That Moment When: An Anthology of Young Adult Fiction

by A. M. Lalonde

  ‘This isn’t over Irina Drakarkus.’ And then he leaps, my sister wedged beneath his arm, over the tumbling ground and up the stairs.

  I growl, feeling now like a beast that should be caged; heaven help those who get in my way. I pull myself across the enchanted rods of the cell, ignoring the abyss below me. I swing under the bars, and haul myself along the other side until I am close enough to leap for the stairs. There is a second my heart halts as I’m suspended in mid-air and then my feet smack solid ground and I am charging upstairs, flashes showing me exactly where my sister has been taken.

  I find them in the open stretch of snow outside the castle, the bodies of the king and Ava bobbing on the back of his creature. I swipe my hand through the wintry air, snatching wind and frost until it is almost tangible, then hurtle it towards them. It collides with the creature’s head and it tumbles to the ground. My sister rolls from the king’s grip and before he can grab her, I am there.

  ‘Go to Rawn,’ I tell her, my eyes never leaving the king’s as he struggles to free his foot from under the beast. ‘He’s at the edge of the trees.’

  ‘You—’ she starts.

  ‘Go!’ I order and watch with a pang of love and admiration as she scrambles away, hobbling at an impressive speed.

  When I turn back, King Nicolai is free, pulling himself up. He snatches his blade from its sheath and lunges at me; not to kill, but to detain. I swivel out of the way as if dancing, curling my hands once more and propelling him back with a gust of wind. He flips, quick to his feet and dives again, snarling like a rabid beast. This time I call on the skies. Thunder roars like a lion caged and lightning zags at us: an electric blade. We both leap away as it cuts between us, singeing the ground. Snow turns to slush.

  King Nicolai chuckles without amusement.

  ‘Let me go and I’ll let you live.’

  He barks at this, wiping blood from his bleeding lip.

  ‘I am the king, girl. You do not let me do anything.’ He tackles me so suddenly, I lose my footing, smacking my head on the ground, snow puffing like clouds around me. He grips my throat, squeezing with the force of an ox. I gag. ‘Where is the Eye?’ he howls in my face, speckling me with spit spraying from his mouth. ‘Did you swallow it?’ He rams his fingers down my throat. My eyes water. I can’t breathe. A sinister smile stretches his face as he watches me convulse beneath him, choking, gagging.

  He yanks his fingers from my mouth and I suck in air that burns like fire. He puts his face so close to mine, I can smell old meat on his breath and blood on his skin. ‘If you ate it, girl, I will carve it out of you,’ he growls.

  He covers my face with his rough palm, squeezing until I bite through his flesh causing him to whip his hand away, striking me across the face. Then he fumbles through his robe and draws out a dagger, watching as I clench my teeth against the agonising throb in my cheek. He raises his weapon above his head and brings it down. On instinct, I grasp his hands in mine, stopping the blade just above my heart. The king howls as I crush his hand in my bear-like grip, twisting his wrist, snapping his bones, and with his own hand still pressed around the hilt, I drive the blade through his chest. He gapes at me, blood spluttering from his lips as he crumples and slithers to the ground.

  ‘Your eyes,’ he chokes, blinking at me as I crouch over him, watching breath leave his body. And realisation widens his own eyes, slackens his mouth and then he is gone.

  I collapse to the ground, breathless, the king’s body lifeless beside me, staining the snow a dark red. I don’t fight as his guards surround me or when they haul me to my feet and take me away.

  ***

  I am in chains, strapped to a pipe on the outside of the castle when I hear a commotion and spy a sea of people; the Nivarum, charging through the trees with weapons raised, flooding into the fortress. The Hand of the King, has sentenced me to be flogged and hung in the streets: a traitor. I flinch when his body sails over the edge of the tower and splatters at my feet. I look up, squinting in the sun to see Rawn grinning down at me.

  ‘By law of the land, he who slaughters the king becomes the king.’

  My knees buckle as I turn and see Ava limping towards me, leaning against a wooden staff for support.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He who slaughters the king becomes the king,’ she repeats. ‘You, my sister, are queen.’ She strokes a hand through my hair. ‘It is the law.’

