Glitch Kingdom

by Sheena Boekweg

  “Are you certain?” The task in front of me was dangerous, but it would feel almost achievable if Grigfen was at my side.

  He stepped closer. “You’re my friend, and this might be because I’m floating over my winnings at the Fisherman’s Haul, but I’m not ashamed to say you’re my hero, Ryo. Whatever it is, I won’t let you do it alone.”

  The weight on my shoulders lightened. “It’s too dangerous. You should—”

  “It doesn’t matter. You’re my future king, and I can’t leave you to your adventures without a squire.”

  I offered my palm and he shook it. Torchlight brightened against the bones, and I must have squeezed too hard, because he winced.

  “Light’s bosom, you are strong.” He shook out his hand and I laughed.

  “You won big, then?”

  He shook the coin purse at his belt. “Forty coppers in all. You?”

  “Lady M took me for twenty-five golds.”

  He whistled.

  I lifted a shoulder. “She brought her granddaughter.”

  Grig chuckled. “Poor fool Ryo. She found your weakness.”

  I picked up my pace, and he matched my footing. “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “To see my uncle.”

  “Grrreeaat.” Grigfen had a way of saying things so I always knew exactly what he was thinking. “And what’s with the cup and the scroll?”

  “I wouldn’t touch that.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “It’s Seer Spring water.”

  “You’re bringing your uncle…” Grigfen let out a rumbling giggle I tried to hush. “Oh, this is a mighty prank. I’m glad to see it.”

  I desperately wished it were as simple as a prank.

  A Devout stepped forward. Her hair was shaved, her nose was dotted with red paint, and she wore gray and shapeless robes. I tugged at my coat and then chided myself for showing my nerves. The Devout could use a portion of the Undergod’s power to see the dead and perform miracles the unbelievers called magic. The truly dedicated, the priests of the Undergod, could command bones to move or control the monstrous beasts that crept from the underworld. “Hush, Grig.” I bowed to the Devout and Grigfen followed suit. “Peace and honor to you for your devotion.”

  The Devout answered our bows with one of her own. “And to you for your reception.”

  I held the cup behind my back. “I’m looking for my uncle.”

  “His holiness is in his chambers. May I be permitted to lead you toward him?”

  “I thank you for your service.”

  The Devout turned. Grigfen barely held back a laugh. The shadows of his almost laugh echoed against the walls like a flickering candle.

  A bead of sweat traced down my back. Well, I’d found him.

  Now what was I going to say?

  As the second son, Uncle Edvarg was encouraged to go into the priesthood of the Undergod. He took to it well—too well, some said. It showed too much ambition the way he ascended to the rank of high priest. People whispered about deaths they could not explain, in which Edvarg profited. My parents ignored such rumblings, and so did I.

  Uncle Edvarg would help me. He had to.

  The catacombs air tasted of silt, torch oil, and candle wax. The bone walls seemed almost made of bricks, each bone slightly different, but united in their anonymity. The office of the Holiest was open, the wrought iron door held ajar by a loose stone. Inside a room of bones, Uncle pored over a map at his gilded desk. The ceiling was formed of rib cages, with a striping of sunlight cascading on my uncle, unleashing the creator’s wisdom on anyone the light fell upon.

  Uncle Edvarg’s lips pressed lightly before bending into a smile. “Nephew! So good to see you. So tell me, what did the Savak cleric want?”

  “What cleric?” Grigfen asked. “I may have missed something when I was down to the tables.”

  “Ah, Sir Grigfen. I thought I smelled cheap cologne.”

  Edvarg waved away the Devout. She gave a low bow, touching her forehead to her wrist before exiting.

  The door stayed open.

  I let out a breath. It was a relief to no longer be alone with this.

  “The cleric brought a gift.”

  “Ah?” Edvarg squinted.

  I lifted the cup.

  Edvarg gestured it away, but I held it firm. “You have to see the future. Our kingdom depends on it.”

  He turned back to his papers. “Says the heathen.”

  “Father drank.”

  Edvarg stilled.

