The Heartwood Crown

by Matt Mikalatos

  Shadow shifted in Bezaed’s grip. The warrior tightened his arm, and the Scim boy stopped struggling.

  “You’re gonna regret trying to hurt Wu Song,” Shadow said, his voice fierce.

  Bezaed laughed. “I’ve never regretted killing a suitor of my sister’s.” He scowled at Jason. “Let alone one who isn’t even Kakri. It is not right to mingle the blood of the desert people with such weak stock.”

  Jason cleared his throat. “What if I promise we won’t mingle our blood? To be honest, I am not great with blood. I get light headed.”

  “I spoke to our grandmother after your betrothal, when you and Baileya first fled into the desert. I told her I did not approve of a Kakri warrior marrying a human. I told her I would never accept you, but she said that you are my brother now. If I wish to prevent it, I may do as the Kakri have done for generations: kill my sister’s suitor. I tell you this, brother, I will not fail in this endeavor.”

  It was a weird thing about the Kakri. Instead of “speak now or forever hold your peace,” it was “you have a year to kill your sister’s fiancé.” Jason wasn’t a fan of this particular cultural institution. “Remind me to thank your grandma at the wedding.”

  “You can thank her yourself,” Bezaed said. “I have decided to bring you home to her before I kill you. It will please me to spill your human blood in the presence of the council. It will serve as a warning to the other Kakri not to seek marriage among the humans. I could kill you now, but instead you will join me beyond the Tolmin Pass, to die among my people.”

  “That makes sense,” Jason said. “You did seem sort of slow at killing. I figured I had five, maybe ten, seconds once we got in the wardrobe.”

  Bezaed scowled, his knife biting into Shadow’s cheek. “But how to keep this boy silent after we leave?”

  Jason’s eyes met Shadow’s, and he knew what was about to happen. The boy had opened his mouth wide, the sharp yellow teeth and too-large tusks fully extended. He had seen Shadow take chunks out of his siblings’ thick hides. The kid liked to bite.

  Delightful Glitter Lady let out a plaintive whine.

  “Oh, hey! Is that mewling?”

  Shadow’s vice-like jaw clamped shut over Bezaed’s forearm. His sharp teeth sliced easily into Bezaed’s flesh, and the Kakri warrior hissed and dropped his knife.

  Jason threw his back against the wardrobe door, planted his feet firmly on the wooden wall opposite, and pushed as hard as he could. The doors burst open, and they exploded from the wardrobe in a tangle of arms and legs. Delightful Glitter Lady rolled out of Jason’s pocket and slid across the floor. Shadow grabbed the knife before Bezaed could and skittered out of reach, grinning. Bezaed jumped to his feet, another knife already in his hand, grabbed from somewhere in his loose shirt.

  Jason fell on his back. He didn’t roll away or jump to his feet or grab a weapon or produce another one or do anything useful, really. Doing useful things was not his strength. On the other hand, all the stumbling, smashing, crashing, and rolling had made enough noise that the other kids were running from the other floors toward this room. Their shouts and stomping feet echoed through the hall.

  “Think you can fight six of us?” Jason asked, glaring at Bezaed from his prone position, half in the wardrobe and half on the floor.

  Bezaed gave him a cool glance, as if it was a stupid question. “Of course. Though I would prefer not to kill your companions.”

  “I’ll roast your liver!” Shadow shouted.

  Jason got to his feet. “What is it with you and livers, Shadow? There are so many other body parts—don’t get hung up on using one as your go-to threat.”

  Nightfall and Eclipse came skidding into the room. They both stopped at the sight of their brother, knife in hand, and the Kakri warrior standing between him and Jason.

  “What is going on here?” Nightfall asked.

  “Jason made someone else want to kill him,” Shadow said.

  “Hey!” Jason said. “That’s not true. This guy is from my original list.”

  Faster than Jason could blink, Bezaed leapt behind him and wrapped his left arm around Jason’s neck, the knife in his right. The blade touched Jason’s throat, pressed firmly enough that he could feel his own pulse. Bezaed dragged him backward. Jason grabbed hold of the wardrobe’s edge with one hand, the other drifting to his pocket.

  “Come no closer,” Bezaed hissed, and the three children paused.

