So when Darius looked at the main tower of Far Seeing through the sleet and saw that it was still damaged, he didn’t feel conflicted about it for a moment. He didn’t mourn the loss of the intricate Elenil architecture. The symbolic crescent-shaped stone which had once floated above the center of the city was still missing, and the tower itself had damage from when it fell, and Darius was glad. Proud, even. Madeline had done that. His girlfriend. Or ex-girlfriend. She had done from the inside what Darius and the Scim had been trying for months to do from the outside.
And she’d done it not through brute force but simply by refusing to participate in the Elenil system. The Elenil always set up the game so that if you didn’t play, you lost. Madeline turned that on its head by embracing her loss and calling it a triumph. The messenger birds who had heard her speech and seen her decide that she would rather die than be an oppressor had spread the news, sparking a thousand conversations among the Elenil, among the Scim, among all the people of the Sunlit Lands. And of course, it was a Scim child, Yenil, who had picked up the sword and struck a true blow to the leader of the Elenil, the archon. Darius did feel conflicted about that. After all, it was the Elenil who had made Yenil who she was: stolen her breath and murdered her parents, taught her that she had to fight to live. They had forged the weapon that cut them off from their power. But she was still a child, and Darius felt a keen sorrow that she had not only had violence done to her but had done violence herself before she was even ten years old.
Unintended consequences. The Elenil oppressed the Scim until they were desperate. So desperate that they built an army bent on destroying the Elenil.
There had been unintended consequences in following Madeline to the Sunlit Lands, too. He had arrived before her—somehow (magically) more than a year before her. By the time he found her again, he had changed. He had embraced his anger, acted on it, become harder. Not toward her. Never toward her. But back home in the “real world” he could pretend sometimes not to see how broken things were. He could set it aside for a few minutes, pretend he wasn’t angry. Now what few moments of peace he found felt dishonest. They felt undeserved, and he couldn’t figure out a way to explain this to Madeline.
He had felt a distance growing between them, a distance he had always attributed to her illness. Now he realized that it was that, yes, but it was also the fact that she didn’t notice things like how the Elenil magic worked. She had to have it spelled out for her. Even though she’d had all the pieces. And yes, once he explained it, she was rightfully horrified and had removed herself from the system. She had stood up for herself and for the Scim in a way that Darius found brilliant, attractive, exceptional. But he was tired of explaining things, just like she was tired of trying to explain to him what it felt like to be dying. So their breakup, which he had always thought of as her thing, turned out to be about both of them.
They still loved each other. She didn’t want him hanging around waiting for her to die. He didn’t want her to see him so angry all the time. The most loving thing they could give each other was space. She had asked him to stay here, to fight for the Scim people and help them find freedom from the society that had trapped them in poverty and subservience. Which he had done. Was still doing. There was a purity to this calling, a clearness to it. Now, with her blessing, he could do this not only because he was angry, not only because there was injustice, but because his love wanted it done too. Love was all mixed in with the anger and the righteous fury. So he pushed forward, seeking justice.
The Scim had a real advantage after the maiming of the archon. For the first time they had found themselves with the upper hand in battle, and the Elenil were demoralized and on the defensive. Until everything fell apart as the Elenil and Zhanin and Kakri came looking for Jason Wu. Archon Thenody had recognized, rightly, that Jason and Madeline had become public figureheads. If the archon could kill or capture Jason, the Elenil would be assured that their power had not lessened. In fact, just the archon announcing the death penalty for Jason had invigorated the Elenil. Not their human army, though. Jason had a way of making friends wherever he went, and the human soldiers who served the Elenil were conflicted. More and more, the Elenil themselves were taking to battle and leaving the humans to deal with simple security, like this guard walking around the gates of Far Seeing, checking for troublemakers in the crowd.