  I pushed the drink forward across his desk. “So did the other four members of the council. And their vision—”

  “Wait.” Grigfen’s face flushed red. “My father drank from the Seer Spring?”

  I gripped Grig’s shoulder. “What they saw … It’s terrible, Uncle. The Savak queen will try to destroy us all, but we have a plan to stop her. You need to drink, so you can see the plan and help us survive.”

  “The council drank seer water?” Edvarg murmured. He pressed his index finger over his lips, considering. He pointed to the scroll. “And what is that?”

  I unrolled the parchment and laid it out over the papers on the desk. I knocked over a small idol, but I didn’t right it. “After they drank, they all agreed this was necessary to save our people.”

  Uncle’s neck pulsed. “They disavowed our god in favor of the heathen spring?”

  Father said Uncle would help. He had to. He was the only family I had now. I’d give him one last chance—one last opportunity to be who my parents thought he was. “Trust me, Uncle. They are trying to save us.” I moved around the desk. “Please, Uncle Edvarg. You need to drink to see the future and help protect us from what is coming.”

  Grigfen stepped to the desk, his fingers tracing the scroll as he read the words. “They left us for the Savak? Why would he leave without saying goodbye?” Grig ran both hands through his curls and stepped away. His face crumpled.

  “They wouldn’t have, if the danger wasn’t real,” I insisted. “Please, Uncle, you need to believe me. Drink the seer water, and I’ll let you rule as adviser until Father comes back.”

  Uncle Edvarg’s cheek creased, and his eyebrows lifted as he read the words. My muscles tightened, but I had to trust that his ambition would be stronger than his piety. I was offering him the throne.

  “I could believe you, but never the Savak. My foolish brother has been tricked by them and he’s turned a traitor,” my uncle announced.

  “No. He’s trying to save us. If you drink the seer water, you will see why.”

  “My brother has renounced his god-given duty to our people, and in the Undergod’s name, I must assert my claim for the throne he’s left behind.”

  I shuddered. “I’m giving you the throne.”

  “No. You, my traitorous nephew and your disheveled friend, are the only things standing in my way.”

  Edvarg raised both hands, his thumbs touching in a summoning pose. A green mist spread from my uncle’s fingers, lighting the curve of his cheekbones, leaving shadows under his eyes.

  I rocked back. The glowing light filled the room.

  “Stop,” I commanded. I darted a glance to Grig, my body flushing hot. I should have never allowed him to accompany me.

  “What’re you doing?” Grig’s eyes widened.

  My uncle pulled his arms down and the bone walls shuddered. A crack and a whiff of bone dust and floating bones flew toward him and congealed together into half-formed, animated skeletons.

  I flinched back. The Undergod’s own power.

  Grig swore and joined my side. His hands lifted into fists.

  “Uncle,” I whispered. I couldn’t stop staring at the half-formed creatures. Bones formed where bones should not be, deer antlers for hips, a skull from a beast I could not name serving as a set of ribs. The Undergod’s power to move the dead was a sacred gift bestowed only on the most righteous. Such holiness should only be used for protection from the lich and against our enemies.

  Never against me.

>   “Will you disavow your father,” Uncle asked me, “and kneel before me as your king?”

  We huddled in shocked silence. “Not bloody likely,” Grig said.

  I shook my head. No matter what power my uncle wielded, I would never betray my father. Uncle knew that. Uncle leaned forward, his eyes firm on mine, the side of his mouth hooked up like a jagged lure.

  He wanted me to stand against him. He didn’t want me to cower. He wanted me dead.

  My body tensed and I found a store of rage I’d never cracked into before. I bared my teeth, drunk with my anger, off-my-head tipsy with a need to right this wrong. How dare he threaten me? He didn’t just betray me, he betrayed my father. I drew my sword.

  Uncle pulled more bones from the wall. The ceiling above us cracked.

  My heart thundered in my chest, and my throat tightened. “I won’t.”

  “Shame.” Edvarg sat at his desk. The side of his mouth twitched like he was hiding a smile. The bone-formed creatures crept toward us at his command. “If you won’t stand with me, then you must be removed.”