  “He won’t kill Jason here,” Shadow said. “Wants to take him back to Kakri territory. Said so himself.”

  Bezaed’s grip tightened. “I will kill him here if I have to. It is not my preference. I will be angry.”

  “You’ll be angry?” Jason choked. “Hey, lighten up with the choking.” Jason made a strangled cry as Bezaed’s grip tightened again. Jason managed to choke out, “Dee!”

  Delightful Glitter Lady had somehow ended up under a dust cloth. She burst out from under the sheet, her ears perked toward Jason. Her tiny black eyes found Bezaed. She saw him choking Jason and let loose the sort of sound that only an enraged kitten-sized rhinoceros can make: a tiny, high-pitched trumpeting. Her feet pattered across the half-rotten floor toward Jason and Bezaed.

  “This,” Jason choked out, “this is gonna hurt.”

  Bezaed laughed. “You are a lunatic, brother. That little thing—”

  Jason’s hand had reached, at last, the embiggenator he carried in his pocket. A small device, the embiggenator was a box with a red shell set in the center. Turned to the left, it could make Dee small as a kitten. Turned all the way to the right, it made her “magic war rhino” size—bigger than an elephant. He turned it as far to the right as he could.

  As she ran, Dee grew larger. The size of a Labrador, then a horse, then a van. Bezaed, shocked, dropped Jason and got into a fighting stance. Jason rolled to the side.

  Delightful Glitter Lady lowered her horn, then hit Bezaed like a locomotive hitting a watermelon. She didn’t slow a little even after she made contact. The Kakri warrior was spread across her face like a bug on a windshield. She kept running, bursting through the wardrobe and turning it to kindling, then smashing through all the other furniture and eventually into the wall, which burst into splinters.

  She managed to stop then, her head and shoulders outside the house. Her tail swung happily, and she backed up, snorted, and turned to face Jason, a goofy grin on her face. Bezaed was gone.

  “Good girl!” Jason said, his voice warm with affection.

  “You better shrink her,” Eclipse said. “Quick!”

  “Why?” Jason asked. The house answered with heavy groaning. The floor beneath Dee was buckling, her feet practically sinking into the wood. Jason’s hand slipped on the embiggenator. Panicked, he yanked it from his pocket and turned the dial to the left, just as the floor gave way and Dee crashed through it in a shower of wood and tiles. A cloud of dust rose from the hole where Dee had been standing.

  “Dee!” he shouted and ran to the edge.

  He peered over the side, the jagged, unstable planks complaining under his weight. Delightful Glitter Lady was two stories down, on the ground floor, kitten sized again, and covered in dust. She shook herself twice, sneezed, and looked back up at Jason. She squeaked, and a small puff of dust rose up around her.

  The three Scim kids rushed past Jason to the hole in the side of the house. They hung out, pushing each other to get the best view. Nightfall whistled. “Great job, Wu Song!”

  “For a human,” Eclipse admitted reluctantly.

  Shadow snorted. “What did Wu Song do? I bit the Kakri, and Dee knocked him through the wall. Wu Song just turned a dial.”

  The other two children nodded solemnly. “That’s true.”

  Jason wedged himself in the middle of them, straining to get his own view. Bezaed lay on his back, surrounded by plaster and shards of wood. His arm twitched, and he rolled to his side. Jason relaxed. “Whew. He’s still alive.”

  Shadow shook his head in disgust. “You are a terrible
Scim, Wu Song.”

  “That’s Baileya’s brother. Wouldn’t it be weird if I killed him?”

  All three Scim shook their heads, but Jason didn’t care. Sure, the Kakri had the whole “kill the fiancé” tradition, but he had to imagine it got weird at Thanksgiving if the fiancé managed to kill one of the siblings instead. Not that the Kakri celebrated Thanksgiving. Whatever.

  “Children,” Break Bones called. He stood at the entrance to the room, his massive stone ax in hand. “Report,” he said, and Shadow told him in quick, succinct sentences all that had taken place. Break Bones crossed to them and glanced out the newly ventilated wall. Bezaed was on his hands and knees now, shaking his head. He stood, unsteady but determined.

  “Take Wu Song to Baileya,” Break Bones said. “When you find her, leave Wu Song in her care and return. If I come to you, all the better. If the Kakri comes instead, kill him.”

