch, but saying you did your duty is a stretch by any means.”

  Adrika pursed her lips, her body suddenly flushed with rage. “I don’t deny things got away from me. But if you had any idea of the duty I served, you would be begging for my forgiveness.”

  She immediately regretted speaking so, but Markus and the oarsmen hardly seemed to be listening to her. Markus waved a hand dismissively.

  “I’ll beg nothing of you or any other witch. The realm will be better without you.”

  Adrika gritted her teeth, holding back her retort.

  Markus leaned back and finally looked away, staring off distantly and still shaking his head.

  “You should have never been in charge of her care. If I’d have known you were a witch, I never would have let you within ten miles of her.”

  For the first time in her life, Adrika wanted to forsake her duty—she wanted to throttle the man in front of her for his ignorance, for his damned lack of appreciation. She considered attacking Markus just so Gabe could have it over with.

  “If you’d have known I was raff, you would have rowed me out here the day you discovered it.”

  Markus nodded. “I would have, you’re right. There’s no place for that evil here. Magic.” He spit off the side of the boat. “Those dark arts have no place in Ennor.”

  Adrika clenched her fists, knowing nothing she could say would change Markus’s mind.

  “Hurry up and row,” she called to the oarsmen. “Get me there before I say something I’ll regret.”

  “What is there to regret?” Markus asked. “You’ve already betrayed your honor and duty. You’re a liar and a cheat. I can’t imagine there’s much more to regret.”

  Adrika thought she was going to bite off her tongue. She stared towards the island where her final fate awaited her. The water lapped at the sides of the boat. The parapets swelled with so many onlookers, she couldn’t see a space between them. Others gathered on balconies and rooftops and anywhere they could get a vantage point, like vultures waiting for a kill. They shouldered to the very edge, watching as the boat progressed towards the middle of the bay.

  Markus leaned forward once again, his feet rattling Adrika’s manacles.

  “I want to know how you kept it from me. Thirty years in my service. I want to know how it took until now to come out.”

  Adrika was seething. “It’s not like I go around lighting torches with the snap of my fingers.”

  “I still don’t believe it.”

  “What? That I lit a man on fire?” she asked. “I’d love to claim I didn’t. If we could just turn this boat around, I’ll be on my way.”

  The oarsmen kept rowing.

  Adrika didn’t bother claiming her innocence with any real conviction. Every person in Ennor knew she was guilty, and that was fine by her. They knew what she had done. The rumors had spread like wildfire. Of course they had. The princess attacked in the middle of the Pauper’s Market on the day of her sister’s wedding? It would have taken a miracle for anyone in the city to believe Adrika was innocent when the man who had attacked the princess had burst into emerald flames and molted to the ground right then and there.

  And Markus was right, it was Adrika’s fault, of course. She should have been at Willa’s side, and more importantly, she shouldn’t have let her go to the Pauper’s Market in the first place. If she had used her better judgment, there wouldn’t have been any need for magic. And if there hadn’t been any magic, then there wouldn’t have been a magistrate, there wouldn’t be a boat, and she wouldn’t be sitting here now. Her teeth were clenched so tight her cheeks ached.

  Suddenly, a collective gasp rose from the walls and pulled her from her reverie.

  She turned to see the surface break, and then break again, and then break one more time with the enormous back of Maelichthion. Her sides shone emerald green, with spines upon her back that rose the height of a tall man. Her scales shimmered: deep blue along her crest and fading to dark green near her tail. She dipped towards the far side of the island, circling, and then disappeared beneath.

  Adrika’s fear returned like a punch to the gut. She’d known Maelichthion was coming. She’d spent long nights awake, unable to rid her thoughts of the serpent. And Maelichthion had haunted he
r days, too. But now, seeing her sinuous body weave in and out of the water, seeing her scales turn back the noonday sun, was too much. Her fate had always seemed distant, disconnected from her plight. But it was suddenly far more real than it had ever seemed before, and time was slipping past like the last grains of sand in an hourglass.

