Only then did Jaime realize he was hyperventilating.
“Alright, alright,” Achuros crooned. “Don’t panic or you’ll panic yourself right into an asthma attack. Easy. Can you breathe with me?”
Jaime blocked out the images from his sleep. Counted to four. They did this together, a set of five. Breathed deeply.
“That’s it.” Achuros counted with him.
After a few minutes, the nightmare’s claw-like grip on his lungs let go.
“Okay. I—I think I’m okay.”
Achuros helped him to his feet. “Let’s go on a walk together. Bring your books—the Ascaerii tome, and Legend.”
“Why?” Jaime let out a shuddery breath. “Where are we going?”
“The forests.”
“Now?”
“I thought the Empyrean energy under the library might accelerate your ability to bond with air. But too much can make a mortal go mad. Nightmares are a warning sign.”
Achuros rapidly packed their things.
“We will not be coming back.”
The Krete Forests felt different than when Jaime first trekked through them months before. They were heavier, much heavier.
And too quiet.
It was the way daylight fell over the leaves—more shadow, less evergreen, like the darkness in his dreams was spilling into real life.
Mist-monsters, Jaime suddenly remembered, for no apparent reason. Frigid cold crawled up his body. It feels like the mist-monsters are coming back.
“Can you feel that?”
“Ah, yes.” Achuros parted the vines. “A southern summer is coming.”
“I’m not talking about the heat.”
“Lord Jaypes, I still don’t know how the lords of the south put up with this stinking humidity.”
“Have you ever seen weird things in these forests, Achuros?”
“And the flies. Holy Lord, the flies! You don’t know a southern summer until you put up with the houseflies.”
The airpriest ducked a branch and vanished into the foil ahead of him.
Jaime bit his tongue.
Stop being a kid. Mist-monsters aren’t real. The only real monster is your blood-father.
But Jaime secretly hoped the mist-monsters would show up. At least then he’d know he wasn’t going mad.
He lingered behind, glancing over his shoulder. Scrutinizing the gaps between the canopy and the trunks. The breezes were mild, lazy. Hundreds of cicadas chirped all around him.
Nothing emerged.
They climbed over moss, tree roots, and rubble, until they emerged before an archaic gateway. Three crumbling arches loomed overhead. Lush beeches surrounded them, blocking out the skylight. This must have been an old temple site centuries ago.
Without any talk, they separated. Achuros hunched against a pillar and pulled out his ledger. Jaime hunkered down on the third and topmost step under the middle arch.
In this vast, timeless silence, he started meditating.
A few hours later, the breezes cleansed off the worst of his nightmare. Peace ebbed into his lungs. He studied a chapter on the Colosseum’s architecture until his eyes watered. Jaime stretched out his legs for a short break.
Achuros was in the exact same place as before, sitting cross-legged and barefoot, ledger propped against one arm.
Jaime said, “What in the skies are you always writing?”
“Shut your mouth and meditate.”
Jaime stifled a grin and dived for the ledger. Achuros snarled at him, but Jaime moved quickly. He zipped around the center pillar twice, Achuros chasing after him, before crossing the gateway into the other side of the forest. The priest’s bellows were claps of thunder in this wilderness. Jaime riffled to the last entry.
Although he couldn’t read well, the first thing Achuros taught him was his name.
His name appeared on almost every page.
“This is your diary.” Jaime widened his eyes. “You’re writing about me. I’m blushing, Your Honorable.”
Achuros’s growl melted into a snort of denial. This time, Jaime didn’t duck when the priest swiped the ledger back into his hands.
“Never touch this. Never. Do you understand?” His anger lashed the smile out of Jaime’s face.
“Okay, I’m sorry. But why’s my name all over there?”
“I am writing history,” the old man puffed. “It falls on the priests of the High Temples to record the times. If I do not, future generations will not know who Lairdos and Sarendi truly were.” He paused. “Or you.”
A southern summer was indeed here, because flies tickled the entire wall of his chest.
God, I hate how he does that.
Changing directions like the gales of a storm. Prickly and naggy at one moment, serious and sincere at another. Lately, it was more of the latter. And a whole lot more bottles of wine.
“Can I also write an entry in there?” Jaime said.
Achuros snorted. “Why?”
“I want the world to know about you, too. A Sage is only as good as his mentor.”
The creases fell out of the old man’s face. He opened his mouth. Closed it.
The next him he opened it, something whizzed through the trees—piercing the tree trunk just above Achuros’s head.
An arrow.
Both of them froze. Achuros’s mouth was still open, unsaid words hanging on his tongue. Jaime’s heart felt like a falcon plummeting into a dive.
They abruptly split apart, swiveled behind the opposite side of the trunk.
“Jaime,” Achuros said under his breath. “Listen to me.”
“No! We’re not separating—”
“Jaime.”
He stopped breathing.
“Pass me the medallion. Run as fast as you can westward. Avoid the city. Don’t trust anyone, don’t let anyone see you. And don’t look back—do you understand me?”
Jaime shook his head, his throat thick. “I’m not leaving you, Achuros.”
