A stone medallion.
A flurry of cracked strokes formed a symbol onto its face. It resembled a mammoth ram with L-shaped horns, a hoary beard, and a mane thicker than a lion’s.
“Gods,” Hilaris breathed. “I’ve seen that before in Lord Gaiyus’s library. That creature’s an elhorn. They’re extinct now, and—and this. It’s is the Air Emblem.”
The holy sigil of Lord Jaypes.
The elders said banners used to fly with it when Lairdos Ascaerii, the last Air Sage, was King. They even said the presence of the Air Emblem was power. It carried the dread aura of the God of Air himself.
Just looking at it gave him goosebumps. Like Air worship, displaying that Emblem was banned.
“Jamie, don’t touch it—”
But it was too late.
The second his fingers brushed the Emblem, a shockwave of air blasted skyward.
Chapter Three
It slammed him and Hilaris flat onto their backs. A monster-sized current, taller than Mount Alairus’s highest peak, surged out of the medallion. Clouds galloped across all corners of the Kingdom. The escarpment trembled. Jaime shut his eyes as the supernatural storm covered his body—and the entire mountain—into shadow.
Hilaris shouted something, but the winds buried his voice. Jaime closed his eyes. Whispers. From hundreds of ancient airstreams. They rushed around his earlobes, gathering towards some urgent point in the north.
Jaime’s mouth flapped open.
The world’s going to explode—
And Jaypes Kingdom fell silent.
Below him, Townfold Village burst into streams of panic and uproar. Soldiers, chickens, goats scrambled over the streets. Kingpines lied on their noses. Gaping crevasses split the network of villages. Ironically, the pyre was the only thing left entirely intact.
Hilaris flipped himself upright.
“What have you done?” he bellowed. “You offended Lord Jaypes! I told you it was sacrilege to break into Father’s grave—”
Jaime screamed back, “If I didn’t, we’d starve—”
“You raised an air current!”
Terror scourged his chest. Even though the mountain temperatures had dropped, sweat drenched his exomis.
I’m not a Sage. That’s impossible!
If he was born royalty, then discovering his ability to wield his god’s element would’ve call for Kingdom-wide celebrations. Most members of the royal Houses showed their Sage powers at puberty.
But the worst thing that could happen was if you discovered your Sage-powers and you weren’t of the royal family. If two Sages from two different Houses breathed in one Kingdom, that meant war. Only Sages could be Kings. And only one Sage House could rule the throne.
In the Four Kingdoms, to have a Sage outside the royal family was rare; it had only happened a handful of times in the last two thousand years.
But still.
It could happen.
And if King Usheon found out Jaime raised a current—
“I’m not a Sage,” Jaime said shakily. “This’s just a stupid old artifact. That blast never happened—”
“Are you mad?” Hilaris yelled. “You’re going to pretend it didn’t happen?”
“It never happened! Okay? Hold these—” Jaime shoved the coin pouches at Hilaris and looped the medallion around his sweating neck.
“You can’t take that!” his brother cried.
“I’m not leaving it here! If they find it in your papá’s grave, it’ll only bring us more trouble than you already have!”
Hilaris clamped down on his shoulder. “Look, Jamie. Look at what you’ve done.”
Black clouds spilled over Townfold Village like poison. Thunder snarled across the entire sky, high winds streamed around the mountain, howling like wolves.
“You’ve started a banestorm.”
“You read too many fantasy books,” Jaime snapped back. “Banestorms aren’t real.”
As they rode back down the mountain, Jaime vaguely felt something watching him. He peeked over his shoulder.
Aeneas, the old goat shepherd. And his seven-year-old son, Evander. They’d seen everything from the other side of the barrows.
Jaime suppressed a shudder.
He decided not to tell Hilaris about it.
Halfway down the escarpment, a lone silhouette gazed out towards the Estos River. At first, he thought it was a person—no. Not a person. It resembled a headstone. This one was larger than the others. A fillet, carved with a garland of windflowers, crowned its top.