  ***

  Days later, when the lands have begun to heal and its people have started to rejoice, I sit atop my throne in fine robes, a crown, dusted in emeralds, on my head, and I stare down at the line of snarling men and beasts below me, hissing, spitting and refusing to swear allegiance. Rawn stands over them, Captain of the Royal Guard and a smile creeps across my lips.

  The hall is full of Nivarum people, waiting anxiously for my decree. How are we to deal with these offenders? How are we to send a message to lands near and far to never come for me or my people again?

  I look back at the ill-fated faces, remembering how they brutalised town after town. How they ripped babes from mother’s arms just to crush the skulls with their bare hands. I imagine how they tortured my sister and remember how they tore her from me, kicking and screaming to be food for the hounds.

  ‘What’s it to be?’ Rawn asks, pressing the blade of his sword in the back of one of the men before him, not enough to pierce the skin but enough to remind him who’s in charge.

  I rise from my throne, staring each of the prisoners in the eye. I push back my shoulders, hold my head high and I don’t know whether to be proud or not when for my first order as queen, I turn and say, ‘Kill them all.’

  If you want to enter a magical world full of suspense, romance and adventure, then read book 1 in S. McPherson’s epic fantasy saga for FREE!

  www.smcphersonbooks.com/join-my-world

  —ABOUT THE AUTHOR—

  S. McPherson is a young British expat living in Dubai and working as a kindergarten teacher. When she is not at work immersed in a world of imagination and fantasy created by the children, she is immersed in her own worlds of imagination and fantasy at home, dreaming up tales and writing them down. S. McPherson’s debut novel, At Water’s Edge is the first in the epic fantasy saga, The Water Rushes.

  THE DRY SEASON

  Cassidy Taylor

  The air in the sick room was stale and rotten, prematurely stinking of death, as if already deciding the fate of its lone occupant. Jamisen hesitated at the door, and then crossed to the window, drawing the heavy curtain aside. Through the glass, another cloudless day. Every morning she hoped that the rains would come to break the heat and end the dry season, and every morning, she was disappointed.

  The zealots in the streets called for blood. “Blood for water,” they yelled from their podiums as below them, the citizens of Hail wilted beneath the relentless sun. But they demanded blood for everything—a sacrifice given willingly would cure all the kingdoms’ ills. Even the priest who had tended to her father before he died had turned to her once and told her, “Blood for blood.” She had banished him from the palace.

  In the bed, the youngest Malstrom sister groaned but didn’t move. The sunlight falling across her only served to show the effects the illness had taken—the sunken cheeks, the dark circles beneath her eyes, the arms now more bone than flesh as she withered away in bed.

  “Not today, James,” Darcey said, recognizing the curt manner of her oldest sister without opening her eyes. The middle sister—practical and distant Carys—didn’t visit anymore. Instead, she spent her time in the forge with the palace blacksmith, crafting new weapons and other strange clockwork devices. Their mother, Lady Lyess, was often found at her youngest daughter’s side but was thankfully absent.

  “A bad day?” Jamisen asked, sitting on the edge of the queen’s bed.

  “All days are bad,” Darcey said, “but some are worse than others.”

  Yes, Jamisen thought, today would be worse. But she no longer burdened Darcey with ma
tters of state. To her other visitors, Darcey put on a brave face. With them, she pretended that she still had a hand in running her kingdom. But not with Jamisen, who had assumed the responsibilities of a queen without the title. She kept the severity of her sister’s illness locked behind sealed lips and closed doors.

  For a time, the girls had thought Jamisen would be the next Queen of Hail, and so she was raised with the discipline and knowledge of a ruler. But in Hail, the king chooses his successor. So while Jamisen had perhaps been the best choice, their father had adored his kind and gentle youngest. On his deathbed, just before the Blood Flu claimed him, he had grasped Darcey’s hands in his own.

  “Soft hands, soft heart,” the old man had wheezed, and Jamisen had looked down at her own calloused palms. “Only you can lead the kingdom into the light again, my Darcey.” When he had placed the queen’s crown on Darcey’s head, Jamisen was not surprised, only disappointed.