Darius shuffled, giving him an excuse to rearrange his sleeves to cover the chains. They chafed, and not just against his skin. The psychological toll of the shackles was heavier than he would have expected. He couldn’t stop thinking about handcuffs and his cousin Malik in the back of a police car. He couldn’t stop thinking about a slave’s chains. He didn’t like to think that he, a twenty-first-century Black man, could so easily lose his freedom—one gesture from someone else, and here he was, in chains like his ancestors. Maybe if he still had his skull mask it would be different. When he was the Black Skull, he was stronger. When he was the Black Skull, he couldn’t be hurt. When he was the Black Skull, he didn’t have any questions. But now the Elenil had his mask, and he was trapped in these chains.
The line moved. One of the pack animals slipped in the mud and fell to its knees. General irritation flared along the line as a tall, sodden, hairy person shouted at the Maegrom merchant whose packs had spilled into the mud. A human guard intervened, waving everyone around the mess.
Darius rearranged the pack on his shoulder. The Sword of Years grew heavier every day and demanded more and more of his attention. The magic in the sword bent his will, pulled on him like stones in a backpack. It didn’t actually speak to him—it just made him feel what it wanted, like a mental itch demanding to be scratched. Break Bones had brought the sword to him after the fight with the Elenil, as it was still his responsibility. Darius had returned it to the Scim elders, but they had refused it. A disagreement had broken out among them as to whether the sword was a blessing or a curse, and it was decided that either way they would allow this human, this friend of the Scim, to wield it. The sword thirsted for the blood of any Elenil who had benefited from the death of a Scim. Its wounds could not be healed by magic. When Darius held it in his hand, he could feel it lean toward the nearest Elenil. Even if they were miles away, the sword would lean. He could spend his whole life following it, bringing retribution for the past.
He had not decided if this was what he wanted.
Except for one person. The archon. Archon Thenody remained the ruler of the Elenil, and Darius hated him. Madeline had decided not to kill him and not to destroy the source of Elenil power, the Crescent Stone, choosing instead to destroy only the magic which she herself benefited from.
Darius respected Madeline’s choice. But she had not lived among the Scim. She had not seen—or had seen only for a few moments—the mud-floor hovels, the paltry vegetables, the wounded and deformed Scim who sold the best parts of themselves for a mouthful of food.
Some of the Elenil might be unaware of their part in this. Not that it excused them. But Thenody knew, and worked hard to keep the status quo. Darius, as a representative and advocate for the Scim, had every intention of infiltrating the city and killing him. Just look at what the guard Sochar had done to Nightfall. In the presence of witnesses, and in Scim territory, he had killed a Scim boy and walked away without penalty. This was, in Darius’s mind, a grave condemnation of the government of Far Seeing, of all their leaders. It made sense for the archon to pay the price.
“What race are you?” one of the guards asked, prodding Darius in the shoulder.
Darius kept his face low, his shackled hands hidden in the folds of his robe. It was a question he dreaded, even though he knew what the guard meant. “Human,” he said.
The soldier nodded. “I thought so. How long until your service is through?”
Most humans came to the Sunlit Lands as indentured servants. A year or more of work for the Elenil in exchange for whatever deal they had managed to make. “Too long,” Darius said.
“Tell me abo
ut it.” The soldier laughed.
Darius nodded toward the city gate. “Why the holdup, buddy? The Elenil like to keep us waiting in the rain?”
The soldier shrugged. “Since the Scim attacked, we’ve had to tighten security. Nothing major. A quick scan to make sure you are who you say, a few questions. They’re not letting Scim in anymore, just humans. They let a few others in, depending on their business. Saw a Zhanin last week.”
“The shark people? Rare around here.”
“Rare anywhere. Said he was hunting the people who had put magic out of balance in the attack. A few humans and some Scim.”
Darius nodded, and a cascade of freezing water spilled from his hood. “Your boss is coming. Looks like trouble.”