  Adrika hadn’t seen the serpent’s head, but a wake rose and met the boat, rocking it to and fro. The oarsmen lifted their blades clear and waited, all looking about and at each other. A few muttered curses under their breath. They were sweating heavily in the noonday sun. The surface finally returned to normal, and Adrika was left considering a thousand ways she’d rather die. She thought about asking Markus to just stab her instead. She wondered if a hard enough strike against the boat sides would knock her unconscious.

  Markus seemed entirely unconcerned that a serpent as long as his palace’s great hall was weaving her way beneath the waves. The fact that Meolichthion had shown herself at all so early was unusual, but he was still shaking his head at Adrika. He folded his arms across his chest and gave her a withering look.

  “I just thought you were a good woman,” he said at last. “I would have sworn my life on it.”

  Adrika took her eyes off the water. She paused, feeling drained of all fight. The fear and the anger were close to choking her, and all she wanted was for it to stop.

  “What says I’m not?” she asked, defeated.

  Gabe Menton snorted, apparently unable to hide his disdain. “What says you’re not? You’re a witch!”

  “Stay out of this, Gabe,” Markus said, irritated. He turned back to Adrika. “How about the fact that you’re raff?”

  Adrika took a deep breath, wishing to be anywhere but where she was. All her life had been spent in servitude to this man, his family, and his kingdom. To hear him discard that in a single breath was hard to suffer.

  “Does being born with an affliction mark a child before they’ve taken their first breath?” she asked.

  Markus paused, and Adrika felt one last fight within her.

  “Does it?” she asked again.

  “Yes, it does.”

  Adrika looked him in the eye. “Being born with grace doesn’t make or break a man. You were born a king. Was it determined upon your birth whether you’d make a good king or a bad king?”

  “That’s different.”

  “Is it? What I was born as does not define me. What runs through my blood has nothing to do with who I am. What I do is what defines me. I am loyal. And I have kept my honor.”

  “I don’t know that I believe that,” Markus said. But Adrika could tell he was considering it.

  “Well, I don’t know that I have the time to convince you otherwise. But it is the way of it. Consider this. Knowing that you and Octavia come from lines without any grace, what would you say if you discovered that Pallov or Tabitha was magical? What about Willa, or Aya, or Dani or Bella? What would you think then?”

  “I’d wonder whose bed my wife has been sleeping in.”

  Adrika shook her head, dirty hairs slipping over her cheek. “Octavia’s loyalty runs deeper than the roots of the mountains and oceans combined. And her line hasn’t the thinnest history of grace in their blood.”

  “What’s the point of considering? It would never happen,” Markus said.

  “Well, what would you say if it did?” Adrika pressed.

  Markus didn’t answer. His eyebrows came together in a frown. “You certainly have changed your tune.”

  “About what?”

  “About magic. About raff.”

  Adrika fell silent, knowing she had no ground to stand on. Markus went on.

  “How many times did I hear you rail against the raff of our city? How many times did you claim that magic was eroding our realm? Witches and wizards and sorcerers. . . If I remember correctly, it was you who planned to scrub Ennor of the raff’s scourge, did you not?”

  Adrika lowered his head, ashamed.

  “It makes no sense that you would be so violent against your own,” Markus said.

  Adrika felt hot tears on her cheeks, knowing Markus was right. She had been the worst, and if for nothing else, that was why she deserved to die. She hated that fact, remembering all the others she’d condemned in her blindness. It had weighed heavily on her mind the last few days, more burdensome than even her own death.

  “I’m not proud of who I was,” she admitted. “I’ve faced many hard truths since the day Willa was attacked, and if there’s one reason I should be put to death, it’s that.”

  Markus’s glare was sharp. “What type of person attacks their own? Is that not proof alone that you’re not the woman I thought you were? I’d have more respect for you if you had at least stood up for yourself and the other raff.”

  Adrika felt a deep sorrow welling in her chest. “How does a sheep survive in a pack of wolves except to wrap himself in wolf’s fur?” she asked, reminded of something she’d heard just days before.

  “Even so, it makes you a lesser woman.” Markus leaned back and fell silent.

  Adrika couldn’t disagree.