It’s got to be the Archpriestess. I lost Hilaris and Mamá and Commander Julias and everyone on Mount Alairus. I’m not making the same mistake again. Not with him. If they kill Achuros—
“We’ll see each other again. Boy, we don’t have a lot of time.”
Jaime breathed deeply. “Promise?”
“Yes, alright—”
“Promise, Achuros.”
The old man took his shoulders, his hold firm as a father’s, and looked him in the eyes.
“I promise, Jaime.”
No one could promise anything in this Kingdom when humans were killed more often than cattle. But Jaime lifted the medallion over his neck and passed it to the airpriest. Their breathing fell heavy.
Then, Achuros hissed, “Go!”
Jaime sprinted in the opposite direction. His sandals had long became an extension of his feet, but still, he tripped over several tree roots. His lurid vision reeled in and out—one second he saw the gnarled branches of pines, the next a burning pyre.
Arrows screeched through the air. His breathing accelerated. The row of trees in front of him flashed into imaginary tapestries of fire—
Jaime tripped over a shrub, flew into the dirt.
He whipped his head around.
A comber of horsemen crashed through the arches he’d meditated under. Their broad, two-handed swords lowered towards Achuros. Terrifying shapes. Calf-high leather boots clamping their thighs. Chainmail jangled over their broad chests. Threadbare caps covered their heads. None of this the neat, polished armor of standard Jaypan military wear.
Forest barbarians?
Achuros wrapped the medallion around his left hand. Without so much as a blink, a breath of air knocked them backwards.
Jaime held in a gasp.
The coursers shrieked, lobbed off their rid
ers, crashed to the ground. Men went flying helter-skelter.
“Sage!” one of them squealed. “An Ascaerii is here!”
The forests echoed with unsheathing steel. More of them were coming. The grounds under Jaime trembled from pounding hooves.
His mentor calmly stood in place, but sweat dripped down into his beard.
No more running. I don’t care if he cusses me out. I’m not leaving him.
Jaime dug his heels into the dirt and zigzagged between the pine trees. Burning with anger. It was almost spring, how didn’t he know how to draw air? He had to learn. He had to break the bond.
Achuros pivoted forward. A blade-thin air current fractured their lines—
Two barbarians smashed against the trees. Three more collided into each other, legs in the air. Snarling, frothing at the mouth. They picked themselves up, huffing, puffing, forming a circle around the priest. Foreign swords hacked at Achuros.
Whing.
Whong!
But the air currents curled around the blades, hurling them out of their masters’ grips.
“Bloody bastard!” a barbarian roared. “He’s an airpriest!”
Jaime’s chest raced until he could no longer feel. He was only a few trees away from his mentor now.
Achuros’s air currents kept headbutting the lumpish barbarians away. But more replaced them, a never-ending sea tide of bulky bodies. The old airpriest bent his body backwards to evade a falling axe. His head twisted around. Widening his eyes when he saw Jaime approaching.
No! his expression said.
One of the hulking barbarians, hoary hairs showing a liver-spotted head, yanked a small pouch from his belt.
A shelf of air slammed into the barbarians directly in front of Achuros. But Achuros was too preoccupied drawing new air currents that didn’t see the bald barbarian chucking the pouch at him from an angle.
A cloud of barley exploded into the air.
His mentor’s eyes watered and shut. That was all the time the bald barbarian needed. The butt of his giant broadsword rammed into Achuros’s temple. His mentor crumpled.
In a half-second, Jaime snatched up a fallen sword and dragged it across the dirt. The muscles in his arms screamed. It had to be twice, three times the weight of any Jaypan spear. He leapt in front of Achuros, lifted it up against the bald barbarian—
As it was making contact with the barbarian’s sword, the barbarian grabbed his wrist. Slammed the heel of his paw-sized hand against Jaime’s chin.
Jaime crashed to the ground.
The pine trees all doubled. His vision sank beneath a watery surface.
Rough snakes slithered across his wrists, binding them together. Vaguely, he sensed tens of giants circling him. Their silhouettes stared at him from the other side of consciousness’s surface, above shore. One of them gaped at the bald barbarian.
“The Lady. Do you think he’s the Prince?”
“We’ll find out.”
And Jaime went out.
Chapter Eighteen
His eyelids parted in slits.
Everything was upside-down. The sky was an infinite sheet of marble and a valley of silhouetted pine trees made the ground. The last light vanished over the dark skyline.
Jaime groaned, sitting upright.
People the size of trees surrounded him, just like the forest barbarians did before he lost consciousness.
No. Not people.
Pillars. He was back in the Library of Nandros.
“Achuros?” he croaked.
Gripping his head, he turned around, squinting through the dark.
His hands were immobile.
That was when his sandal splashed into water, and the shallow pool appeared as an irregularity in the darkness. Its reflection showed a hooded shape staring back at him.
Jaime jolted backwards. “Who are you—”
His captor didn’t answer, not at first. He was about a head taller than Jaime, and wiry, but not much bigger. A shortspear clung to his back.
“Where is Toran?” Seething heat pilled out behind that hood.
“Toran?” Jaime coughed.
