The Empty Crown

by Georgina Makalani

  Salima opened her eyes, her breath short and her heart beating fast in her chest.

  It was as though she had seen her end and her beginning in those eyes.

  ֍

  Ana stood in the shadows of the mage’s workspace. It appeared different from before. It was no longer a place of wonder; it had become a place of possibilities. She could feel items calling to her from the shelves, some of which tried to coax her forward while others screamed in fear.

  Her world had changed in reaching Ed, not because she had reached him but because of how she had. It was the girl, with the blood running hot through her veins. She wondered at how such a child had come into existence, and how she had managed to remain hidden in plain sight with the sword master.

  The girl had no idea of who or what she was, and yet Ana had felt it the moment she had laid eyes on her. It was a wonder that no one else had. Over the sounds of the workspace, she watched the mage bent over his book. The ink scratched across the pages. He seemed to sense so much, yet this girl escaped him.

  Moving around to stand over the desk, Ana focused on the strange words he etched across the pages. Then she leaned closer, almost over his shoulder when she felt him flinch.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked, but there was more fear than anger in his voice.

  ‘Why are you writing that way?’

  He looked back at the book, then flicked back through the pages. ‘You can read it?’

  ‘My father ensured that I learnt to read.’

  ‘But this is not a language your father could have taught you.’ He turned in the small space between him and the book and then stood slowly. Ana took a step back, and he closed the large book with surprising ease. It had looked so heavy.

  ‘What have you done?’

  She gave him a questioning look, then shook her head as the noise in the room increased. He held up a hand, and it ceased.

  ‘What do you think I can do for you?’ she asked instead.

  ‘I want you to learn.’

  ‘And yet you don’t teach.’

  ‘Do I need to?’ He took a step forward, his hand reaching out for her, but she stepped back out of his reach and he stopped. ‘You are already all you need to be. You just needed to find it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘That I cannot answer. Your mother unlocked the magic with a trigger, but I cannot tell you what that might be, or what it was.’ He looked at her seriously then, as though trying to read her. ‘Do you know what caused the change?’

  She wasn’t sure if it was reaching Ed, the princess she had used to reach him or the shadow of Ende she felt in the castle. He was right, something had changed within her; something had been set free.

  ‘You have not explained why you dragged me here, or what you want from me.’

  ‘You are to be the king’s witch.’

  ‘I might already be,’ she said, the corner of her mouth lifting and her confidence growing at the uncertainty on his face. Then he too smiled.

  ‘There is to be a new king. You will put him on the throne and serve him.’

  Ana hoped with everything she had that he meant Ed. Although he already had the title, he didn’t yet hold the power. She knew he meant another. ‘If I refuse? Do you really think you can make me do anything I do not want to?’

  ‘Have you changed so much?’ he asked, stepping forward again, and Ana felt the shelves behind her push into her back. ‘I can take so much from you still if you do not do as you are required.’

  ‘I don’t have anything left to give,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t you?’ he asked. He waved his hand, and the strained sounds of the room returned, the call and cries of lost souls.

  ‘There is nothing you could do to me.’ She stood straighter as he turned back to the book, his hand on the heavy, worn leather.

  ‘I could think of something,’ he murmured, taking a deep breath. ‘It wasn’t so long ago you would sacrifice for the king. Does it matter who that king is?’

  ‘The people will care.’

  He gave a small laugh and waved her from the room.

  ‘Why do you need me to do this? You are a powerful mage; you are already the regent’s man.’

  ‘You don’t need to flatter me. But I know you are far more than I can ever be, and he needs you.’

  Yes, she thought, he does. ‘Shall I bring him?’ she asked, wondering if the power she felt flowing through her would do as she bid and pull Ed to her.

  ‘Sleep now. There will be much to do on the morrow.’

  ‘But I…’

  ‘Sleep,’ he whispered, drawing out the word, and she tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn.

  ֍

  Ed woke to Belle screaming and the early morning light trying to push through the thick canopy above him. As he leapt from the ground, looking around him for the continued high-pitched sound, he focused on the hanging bodies before him. Evenly spaced around their campsite were at least ten men, hung by the necks high in the canopy.

  Their bluish, bloated faces were unrecognisable, but they were men. Or they had been. Ende whispered something under his breath of the Near Folk.

  ‘Is it a threat?’ Ed asked, watching the men slowly swaying from their weathered ropes. ‘How long?’ He stepped closer to one man, curious whether they had been here already. Despite the level of decay, there was no scent.

  The scream ceased, and he looked at Belle as her face grew even paler. ‘I think I know some of them,’ she whispered, her voice catching as she spoke, a shaky finger pointing.

  Ed looked back to the canopy to find the bodies gone. He breathed a sigh of relief, yet the whole party was on guard.

  They packed up quickly and moved towards the fire, covering up the remaining embers.

  ‘Do we want to travel this way?’ Belle asked.

  Ende shook his head.

  ‘It is the fastest way. Should we find the road?’ Ed asked.

  Dray nodded, and as a group they headed towards where they had entered the forest. As the trees thinned and the mountains became clear in the distance, another body dropped from the canopy before them.

