Crown of Oblivion

by Julie Eshbaugh

  Blood rushes in my ears, a droning as loud as the bellowing wind. I writhe in place, struggling to free my hands. Nothing. The sand is so heavy, it crushes my chest, making it hard to breathe. Another wave of sand crashes over us, and Darius coughs. “One more wave like that one,” he calls out, “and I think I might drown in it.”

  “Hold your breath! Tip your face back and draw a deep breath and hold it!”

  With Darius holding his breath, I thrash like a wild animal under the sand. The weight holding me down shifts slightly, my left side rises, and I pull my left arm free. I shriek with joy, but it’s a joy short-lived. Under my legs the sand shifts again, and my whole body slides lower, maybe six inches, maybe a foot. Sand stings my lips, crowds through them when I gasp, and fills my mouth. My nostrils clog when I try to draw in a breath. Spitting and coughing, I struggle to raise myself, but I sink back down.

  When I finally stop struggling, the sand is over my chin.

  But I have one free hand, and I can dig. I scoop sand out from around Darius’s mouth and nose, and then I start digging my right arm free. It’s slow going—for every two inches I gain, the sand takes one back—but finally, both arms are free.

  My hands are bleeding, my fingernails tearing from their beds, but I don’t let that slow me. I dig. I squirm and writhe. My skin is as raw as skin burned by fire, but little by little, I manage to free myself from the clutches of the sand.

  I want so badly to just lie here and catch my breath, but I don’t dare. I need to get to my feet to stop the sand from pinning me down.

  I turn in place. The storm is slowing—not much but enough. In the distance, I spot the green light.

  The sight of the light sets my heart racing, but I won’t leave until I’ve freed Darius. I can’t leave him here to be swallowed up by the Black Desert, but I can’t waste time either. So I dig, barking orders at him not to move—not to try to help me—because every time he struggles he sinks farther down. He finally holds still and I work, my hands bleeding into the sand, but the storm is over. The waves of sand have stopped coming now. Darius is out and sitting on the sand in half the time it took me to free myself.

  I pull the canteen Jayden gave me from my bag and pour water over Darius’s shoulder, until the sand is mostly cleared from the wound. “More than a graze,” I tell Darius, “but it’s nothing compared to Rafaela’s injuries. You’ll survive.”

  Though he still gives off nothing but fear, he smirks. I think he says thanks, but his voice is just a rasp. Then he points at the green light in the distance, and I nod.

  Without another word, I start moving, eventually working my legs into a run. It’s not easy—my knees ache and my injured shoulder throbs—but I do the best I can. I outrun Darius, at least. When I realize that I can’t hear his footsteps, I turn around and see that he has fallen far behind. So far behind, I wonder if he’s even running.

  I shouldn’t wait for him. I need to go. I can beat him—I’m sure of it—but other racers could be gaining. I watch Darius stagger forward, but then he bends at the waist, coughing and gagging. He coughs so hard and so long, it brings back a memory of my father.

  I shrug my canteen from my shoulder and hand it to him when he catches up. He takes a deep drink, but coughs it back out onto the ground. His chest is heaving. “I can’t run,” he says. “I’ll be able to soon, but not until I catch my breath.”

  I could leave him the water, I think, but I should take the gun. “It’s a race,” I say. “I’m going.”

  “I’ll be right behind you,” he says. He makes a face at me: half grimace, half smile. “And when I catch up to you, I won’t hesitate to pass you.”

  “You’re on,” I say. And then I drop the canteen, pick up the gun, and run.

  Thirty-Two

  I run as hard as I can, the blinking green light coming in and out of view as the terrain becomes hilly again. The sand is behind me—I’ve crossed the finger of desert that reaches into the Wilds, and it’s nothing but gravel and boulders from me to the mine. At times I’m forced to climb, at others to descend. None of it is easy on my aching legs and I’m tempted to stop and rest, but that intermittent flash of green keeps me moving forward.

  I wish I didn’t, but now and then I can’t help but look back. Not just for Darius, but to see if any other racers might be coming up behind me. As I scramble to the top of one rise, I look back and see Darius falling farther back. And behind him, still out on the sands, a shape is moving fast.