  Now, driving thoughts of the Blood Flu from her mind, Jamisen stroked a hand across her sister’s brow. She brushed aside wet strands of the same golden hair that all the sisters shared—a gift from their mother’s people across the sea. Darcey’s fever-pink lips curved into a small smile, and she leaned into the touch. How different they were—one craving this physical connection and the other needing distance and privacy above all else. Jamisen watched her slip into sleep, Darcey’s warm cheek against her palm, her breath growing steady.

  In the corridor, slapping shoes on the stone floor drew Jamisen’s attention toward the door. Carys appeared—petite and square-shouldered—working metal links in her fingers.

  “They’re here,” Carys said. Jamisen withdrew her hand from Darcey, who didn’t stir.

  “Wynn?” she asked. The Prince of Crows, Darcey’s betrothed.

  “And others. A whole murder of Crows.” Carys hovered at the door, the chain links clinking as her fingers worked restlessly, her eyes not once falling on her younger sister. “Mother wants us in the foyer.” Without another word, she turned and rushed away.

  Jamisen stood to follow when a clammy hand clasped hers.

  “Close the drapes, will you?” Darcey asked.

  Had she heard? If she did, she made no comment. Jamisen reached the window in two strides and released the curtain. The room plunged back into darkness, hiding its resident from view, as if she had never been there at all.

  * * *

  Jamisen and Carys stood to either side of their mother on the palace steps. The caravan from the neighboring kingdom of Dusk approached the inner gate. Even before he rode towards them, Jamisen’s eyes found Prince Wynn Crowheart. She recognized his rigid posture and the messy brown curls escaping from their knot on the back of his head. She had thought to marry him once, and for years had been the recipient of his lavish attentions. But then Darcey became the heir, and he had forgotten her, exchanged one Malstrom princess for another as one might change shirts. Behind their mother’s back, Carys wrinkled her nose at her older sister and Jamisen looked away.

  Wynn dismounted at the base of the steps. “Lady Lyess,” he said in greeting to their mother. This close, Jamisen noticed the sweat stains on his shirt, and his parched, cracked lips. His cheeks were hollow, his waist perhaps too slender. A landlocked kingdom that got little rain even during the harvest, Dusk would be feeling the dry season even worse than Hail. “My father sends his condolences at the passing of King Malstrom.”

  Jamisen’s mother let the prince kiss the back of her hand. “Thank you for your kind words,” she said. Jamisen hated the weakness in her voice. Wynn was a master at reading people and would be able to see right through it if they weren’t careful.

  After a brief exchange in which she extended an invitation for the prince and his men to join them for dinner, their mother excused herself. Jamisen and Carys remained outside while the visitors set up their camp, Wynn declining the invitation to take the guest quarters inside the castle.

  “I enjoy having the stars to keep me company,” he told Lady Lyess, though Jamisen suspected it had more to do with the large size of his traveling party. There hadn’t been this much noise in the courtyard since Darcey’s last birthday celebration, just before the king’s rapid decline. Sixteen, a woman with the heart of a child. The girls were one year apart each, Carys having just turned seventeen, and Jamisen already eighteen.

  “Do you think he knows?” Carys asked.

  Wynn passed in front of them and caught Jamisen’s eyes, but did not smile as he had at her mother. His look was serious, taking her measure. She arranged her features to be sure that they betrayed nothing, and the moment faded as he disappeared behind a tent flap.

  “Suspects,” Jamisen finally answered, her eyes watching Wynn’s shadow against the canvas.

  * * *

  In spite of herself, Jamisen enjoyed the company at dinner. Too often it was just Lady Lyess and her two oldest daughters. Their mother swooned at Carys’ dry humor and dismissed Jamisen’s talk of politics with a wave of her tiny hand, the delicate fingers so much like Darcey’s. But she lacked Darcey’s lightness and her carefree laugh that rang like the bells children tied to their ankles at the First Snow Festival.

