Jaime smiled. “My brother’s favorite part was when Jaypes Ascaerii told his chieftain he was leaving. The chief replied: ‘You cannot overcome this storm.’ Line 1312. Hilaris recited it to me the night before he died.”
“‘And he said, ‘I am the storm.” Arrys nodded. “Line 1313. Yes. Larfour leading, the four trekked across Ilaqua’s broken earth. End of Book One.”
“Gods, man, you know this stuff like I know a feast,” Toran sniffed, his shoulders hunched from exertion.
Arrys continued. “Book Two: a spirit-warden of The Empyrean met them at Kazadûr Baen, his gateway, and guided them to the mouth of The Rift. The warriors climbed into layers, many layers, of The Empyrean, until they reached center.
“And they met the Source: Dhaemûlaan, origins of the spirit realm and all avai. In order to stop the disasters, she said, they must overcome her. Book Three: The Great Battle. So the warriors fought her. But their mortal weapons were poor against her great energies. To stop the deaths of his friends, Larfour offered his life for theirs.
“She was touched so by his sacrifice that she gifted them with air, water, fire, earth. ‘Serve me as wardens in the mortal realm,’ she said, ‘and you shall have power to quell the disasters. And you will watch over the Unity, peace between the elements, to ensure war does not break out again.’
“Book Four: the four emerged as gods. Before their clans, they quelled the elements and restored the Unity. Larfour split the lands into five, one for each of them, and the fifth for the spirits. Under him, the four named their first descendants Kings, bestowing them with the gift of their Continent’s element. Thus, the Sages and the Four Kingdoms were born.”
Jaime spotted the top of the hill from here. Daylight was just sinking over the horizon. This was the highest mountain he’d climbed yet.
“And Books Five and Six?” he panted. “What happened in them?”
“Destroyed. It has been the mission of many priests to find them, but I believe they are gone.”
“What is there else to know?” Lady Eridene stomped with her legs wide apart, arms swinging like she owned the air. “After Book Four, here we are, in present day. Maybe there never was a Book Five and Six.”
Arrys repeated, “Maybe . . . ”
The footholds scattered. From here, reaching the pinnacle meant climbing onto final precarious humps of rock.
Toran shook his head, wiping at his raw nostrils. “Uh-uh. This’s as far as I’m going.”
“I agree. This is dangerous.” Eridene thumbed her charm. “Why are we up here, Arrys?”
“It is time. Where are your windcloaks?”
Toran’s face went white. Arrys grinned and climbed onto the final splinter of rock. Once he made it to the top, he offered a hand to Jaime.
His heart jolted. The plains and scattered corktrees below him were a world away. Even his flight off Arcurea’s cliffs had been half the height he stood at now.
But despite the gnawing in his belly, thrill made him take Arrys’s hand.
Jaime planted his sandals tightly onto the mountain’s point. The winds were cold, but so clear up here—the air like silver washing into his lungs. Ahead of them, to the west, layers of mountains rolled over the land like dark ocean crests.
Is this Jaypes’s highest mountain?
Jaime took all of it in, his mouth open.
Arrys smiled. “Have you ever flown before, Prince of Jaypes?”
“I used to think so, but maybe I was wrong.” Jaime grappled though his knapsack for Aulos Menander’s windcloak. The spare, folded neatly, still lied at the bottom.
Jaime offered it. “I have an extra.”
The smile rose into the Larfene’s eyes. He took it, his grip sturdy.
After he draped Aulos’s windcloak over his own shoulders, Jaime took a deep breath.
Gods, if only he could share this view with Achuros. The old man would’ve broken into song and tears. And if only he could tell Hida: Mamá, I think I made it to the highest peak. The air isn’t so bad up here.
“Ready?” Arrys said.
Jaime swallowed. “Ready.”
He backed a step, took a running charge—and leapt.
Freezing winds battered hair from his face. The plain below him rushed up close. His lips flapped, his mouth stayed open. Any second, he was about to vomit up his innards.
Jaime screamed.
