He sighed shortly. “If I thought he’d lay a finger on you—” he started, but Tanith held up a hand.
“I know,” she cut in. “You apologize every time we see each other, but it’s you I’m worried about now.”
His strawberry blonde hair was different out of direct reach of the sun. The messy tendrils were almost pale gold, his blue eyes deeper, sadder. “You don’t need to worry anymore. We’ll be off to the island soon, and either I’ll be lost forever out of my father’s reach, or I’ll return and claim the throne of Shadow Hunt. It only gets better from here,” he noted, his grin slowly regaining ground.
“The rumors are true, then? Bristowe will step down?”
He shrugged. “As he claims. Sometimes I think that if I’m not the one to return with the Sight, he’ll think I’m not worthy. Then again, surviving is a feat all on its own.” Kent reached for her hand. “I want you to promise me that we’ll go in and come out together. I don’t want to return without you, Tanith. If I become the King of Shadow Hunt, I think it’s only fair that my best friend returns to rule Ellesmere.”
She nodded. “The fates have already willed it so.”
“Have they?”
Tanith hesitated. “I know you aren’t a firstborn, but you’re the only royal child left in Shadow Hunt.”
His mouth opened in realization. “I see. If my firstborn sibling wasn’t dead, I wouldn’t be the one getting sacrificed to the Invisible Island. That’s a fair evaluation,” he noted, “but something tells me I’d just volunteer if it were any other way.”
Tanith couldn’t help but laugh. “No one volunteers.”
“I would if I wasn’t already going with you,” he confessed. “You know how tricky the island can be. How it will try to confuse and tempt us. We need each other to stay strong.”
She nodded, but her doubts began creeping. “How do they know, though? Only a dozen firstborns have ever returned since the island first appeared, and they all had very different accounts of the experience. They’ve been preparing us, but they don’t even know what for.”
“There’s no room to second guess our training,” Kent said quickly. “We get in, find the Sight, and come back. That’s all there is to it.”
“That’s not true. We never know how long the island will appear. Two hundred years ago when it last revealed itself, it was only there for three days. The first time it ever showed itself, it was there for a month. Will we disappear with it if we can’t escape in time?” Tanith shivered at the thought. A life of tricks and illusions was no life at all, but if she couldn’t escape, perhaps succumbing to the falsities would be the only thing making it bearable.
“Don’t think like that,” Kent told her, glancing out the arched window. The edge of the city was visible from there, the Crescent Coast not far off to the right. It was empty in the beyond, water as far as the eye could see, but in the following days, the island would appear. It would take up that space and people would watch it in the distance, waiting for the firstborns to return, or for the island to disappear again. There was no way to know which would come first.
“We’re going to be okay,” he said, almost more to himself than to her.
“Do you really believe that?”
He nodded. “I do. We’re going to change the world, Tanith Estiellon. Just you wait and see. Maybe you could even be the one to record history as you remember it.”
The job she always wanted as opposed to the one she was born for. She smiled at the thought. “And until then?”
Kent couldn’t help but smirk. “Pick a Ghod and start praying. We’ll need all the favor we can get.”
CHAPTER 2
Dinner was more of a theater show that night as the royal guests gathered in celebration of what was to come. Jesters and Magicians performed between the tables, driven by clapping and laughter.
“Do you think we should sit with the other firstborns?” Kent wondered, glancing across the room. They were the only ones separated, but Tanith had no desire to join them.
“No. I’d rather not get attached if some of us won’t be coming back,” she answered dully. Her precious hours were creeping away, wasted on formalities for their guests when she should have been enjoying every second that she had left.
As though her answer displeased him, Kent moved the raspberry cake from his plate onto hers in an effort to cheer her up. “They’re our friends if you recall,” he reminded her.
Tanith hummed, picking at the slice and ignoring the remains of her dinner. “Some of them, sure,” she admitted. “I’m not half as close to any of them as I am with you, though.”
“Are you telling me I’m special?”
“If it pleases you,” she quipped, watching a magician’s live dove fly onto the golden chandelier. He looked up at it, perplexed before glancing around in search of help.
Kent snickered and shook his head. “Maybe I’d be a magician if I weren’t a prince. I’d have better tricks than that, though.”
“Like what?”
“Stealing hearts, maybe,” he considered, the corner of his wine-stained lips tugging upwards at the thought.
“Wouldn’t that be the job of a thief?” Tanith asked.
He merely waved a hand in response. “Forget it. Perhaps your practical mind can’t fathom such things.”
“Or maybe your delusional one has fooled you into thinking you can.”
She held back her laughter as the ping of silver on glass echoed through the room, garnering the attention of all the gathered royals.
It was King Mairon who stood from his seat, a half-empty champagne flute and a spoon in his hand. His skin was an almond tone, the silver streaks in his dark hair glittering under the candlelight. “I’d like to propose a toast to all the firstborns, but especially to Ward Ichenburn, my only son.” He glanced toward the end of his table where the Prince of Xeres was seated.