  My heart thundered. The whispers had been right. My uncle was more ambitious than my father or I had ever realized. He would kill me to get me out of the way.

  But I could not let him ruin my father’s plan.

  Grig and I shared a look.

  The skeletons lunged for my throat. On instinct, I swung my sword, slicing through bone. The skull flew backward, but the creature kept marching forward.

  Grig chucked his sack of coins at the skeleton coming for him then raised his fists. I swung my sword again, and again, but bones pressed against my arms and held me back. My arms stopped in midair and nothing I could do would move them. Uncle raised one hand and spread his fingers. The bones threw me backward. I slammed into the wall. Clay and shards rained around me. Grig lunged to help me, but the bones holding the door frame twisted forward and wrapped around his neck, slamming him back against the frame.

  I scrambled to my feet and ran to his side, prying at the bones that pressed against his throat. I had to pull them off him. He couldn’t breathe.

  Grig’s face turned red, then purple, his arms thrashing against the bones. Grig.

  “Uncle, stop!” I slammed my sword against the bones. They shattered, and tightened closer. Harder. Sharper, shards cutting his skin. The other skeleton grabbed me with strength beyond muscle. It pressed me against the wall. Too rough. I could feel my ribs cracking.

  “Uncle!” I gasped.

  “Will you join me? Renounce your claim to my throne?”

  My head ached. I could never do that. But I couldn’t let him kill Grig.

  “I will. I swear it,” I lied. I licked my lips.

  “You lie, Nephew. I’ve seen you play cards. I know your tells. And why would I allow any uprising to threaten my claim to the Throne of Honor? It should always have been mine.”

  The bone at my throat snapped in two.

  Then a shard of bone slammed into the base of my throat and speared my body into the wall, like a dart through a board.

  “No!” Grig shrieked through too little air.

  My hands formed fists. I couldn’t breathe. It was so quick. So cold. I didn’t feel the pain until blood spurted into my lungs. The copper taste coated my tongue, and speckled the pale calcium. Blue sparks crackled in my vision, and a spot of ache between my shoulder blades seemed like a heavy rock collapsing through my back.

  The pain came. Harsh. Stinging like a scream that wouldn’t release. Every nerve sharpened; even my hair follicles stung.

  The bone spear held me standing as night slipped over my vision.

  Blood filled my mouth and I could not find air.

  * * *

  I awoke in the doorway of my uncle’s office, a scream still caught in my throat. I grabbed my neck, but there was no wound; the only proof of my death was a puddle of my blood, a pile of shattered bones, and one foot to my left, a bloody femur stabbed into the wall.

  My mind raced as I fumbled backward. I searched my uncle’s blood-splattered office, trying to find answers, but there were none. I was alone. Still breathing. Somehow still breathing. Free from the spear that had stolen my life. I held my head in my hands. I’d died. I knew it.

  In the hall behind me, my uncle shouted lies. “Guards! Guards! This assailant killed the prince.”

  I tilted my head to the side and peered into the hall. The walking bone creatures held Grig’s hands above his head, their unnatural backs to me. My uncle marched ahead of them, not one drop of my blood on his robes.

  I leaned against the door frame and fought for air. Every inch of my skin hurt. An ache in my skull hummed, as if a spark of lightning had left me scalded. The room stank of blood, bones, and rancid incense.

  I clutched my throat.

  “It wasn’t me,” Grigfen said through sobs. There wasn’t any weight behind his words. He spoke as though he knew he’d seen me die and now no one would believe his word over the Holiest himself.

  But I would. I planted my bloody hands and pushed myself through the doorway.

  I was alive and it was a miracle I could not explain. “Stop!”

  My uncle shuffled around, his eyes wide, his color pallid.

  “Holy…” Grigfen flushed. “Ryo. What…”

  Uncle averted his eyes, his jaw trembling at the sight of me.

  “Edvarg ne Mark.” I spat out blood that clouded my throat. “You’ve committed treason in front of a witness.”

  “How is this possible?” Uncle shook his head rapidly.