The Kingdom’s air currents caught his folds—and he was falling parallel to the great expanse of sky.
Adrenaline spurted into his blood in place of terror.
Jaypes Kingdom expanded beneath him, bathed in the light of evening. Hills, gorges, the river he’d crossed with Toran and Eridene, so far below. Leagues of pristine lands untouched by the King’s fire. He was flying above clouds. Above Usheon’s bloodstained Kingdom, untouchable in this space. Never had he felt so many emotions at once.
He spread out his arms, his lungs inflating with delicious air.
My asthma—gone. It’s never coming back. Not up here.
“Yeeeeeeeeah!” he shouted.
Lady Eridene and Toran’s screams echoed behind him. But they laughed through their terror, diving left and right behind him.
Somehow, Arrys flew lither than them all, cutting through the air like a bred hawk.
He caught up to Jaime. Their four silhouettes neared each other. Arrys held out his arms. Jaime reached, took hold of his left hand. Eridene gripped onto Jaime’s right.
They shouted at Toran, “Reach!”
“Aaaaaah!” he yelled back, and locked onto their circle.
They spun like that, linked together. Jaime sensed a deep bond sealing their lives together, as mighty and supernatural as The Empyrean itself, rippling across time, into the past and future, as their laughter spilled color over the open canvass of the skies.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Within seven days, as promised, Arrys took them out of the sizzling plateau. Toran pinched his runny nostrils shut and cried hurrah.
“Gods-damned Jaypan summers!”
But things had drastically changed in the lowlands. The royal bounty for Jaime’s capture went up to fifty thousand decara—one lifetime of paid wages. Soldiers now watched every causeway, village, and stinking hole in the ground.
After a day of darting patrols, the hills rolled off into dark shores. On the opposite side of the gulf, the bright lights of a city spilled across the skies like stars.
“Is that the ocean?” Eridene cried.
She tossed off her riding boots and ran down the sandy slope towards the shoreline.
Toran sniffed. “Glaiddish and their oceans.”
Jaime’s chest soared. Gold-dusted clouds touched the misty indigo horizon. Overlaying it was a great City-State. Korinthia. The fireflies of its lights scattered the coast. Briny winds battered its pennants, bearing the sigil of a white-chested tyto. Beyond the sea, a cluster of dark islets laid in slumber. So this is what the ocean looks like. Despite the wall of fiery warships blocking off the open ocean, the coast stole his breath.
Here Jaypes Kingdom ended.
Did the Royal Decree exist out there, where the gulls were flying?
Were there other boys like him fighting for their people, and their freedom, out in The West?
Far below, Eridene and Toran dipped their ankles into the tidepools, nattering secretively. Probably about their Western war, as usual. Jaime stayed on the cliffs. Korinthia’s fires filled him with a renewed sense of time.
How did Arcurea and her southern allies stand? Were Florin and the others even alive?
A soft thud.
Arrys’s hooded shape prowled behind a palm tree. He threw off his bow and quiver, thrusted his sword in the dirt. Jaime watched him kneel before it. His lips moved in a soundless prayer.
Jaime bent down to study his sword, the distal
tip of the blade, the boat-shape of its pommel.
What kind of sword is this? Not the chopping shortswords the City Watch wear. A longsword? Greatsword?
His hand closed around the half-grip—heavy. An unaccustomed three, maybe four pounds.
The older boy lashed out and grabbed his wrist.
“Never touch another Larfene’s weapons.” Arrys’s direct eye contact jolted him. “Unless he has been defeated in battle.”
“Sorry,” Jaime whispered, dropping it.
A smile broke through Arrys’s thick lashes. He let go, chortling. “Why go so pale like that, Prince of Jaypes? Do you think I’ll cut you up into cubes and sacrifice you to sand gods?”
“I don’t know, will you?”
“Mm . . . maybe.”
“How did you get past the King’s blockade?”
“Larfenes like no questions from Westerners.”
“I told you, I’m not a Westerner, and I know you’re not here for apples—”
“Nòs kivhan.”
“What does that mean?”
“‘No questions.’”