  Another racer is closing in.

  I scramble down a shallow hill littered with jagged rocks. The wind is still blowing hard, and the sun is setting, and no matter how much ground I cover, the green light never seems to get any closer. I climb another shelf of rock, and when I look back, the racer who was behind Darius is now between him and me. He is running fast—much faster than I am—and from here the last rays of twilight illuminate the top of his head, and I can easily see who it is.

  It’s the ginger-haired racer, my nemesis, the one who tried to throw me from the railroad tracks at the Amaranthine Forest.

  The one who will overtake me if I don’t find a way to get out of here fast.

  I scramble down the other side of the ledge, and, thankfully, the ground levels out and I’m able to pick up speed. At last, I’m gaining on the green light, growing close enough now that I can make out the dark, open mouth of the mine. I’m running like a piston, like a cog in a machine, thinking of nothing but the relief I will feel when I get there, when the toes of my right foot catch on a rock and I tumble hard to the ground.

  My bad shoulder throbs, and though my coat and bag both pad my landing, my head smacks the ground hard. For a moment my vision goes black, and then it fills with stars. I blink it all away and the evening light returns, but still, I’m slow to get up.

  I’m brushing my scraped and bloody palms down the front of my legs when I first hear the footsteps behind me.

  I spin around and look back, but I know who it is before I see him. The ginger-haired racer has almost caught me, and I wonder how he could be so fresh. Perhaps he avoided the sandstorm, or maybe he’s just so excited about the prospect of overtaking me. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself, as I take off running again. But my legs are wobbly, and his footsteps grow louder behind me. Eventually, I hear him right behind my shoulder, and his shadow falls over me just before he slams me to the ground.

  Cientia can’t help me in a fight if I’m pinned down by a knee jammed into my pelvis. I squirm, trying to throw him off, but with his weight on me, all I can do is flail. His fist comes down hard against my cheekbone and I cry out, which makes him so happy he bends his face close to mine. “This is where I beat you,” he hisses. “This is where you lose the race.”

  His voice startles me with its familiarity, and all at once I stop trying to shove him away and just stare into his face. His suddenly familiar face. Since I remembered Renya, so many memories have been surging back. Not painfully like they did at first, when they came on with a wave of memory sickness, but more like pictures on a screen that’s suddenly come into focus. Or, like now, the past comes back as images spinning in my brain like a wheel, until all at once the wheel stops, and one image sharpens, grows clearer, until I recognize who the ginger-haired racer is.

  “It’s you,” I say, and his face flinches. He’s as muddled by the sight of me as I am by the sight of him.

  From up close, I can see that his lashes and eyebrows are the same copper red as his hair, framing eyes of a scalding emerald green. “Astrid . . . ,” he says to himself. Then to me, “You’re that Astrid. . . .” His fists relax, and his weight shifts, as if he’s trying to take me in.

  His confusion is like a door in a wall, and I grab this chance to kick it in. His eyes go wide, but that’s the only reaction he manages before I throw him off me and struggle to my feet.

  By the time he gets back up, I’m ready, reaching out with my Cientia, waiting for his intended move. But all I feel in him is a churn of emotio
ns: resentment, frustration . . . even hatred.

  “We met in Queen Rosamond Square, a day before the Apple Carnival,” I say. The memory comes back to me on an endless loop, a few seconds of my life repeating over and over: this ginger-haired racer scowling because I just told him no. “You asked me to help the OLA,” I say.

  “I asked you to help your brother. To help the cause of all Outsiders, but you were too selfish—”

  “I told you I couldn’t.” I remember now. . . . I not only suspected that Jayden was with the OLA . . . I knew he was. This racer had approached me and told me as much. He’d asked me to help them.

  I refused, but not for the reason he thinks. Ever since I’d figured out that Jayden was in the OLA, I’d wanted to help, too. But right before this racer approached me, Renya had finally convinced her father to give Papa the royal order so he could get medical treatment. Once that happened, I couldn’t take the risk of being caught working for the OLA. My father’s royal order could have been rescinded at any time. I had to stay on the royals’ good side. My father’s life depended on it.