  ‘We are trapped!’ Belle squealed, clinging to Ende, but Ed thought it was only because he was closest to her at the time.

  ‘No,’ Ende said too calmly. ‘We are being directed.’

  ‘By whom?’ Ed asked, but he feared he already knew the answer.

  Chapter 34

  Ana sat on the edge of her bed, dressed and waiting for the mage to send for her. Despite her best efforts the night before, she couldn’t fight the urge to sleep. She knew that no matter how strong the mage admitted she was, he was far stronger. She ran her fingers through her hair and then clasped her hands in her lap. The world around her was quiet except for the distant sound of footsteps.

  Ana closed her eyes and waited. The maid was still working her way through the corridors to reach her, and yet Ana could hear her coming above every other noise in the castle. She paused to talk with the soldier before opening the door. Not even a knock or waiting to enter, and Ana wondered at just what her station was. Both the maid’s and her own.

  ‘I will be better situated,’ she murmured, then opened her eyes to the maid stopped mid-step across the room.

  ‘Miss?’

  ‘I am to help the regent, am I not?’

  ‘It is not…’

  ‘Then I am to be closer to him,’ Ana said, standing.

  ‘The mage is to teach you,’ she stammered.

  Ana held up a finger, and a strong wind wound around the maid, pulling her hair from its tight bun and blowing her dress about her. As Ana closed her fist, the wind eased and the young woman dropped to her knees. ‘Move my things,’ Ana said.

  A soldier appeared in the doorway, his concern for the maid evident as he stepped forward, a sword in his hand. Ana stood from the bed and he advanced, anger etched across his face. Then the sword glowed hot in his hand, and he looked confused for a moment before dropping it.

 
; ‘Do you know what I am?’ Ana asked.

  He shook his head as he moved back a step, the maid scurrying across the floor after him.

  ‘Do you?’ the mage asked from the doorway to his rooms.

  ‘There is no respect,’ she whispered, but the words pushed the soldier and the maid out the door, closing it behind them. She could hear him worrying over her on the other side of the door.

  ‘And this show of power, what did you expect that to give you?’

  ‘What you want for me. A place by the king.’

  ‘You were not as willing to assist him yesterday.’

  ‘I have had the chance to think on it. And deep sleep reveals much.’

  ‘You dreamed of him?’ the mage asked, stepping forward, excitement lighting his eyes.

  Ana nodded once, but it was not the king he hoped she had dreamed of. Her dream had been confused and hazy, trees with men in the branches, and something following them, shadows she couldn’t focus on. The regent had also made it to her dreams, and that too had been unclear, although she was sure she held a sword against him and the crown in her hand.

  ‘I feel I would be better placed beside him. If I am to assist him, I cannot stay so far away.’

  ‘There may be compromise,’ the mage said, opening the door with a click of his fingers. The maid and the soldier stood too close together on the other side. ‘Tell His Majesty that the witch will join him.’

  The maid curtsied, brushed the loose curls behind her ears and disappeared along the hallway.

  ‘You are to return to the barracks,’ the mage told the soldier, who bowed. Although he glanced towards the sword, he didn’t pick it up. ‘You will not return to this post.’

  The man bowed again and followed the maid’s path. Ana took a step forward.

  ‘Leave it. Go to the regent. He will be waiting for you in the dining hall.’

  She nodded and headed towards the door, wondering just what punishment the soldier would face and how disappointed the maid might be. At the doorway, she stopped and turned back. ‘You won’t replace her, will you?’

  ‘There is no need,’ he said, and then turned back for his own workroom. She heard the squeal of delight as he removed a bottle from the shelf. Part of her was curious how he would use it, but she was needed elsewhere. She glanced back, and with the slightest of movement pushed the sword beneath her bed. Then she turned and headed for the regent.

  The moment she stepped into the dining room, Ana was overwhelmed by the emotions of those who filled it. Amongst it all was a hint of something just a little too warm. The girl was hiding, and Ana wondered why she couldn’t sit with the others. The sword master sat by a group of men she assumed were Ed’s tutors, but the girl was nowhere to be seen. In fact, as she looked about, there were very few women at all.

  ‘Your Highness,’ she said, curtsying low once she approached the table. A servant stepped forward and pulled the chair out for her. As she sat down, he poured wine before she could ask for it. There was too much food before her on the table.

  ‘You have decided to do as directed,’ the regent murmured through a mouthful of food.

  ‘Is there a choice when the mage is involved?’ Ana asked, looking over the piles of food before her and then around the room.

  ‘Perhaps not, but then you wouldn’t play the part so well.’

  ‘Who says that I’m playing?’ She reached for the leg of the smaller of the animals before her, hoping it was a rabbit, but not sure of anything other than the pig, whose crisp, slow-roasted face stared blindly ahead.

  ‘You have seen what I will become,’ he breathed, turning to her, and she could feel the excitement ebbing from him. She had felt things before, but now it seemed as though she could feel everything, including the uncertainty growing in the room.

  ‘I have seen far more than I care to.’ She looked over the greasy leg, taken back to a dusty crumbling room so far away, as though it were a different world. One she no longer belonged to.