An Elenil strode down the line, his white-blond hair nearly shining in the grey rain. He wore armor, something that had been rare outside the battlefield just a few months ago, especially for the Elenil. He had a thin, angular face. Darius recognized him. Rondelo. Young for an Elenil, only a couple hundred years old, but dedicated to fighting face-to-face instead of sending humans to do his dirty work. Darius didn’t like him, but he respected him. And, perhaps, feared him. He was fierce in battle, and so far as Darius knew, he still had possession of Darius’s skull mask. He was also one of the only people in Far Seeing who would recognize Darius’s face. Darius turned away, hoping Rondelo wouldn’t notice.
Rondelo pulled the human guard a few steps away and spoke to him in a low, urgent whisper. The guard returned, and Rondelo continued down the line. “Closing the gates,” the guard said. “Captain says the tool they’re using to detect magic went off. Someone in line has a magical artifact with a lot of power. They’re going to check everyone.”
Darius winced. He should have expected this, but he hadn’t. What could he do? Fight his way in? It would be a long fight from here to the archon’s chamber, especially in chains. The sword would make it easier, maybe. It was excellent in battle against the Elenil, but even a magical sword had limitations. It hadn’t been able to put a scratch on Darius’s chains, for instance, and while it would happily skewer an Elenil, he doubted it would be able to take all these guards unless they waited patiently in line for their chance to fight him one-on-one. A frontal assault on the gate was impossible. On the other hand, Darius had never been one to shy away from doing the impossible.
The wiser course would be to walk away. To wait. To let the Elenil continue to oppress the Scim and bide his time until a more favorable, less risky opportunity came along. He felt the sword in his bag, calling to him. Begging him to pull it out so it could have a taste of Rondelo’s blood. Darius flexed his fists. He reminded himself of his goal. To lose a shot at the archon just to kill Rondelo would be foolish. But, the sword seemed to whisper, what if you killed them both?
Yes, he could kill Rondelo, make his way through the city gates, and find the archon. Assuming he could beat Rondelo. The Elenil were fierce fighters. Not invulnerable, no, but difficult to kill. He had killed an Elenil once before, but only one, and he’d had certain advantages in that battle. But his rage was getting harder to fight down. He had changed so much since coming to the Sunlit Lands. He had never wanted to be an angry person, always kept his anger sedated and sleeping, but something about this place . . . He wasn’t content to be powerless anymore.
“You want me to take a quick look through your bag, send you to the front of the line?”
The human guard. Trying to be friendly. Darius looked toward the front of the line, trying to calculate how far he was from the wall, how far from Rondelo and any other Elenil. Rondelo was too close. One shout from this guard would bring Rondelo charging back in about the time Darius could loose the sword and deal with the guard.
“I’ll wait,” Darius said. “Or maybe trek to the other side of the city, see if another gate has a shorter line.”
“No worries,” the guard said. “Us humans got to stick together. Just give me a quick glance, and I’ll send you to the front. They said it’s Scim magic, and you’re no Scim. When we find the guy with the magical artifact, we’ll confiscate it, arrest the Scim, and open the gates again.”
“I don’t want any special treatment.”
The guard’s eyes narrowed. For a second Darius thought he was noticing for the first time that Darius was Black, the way he was staring at him. Then he looked down and realized the real issue. Darius grimaced. His left sleeve had slipped aside, revealing his chains. And that he bore no Elenil tattoo on his left wrist. No brand showing his magical debt to the lords of the Sunlit Lands.
“Captain Rondelo,” the guard called, trying to sound nonchalant. “Let’s get this human to the front of the line.”
Rondelo turned, annoyed.
“No need for that, sir,” Darius called.
But the Elenil was headed their direction. He must have heard the underlying desperation in the guard’s voice, must have seen the way his hand had shifted toward the sword at his waist.
The Sword of Years screamed to be unleashed. Darius could practically feel it bucking in the bag, begging him to put his hand on the hilt. He slung the bag around, reaching for the opening. He had begged Break Bones more than once to come into the line with him, to take off his war skin and try to get in through subterfuge instead of brute force. But the Scim had refused, saying he had another plan, which he wouldn’t talk about. Darius had seen a handful of Scim without their war skins but never Break Bones. It was another reminder that Darius, despite being a champion of the Scim army, was still an outsider.
