The Immortal Walker

by McKellon Meyer

Kaislyn smirked. “That’s all right. I forgive you for pointing him out to me in the first place.”

  “Pointing...” Nisken rounded on Zarif. “This is completely inappropriate as the queen’s royal captain!”

  Zarif’s face was one of the blankest Kaislyn had ever seen. He remained silent, which was far more vocal than either Nisken or Kaislyn’s words so far.

  “Darling, this really isn’t any of your business, now is it?”

  Nisken ran another hand through his hair. “What are your parents going to say when they find out?”

  “I really have no idea what Drazan will do, but my mother knows and she doesn’t mind.”

  “She wouldn’t!” Nisken snapped. “Sveka’s always had an extraordinarily lenient attitude toward anything you choose to do.”

  Kaislyn blinked at this very different view of her mother’s parenting style. She wondered for the first time if Nisken knew about her and Ikaros too. Was that what Sveka meant earlier?

  “I was nice at the gates this time,” she volunteered. It was time to change the subject. “I didn’t cheat or anything.” She caught the slight glimmer in Zarif’s eyes at that.

  “I don’t know why I bother trying with you. You’re more troublesome than Drazan and Sveka put together.”

  “I do my best,” Kaislyn murmured.

  “Huh.” He looked between them again and shook his head. “Why do I bother?” he repeated to himself. “Dinner was supposed to be half an hour ago. You might as well as come along the way you are.”

  Kaislyn reluctantly left her place next to Zarif and followed Nisken from the courtyard. Zarif walked behind her.

  “I’m still waiting for my apology,” Nisken said, breaking the awkward silence. “I heard something about the truth this time?”

  So their last meeting was still fresh in his mind after all. “I’m waiting for mine too. You’re the one who banished me.”

  “And yet you are here, safe and undisturbed. I’d say that’s apology enough,” Nisken retorted.

  She had to admit it was. “I’m going along with you to see Raina. That will have to do for my apology.” The truth would come after that.

  Nisken glowered at her, but he let the matter drop.

  The dining hall was small only by palace standards. Two dozen people could easily fit around the table set near the far wall. There was plenty of room left for mingling. Opposite the table was a throne, an ornate chair on a raised dais draped in colorful tapestries.

  Kaislyn’s hands shook. This wasn’t any different than Ikaros. This wasn’t any different. Breathing was difficult. She wasn’t sure if that was from one of her deaths or merely nerves now.

  The phoenix perched on its own pedestal beside the empty throne chair. Why did it always have the same expectant expression on its face? She looked from the bird to the woman chatting amiably with her parents near the dais.

  Not an especially tall person, she was still taller than Kaislyn. A heavily embroidered cream and brown gown hung from her slender figure. She wore no jewelry except a gold pin that kept brown hair pulled away from a narrow face. Her eyes were as black as the phoenix behind her. There were creases around her eyes and mouth. She reminded Kaislyn uncomfortably of Athalia.

  Kaislyn jerked to a stop. Zarif halted behind her, a large, comforting mass. Or was he making sure she didn’t bolt?

  “Well, I found her,” Nisken announced. “And she was not beating up on the guards, Drazan.”

  Kaislyn’s face turned bright red. No, far from it...

  Nisken continued across the room and dropped a kiss on the woman’s head before holding a hand expectantly out to Drazan. Grumbling, Drazan deposited a coin into it.

  “Honestly, Drazan,” the woman said, voice light and amused, “when will you learn that Nisken never loses?”

  “It’ll happen eventually,” Drazan replied with a shrug and a grin. “I can be patient until then.”

  Kaislyn swallowed an outraged protest as, transaction finished, she found everyone’s attention turned to her.

  “You don’t need to hide by the door,” the woman began as her black gaze flicked curiously over Kaislyn. It froze on her face.

  Kaislyn watched the Phoenix Queen’s face drain of color. She felt her own matching it. This was quite different from dethroning Ikaros. This was...

  Embarrassing?

  Exactly.

  The silence in the room intensified as they stared at each other.

  Zarif shifted uneasily behind Kaislyn. Drazan frowned, puzzled. Nisken’s own smile faded as he glanced between Kaislyn and the rigid queen. Sveka folded her arms and tapped a booted foot, her own gaze fixed warningly on Kaislyn.

