by David Estes
Her mother wasn’t present for their punishment, which wasn’t a good sign. The only reason the king wouldn’t require his queen’s presence was if she wasn’t in good enough condition to be seen in public. Annise knew she shouldn’t care—her mother never seemed to care what happened to her own daughter—but she did.
King Gäric rested his elbows on the clawed arms of his throne, which was crafted to look like ice. An enormous ice bear’s head hung on the wall behind him, just beneath the royal sigil.
Arch was dealt with first. “For behavior inappropriate of a prince of the north while in public, ten lashes with a cane. To be carried out by our new defender, Sir Dietrich.”
“But Father, I wasn’t trying—” Arch started to protest, but was quickly cut off when the king raised his hand.
“Get out of my sight.”
Wisely, Arch left without further discussion. Annise had seen her father double or triple a punishment for simply staring at him for too long or breathing too heavily.
Annise remained kneeling, refusing to look anywhere but at the polished stone floor. Her stomach ached, but not from fear. She was starving, having not had supper yet.
The king spoke. “You want to be a commoner?”
Yes, Annise wanted to say, but she knew it would only make things worse.
“Well?” The king rapped his fingers on the arm of his throne.
“No.”
“No what?”
“No, Your Highness.”
“Then stop acting like one,” he said. “You are a king’s daughter, a princess of Castle Hill, of the Northern Kingdom, the most recent generation in a long line of great kings and queens.”
But I never asked for any of that, she thought.
“For the same crime as your brother, you will spend a fortnight in the High Tower,” the king commanded.
A fortnight? “Father, no!” Annise shouted, unable to hold her tongue. She’d once spent three days in the windowless High Tower, and she’d pledged to never get stuck there again. Of course, her father knew what would hurt her the most.
“No?” he said, cocking his head to the side.
“I won’t disappoint you again,” Annise said, forcing contrition into her tone. “I promise.”
The king met her stare, seeming to consider her plea. Then his eyes narrowed into black spear points. “Your very existence is a disappointment to me,” he said.
As the guards dragged her away, she felt like crying, but she didn’t let a single tear fall.
A sound woke Annise from a light slumber. Her back ached from the hard, unpadded ground, a far cry from the plush bed she always took for granted. Her legs were sore, too, but that was from climbing the tower steps—all one-thousand-and-twenty-two of them. By the time she had reached the top, she’d been wheezing like a hog forced to run laps around its stall. The thought only gave her a fierce craving for bacon.
She’d been forced to go without dinner as part of her punishment, which was almost worse than spending a fortnight in the High Tower.
Annise loved to eat, and she knew it was necessary to sustain the time she spent training with her brother. Though others mocked her for her impressive appetite, she was not ashamed when her strength overmatched the boys in the yard. What she thought was ridiculous was the way the ladies of Castle Hill purposely left half of their plates uneaten at supper. Wasting good food was a sin, in her mind, especially considering there were plenty of commoners starving.
Her stomach growled as she scanned the room.
Although she hadn’t been provided a bed, she was given a lumpy straw-filled pillow; however, as soon as the door had closed, she’d ripped it to shreds in a fit of rage, an outburst she was now regretting. Straw and tattered cloth—the remnants of the pillow—were scattered through the small windowless room.
But the worst thing about the tower was the mirrors. They were built into every wall, surrounding her, making the tiny room appear enormous, endless. Hundreds of Annises mimicked her movements as she yawned and stretched.
She hated this place because of the mirrors, a constant reminder of everything she wasn’t. Pretty. Slim. Graceful. Everything her mother was. It was almost like she was someone else’s daughter. Yes, she thought. I am. I am the Dread King’s daughter. And I am dreadful.
Annise rubbed her eyes, wondering what had woken her. Thousands of other Annises wondered the same thing.
A shout. The soldiers were being called to muster. She wished she had a window so she could see what was going on, but then she remembered her father’s decree before the melee. It was time to carry out his promise to fill the streets of Castle Hill with the blood of traitors. How he would determine who was loyal to him and who was not was a mystery. In truth, he would probably just choose randomly. The Dread King had always ruled by fear.
She drifted from her thoughts when she heard a voice. It was close, perhaps just outside the door. It was probably Drunk Craig falling asleep on the job again. She was glad it was he who’d been assigned to guard her. If not for fear of additional punishment by her father, she’d consider slipping past him and sneaking out.
Wait. There were two distinct voices: a conversation.
Annise rose to her feet, wondering what was going on.
The door opened.
And the last person Annise ever expected to see in the doorway appeared.
Her mother.
Queen Sabria Loren Gäric’s lips were pulled into a tight line, almost like a recently strung bowstring, and her face was shiny with exertion from the climb up the staircase. Her sunshine hair was swept up into a makeshift twist atop her head, as if she’d done so as an afterthought. Her red silk dressing gown was wrinkled and clinging to her shoulders, hips and knees. Yet, despite her casual and somewhat harried appearance, her mother was the most stunning woman Annise had ever seen.
“I don’t have much time,” her mother said, closing the door.