He peered over his shoulder. Boots shuffled outside the doorway of their chamber. Forest barbarians. Their meaty bulks stood guard. His nails dug into the soft flesh of his palms.
“Toran is behind this?”
“Are you deaf? Where is he?”
“Where is my mentor? The airpriest?”
Calf-high boots crossed the pool and yanked him into the water. “You don’t get to say what goes, Your Highness,” his captor hissed. “You’re the prisoner, and I swear on the four gods, if you don’t give Toran back, I’ll stuff your pissface into a box and deliver you to the King.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Jaime yelled. “Have you seen what Usheon’s done to everyone—”
“I don’t care about your war.” He drew his spear, pointing the tip at Jaime’s advancing shape. “Back off.”
“My war?”
“Last chance. Tell me where Toran is—”
“No wonder your men fight your battles—a barley stalk has more substance than you!”
“At least I know how to wear pants!”
The shape wrenched back his hood.
Jaime gasped.
A girl.
“You Jaypans who wear your tunics so high, the world can see the crack of your ass when you bend over. I do hope your front is less wanting.”
His cheeks burned. “What would you know when you are—”
“I am Lady Eridene, firstborn of Berold Swansea, Highlord of Rainmere!”
Jaime was used to seeing lank-haired, hollow-eyed girls that were so pale from Jaypes’s stormy skies. But this girl had limbs like a mountain lion ready to spring. Her hair, braided into a brown cord, revealed a raindrop-shaped face. Skin bright as honey cakes. And eyes sharper than the wasp sting he got four years ago, when he’d dozed under a hive in the forests—
“Are you listening to anything I’m saying?” she said.
Saying?
What was she saying?
Her eyes were bluer than Mount Alairus’s snowy rivers. Not the Jaypan gray. Or the Kaipponese black. Which meant—
“You’re Glaiddish!” he exclaimed. “From the Water Kingdom!”
“No moppet, I’m from the Earth Kingdom.” Her voice was acid.
This doesn’t make any sense. Didn’t someone—Lord Gaiyus, maybe—say the only foreigners allowed in our seaports are Western Kaipponese merchants?
Jaypes’s soil was too poor to sustain enough grain for the entire royal lochoi, so the King was forced to import it from the Fire Kingdom, where he came from.
How did these Waterfolk get in? What’re they all doing in Jaypes?
“ . . . make a fine hostage,” she was saying. “With you, I can bargain for anything I want.”
Jaime snorted. “I thought you were one of the King’s officials. Puh, there’s no danger at all.”
The spear sank into the flesh of his neck. His throat swallowed on its own, but his glare stayed.
“Shut your sass. You aren’t anything I expected the Prince to be, just so you know, and in my opinion, you Jaypan doves with your pitchy accents wouldn’t know war from poetry anyway.”
“You sound like you have constipation.”
“I sound like I am civilized, as all the people of Glaidde are.” Her face slowly extended into his, until the dazzling starburst in her eyes overpowered the screen of his vision. “If you don’t hand me Toran Binn, I will personally see that you burn in the Capital.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Are you so certain, Your Fiery Highness?”
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to, Your Watery Ladyship,” he spat. “Toran’s guilty of arson. He almost burned down this forest! I’d have to g
o against the Arcurean Council, which I can’t do. They’re my allies.”
The lady didn’t blink.
“Then we’re going to the Capital.”
She let go of him.
Enraged, Jaime pulled against his bonds, but when they wouldn’t budge, he stormed forward.
“Hey!” he hissed. “I want to get Toran out of prison just as much as you, probably even more. He’s my friend too, okay?”
“Then tell that to your Lord of Arcade—”
“It’s Arcurea, stupid—”
“And if he doesn’t listen, I swear by Lady Glaidde—”
“But hand me to the King, and millions more people will die. Do you know how many Jaypans he’s murdered? Do you have a heart? And either way, your stupid threats are the last thing that will free Toran!”
The girl bit her lip, but only for a second.
A dark shape flickered from the corner of his eye. One of the patrolling barbarians outside the doorway suddenly went down. By the time the girl noticed the distraction in his eyes, it was too late—she swiveled around the same time light-footed Jaypan mercenaries streamed through the doorway.
Sojin was back.
Chapter Nineteen
“Thank you,” he breathed as a Jaypan mercenary sliced his bonds free.
A dozen more Jaypans blocked off the library entrance with their spears. Their trunk-hard arms and thighs were bare of armor. A white tyto flew with outstretched wings in the center of their blue shields—a sigil he didn’t recognize.
Their thrusting spears circled Lady Eridene. A bulky mercenary bound her wrists.
“My father is Highlord of Rainmere, righthand advisor to the Glaiddish King!” she bellowed. “You’re declaring war on House Swansea and all of the Kingdom of Water if you touch me—”
Jaime cupped his hands together. “Hey sea swan!”
Lady Eridene bared her teeth.
“So my answer’s no, I’m not helping you!”
He started to dart outside when the same Jaypan mercenary who cut his bonds gripped his shoulder.
“Not so fast, boy.”
His face fell.
The mercenaries shoved their smaller bodies through the library gate. Jaime caught eyes with Eridene. She shot him a smirk of triumph.
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