“I get one. Why did Larfour close its borders?”
Arrys turned his back to face the glowing sea. After a pause, he spread his hands.
Jaypes’s stormclouds ended just beyond Usheon’s warships, but their dark entrails spread far into the horizon. Jaime went still. Listened. The royal garrison overlooking the strait released a prisoner’s scream into the starless sky. Somewhere across the Skyrros Ocean, a second war was ravaging two larger Kingdoms.
“To shield ourselves from this,” Arrys finally said.
Eridene let out a loud yawn, waking him from his nightmares.
“Lady Glaidde, today is the day.”
The hems of her riding pants were still soaked from yesterday’s beach excursion. She tried to rise, and stumbled. “Oh, my leg . . . it’s gone all numb.”
“Let me help you, lady.”
Arrys materialized out of the dark in his ghost-like way, holding out his hand. Eridene smiled in pleasure and took it.
Seeing them touch stirred up gusts in Jaime’s insides.
He stomped across camp to shake Toran awake. Toran’s belly spilled from under him as he grabbed at Jaime’s ankle.
“Mm . . . mutton,” he drooled.
Jaime tried to shove him off, but he wouldn’t let go.
“Toran, apple pie!”
His friend flubbered up. “Where?” As soon as he saw the clumps of grass and dirt sticking to their clothes, he sighed and collapsed. “Ugh, gods. I can’t believe I’m still in Jaypes.”
Arrys cocked his head at the forested villages far below them. “We escort the lady to a hostel?”
“Yeah.” Jaime stuffed his hands in his pockets. “But we should stay outside Korinthia, just in case—”
Toran broke in, “Fishing villages are my favorite places in the world. C’mon wimps, let’s go find something to eat!”
He bound down the mountainous slope, wrists flying behind him like tails. Jaime called him to stop.
“Hey! We have to be careful—”
Eridene galloped after him with equal excitement.
Arrys started down the rocky path, casual but brisk. Jaime swallowed down his irritation, following behind Arrys. After a second, he discreetly tried to imitate the elder boy’s pace. Tugged his shoulders back. Freed his hands from his pockets, though the natural swing of his arms felt stilted compared to Arrys’s.
They reached the nearest wharf. Korinthia City loomed across the gulf. Warm winds brought him aromas of roasted nuts and baking flatbreads opposite the boardwalk.
His belly rumbled.
Skies. It feels like I’ve been eating biscuits since the day I was born.
Shopkeepers were folding up their shutters, builders adjusted their awnings in preparation for the day’s heat. Traffic was already thick. He nearly bumped head-first into a smaller boy wheeling eels, mackerel, and clams. Jaime was about to pinch his nose—but there, gods! Soldiers stood under New Jaypes colors fluttering at the intersection.
He dashed behind the cart.
The little Jaypan behind the wheels raised his brow. Jaime placed a finger at his lips and glanced over his shoulder.
Toran was openly devouring a flaky fig pastry outside the marketplace. On the opposite side of the unpaved street, Arrys swiped an apple from a stand, munching contentedly under the shadows. Outside a sweet stand, Eridene eyed a vibrant array of honey sticks from the Koiphi islets, where purple die was extracted from sea snails—probably the same islets he could now see with his own eyes.
Jaime rolled towards Eridene and pressed himself behind a wooden crate.
“Toran and Arrys are stuffing their faces,” he growled, “but you, Eridene? Even you?”
She glanced down at him, raising her brows. “Why, of course. We’re in a fishing village. Why aren’t you?”
“Because I’m not a girl, I’m of age under the Royal Decree, and I’m Jaypan. The last thing we should be doing is eating right now!”
Sighing, she returned the honey stick. “Okay. I’ll go look for an inn.”
“You shouldn’t go by yourself.”
“I’ll ask Arrys to accompany me.”
They faced each other awkwardly, the remnants of their fight by the river lingering between them. Lady Eridene twisted the end of her braid.
“Well, I suppose this is farewell.”
Why did those words gut him in half?
“What’re you going to do next?” he said.