  The entourage from Dusk, on the other hand, filled the dining room to bursting. The dark fashions of the Dusk nobility did not reflect their mood—they were a joyous lot, tired from weeks of travel but grateful to have arrived. On Jamisen’s right sat an older Crow with facial hair shaped like wings on his cheeks. To her left was Carys, who wore a dress of cheerful yellow but sat grim-faced and quiet. Prince Wynn, sitting across from them, had consumed at least two tumblers of ale and was enjoying Carys’ solemn mood. Frequently, he called across the table to her, trying to coax a rare smile from her lips.

  “Where is the queen tonight?” Wynn asked during a lull in conversation. He looked around the table as if just noticing Darcey’s absence, but Jamisen knew better. “I had hoped to discuss our arrangements.”

  “I’m afraid she’s not feeling well,” Jamisen answered, drawing Wynn’s attention from her mother’s stricken face.

  For the second time since his arrival, he looked at her. “I hope it’s not serious,” he said.

  “No,” Jamisen replied.

  If there was one thing about which Jamisen was certain, it was that the marriage between Queen Darcey and the second Prince of Dusk could not occur. Dusk was a military kingdom, using slaves for soldiers, trading humans for food and goods from its neighbors. Hail had protected itself for generations with powerful leaders and a strong border guard. Their father had grown secure after decades of peace, confident in the alliance formed by the betrothal of one of his daughters to the youngest Crowheart prince. But his confidence made him blind to the threat, happy to let the Crows do their worst as long as they kept it beyond Hail’s borders. He thought that Darcey would be a new type of leader, a queen to usher in an era of happiness in Hail. But the match between Darcey and Wynn was poorly made. Darcey wanted nothing more than to make everyone happy, and if she recovered, she would be putty in Wynn’s hands. Jamisen would have been Wynn’s equal, able to stand up to his self-serving agenda, able to keep the kingdom both strong and happy.

  But she was not the queen, and his betrothal was not to Jamisen. If he found out about Darcey’s condition now, he would take Hail by force, fearing the termination of the betrothal contract upon her death. Jamisen had not missed the fact that soldiers and war horses far outnumbered the nobles in his traveling party.

  She took a bite of steamed vegetables—a luxury during the dry season—and chewed thoughtfully. “Prince Innis did not wish to visit Hail?” she asked. Carys turned her glare on her sister. Innis Crowheart was Wynn’s older brother and heir to the Dusk throne. As boys, they had spent several months out of every year in Hail under the care of the Malstrom family, a showing of good faith from their neighbors. Innis was now engaged to the princess of the distant island kingdom of Mer. The girls had received the invitation to the wedding ball, taking place in three
months.

  Wynn barked with laughter, the smile returning to his face. “Big brother is too important to travel far now,” he said. “Father keeps threatening to concede. He’s scared witless between that and his impending marriage.”

  The sip of ale she swallowed burned down Jamisen’s throat. “Why? I’ve heard Princess Emory is lovely and kind.” Mer was too far for casual travel, but word of the youngest princess’ beauty had spread, as it often does. She wondered how long it would be before the people of Mer became slaves to the Dusk army, led by a princess too weak to stand up for them.

  “Perhaps it is because Innis is ugly and cruel,” Wynn said with a shrug. Carys’ fork struck the mahogany table. Jamisen resisted the urge to put a hand on her sister’s arm.

  “He is neither of those things,” Carys said.

  Carys and Innis had been so alike in their youth—the same dry wit, the same fascination with the inner workings of things—that they had all believed the pair would be matched. They were like two lost pieces of the same puzzle. But the peace between the kingdoms was tenuous at best, a fraying thread made stronger by marriages and babies and carefully crafted alliances. Things did not always go as one hoped. A princess did not always get the prince she desired.

  “I think I know him better than you, sunshine,” he said. “Though perhaps not in the same intimate way.”

  Too late, Jamisen saw the knife in Carys’ hand. It flew across the table, and in the space of a single heartbeat, Wynn reached up and plucked it out of the air. It had been a true throw and would have pierced the prince’s left eye had he not reacted. Carys glared. Jamisen froze with her hand at her hip, ready to draw her own blade. The rest of the table gaped in silence, waiting for a cue on how to react. When Wynn dropped the knife, a trickle of blood ran down to his sleeve.

  “Well,” he said, wrapping a linen napkin around his bleeding fingers. “Let that teach me not to insult a lady’s virtue.”