Ward looked like a younger, more handsome version of his father, dark stringy hair that was long enough to cover his eyes and colorful tattoos peeking out from under his coat sleeves. He hadn’t bothered to shrug the red fabric off, utilizing it as an armor instead. Everyone was silent and tense, aware that of all six standing kingdoms, Xeres was the one facing the most peril. Like Ward, Kent might have been the last living royal child in Shadow Hunt, but at least his kingdom was healthy. Xeres had been struggling for decades, and there were no replacement sons or daughters if Ward didn’t return from the island.
“You do our kingdom proud,” King Mairon continued. “And you are our last hope. May the Ghods be with you and return you safely.”
They all raised their glasses in tandem at the toast. “Hear, hear,” they chanted before downing their liquid delights.
Tanith watched the way Ward brooded, refusing to talk to the folks seated next to him. Perhaps none of the firstborns were thrilled about their pending mission.
“Let’s hope our parents don’t all start giving speeches,” Kent muttered, and Tanith followed his gaze to King Bristowe. “I’m not sure the old man would have anything good to say about me.”
She hummed. “He’d have no problem putting on a show. He does it every day, doesn’t he?”
“You have no idea,” Kent muttered over his glass, downing the last of his champagne with a frown.
Tanith almost asked if he’d miss alcohol while they were away, and she nearly dared to suggest they sneak off and get drunk before anyone noticed they were gone. The only thing that stopped her was the commotion as the dining room doors burst open.
Two guards dragged a woman through, her fading blue dress made for peasants and her knees scraping the ground. Her blonde hair had once been in a bun, but half of it was falling out and Tanith knew right away that the once lively dinner was now over.
Kent found her hand beneath the table, locking his fingers with hers to steady them both as the room went silent again, the cursing woman still trying to escape while the royals watched her, and the performers crept to the edges of the room
.
“You’re a bunch of lousy sons of bitches!” she rasped; throat raw as though she’d screamed the whole way to the castle. “You’re fools! They’ve brainwashed you. Don’t you see?”
Tanith watched the guards lead her between the parallel tables, her mother standing from her seat with alarm. “What’s the meaning of this?” she demanded.
One of the guards, a slim man dressed in Ellesmere purple took the liberty of announcing the situation to the room. “We found a Crish. She’s infected and attempting to spread her illness to others.”
“I am not infected, you nitwit,” the woman seethed, baring her teeth as though she were a wild animal.
“She’s feral,” the other guard confirmed. “She used to be cartographer by the looks of it, but she hasn’t worked in a while, and her home is littered with old maps that she’s been using to try and make more Crish.”
“I’m not feral!” the woman screamed in frustration, attempting to twist her way loose before the taller guard hit her in the back of the head with his staff.
Queen Avret rounded the table, lips pursed as she neared and studied the woman. Leirge, her advisor, stood from his own seat and intercepted. “Allow me, Your Majesty.”
Tanith had always felt uneasy around her mother’s right-hand man. He wasn’t rude or mean, but he was awfully direct, and his opinion was taken as fact more often than not. Leirge was gangly with long mahogany hair brushed straight back, tucked behind his large ears. If it weren’t for his lavish clothes, one might have thought he were nothing more than a village man.
“What is your name?” Leirge asked simply, though his tone made it seem as though he’d already decided she was guilty.
The woman blew a wayward chunk of hair out of her line of vision before answering. “Penelope Greenwixch.”
“And you used to be a map-maker?”
“I was.”
Leirge nodded, pacing in front of her. “Why did you stop?”
“I didn’t. I simply began working for myself.”
Tanith watched her mother tilt her head curiously, closely following the exchange. For a moment, she was afraid for Penelope. Whether she really was infected by the Crish or not, her future was already written. She wondered if her mother knew it too.
“Why would you do that?” Leirge wondered, coming to a stop a foot away from the blonde woman. “Did they not pay you well enough? Did you not enjoy your work? You must have if you went out on your own, but it doesn’t seem like you’ve made many sales,” he noted, raking his unnaturally wide eyes down her ratty dress.
“It’s not about the money,” Penelope corrected, her tone irritated.
The thin guard budded in. “Her neighbor reported her for suspicious activity. We searched the place when we took her, and there were rebel plans everywhere. Her maps are a large part of it.”
“Do you deny these claims?” Leirge asked.
Penelope scrunched her nose in distaste, and Tanith didn’t miss the way the guards tightened their grips on her arms. “I’m not Crish,” she said again. “I haven’t been infected.”
“But the infected don’t know they’re infected, do they?” the advisor wondered aloud. “All they know is one cause. Destroy. It’s the infection that takes root in our people, the very same one that crumbled kingdom after kingdom until only six of us were left standing. What does the evidence say?” Leirge asked the guards.
The smaller one cleared his throat. “There were plans of destruction and rebellion in her home, like we said, starting with Ellesmere and Xeres.”
There were gasps around the room, but Tanith’s was caught in her throat. Perhaps she really was infected, but that was the most difficult part of weeding out the Crish. They didn’t look any different or talk like strangers. They were among them. Friends. Neighbors. They were impossible to distinguish, save for their appetite of ruin. They were the demons of Earth, and there very well may have been one in the room.