  The queen’s eyes narrowed and a pressure grew behind Kaislyn’s eyes before sliding uselessly away. The familiarity of the action provoked Kaislyn into speaking first. She arched sarcastic eyebrows at the queen.

  “You’re just going to take my secrets from my mind without asking first? Darling, I’m so disappointed. Even Ikaros had the decency to accuse me of treason first.” She wished she could bite her tongue off.

  The queen stiffened.

  “Damn, Kaislyn,” Zarif muttered as Drazan and Nisken stared at her with identical expressions of astonishment.

  Well, that’s done it, girl. So much for not babbling.

  “Kaislyn!” Sveka’s voice cracked across the room. “I don’t care how you behave around other people, but you will be polite here and now.”

  Kaislyn darted a look at her mother. Her face was tight with suppressed anger. She ducked her head.

  The phoenix shifted on its perch and the queen turned to it.

  After a moment the queen spoke, her voice carefully neutral. “So this is your daughter, Drazan?”

  “Of course,” Drazan said and Kaislyn flinched against the pride in his voice. “Who else could be so rude?”

  The queen folded her arms and unfolded them. Took a step to the side, shook her head slightly, and grew still again.

  “And your name is Kaislyn?” The question was directed at Kaislyn.

  How could a room grow even quieter? “Yes.” Her voice came out hoarsely. She didn’t think it was due to her sore throat.

  “And if I said you were a liar?”

  Even Nisken flinched at the queen’s tone.

  Kaislyn spread her hands to the side. “I usually lie.”

  The queen pointed at the floor. “Do a flip.”

  “A... flip?”

  “Frontwards or backwards. I’d like to see a series of them.”

  Kaislyn met the black gaze of a furious, and confused, Phoenix Queen. “You know perfectly well, Raina, that I have never been very good at those,” she said quietly.

  “Now,” Raina ordered.

  Kaislyn bowed, every inch of her sarcastic. “Yes, Your Majesty. Looks like you get to see me fall on my face, Captain,” she drawled as she turned and took a step past Zarif.

  “You do that a lot,” Zarif replied, eyes crinkling for the briefest moment.

  Kaislyn would have smiled if she wasn’t still so nervous. She took another few practice steps back and darted forward into the ordered flips. As usually happened, her back gave out. She still wasn’t sure which death caused it. She stumbled after the first flip and broke off partway through the second one as she landed on her knees awkwardly.

  The phoenix left its perch, swooping past Kaislyn. She ducked from its outspread wings.

  Kaislyn scowled at Raina. “Happy now? My back is going to hurt for days.”

  Everyone stared at her. She wished she was getting her head cut off again instead of this.

  Raina broke the silence first. “I should like to have a chat with Kaislyn. The rest of you can have dinner without us.” The queen turned and stalked from the room. The phoenix ghosted behind her.

  Kaislyn lurched to her feet. She avoided eye contact with everyone else as she followed after the vanished queen.

  Easier than Ikaros? Ha! No wonder the Dead liked Raina so much. The
Phoenix Queen was just like her grandmother.

  2 | Confessions

  Kaislyn caught up with Raina in an airy, open room with another courtyard garden beyond. Silk curtains floated in the doorways. The only furniture in the room was an even larger and gaudier pedestal which the phoenix had settled on. It watched Kaislyn.

  Raina stood next to it, arms folded tightly. “Well?”

  Kaislyn pried her jaws apart. “Well what, Your Majesty?”

  “How is it that you haven’t aged at all since I last saw you? How,” Raina’s voice hardened farther, “did you deceive Drazan and Sveka into thinking you were their daughter? What happened to their real one?”

  Kaislyn took a dizzy step back at the accusation. “What?”

  “Their daughter was born seventeen years ago. You,” she pointed at Kaislyn for emphasis, “ought to be as old as I am right now.”

  Of everything she’d expected Raina to say, being accused as an imposter was not one of them. It stung more than Kaislyn thought it could. “Look at my face! You can’t say that I don’t look like both of them. Except for being so small. And that’s because I was born too soon in the mountains. You can threaten me all you want, Raina, but I am not one of your subjects. I never have been!”