  “I remember all of it now,” my opponent says. And that’s when I feel it. His intention shifts. This time, when his fist flies at my face, I’m ready for it. I block his punch with my forearm. Still, he’s strong—a lot stronger than me—and I reel back from the force of the blow. My arm aches from the impact.

  His foot flies at me next, but I dodge out of the way, and while he’s still off balance, I use whatever strength I have left in me to jump into a kick that puts him on the ground. A memory comes to me just then, a memory of training with the princess. I remember the first time I knocked her down as we practiced, and how satisfying it was.

  But this racer is a better fighter than the princess. His reactions are quicker, and as he’s falling from my kick, he knocks my legs out from under me and takes me down with him. I land hard on my shoulder, and it throbs so bad it makes me forget my forearm. I’m aching and I’m dirty and I just want to stay down, but I can’t give up now. I climb back up and get ready, and when he rises up on his knees I plant my foot in his ribs. He hits the ground again, and when he lifts his head, dirt cakes to a bloody gash on his chin.

  Still, I’m bleeding too. His blood doesn’t mean I’m winning.

  “I hated you when you refused to help us,” he grunts. He manages to stagger back to his feet, but he’s unsteady. “You joined the race in spite of your brother. In spite of how much he adored you and wanted you to join the OLA—his sister with magic. Magic, like the hated Enchanteds. And yet he’s always raved about you. Always bragged. She’s special, he would say.”

  He throws a punch, and I’m shocked when I block it. His story has me so off balance. But I sharpen my Cientia and try to tune him out.

  “She’s loyal to the royals, I told him. Loyal to them, even when they haven’t been loyal to her!” He’s wrong, of course, but I don’t owe him an explanation. “More loyal than even Renya,” he adds. He takes a hard swing at my jaw. I duck, but he connects with the top of my head.

  I’m trying to concentrate, to shut down my mind except for my Cientia, but all I can think is He just called her Renya. . . . He didn’t say Princess Renya or even the princess. He called her by her first name.

  Could this be the boy Renya was seen with? The boy who wrote her those letters?

  There are clouds in his eyes. He’s awash in the same burnt-hair-scented astonishment as me, and I can only imagine he’s fitting the past together the same as I am. Like trying to grab puzzle pieces out of a tornado.

  “When I heard you’d joined this race,” he says, grunting with the effort of another swing, which I block, “I knew I couldn’t let you win it—some spoiled, Enchanteds-loving girl who turns away her own brother when he asks for help. A girl who promises to give a message to the princess, but never does.”

  For a moment, I’m distracted by this last part—What message did I promise to give to Renya?—but then he realizes I’m distracted, and he sees an opportunity. His foot sweeps up and kicks me hard in the ribs, and I fold and crumple to the ground. He kicks me again, this time in the head, and my ears ring like I’m inside a bell. But I still hear his words: “I chose not to tell Jayden you’d entered in the race, because unlike him, I realized the race could be an opportunity. A chance to gain citizenship and use it to help the OLA,” he says, his foot landing in my ribs once more. “All while keeping you from the victory. I vowed I would beat you,” he seethes, with one final kick for good measure. “And now I have.”

  I’m facedown in the dirt, but I feel him take the gun from the place where it fell, pinned underneath my left arm. I wonder if he’ll shoot me. I suppose he will.

  But if he considers it, he decides against it. I must appear too beaten to pose a threat. Or maybe he just can’t bring himself to kill Jayden’s sister. His footsteps head in the direction of the mine before they fade away.

  It takes all my strength to lift my head, but I do. Maybe it’s because I can’t accept the loss. Maybe it’s because it hurts just as much to lie here on this jagged and uneven ground as it does to get up. Or maybe it’s because the thought of Darius coming along and finding me like this is more painful than the throbbing in my ribs or the aching in my shoulder. I use all this to motivate me, to drive me to lift my head just high enough to watch the ginger-haired racer leave, and as I do, I notice that he’s limping.

  He’s injured. He didn’t come through that fight as well as he’d like me to believe.