Time for what? Annise wondered. Her mother rarely spoke to her in public, much less in private. And she never came to visit her. Confused into silence, Annise simply waited for an explanation.
“Daughter,” her mother said. “Annise.” Annise’s breath was pulled from her lungs. Those two words were spoken with such fervor, the queen’s voice low and cracking. Her mother had never spoken to her like this. Never looked at her with such…what was that look? Sadness? Caring? Something else, something more?
She could almost mistake the look for love. Almost.
Her mother’s eyes watery, she took two steps forward and wrapped her thin arms around Annise, squeezing her daughter into her chest. Annise was so surprised, she didn’t do anything at first, her body frozen like an ice sculpture. But then, slowly, tentatively, she hugged her mother back. She could feel her heartbeat, could feel her mother’s lips against her neck, the warmth of her tears on her skin.
Could hear her words, whispered briskly in her ear: “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you. It was the only way I knew how to protect you. I wish I’d been better. Stronger. You are better, you are stronger. And I’m so proud of you.”
And then she was gone, releasing Annise and pulling away and slipping out through the door before she could utter a single word in response.
Annise slumped back to the floor, her lips parted in wonder. What had just happened? And why had it happened now, after all this time? The self-doubt in her mother’s eyes, in her words, painted a different picture of the woman she looked up to. And if she was wrong about her mother, did that mean she was wrong about herself, too? She stared at herself in the mirrors for a long time, and for the first time in many years, she saw someone else.
Someone different.
Maybe someone better.
Several hours later, Annise was startled awake by a noise. She sat up and blinked away the sleep, the wall sconce casting an orange light across the small space, reflecting off the mirrors.
The sound was more than a scrape. Footsteps approached, heavy and confident,
making their way up the stairs.
Drunk Craig must’ve heard them too, because there was the sound of him bumbling to his feet and he said, “Your Kingship—I mean, Your Highness—I didn’t expect—”
“Open the door. I wish to speak to my daughter.” The voice was clearly that of the king.
Her father was here? But why? Did he know her mother had come to see her? Would they both be further punished for the queen’s visitation during Annise’s fortnight of punishment?
Annise rose to her feet and watched the door open. The king marched in, then turned back and said, “Leave us.”
“Yes, of course, right away, Sire,” Drunk Craig said. He seemed surprisingly sober, albeit exceedingly flustered.
Annise forced herself to one knee. Thousands of sturdy women bowed in turn. All of them were determined to hold her tongue this time.
“You may rise,” the Dread King said.
Oh may I? Well, thank you very much, Father, I am oh so appreciative. Annise bit her tongue and kept her thoughts to herself as she stood. “Is something wrong?” she asked. “Your Highness,” she remembered to add, stifling a curse with her hand. What have you done to my mother? she added in her head.
He waited a moment, admiring several of his reflections in the mirrors. He wasn’t afraid of facing himself the way she was. He seemed to relish it. “I know you think I’m a monster, and maybe I am, but this is a dangerous world full of even more dangerous monsters than me. Everything I do is to protect our family, our right to rule.”
She said nothing. He could delude himself all he wanted, it wouldn’t change anything.
He continued: “When you were born, I was hoping for a son.”
She hated the fact that tears threatened to emerge. She blinked rapidly. Why should she care what her father thought of her? Why should she care that he wished she had never been born? He was an evil man, and should be of no concern to her.
“I’m so sorry to disappoint you, Father,” Annise said, making no attempt to hide the sarcasm in her voice.
The back of his hand lashed out so unexpectedly she had no time to defend herself. When the blow struck her cheek, her head spun and spit flew from her mouth. Stunned, she raised a hand to her face, feeling a warm trickle of blood seeping from a break in her skin. She’d been hit before. On the practice fields, by fists and wooden swords. By her father when she spoke out of turn or laughed too loudly or chewed in an “unladylike manner.”
She set her jaw and turned back to face him.
“You don’t disappoint me with your gender,” he continued, as if he’d not just hit his own daughter. “You disappoint me with your disposition. With your lack of interest in defending all that we have.”
What we have? We have a frozen land full of depressed people who hate you and your taxes and your hellfrozen decrees. She kept her thoughts to herself this time—just because she could take a hit better than most boys didn’t mean she wanted to.
“Don’t disappoint me again,” the king added. When she didn’t respond, he said, “Do you understand?”
“Yes, Father.” You bloody tyrant.
“Good. Remember that.” With that, her father pushed through the door, slamming it behind him. His footfalls thudded, muffled by the thick door.
And then they stopped and she heard her father say, “What in the frozen hell...”
Curious at what could raise such a reaction from the Dread King, Annise eased open the door and peered out.
Her father was a dozen or so steps beneath her, but turned back toward the tower’s apex. However, she couldn’t quite see his face. There was something blocking her view, a smoky haze. Through the fog, she saw her father’s eyes widen into white orbs, his mouth open. The fog turned to shadow turned to flesh, and she saw a boy, his skin as pale as the Howling Tundra between Castle Hill and Blackstone. His scalp was shaved clean, like the bald peaks of the Mournful Mountains. Something blazed on his head, a circular mark, glowing. The boy turned, saw her, and reached out a set of long bloodless fingers, as if trying to touch her.