  The Scim children nodded. Eclipse grabbed Jason’s hand and yanked him toward the door. “Wait a second,” Jason said.

  Break Bones didn’t answer, just gave Jason a rough shove toward the door. He studied the ground outside for a moment, then jumped, his right hand still brandishing his stone ax.

  Jason stuck his head out the hole. “Break Bones, don’t kill my brother-in-law!”

  “You’re not married to Baileya,” Eclipse said.

  “Yeah, well, ‘brother-in-law-to-be’ is so long.”

  “You forgive too easily,” Nightfall said, racing down the stairwell ahead of them.

  “He tried to kill you,” Eclipse reminded him.

  “Well. Not very hard,” Jason said. He didn’t forgive too easily either. His stomach turned at the thought of forgiving his parents. If they hadn’t pushed him and Jenny, his sister, in the particular way that they had, if they hadn’t tied him up in knots so he was afraid to tell the truth about where she had gone the night she died, she might still be alive. And then to blame him! His father giving him the silent treatment, his mother walking through the house, trying to pretend nothing was wrong. Sure, Bezaed had tried to kill him, but at least he seemed to like Jason. A little. Which was more than he could say for his parents.

  “I will find us some weapons,” Nightfall said. “You two take Wu Song as far and as fast as you can.”

  “But Wu Song is so slow,” Eclipse said mournfully.

  “So don’t hesitate. I’ll catch up to you with the weapons.” Nightfall split away from them with a quick wave, and the other two kids moved in front of Jason, each of them ahead and to one side of him. As they hit the ground floor, Dee came trotting over to them, and Jason scooped her into his arms.

  “Better put Dee to war rhino size,” Shadow said. “Maybe we’ll be faster, right, Eclipse?”

  “Oh no.” Jason checked his pockets, shifting Dee from arm to arm. He had forgotten the embiggenator in his hurry to check on Dee and then look out at Bezaed.

  Eclipse grimaced. “If only Wu Song wasn’t so slow! No, we have to hope that Nightfall remembers it while he’s gathering the weapons.”

  “Hey, that’s the only magic I have besides my pudding bracelet! We can’t just leave it.”

  “Where did you drop it?” Eclipse said.

  “On the floor. I think.”

  “Did it fall through when Dee broke the floor?”

  Jason stopped. It could have. The sounds of shouts and the clang of metal on stone came from the other side of the house—Bezaed and Break Bones fighting. “We have to look,” he said.

  Eclipse shook her head. “It’s not safe here, and we have our orders. What if some of Baileya’s other brothers are here somewhere? We have to find her so you’ll be safe and we can find a new place to hide.”

  Shadow patted Jason’s hand gently. “Me and Eclipse will come look for it later, if it’s safe.”

  Jason looked back at the dilapidated mansion, with its rotting roof and peeled paint. The front door didn’t hang straight, and the face of the house sagged inward a bit. It had been a fine house, once, the estate of a powerful Scim family—Night’s Breath’s family. Jason had come here hoping to make peace with his past, and the fact that Night’s Breath had died so he could live. But Night’s Breath’s mother had rejected his apologies and his overtures of friendship. This house was a connection to a past in which the Scim were noble, wealthy, and powerful. But that time had passed, and what remained was only enough to serve as a painful reminder of the injustices heaped upon this family over the decades.

  Eclipse tugged on his hand. “Wu Song, we must run.”

  Run. He knew how to do that. Baileya told him often: run if you can, hide if you must, fight if there is no other option. She had started him on a daily regimen of running to increase his speed and stamina.

  “Let’s go,” Jason said, and the three of them set off, away from the forlorn house, away from Break Bones and Bezaed and their battle, and toward Baileya.

  4

  THE PRIEST

  Age and experience had given her wisdom.

  FROM “JELDA’S REVENGE,” A SCIM LEGEND

  Shula was not given to fast friendships. Not anymore. She wasn’t quick to bring people into her orbit. Madeline had been a notable exception. When Mrs. Raymond had brought the American girl into her room in the Sunlit Lands, Shula had been taken with her naiveté, her open heart, and the speed with which she trusted others. It had set off a desire to protect Madeline, a desire which Shula found simultaneously annoying and impossible to ignore. She so often had this impulse to protect people around her, even though she knew it was futile. Every new friendship, every loving relationship, every vulnerability was a guarantee of future pain. It could be predicted, measured, assured. Every new friend would leave you in time. A new relationship would end in distance or death. Vulnerability meant pain. This was merely the way the world worked, as predictable as winding a clock caused its hands to spring to life.