A rock sailed into view, pinging harmlessly off the guard’s helmet. The guard whipped out his sword.
Darius took several steps back, not wanting to be in reach of that blade, especially not before he had his own sword in hand.
“Unfair!” someone shouted from the line behind him. “That human is rushing another human to the front of the line!” Darius glanced over his shoulder.
It was a Maegrom. Short, grey-skinned, and apparently very accurate with stone throwing, the Maegrom lived in an underground kingdom, where they mined and provided precious resources to the various peoples of the Sunlit Lands . . . for a price. This one was furious. He wore a red cap pulled low over his dark eyes. He picked up another stone. Other people in the crowd started to shout, stepping up to the guard in front of Darius.
“Captain Rondelo!” The guard gestured wildly toward Darius. “That human there, in the hood!”
Darius froze. Rondelo changed direction, heading toward Darius instead of the guard. His white stag, Evernu, leapt past him, and Rondelo smoothly lifted himself onto the stag’s back, pulling his sword free in one fluid motion.
Darius shook off his paralysis. One thing he could do was run. He had been in track and field in high school. On the other hand, he’d never had to outrun a magical stag, and he had never raced with his hands in chains or with a heavy bag slung over his shoulder. He reached into his duffle while he ran, splashing through puddles. He angled away from the city, knowing that more Elenil could come pouring out of those gates at a simple command from Rondelo. He knew Rondelo was a better warrior than him one-on-one. But with the Sword of Years in his hand . . . Darius had a chance, a good chance. If only it weren’t for these chains!
The rain fell in thick curtains. Darius didn’t dare waste a second to look behind him, and he couldn’t hear the stag’s hooves over the pounding rain. He grabbed hold of the Sword of Years and pulled it free.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a knee-high stone appeared in his path. Darius tripped, tried to regain his balance, and crashed to the ground, skidding on his chest through the sodden grass. He almost impaled himself with the sword but managed to twist so that he didn’t cut himself. He rolled to a stop and got back to his feet all in one motion. He had dropped his bag.
“This way,” a voice said. It wasn’t a stone at all. It was a trapdoor covered with grass. Beneath it was a small Scim, holding the door up. “Quickly,” he said.
Darius’s bag was b
etween him and Evernu. The white stag was bounding toward him, and there was no way Darius could get to the bag and back to the trapdoor. It wasn’t possible.
The Scim grunted in frustration. “Do they have the word quickly in your world?”
Darius dove through the opening, and the Scim pulled the trapdoor shut. Everything went dark. “Down the passageway. Quickly. That means fast.”
Darius didn’t talk back. He couldn’t stand up straight in the passageway, and he couldn’t see at all, but he did what he was told, his sword held in front of him. A light flared from overhead. A grinding, tearing noise came from behind them. “The Elenil found the door,” the Scim said. “Move farther down the tunnel. The Maegrom built emergency levers into this place.”
The tunnel ceiling dropped lower as Darius moved farther in. “What are you going to—”
The Scim grabbed a stone rod that jutted from the wall. He yanked, the stone came free, and the tunnel behind them rumbled and collapsed. “Move to the next stone pin. We have to collapse the whole tunnel now that the Elenil know about it. Hurry.”
Darius had lived among the Scim long enough to know their ways and to recognize them on sight. This Scim was little more than a child. Darius moved to the next pin, waited for the Scim to pull it out, and then they hurried along to the next. “You should have warned us you were coming,” the boy said. “Sent a bird or sent word with the weekly messenger.”
“I don’t know who you are,” Darius said. “And what weekly messenger?”
The boy closed his eyes, as if trying to overcome a deep pain or keep himself from lashing out at a stupid question. “The elders didn’t tell you about us. They gave you the Sword of Years, but they didn’t trust you enough to tell you.” Darius felt a pang at that. Maybe he was even more of an outsider than he thought. The Scim boy opened his eyes. “They’re keeping our secrets close. That’s good, I guess.”
The Heartwood Crown Page 13