An airmarker.
Some of the elders said that back before the skies grew sick with storms, Old Jaypes used to have a mapped network of air streams. This stone was supposed to be an ancient marker for Northwind, the largest air current in Jaypes.
Jaime wondered what would happen if he pressed the uncanny medallion against its stone. Would air currents shoot out of his nose? Would he start flying over the mountaintop?
Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not an Air Sage!
The second they reached the bottom of the foothill, Hilaris pulled to a halt. Jaime’s head crashed against Hilaris’s back.
A throng of horses waited outside their farmstead. One of them was caparisoned in Kaipponese silks—a high officer was here. Behind them, human cages perched on the backs of two wagons.
“Mamá!” Hilaris screamed.
He dismounted and charged forward, but Jaime yanked him back by the arm.
“No!” he blurted. A hurricane of fear whirled inside him. “They’ll see you—they’ll catch you!”
Hilaris clawed him. “Let go, you fool!”
His brother tore through the foliage of wild flowers towards their country house.
A scream burst up Jaime’s throat. He flung the coin pouches at the ground.
Instinct forced him to dismount and run after Hilaris—he couldn’t leave his family behind. He wouldn’t run away.
A dozen soldiers stood in the inner courtyard, blockading all doors and exits with their shields and spears. One of them dragged his mother out of the living room by the hair. Another skipped down the steps with a bagful of stonemist incense. Hilaris stared at them, staggering in a circle.
Jaime’s knees sagged.
You’re too late.
Chapter Four
A stout shape stepped through the colonnade.
His face was shaped like a clay pan, jowls sagging from decades of ample dining. And he had plenty of rump.
Even without any introductions, Jaime knew who this was—Chief Strategos Reizo Kita, righthand official to the King himself.
He’s real. He’s here, in our farmstead—
“Clan of Pappas,” Reizo trumpeted. Heavy accent weighed down his Moderna, modern common tongue. “In the name of His Holiness the King, you are under arrest for treason and purgatory!”
“Perjury, sir,” a Jaypan officer coughed.
Kaipponese—natives of the Fire Kingdom, where the King was from—didn’t exist on this mountain.
Sickness spilled into Jaime’s fear.
They looked different with their black, teardrop-shaped eyes. They even had their own language, though Jaime knew none of it. Many of their native customs were strange to him. Like how they bowed a lot and got offended if you didn’t bow back. Or how they preferred rice to bread.
Worst of all, if a Jaypan struck a Kaipponese, it was lawful for the authorities to take your offending hand. If they were feeling nice. If they weren’t, it was also lawful for the Kaipponese to hack you apart on the spot.
So when Hilaris pivoted to attack, Jaime screamed.
“No!”
His brother yanked a shortsword out of the scabbard of the nearest soldier, slashing at the Strategos. But Reizo backed away in one swift step. The soldiers lowered their spears between the wall of t
heir shields.
The familiar hurricane was filling Jaime’s chest, expanding, shaking the walls of his lungs from pressure. He didn’t dare suck on his breather. Not in front of these soldiers.
Don’t kill Hilaris, please, please don’t kill him—
The soldiers overpowered his brother in three strokes. A hilt collided against Hilaris’s temple. Blood burst through his flesh. One stamped him down, face to the floor, with a dirty lace-up boot. The others fitted chains over his wrists and ankles.
Hida turned away, tears glistening on her cheeks. This was the end of their household.
How did everything go so wrong in just twenty-four hours?
Strategos Reizo turned to Jaime. Those coal eyes fixed on him. His heart thundered.
“Your turn to say something?”
“No, sir,” he choked.
“Good, good.” Reizo Kita bowed politely at Hida. “You have a good son. May Lord Kaippon rebirth him as a warrior in the next life.”
Hida spat at his feet. A Jaypan soldier struck her jaw. In one second, his fear drained rage.
“Don’t touch her—” Jaime bellowed.