“Sail home, I suppose. My mercenaries won’t look for me for long without pay.” She looked away.
Jaime scratched self-consciously at his chin pimple. “Let me, um, watch over Toran till he’s done eating. I’ll be right here. Then we can say goodbye. When you’re back.”
Lady Eridene smiled. “Okay.”
“Great. Then actually, I’ll see you soon.”
“See you soon.”
“Soon,” he repeated.
He stood up and nodded feverishly, a crooked smile on his face—and stumbled over a pile of crates. Face flushing, he swiveled around, marched towards Toran before he could see Eridene’s expression.
You idiot!
When he dared turn back around again, his eyes fixed on Eridene’s receding curves. He sank into a dreamy daze—till someone punched him in the jaw.
Jaime stumbled. “Empyrean hell! What was that for?”
“You were gawping at her ass,” Toran said.
“I wasn’t—”
Toran tilted his fat head. Jaime turned even redder.
Hasn’t he ever looked at her before?
“Ya know, plenty of men have stared at Beanie like that. Adulterous pricks. Old wrinkly grandpops. Little kid-boys whose dads are asshole constables. Usually they look at her tits.”
“Toran—”
“Shut up.” He pulled up close. “You have no idea what she’s been through. The way high lords—even her own family—talk about her at court. And I’m telling you now, you aren’t the one.”
Fire prickled his face. “You’re just saying that because you’re jealous.”
“She’s my best friend. You know that.”
“And you think I’m not the right one because what?”
“Because.” Toran pulled up so close that Jaime tasted his warm, sweet breath. “Eridene doesn’t want a man.”
“She’s a girl. All girls want—”
“You don’t know what girls want. The last thing you’ll ever know is what Beanie wants. Don’t you see the way she talks and walks?”
They glanced at her vanishing shape. The wide strutting of her steps. Her heavy stomping. Her bellowing voice, and loud, snorting laughter as she bantered with a foreign beer merchant.
�
��She didn’t get like that by accident,” Toran said. “She’s trying to protect herself.”
“She’s not betrothed.”
Toran snorted. “You think she’ll ever marry you when you’re still trying to figure out your own heart?”
“Shut up, you sap.”
Jaime started to pull away, but two slabs of arms grabbed him, shoved a half-eaten fish pastry in his mouth, and patted his back.
“Juno, you know I’m your friend.”
“Mmpf, you know nothing—”
“That’s why I’m telling you the truth now so you don’t have to find out the hard way.”
Toran grinned at him.
Jaime spat out the fish and tossed it at him.
He stormed through the marketplace, keeping sights on Eridene. A few minutes later, the air brought him low moans and cries of pain. And roaring cheers. From the east side of the village.
He skidded to a halt.
What’s going on out there?
Under the roars, the choked noises grew louder. It was like the cries the young bulls would make when Lord Gaiyus publicly sacrificed to Lord Jaypes in the Pantheon back at home.
Someone was dying.
You’re a Sage. Remember? It’s your responsibility to stand up and fight.
His earlier anger puffed out of him. Temporarily, he let Eridene out of his sight and accelerated his pace. Swarms of mosquitos hovered over rainwater pools. Jaime smacked them away. His sandals splashed into turbid water. He grimaced, but didn’t stop sprinting through the gravelly roads till he passed under an archway. The clay buildings vanished into cypress trees. A hillside ahead of him dropped off sharply.
Below him, a full audience sat in the orchestra of a theater. Some one hundred Jaypans.
His belly writhed.
Men in togas, striped with the blue colors of Korinthia, sat on the lower tiers. Councilors. They guzzled wine, lifted their fists with shouts. A small civic building with tyto tapestries loomed behind them.
Six spearfighters circled the arena below. Their shields, helmets, and corselets glinted in the daylight.
They surrounded a broken shape.
He held his spear at an angle like it was too heavy for him. Ankles bowed. Ears cut off—the same way the Archpriestess had cut off the ears of Townfolders who were caught worshipping Lord Jaypes. His gray eyes a bleeding, bloodshot mess.
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