  The oars slapped the water. The island wasn’t far now, maybe ten, maybe fifteen strokes away. The surface rippled with the sea breeze, but there had been no sign of Meolichthion since she disappeared back beneath the water. Adrika had watched a hundred judgments before, and she’d always wondered what the guilty felt as they went to their fate. Some went crying. Some went limp. And some went raving mad, screaming the entire way. She felt strangely detached, as though each passing moment was a lifetime of its own. Her breaths seemed sweet and bittersweet all at once. The city looked more beautiful than it ever had before, but it was stained with the salt of the sea and the salt of men. Markus, damned as he was, was still a friend, and she couldn’t think of anyone else she’d rather argue with on this day. Her face contorted into a bitter smile.

  Markus looked at her. “Am I missing something?”

  “No. You’re not.”

  “Then what’s so damned funny?”

  “You weren’t wrong about who I am. I promise you that. My life has been spent in service to this kingdom, this realm to which I was born. I never betrayed you, and I never will. I never hid things from you to harm you, but only in self-preservation. I smile because I have to figure I’m one of the few to spend my last minutes arguing with a king, but I am glad for it. You’re a good friend and a good king. I just hope you learn something from this.”

  Adrika’s body was taking over now. Her hands were trembling. And her heart was thumping as though trying to escape her chest, the fear rising within her. She took several measured breaths, reminding herself that this was a fate chosen, not given. She turned about and saw that they had reached the island.

  They remained in silence until the boat slid into a small docking slip that was only available at the highest tides. At the moment, the perfectly smooth walls of the tower concealed themselves below the waves. Steps slipped into the water in each direction, disappearing into the murky green.

  The island wasn’t large, and most of it was commanded by the statue of Accurus the Great, the first King of Ennor and the distant forbearer of Markus. Even with the blaring sun, Adrika could see the realmstone cradled in his bronze fingers, its perfectly smooth surface locked in place by the hand that held it. It was blue, with a hint of white as though reflecting clouds that only it could see.

  Around the statue’s feet, the likeness of Meolichthion circled, spines and back making a perfect ring of stone. Her face was turned upward towards the realmstone, eyes fixed on the orb. The greenish patina of the bronze suited her scales, giving her a lifelike shimmer even as a statue.

  Taken together, the statue was both a symbolic and literal reflection of the foundation and protection of the realm. Accurus had procured the realmstone and the great wizard, Soloss of Averdeen, had harnessed Meolichthion to protect it. How he’d achieved this was beyond any knowing, but the irony was that the stone and Meolichthion were bound to
gether with magic dating back to the beginning of the realm. The fact that this escaped the wrath of the courts, the king, and the people was beyond Adrika, but she was glad there was at least a hope for salvation.

  Meolichthion, for her part, was bound to the stone and though she made a formidable guardian, there was a truce between her and the people of the city. Even the sailors and merchants who came and went by the port never ran afoul with her. She had never, in what the histories claimed was a millennium of protecting the realmstone, attacked any ships or vessels—not even the unfortunate souls who sometimes fell into her pool. In fact, Adrika had heard at least a dozen people, mostly drunks, claim Meolichthion had come to them and lifted them from the water. Adrika wondered if she would be better off trying to swim back to the shore rather than go through with the ritual. Maybe Maelichthion would lift her free. But then, she’d be rowed right back out and the idea of getting in the water with a serpent whose tongue was as tall as a fence was too much. Adrika’d rather take her chance at hope and try her hand at the realmstone.

  “Tie us off and then get her ashore,” Gabe said to the oarsmen.

  The two closest to Adrika stood up and helped her to her feet. The other two, who had first stepped off and secured the boat, waited to pull her ashore. They held her by her elbows, and she walked in short, shuffling steps, dragging her manacles behind her.

  “Need I explain what you do?” Gabe asked.

  Adrika shook her head. The game was simple. The one who tried to take the realmstone and was not eaten was deemed innocent, and therefore would be fine. The rules were the same for everybody. A fairly clever device would hold her in place for about ten minutes while the boat rowed back to shore. Then, once the contraption unwound itself, her chains would loosen, and she would be free to go to the statue to try and take the realmstone. Once she did that, Meolichthion would make her judgment. If she deemed Adrika innocent, she would go free. If not, she’d be eaten.