But someone twisted him around, slipped fetters around his skinny wrists.
“Go on, stinking grub.”
The soldier holding him shoved him forward.
Inspired by his mother’s courage, Jaime flipped around and sank his teeth into the man’s exposed arm. The soldier thrust him away, lip bared. Jaime crashed through the door.
“Strategos! That one is ours.”
The shout came just as Jaime collapsed onto the threshold, beaten earth skinning his elbows.
A squat shadow marched out from behind the second wagon. Julias Markus held up a signed warrant. His jawbone was bleeding from a recent wound. A dozen of his Free Guard backed him.
“The Archpriestess agreed to turn him over to Lord Gaiyus,” the Commander said. “Our lord wishes to interrogate the boy on the matter of his brother’s treason.”
Commander Julias bowed low.
The hostility eased from Strategos Reizo’s shoulders. He bowed back—a short, annoyed dip—and gave a nod.
Fury scorched his gut.
Lord Gaiyus.
How could the Lord of Mount Alairus say he would help them escape to the Sky Pass, only to dispatch the Free Guard against his ward’s family?
He doesn’t care about us, he never did.
Jaime struggled to break free of his chains—if only he could throw a punch at the Commander’s face—but the Free Guard held onto him tight. The Commander grabbed a fist full of his hair, slammed him against the cage’s bars.
“Enough!”
Jaime closed his eyes.
“I trusted you,” he whispered. “Papá.”
The last word seemed to catch the Commander. His bearded jaw clenched and unclenched. Then his eyes briefly dropped.
Admit it. Please. I’m tired of the lies.
Julias moved closer so the bulk of his body blocked their faces from the soldiers.
“Quiet, boy.” He peered into another direction. Jaime followed his gaze—and sucked in a ragged breath.
A unit of horsemen were galloping up the switchback where he woke the medallion with a storm. They held torches, maces, and hunting nets. Jaime hoped his shaking fingers weren’t visible.
“Play the part,” the Commander murmured. “Gaiyus Sartorios is trying to save your life.”
They blindfolded him before they reached Townfold’s walls. Jaime concentrated on his breath. Hida always told him that if he ever lost his breather, counting to four—breathing in—and releasing on another four, would help.
Breathe deeply.
Jaime breathed as deep as he could. The sound of Free Guards’ boots echoed somewhere underground.
“Let him go,” came Julias’s low voice.
The blindfold came off. They loosened his chains. Jaime rubbed at the chafed flesh on his wrists.
A square of firelight awaited ahead of him. Julias paused, and moved to Jaime’s ear.
“Do not be afraid. You will learn the truth about your papá tonight.”
His chest thudded.
What does that mean? Aren’t you him?
The other Jaypans stared at him solemnly. Jaime marched into the blinding light.
Oil lamps lit a chamber of limestone, small and unremarkable in size. Yet his eyes watered from the myrrh-like reek of stonemist incense. A silver tapestry hung behind the half dozen men inside. The same symbol as the stone medallion.
The Air Emblem.
All six wore the white togas of politicians, but the tallest one—the only man with his back facing Jaime—had a purple sash draped over his shoulder. His eyes widened. Purple was expensive dye, said to come from the sea snails of the western Koiphi islets.
The cloying smell of roses—perfume as expensive as purple dye—itched his nose.
Jaime sank to his knees.
“Lord Gaiyus,” he said.
His brother’s warden turned around. Gaiyus Sartorios’s hair was as gilded with silver. His arched, calculating brows made him look indefinitely resentful. Jaime never personally meet him before, and when the lord’s gaze fell on him, it was like being cornered by a wolf.
How does Hilaris call this man Papá?
The Lord of Mount Alairus crossed the chamber and rested his gold-ringed hand on Jaime’s chin.
“Please, rise, Jamian.”
Breathe.
Jaime raised his head.
“The Archpriestess believes we brought you to my villa to question your knowledge of Hida Pappas’s perjury.”