  “If you are their daughter, you certainly didn’t inherit their self-control,” said Raina.

  Was that supposed to be a joke? “Do you know how many times I wished for any other set of parents but them?”

  “Do you know how many times you’ve caused them grief by running away? Did you think I didn’t notice that you vanished every time you were supposed to stay with Nisken and me? I haven’t seen you since you were a small child.”

  “Having seen me now, can you blame me?” Kaislyn demanded.

  “I detest being deceived and I hate surprises even more.”

  “You shouldn’t be surprised,” Kaislyn retorted. “No one should be! I’m Sveka’s daughter and she’s the Last Snake Tamer. Did none of you think it odd that the “last” person had a child?” Kaislyn started pacing. The room was too confining for her pent up nerves and simmering anger. Anger that she was somehow in the wrong here. She made a rapid circle of the room.

  Raina tilted her head, considering her. “And what happens when the Last Snake Tamer has a daughter, Kaislyn?”

  Kaislyn did another circle. “I happen. My mother might have inherited the symbol of the Serpent House, but I got the immortal part. Just like Ikaros. You need the mountains as an... anchor, but from there you can move yourself to different years. Shift around. As long as we’re not in our traditional birth life, we can’t die. I didn’t know any of this when I first met Ikaros. He explained it to me and helped me.” Kaislyn’s lips twisted at the startled look on Raina’s face. “Oh, yes, Raina. He helped me. Just like he wanted to help you. He tricked me and sold me into slavery when I was eight.”

  “Why did he take such an interest in you?”

  Because I took his cities from him.

  Kaislyn’s pace increased. “Ikaros hates me. He wants the Serpent House all to himself, just likes he wants your cities. It enrages him that I can do the same things he can.” A flicker of a smile crossed her face. She could do some of it better than him. “Because I am the only person who threatens and mocks him and he can’t do anything about it.”

  She didn’t look at Raina as she said this. She wasn’t lying to the queen, just avoiding the more immediate reasons Ikaros hated her. She resisted the urge to run a hand over the scar on her neck. She was anxious to move away from a discussion of her relationship with the Sorcerer.

  “I went from being a happy eight-year-old during your rule to a confused eight-year-old before the Second Bloody Year. Do you know how frightening it is, how hard it is to live a new life when the one you’re used to doesn’t exist? Do you know what it’s like to be thrust into a world that doesn’t make any sense?”

  “Only a little,” Raina said with such dryness that Kaislyn paused in her pacing. “I was a slave since a young child, Kaislyn. I suffered from memories of a vanished life. You were hardly alone.”

  “Alone?” Kaislyn spat, her anger rising instantly. “Oh, I was alone all right! You didn’t know who you were! How could I tell you who I was? You would think I was as insane as Ikaros, not that you even knew who he was. I escaped eventually. No thanks to you or anyone else.”

  Girl, don’t let the Dead hear that version.

  Shut up!

  Raina unfolded her arms and tapped fingers against the rail of the pedestal. “If you had dealings with the Sorcerer why didn’t you go to Hezere for help? He would have understood even if I... wasn’t ready to.” Her lips pursed together in disgust, seemingly in critique of her own past self.

  “Hezere!” Kaislyn spun in violent circle, as if expecting to see him looming behind one of the transparent silk curtains. “Him?”

  Raina’s open astonishment at Kaislyn’s reaction goaded her further. “You all think the world of him, don’t you? The noble, silent suffering Captain who did anything and everything to keep the lost princess safe and restore her to the throne! You must be kept safe at all cost! And did my silence win any trust or favors from him when he found you? No! He decided I was a threat!”

  “Are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Are you a threat?” said Raina.

  Kaislyn opened and closed her mouth a few times. Her speech before Ikaros and the crowds in the Second City echoed through her mind. ‘I decide who rules in these Five Cities! The Demon King fears me. The Sorcerer runs from me.’ And then Athalia’s words to her earlier: ‘It is every phoenix ruler who should be afraid of you, Kaislyn.’

  “I don’t know,” Kaislyn said.