“Not destruction,” Penelope argued. “Rebellion! We will destroy and rebuild what you’ve all broken! You’re liars and fools! Do you even know what you fight for? I do.”
“You just admitted you fight for the Crish,” Leirge reminded her. “We’re well aware of your cause.”
“I’m not Crish!” she yelled again, struggling as though this time, she’d actually fight her way free.
Leirge turned to Queen Avret. “As you can see, another poor citizen has fallen ill to the disease. I think it’s only right we place a quarantine on her entire street until we evaluate everyone.”
“I agree.”
“You can kiss my ass!” Penelope screamed. “All of you! You’re nothing without your crowns and castles. No better than the rest of us!”
With a roll of his eyes, Leirge turned back around and gave his orders to the guards. “Take her to the dungeons. She’ll be executed at dawn.”
“Lousy hob knocker! Eat shit!” Penelope screamed, spitting at his feet.
The advisor stepped closer, leaning down in that intimidating manner of his. It was his turn to sneer. “Bite it, Crish whore.”
Before Tanith could process their exchange, Penelope craned her neck forward and chomped down on Leirge’s nose. His startled yell echoed through the dining hall, gasps and yelps following as the guards tried to contain Penelope.
Kent wrapped his arm around Tanith’s waist as she leaned forward unconsciously, warning her from getting any closer to the feral human.
“Take her away!” Queen Avret ordered when they got her unlatched, Leirge bent over, kneeling on the ground with his hand on his face and the tip of his nose on the ground in front of him. There was a gushing flow of crimson that dripped onto the marble floor, and King Mairon took the liberty of calling for a healer.
“Holy shit,” Kent muttered under his breath. “She was infected.”
Queen Avret helped Leirge to his feet, legs shaking as he stumbled forward a step. “My nose,” he moaned in despair. “My nose!”
Still pinching his bleeding face, he looked back to the ground where the severed piece laid, probably wondering if it could be reattached. Tanith almost stepped forward to pick it up for him when a wet splat landed on the advisor’s head, painting his hair white.
Open-mouthed, Tanith looked up at the chandelier where the magician’s dove ruffled its feathers, and she couldn’t hold in her laughter as the Queen led Leirge away, garnering a few stern looks from those around her, but she didn’t miss the mirrored flicker of humor in Ward’s eyes across the room.
It was then that Tanith decided it was only fair for the firstborns to leave their emotions unrestrained in the following days because, within the week, it was possible they would never have the chance to express them ever again.
CHAPTER 3
“It’s funny. These books never mention when the first infected person was found, or how the Crish came to be,” Tanith noted, not bothering to look up from her book.
She was tucked away in the alcove of the library, Kent scanning tomes on the shelves nearby, though he rarely ever picked one up. “Some people think the Crish have always been around. Definitive answers are hard to come by, though.”
“The Sight might show us who’s infected,” Tanith began, “if we can catch it, but has anyone ever mentioned a cure? How do we stop the disease altogether?”
Stopping, he turned towards her, hands in his pockets. “I don’t think we can. Figuring out who it’s gotten ahold of is the first step. The only one they’ve prepared us for.”
“You don’t think it’s strange? That they have so few answers for our questions?”
With a sigh, Kent approached the alcove and dropped onto a burnt orange cushion. “All discoveries start somewhere, don’t they?”
“I suppose.”
“Then trust that we’re the generation that will emerge from the island victorious.”
She frowned. “If we don’t?”
“Then I suppose our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildr
en will have to,” he answered smoothly. “Either way, someone will win the Sight eventually, and when they do, we’ll destroy the Crish once and for all.”
Tanith closed her book with a sigh. “We’re going to get in trouble avoiding the others, aren’t we?”
“Only if our parents find us.”
“What do you think they’re doing?”
Kent shrugged. “Probably putting together strategies.”
“That’s smart. Maybe we should be doing that too,” she considered.
“There’s no point. You can’t prepare to walk into a place you’ve never been. Not beyond what they’ve taught us anyway. Head forward. No distractions. Don’t fall for the illusions. Find the Sight. Return home. It’s pretty direct.”
“Maybe you should be reminding yourself that you have something to come back to,” a soft voice said.
Tanith saw her sister move from behind the shelf, peeping out around the end with a grim face. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Only for a minute. I didn’t want to interrupt,” Meelah admitted. Her curly brown hair was knotted into a bun, her pale purple dress more casual than the day before.
“We have kingdoms to come back to,” Kent told her without a second thought.
“And families,” the younger royal reminded him.
Not for him, Tanith silently added. King Bristowe wasn’t worth returning for, but she didn’t correct her sister. “Did they send you to find us?”
Meelah shook her head. “No. I wanted to spend the day with you. You’re leaving over morrow, and I thought you might like tomorrow to prepare.”
A pang of guilt crept up inside Tanith. She would be gone soon, uncertain if she’d return to Ellesmere, and she hadn’t bothered to spend more than an hour at a time with her sister as their time dwindled into nothing. “What did you have in mind?”
“I was hoping we could go into the city. There’s a bakery offering classes for apple roses.”
Tanith & Shaw (The Fealty of Firstborns Series Book 1) Page 2