“You have to protect her, and Hilaris—”
“Shh,” Gaiyus said gently. “We have little time. The Archpriestess is out hunting in the mountains. The burning has been delayed, but only until dawn. We are here to discuss what she is looking for, and why.”
Hunting in the mountains. Jaime shivered.
“What do you mean?”
Lord Gaiyus’s eyes shifted. As soon as Jaime followed them, panic swelled in his chest.
A shaggy man crouched in the corner, staff wobbling between his fingers. Aeneas—the goat shepherd.
“Aeneas told us what happened at the barrows. He claims you raised the banestorm that now hangs over us.”
Banestorm.
Jaime winced.
Surely that was too strong a word? What nonsense did Hilaris orate about at the farmstead—banestorms existed only in legend, didn’t they? Mega storms that once tore the continents to pieces and gulped down entire islands of tribesmen. No banestorms had existed since the formation of the Four Kingdoms 2,500 years ago. Or maybe even at all.
“It’s not a banestorm—”
“My son,” the shepherd croaked. “Evander—he’s still out there, my lord. He stayed behind to look for Leonidas—our missing goat. If they find him—”
Gaiyus raised his hand for peace. “We will look for Evander.” His wolf-gray eyes switched to Jaime. “Present the Sacred Relic for us, please.”
“The what?”
Lord Gaiyus smiled tightly.
He peeked at Commander Julias, who stood by the doorway with a hand on his hilt. The Commander nodded at him. Hesitating, Jaime pulled the medallion out from under his himation.
Firelight washed over its ancient symbol.
Sharp inhales from the other men.
Gaiyus took it, his lips thinning into a line as his neatly trimmed fingers caressed its edges.
“The Air Emblem.”
Immediately, the other politicians narrowed their eyes at Jaime. It was like he’d committed thievery—or murder.
“I found it in Hektor Pappas’s grave,” Jaime hollered. “I didn’t mean to break into his deathofferings. It was the only way I could supply my f
amily once we made it past the Sky Pass—”
“The King is already looking for you.”
He froze. “What?”
“The entire Kingdom saw that monstrous current rise in the sky. Only our god—or a Sage—could have awoken such a thing.”
“It was an accident. I’m not a—”
“No, Jaime. I suspect Hida must have seen the Relic around your neck the day she found you. It was a fatal error in her judgment to not seek me for counsel.”
“Did she know what it was?”
“No,” Commander Julias cut in. “She could not have.”
Gaiyus folded his ringed hands together. “The Archpriestess and Reizo Kita, the Chief Strategos, hold much power in this Kingdom. If they intend to keep it that way, they will find the boy who awakened the Relic. Or the King will burn them. They believe, mistakenly, he is out in the mountains.”
“My son—” Aeneas howled.
“It will only be a matter of time before they find out that boy is right here in my township.”
Jaime shoved his hand into his pockets, rolling his breather around his fingers. “But . . . why are they searching for me?”
“You know why.”
“Why?”
Julias exchanged looks with Lord Gaiyus, and the latter nodded. The Commander of the Free Guard marched into the light.
“Because of the Relic, Jaime. There are a few things you must understand. Do you know why the King established the Royal Decree?”
“He’s looking for a boy born in 1982.”
“Are you familiar with the Sacred Codex?”
“Kind of. It was written by the Four Kingdoms’ first Sages. I think it’s a bunch of international laws?”
“Then you know that our current King of Jaypes, Usheon Ottega, has profaned our Kingdom and god.”
“Because he’s a Fire Sage,” Jaime said. “We’re the Kingdom of Air.”
The other men ducked their heads uncomfortably—this was the kind of treason you didn’t talk about unless you wanted your tongue cut out. Julias looked straight at him and nodded.
“The King before Usheon was Lairdos Ascaerii, an Air Sage descended from the sacred bloodline of our god. A month before Usheon’s invasion, Lairdos stepped off the cliffs of the Capital.”
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