  Raina ran a finger along the phoenix’s back. Its eyes half closed in delight. “At least you’re somewhat honest. Given Drazan’s views about the truth, I suppose it’s unreasonable to expect more from you than I do of him.”

  Kaislyn blinked at this unexpected acceptance of her silence.

  “Why did you hide from me until now? Why continue your secret?”

  Kaislyn ran a hand through her short hair. “I met Ikaros when I was eight. He lured me to the Fourth City during Tecwyn’s rule where I ended up as a slave girl with you. Seven years later Hezere comes for you and I escape to the mountains. Returning home was an unpleasant shock as I once more appeared to be a child but had the experiences and years of a sixteen-year-old slave girl. That time before the Second Bloody Year had all happened over eight years ago for you and my parents. For me, it was mere weeks. What would you do? Would you dare meet a Phoenix Queen so soon? Would you dare to meet anyone after that? I did the only thing I could. I escaped. Over and over again. You might think it was running away. My parents and Nisken always called it running away. I just wanted to preserve my own sanity. Not that there’s much of it left.”

  Girl, that’s unfortunately true.

  “Ikaros has the aging thing down,” Kaislyn said, half to herself. “He should be a decrepitly old, blind man by now, but I’ve only caught him near that point once or twice. It has to do with Shifting. If I Shift to an old marker, I revert back to the age I was when I first created that marker. I have hundreds of markers made when I was seventeen. Or appear to be seventeen. So I keep bouncing back to that age. I’ve lost track of how long I’ve actually lived. I think it must be somewhere in the twenties or thirties.”

  She did a few more circles of the room. “Kaislyn is my middle name. I forbade my parents from ever calling me...” even now she couldn’t say it, “calling me by my given name. I couldn’t endure it afterwards. Surely you know what a name change is like,” she added sarcastically.

  Raina’s eyes narrowed. “Be careful, Kaislyn. You’re treading on dangerous ground now.”

  “Dangerous?” Kaislyn laughed. “I got pushed off a mountain and a waterfall by Ikaros! I’m not afraid of anyone!”

  “Then why were you so terrified to see me just now?” Raina asked quietly.
>
  Kaislyn felt like she’d crashed into a wall. She stopped pacing, took a staggering step backwards. Terrified? Yes, very. She hadn’t realized that until Raina’s question. She watched a pale red curtain undulate in the warm breeze. Red. Blood.

  “Because I’m in my own birth life right now. My record with a phoenix ruler isn’t very... tidy and I’ve always had the security of being immortal to fall back on. I’m not now. You could decide to kill me and that would be it. No laughing it off.”

  The Phoenix Queen didn’t answer. When Kaislyn dared to glanced at her, it was to see her looking pityingly at Kaislyn.

  “You’ve lived so much as an immortal that the natural human fear of consequence and death has you paralyzed.”

  Had Ikaros influenced her more than she’d realized? She thought of all the time she’d spent with him. Two bored immortals keeping track of petty bets and petty deaths. Two immortals locked in an endless, open hatred of each other, killing each other as painfully as possible because they could? Because they were trapped with each other forever? Had she spent so much time with him that she too had become afraid of dying when it was, in all reality, a choice for her?

  “Will you explain the significance of these trinkets to me?”

  Blinking, Kaislyn yanked her thoughts away from their unhappy tracks and focused back on Raina. She’d uncurled her hand to reveal Kaislyn’s necklace. She must have lost it in her attempted flips.

  “Not much meaning to anyone but me.” Here, she was safer. “The rock is a raw diamond. I, er, stole it in the Third City from Nisken.” Did that make it better or worse? “Sveka missed it when she searched me for the rest of the diamonds I stole.”

  “A valuable prize then.”

  “The earring came from Ikaros.”

  Raina’s eyebrows arched. “He gave you a gift?”

  “Well... it was still attached his ear at the time,” Kaislyn allowed.

  Raina’s face stayed grave. “I see.” She handed the necklace back, and Kaislyn slipped it over her head, glad to have the slight weight of her charms back. “Did you know, Kaislyn, that as possessor of the phoenix, I’m privileged to the memories of the phoenix? To her past dealings with other phoenix queens?”