  I watch him as he slows, from a brisk run to a staggering run, until he’s hardly running at all. And my heart beats in my chest like a bird desperate to break out of her cage. Because I realize that what I do in the next few moments could decide my entire race. Getting up now will be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but if I do it, I might still have a chance to overtake him.

  He’s at the top of a long, gentle incline. He’s had it easy for a while, but now he’s got to start scrambling up and over boulders again. But as hard as the path in front of him is, the mouth of the mine is terribly close.

  I will myself up. I force my legs to move again. He doesn’t know I’m following, and that gives me an edge. In his mind, I’m back in the dirt. In his mind, he can afford to take his time and be careful.

  My legs throb. Blood runs down my right shin from my knee. Everything hurts. But I’ve suffered before. Suffered when there was nothing to be had for it except simple survival. But there’s more at stake today than surviving until tomorrow. I will change my tomorrows with what I do today. With what I do right now.

  My pace quickens. Every part of me aches, every cell of my body whispers quit, but I refuse to listen. My will is stronger than that. I push myself, and I gain on the ginger-haired racer. I’ve crossed the gentle incline and reached the place where I need to climb again, when my foot sends a rock tumbling and my nemesis looks back.

  I keep climbing, but then he raises the gun in my direction.

  For the space of a heartbeat I freeze, but then I defend myself the only way I can think of. I stand my ground, raise my hands, and close my eyes.

  The match lights behind my eyelids.

  A gunshot rings out.

  I huff out a breath, the match goes out, and I hear the ginger-haired racer cry out in pain.

  I open my eyes, and my legs buckle. Blood pours from a wound just below my right knee.

  On the rocky slope above me, the ginger-haired racer drops to the ground and rolls back downhill, falling over a rock ledge like a rag doll. He doesn’t stir after that. I wonder if he’s out cold, but I don’t have time to check. I need to move.

  Maybe a hundred yards away, the entrance to the mine looms, and it’s such a welcome sight I almost cry, even though it’s all uphill from here. I try to pull myself up, but my shoulder is aching and my right leg won’t hold my weight. My head swims and I collapse to the ground, not an inch closer than I was before I tried.

  It doesn’t matter. If I have to, I’ll cra
wl to the mine from here.

  I pull myself forward, my gaze latched onto the dark recess of the cave’s mouth, when two armed men emerge from out of its shadows.

  Two King’s Knights.

  I’m strangely relieved that I’m too hurt to stand. If I weren’t so beat up, I’d have been standing and they would have seen me, but instead, I’m so dirty and broken, I blend right in with the rocks.

  Lucky me.

  They tip their heads, listening. Nothing sounds like a gunshot. Maybe they heard the other racer shoot at me. Their eyes sweep the landscape, but they look out, toward the horizon. Neither of them seems to suspect that anyone could be close by.

  I stay down, hidden somewhat by a low ledge of rock, and a third man emerges from the entrance to the mine. There, his dark blond hair shining, his clothes as perfect as if he had never walked a single step through the Black Desert or the Wilds, stands Prince Lars.

  These circumstances allow me only one option: to stay low, to wait for them to relax, to wait for them to turn and head back into the mine. The evening light has retreated, and stars are beginning to fill the sky. When at last they all go back inside and I’m sure they can’t see me, I crawl forward. Rocks dig into my palms and knees. Gravel sticks to my bloody skin. Eventually, I find the gun where the ginger-haired racer dropped it.

  I rise up on my one good knee, plant the gun, and let out a low, painful groan as I drag myself up. One sliding step, then another, using the gun as my walking stick, I hobble toward the mine. One-fourth of the distance. One-half. Three-quarters, and my right knee won’t hold me anymore. If it were just pain, I’d push through it—I’ve got lots of experience on my side—but the leg is shaking and I know it’s played out.

  I said I would crawl, and I will.

  The blood on my hands slicks the ground. The point of each rock makes itself known. But I won’t give up.

  A memory forms in my aching head, as bright and as illuminating as a sunrise. I’m in my family’s apartment standing at the sink, and my father and brothers are at the table behind me. Marlon is there, and Jayden too, and Papa, dishing out his best advice to get me through a storm that has just started.