  After leaving Syria, Shula had decided she was done with friendships. She had lost her family and had no desire to replace them. But Madeline had somehow found her way into Shula’s heart. And now Shula felt, if she was honest, that she had been tricked. There had been no evidence Madeline was sick when they met, no way to know that she was not only sick but dying. Another dead loved one. Shula didn’t know why this should surprise her, as every person she had ever loved had ended up dead. Her one bright spot of hope was Yenil. She was so young and strong. Yenil could be the one to outlast Shula if anyone could. Still, she found herself trying to hold back from the girl, struggling to keep Yenil out of the space reserved in her heart for a sister or daughter or even cousin. She tried to think of her as a neighbor kid, the one you babysit and see on the street when you go to buy bread.

  She failed at this. Shula’s instinct was to adopt Yenil, to treat her like part of the family. This morning, as Yenil got ready for school and sat at the breakfast counter eating the warm oatmeal spooned out by Sofía, Shula brushed Yenil’s long, black hair. Yenil had been in school for three weeks now, and though she came home each day exhausted from speaking English and running with the children, it seemed she found the regularity of it soothing and that she may even have begun to make some friends. Shula could not help but think of her own family in Syria once upon a time, getting ready for school and work together. This hair brushing was a good example of how Yenil was slowly making her way past Shula’s defenses. Yenil could brush her own hair, but Shula liked to stand near her, to pull the brush through her long tresses, to listen to her babble on in English or Spanish to Sofía. Yenil picked up languages with astonishing speed, and she laughed when Shula struggled to find an English word, or when she didn’t know when Yenil was peppering her speech with Scim or Spanish. Yenil had even picked up a few French words when Madeline and Shula talked together.

  Mrs. Oliver would take Yenil to school today. Mrs. Oliver had tried to get Shula to enroll in school, but Shula had told her she was eighteen and had graduated in Syria. It was a lie, but Shula could not stand the thought of leavi
ng Madeline home alone during the days. Mrs. Oliver vacillated between smothering Madeline with too much attention, and then, with a suddenness that surprised Shula, announcing that she was going out somewhere. No doubt seeing her daughter in pain caused frayed nerves and stress. Madeline found her mother’s nervous energy exhausting, and often the two of them would snap at one another. When this happened, Shula felt almost nauseous. If she could see her own mother again, she would never snap at her, never for a moment make her feel anything but loved and appreciated.

  Here, again, Yenil came to the rescue. The Scim girl provided an outlet for Mrs. Oliver’s nervous mothering energy, and Yenil accepted it with a warm gladness, cementing a relationship between her and Madeline’s mother, who she seemed to see as some sort of benevolent auntie or grandmother. Mrs. Oliver, in these last few weeks, had fallen into the rhythm of dropping Yenil at school in the morning, picking her up in the afternoon, and filling the middle of the day with other things: reading to Madeline near the window looking over the garden, going to the grocery store with Sofía, or making appointments with her friends, all depending on her mental state and how well she was coping.

  Shula wondered again about Madeline’s father. Unlike his wife, Mr. Oliver seemed to grow ever more absent. He woke before the sun and slipped out of the house and came home after Yenil had been tucked into bed. If Madeline was awake, he would kiss her on the cheek as he loosened his tie, and rummage in the kitchen for an apple or a bite of dinner. He seemed not to see Shula. His eyes slid over her as if she were a blanket thrown on the floor or a pair of shoes left on the fireplace. There was a momentary awareness that she should not be there, where she was, and then he looked away without a word of greeting or acknowledgment. As for Yenil, he behaved as if she were a ghost.

  Today was a grocery day, so Mrs. Oliver and Sofía left together with Yenil. “Do you have everything you need, dear?” Mrs. Oliver asked as she walked out the door. This was her code, her way of saying, are you okay to be alone with Madeline? Or perhaps it was her way of saying, be sure to call me if something happens. Shula assured her she would be fine, and Yenil hugged Shula tight around the waist, and they were off.