  ‘You see the future?’ he asked, his excitement flowing over. The hush that filled the room made her heart stop. She looked up from the greasy meat before her and was tempted to run her fingers over her dress, but she closed her hand into a fist instead.

  ‘I dream of things that have not happened.’ She said it softly, but she was sure nearly everyone in the room heard her. A girl’s face and copper hair appeared around a distant edge of the room.

  ‘But will they happen?’ someone called out.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.

  ‘Do you want them to happen?’ another asked.

  Ana looked around at the growing uncertainty in the regent. ‘You know that this is not where you are meant to be,’ she said softly.

  He grinned and then glanced at the taller chair beside him, one he had left empty although she was certain he sat on the throne often enough.

  ‘Where am I meant to be?’ he asked carefully.

  Ana longed for Dray in that moment. She was still only a maid. Only a girl with no idea of what they thought she was capable of. She wished Salima was closer so that she could reach Ed again, but she didn’t know who else might see him and realise the connection.

  ‘The king is lost,’ she said, standing slowly. Her food, moved about her plate by her greasy fingers, was still untouched.

  The voices and movement around the room grew louder.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What have you done to him?’

  ‘Where is the king?’

  The regent held up his hand and pushed his chair back, but the murmuring continued. ‘What have you done?’ he hissed.

  ‘The king was already gone when I arrived in the capital. I don’t know where he is, and I cannot reach him.’ She bowed a little and took another step back. ‘Despite what you think I am. The king is my main concern.’

  ‘A new king,’ he said through gritted teeth. Ana put a hand to her temple, the room pressed in on her further, as though everyone was screaming at her, all at once.

  ‘What have you done to the king?’ a firm voice called out through the fog forming around her mind. She searched the people in the room, yet she couldn’t determine where it came from.

  ‘I’m trying to help him,’ she said.

  ‘You are not,’ the regent said, pushing the chair back and raising a hand as though to hit her.

  She reached out automatically and grabbed his arm. Her frustrations bubbled to the surface, as she glared at the man. ‘You should have killed me,’ she whispered, as his face paled and he tried to pull from her grip. ‘You are not what an uncle should be. He needed you and you stole from him.’

  ‘You don’t know what you are saying,’ he stammered, the sweat beading on his forehead, his pale face becoming almost grey in colour.

  ‘You are the reason he is gone,’ she growled. ‘You are the reason he cannot be king.’

  ‘He ran away,’ the regent cried above the din. ‘He didn’t want to be king!’

  The room around them dropped to a hush. And in the sudden silence inside her mind, Ana released her hold on the man and he staggered back, falling into the chair.

  ‘You made him run,’ she said, leaning forward and he cowered from her. Ana took a deep breath, and stepped forward. The fear in the room overwhelmed her and she stopped. She was aware of someone behind her, but she couldn’t quite focus on them over the uncertainty filling the room. ‘You pushed him out by denying him what was his. By keeping the crown for yourself.’

  ‘He is a boy,’ he rasped.

  ‘He is a man,’ she said firmly, her voice rising above the emotions in the room. ‘A man who should be sitting here. I will see that he is the king he is meant to be.’

  ‘Arrest the witch,’ the regent finally managed to get out, his arm clutched across his chest. As the confusion and noise of the people filled the room, she became aware of the soldier all too late, and as his fist met her chin, the world went dark.

  Ana’s hand closed around the
ice-cold bars. She instantly let go and stepped back, her hands blistered and burning. She leaned against the wall behind her, the cold seeping into her bones as she slid slowly down the rough surface to sit in the prickly straw. Her head bent, her hair fell forward to hide her tears from the man on the other side, watching her with a wicked grin.

  ‘You are not what I hoped you would be,’ the mage said.

  ‘You are just as I expected,’ she murmured.

  He laughed then, but it was cruel. ‘You were to help the king,’ he said, all traces of laughter gone.

  ‘I am,’ she said.

  ‘Not the boy,’ he snapped, stepping closer and she wondered if he got close enough to the bars if she could reach him.

  ‘He is not a boy. He is a king and you have denied the Kingdom of Ilia by keeping him hidden away.’

  ‘They don’t want him to be king,’ the regent said, although he didn’t carry the same certainty as the mage had. When she looked up at him, he flinched.

  ‘You can’t stop him. And the people will help him.’

  ‘Will they?’ he asked, stepping closer to the bars of the cage she found herself in, and she wondered if he might be an easier target. He must have seen something in her face for he took a small step back. ‘Would anyone help a boy who ran away from his responsibilities?’

  ‘He ran away from you. He went to find help to regain his crown.’

  ‘Is that what he wanted, or what you hoped?’ The regent’s nasty confidence had returned. ‘Who would he find to help him? If you found him in the mountains then he had travelled all that way and no one recognised him, no one offered assistance. No one of any consequence lives on the Edge Mountains. Even the Lord of the Seat is a selfish man with no influence and no resources. He is lucky the gwelka haven’t come out of their burrows to steal his gravel.’ Ana stared at the man, but he shrugged and his smug smile returned. ‘Do what you want with the girl, and then we will work on the boy, but he is no threat.’