Something about his face was eerily familiar.
She shrank back, scared, and he disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Beyond where the boy had just been, her father flailed his arms, lost his balance, and fell backwards down the steps, gaining momentum with each roll. Annise gasped, unable to move as she watched his legs bend unnaturally, then his back. Finally, his head cracked against stone—one, twice, thrice. The staircase curled away and he disappeared from sight.
There was blood smeared on the wall and the steps.
Annise heard her breaths. She heard the beat of her own heart in her chest. She was acutely aware of each and every blink of her eyes, which were stinging.
And then she screamed.
An answering scream flew back up the tower. Not hers. Then a cry. “The king! The king is dead!”
That’s when she realized why the strange boy had looked so familiar. Though he was younger, and his face was gaunt and too bony, his features were identical to that of her brother, Arch.
Three
The Northern Kingdom, Silent Mountain
Bane
“Father,” Bane said, reappearing in the protective embrace of the cavern that had been his home for fourteen long years. He dropped to his knees, shaking, feeling bone-weary.
“You cannot call me that any longer,” Bear Blackboots said. His beard had long ago turned white and reached his waist. He tugged on it now, a nervous habit he’d only recently acquired.
“Why not, Father?” Bane asked, not understanding. Who but this giant of a man, who had raised him from birth to now, could he call Father? He’d known no other. Even the wandering tribes of nomads appeared as small as black snowflakes on the field of white surrounding Silent Mountain.
“Because it has begun, Kings’ Bane,” Bear said. It was the first time in years that his father had used his full name, and it sent a shiver through him, though he was not cold.
“What has begun?” Bane said, although he already knew. Bear had often taught him the prophecies of the Western Oracle, though they’d always seemed impossibly distant. He longed for the days before, when he and Bear would hunt along the mountainside, the giant man imparting stories of kings and battles and dragons. He longed to return to the nights of singing beside an open fire, the day’s prey crackling and sizzling over the flames.
I hate my fatemark, he thought, though, somewhere in his gut he knew it was a lie.
“You have spilled blood. You have murdered a king. The only father you have now is Death. I have made my choice, and now you must make yours.”
“No!” Bane cried. “I didn’t mean to do anything. He fell. It was an accident.” He couldn’t remember what the king had looked like, his mind full only of images of the girl, the king’s daughter, who had withered in fear when she saw him.
He didn’t even know how he’d moved through space to reach Castle Hill. Or how he’d returned to the cave. All he knew was that the mark on his scalp burned, and that everywhere he looked he saw darkness.
The killing came naturally, even if he didn’t want to admit it. It was no accident—he’d shoved the king down the steps.
I am a monster, he thought.
He tried to stand, but his legs wobbled and he toppled over, his body wracked with tremors. “What is…happening…to me?” he said through chattering teeth.
“You have great power,” Bear said.
“I feel so weak.”
“My—” Bear cut off sharply. Restarted: “Your creator must’ve put safeguards in place. When you use your power, you will need time to recover.”
My creator. Bear had often spoken to him of the Western Oracle. Of the spell she’d cast across the land almost two centuries ago, of the prophecies that followed, most of which were long forgotten by most. But not all. Not Bear. “Why?” he croaked. Bane felt like he’d been punched in the gut.
“Because else you would kill too quickly. Everythi
ng must happen in its own time.”
Bane didn’t fully understand, but he was too exhausted to think about it. His cheek pressed against the dirt, his eyelids drooping.
Bear waved a torch across his scalp, and though Bane could not see the way his fatemark flared in the dark, he could feel how it had changed.
One of the eight sections formed by the arrows had been filled in with blood.
A portion of a prophecy by the Western Oracle repeated itself over and over in his head.
Eight rulers shall die in the name of peace…
One ruler was dead. Seven more would follow.
Bane closed his eyes and slept.
Four
The Southern Empire, Dragon’s Breath
Roan
The first time Roan had healed someone it was his guardian, Markin. While slicing meat, Markin had cut the tip of his thick, gray finger clean off. Roan was five at the time, and he’d felt something strange in his chest. A warmth. Instinctively, he’d laid his hand on Markin’s arm and felt the warmth drain out of him and into his guardian. Markin had tried to squirm away, but it was too late: already his blood had clotted, his skin growing back, reconstructing his finger. Roan had collapsed, weakness overcoming him. Once he’d recovered, his guardian had taught him of his past, of who he was, how he could never use his power publicly, and never to help anyone but himself.
He taught him that if Roan prevented someone else from dying, it would be he who died.
Young Roan had cried for days.
Now, as the dream-memory faded from his mind, Roan’s eyes creaked open. At first he couldn’t make sense of what he saw. Until it blinked, a massive red eye staring back at him.
His sore muscles protesting, he scrabbled backwards like a crab, watching as the dragon stretched out its neck, its head reaching for the sky, bursting through a low-hanging cloud. The beast’s scales were as black as ebony, sparkling in the morning sun. The nearby clouds were bandits, stealing the sky’s precious blue hue, their cold breath like plumes of vapor.