  The nerve of him. “I didn’t know your heart was this dark, so full of sick ambition.”

  “I killed you,” he snarled. “You were erased.”

  He froze. His expression lagged as he processed.

  I lifted my head. “You are forthwith removed of all title, rank, and by my father’s authority I swear—”

  “Your father gave away his authority.” He shook the scroll in his hand. “You are the one who has aligned with the Savak. Some blasphemy saved you.”

  “It was our god—”

  “You don’t speak for the Undergod. Not in my catacombs.” He spoke through his teeth. “You ask me to commit treason, to deny the Undergod. I will not. You’ve been corrupted by the Savak. I will kill you a thousand times to get the heathen out of you. It is my duty as your uncle.”

  I rushed forward. If I knocked him out, he couldn’t control the bones. Edvarg’s spindly hand twisted and a wave of ghostlight tossed me back easily like I was a child still learning how to fight. His nails dug into my freshly healed wrists, stronger than his frail form led me to believe.

  I raised my fist.

  Grig sputtered behind me as the sharp shards of bones aimed at my best friend, cutting into his neck.

  Edvarg massaged his temples as if he’d grown weary of this conversation. “Stop or I will kill him.”

  I couldn’t bluff my way out of this. Not with stakes this high.

  But I could try. “Let him go.”

  “Yeah, seriously, let me go. I’m nothing to you. I won’t say anything, I promise.” It shook my core to hear the fear in Grig’s voice.

  “He only lives if you surrender.”

  My fist trembled, but I didn’t swing. If I moved, my uncle could kill Grigfen as quickly as he had killed me. The bones at his throat drew blood. Grig leaned his head back, his eyes glistening with tears, but his hands rolled and his arm muscles tensed. He was about to fight back. Any movement would spell the end of him.

  “Do you promise you will let him live?” I tried to signal Grig not to attack, but his eyes were wild, past listening to reason.

  Edvarg’s jaw pulsed. “Yes.”

  “That’s not enough.” I stepped closer. “Swear it to your god.”

  A muscle twitched on his neck. “Will you trade your life for his?”

  Grig’s head shook back and forth as though he thought he wasn’t worth it, but how could he say that? I couldn’t allow him to die. Not when
he was willing to die in my place.

  I lowered my knife. “I will.”

  Edvarg’s anger melted from his eyes. “And you, Sir Grigfen. I can’t have you blabbing what you’ve seen, so the only way I will allow you to live is if you devote yourself to the Undergod himself. Will you accept the Devout class and vow to keep my secrets? It is the only way you will leave this catacomb with your head attached.”

  Grig glanced at me and then nodded. A green mist swirled around him, before it tunneled into his mouth, brightening the whites of his eyes.

  I closed mine. The life of the Devout wasn’t death, but it might as well have been. He couldn’t marry, he couldn’t own his title. I’d stolen my best friend’s future.

  Edvarg turned his sharp smile on me.

  * * *

  Later, in my cell, I berated myself for not fighting back. Later, I thought of a hundred things I could have done differently to save Grigfen, a hundred things my father would have done against his traitorous brother. What someone worthy would have done.

  But I’d raised my hands and dropped the fight.

  The moment I needed it, all my bravado had disappeared.

  And it had taken my hope with it.

  I could not eat the silence in my cell. I could not drink the absence of light. I had nothing to gnaw on except my nightmares.

  I woke from one, the memory of a sharp bone paring through my flesh, to the sound of a subtle movement in the dark. I crawled forward, ignoring the dust and filth that littered the ground. The bars of the cell were cold on my cheek. My dry mouth opened, pleading to the noise for light, for water … For kindness.

  Uncle had stolen everything from me, except the clothes on my back, and the necklace he had not found.

  A window somewhere opened slightly, sending a lost saint’s whisper of light.

  It was a Historian, her legs folded, her carved mask tucked on her brow, like a low-hung hat. I knew this Historian well. She was the one who always came and watched me sleep. It was almost a comfort to have her there, because the expression on her face wasn’t predatory.

  It was motherly.