Hanali’s face had grown hard during this speech. “Your Majesty. You cripple my administration of the Elenil before it has even begun. How will I be known now? The Elenil who allowed the destruction of Far Seeing.”
“No,” the king said. “Rather you may be called the one who returned Far Seeing to glory. The Peasant King—or the Majestic One, as you call him—built the Sunlit Lands to be a refuge for those who were wronged. A place of peace, of mercy, of rest and safety. But the Elenil have corrupted this place and made it a mirror of all the injustices of the places we fled. Once every stone of this tower is torn down, your people will have to consider each stone as you lift it into place. You will meditate on the purpose of this building, of this city, and perhaps it will make you stronger, make you better, make you more aware of what you have been called to do.”
“Mrs. Raymond, I do hope you can speak some sense to the king before he does this rash and terrible thing,” Hanali said.
She shook her head. “He is king. He has spoken. It is already done.”
Hanali sniffed. “So be it.”
The king set his mask into place. “If I find the archon before you,” the king said, “I will not kill him. Nor will I allow you to do so.” He held out his hand to his wife. She took it, and they moved toward the interior of the castle. Though Mrs. Raymond wore light armor and a small sword on her belt, Darius wondered at how ill prepared she appeared. But then again, he had never seen her unprepared. No doubt she was more ready than he suspected. The king called back to Hanali, “I do not know what game you are playing, Hanali, son of Vivi. I shall do what I must to protect my people and to make the Sunlit Lands what it should be.”
Hanali watched the king and Mrs. Raymond leave, his hands folded behind his back. When they had entered the tower, he turned to Darius. “I can, of course, sense the location of the Crescent Stone, which the archon keeps on his person at all times. Can your sword tell you where he is as well?”
Darius felt the sword’s eagerness to spill more Elenil blood, but there were too many worthy targets in this tower. It did not prioritize. Or at least, not that Darius could tell. “No. But you know where he is?”
“Yes,” Hanali said. “Are you ready?”
Darius was bone weary and ready for this all to be done. “Show me the way.”
Hanali moved toward the tower, but as they walked, a white bird flapped in front of Hanali, landing at his feet. It was a tall bird, the sort you might see stalking in a marsh.
“Hail, archon-who-is-to-come,” the bird said. “I am sent by an admirer who wishes you to remember him when you come into your power.”
Hanali grimaced. “How gauche. Pray do not say his name. What news, bird?”
“The girl is dead,” the bird said, “planted in the soil of Aluvorea.”
“No,” Hanali whispered. He bit the knuckle of one gloved finger. “Her life is past and just begun. She treads now in a clime of sun . . . in the land of the Majestic One.”
“Who?” Darius said. “Who’s dead?”
Hanali gave him a pitying look. “Don’t be a fool, Darius.”
“Madeline Oliver,” the bird said simply, as if the words had no meaning in themselves, as if it didn’t matter who it was or what had happened. Darius put his palm on the wall nearest him, holding himself up. No. He had just found out she was here. He wouldn’t believe it, not until he spoke to someone who had seen her body. It could be a mistake, a misunderstanding.
“How did she return to the Sunlit Lands without my knowledge?” Hanali wondered aloud. “More importantly, what happened? How did she die? Who was with her?”
The bird turned its long head slightly to one side. “How did she die? A question that is not easily answered. Was it because of the curse you put upon her that stole her breath—”
“What?” Darius stared at the bird in disbelief.
Hanali scowled at the bird. “Oh, now I do want to know who sent you. He and I shall have words.”
“—or the fact that you brought her here to the Sunlit Lands at all? Or the magical ecosystem which required her death if she was to reset magic?”
Hanali blanched. “She crossed the accursed river?”
“Yes.”
“What of the firethorns?”
“When last I saw them, the firethorns were encircled by the Elenil and had not spread.”
“That is some small comfort, then,” Hanali said.
“What does the bird mean, that you’re the one who stole Madeline’s breath? Why would you do that?”
Hanali straightened, his face perfectly still. “It was my father, Vivi, who wove the curse, Darius Walker, though I admit he used my magic to do it. It was I who received permission to bring her here to the Sunlit Lands, to heal her, to undo her curse. How could I know she would reject that healing? My father gave her the sickness. He prevented the treatments from working. He made her name fall from the lung transplant lists. She was meant to come live here on her sixteenth birthday, to join our household. But her parents refused. Refused even though they agreed to the bargain all those years ago.”
The sword was in Darius’s hand. He didn’t know how it came to be there, but his trembling fist was closed over the hilt, and the point of the blade hovered near Hanali’s heart. “You killed her.”
“My father did,” Hanali said. “And you have killed my father. So the whole affair is done now, and all of my loved ones soaked in blood.”
A look of true sorrow crossed Hanali’s face, but that didn’t stop the anger which flooded Darius. He felt hot, burning hot. His teeth ground into one another. He tried to keep the secret he had learned to himself, but the thought of harming Hanali with it was too tempting. Hanali was complicit in this. He may not have worked the curse, but he had been a part of it somehow. “Vivi wasn’t even your father,” Darius said. “He kidnapped you, you know. Just like he tried to kidnap Madeline. You weren’t really his son.”
“Nonsense,” Hanali said. “I have lived with my parents my whole life.”
“Do you even remember being a child?”
“No, but what Elenil does? We live centuries. It is only natural our memories of our childhood would be few.”
“The Elenil can’t have children,” Darius said. “None of them.”
“Except on the evening of the Turning,” Hanali said.
Darius couldn’t stop himself. He wanted Hanali to know. Wanted to hurt him with the knowledge he held. “Not even then. They can only have children by making more Elenil.”
“Ha,” Hanali said. “I think I would know if that were the case.”
“No, you’re not one of the magistrates, and you haven’t had children of your own yet. The Elenil kidnap human teenagers from Earth—”
“It’s not kidnapping, they are given a choice whether to come here or not.”
“—and then they force them to drink addleberry wine. The addleberries make them forget. Their memories, their identity, and eventually, their shape. They’re remolded. Taught how to change shape and become Elenil. They’re left in seclusion for a short time, and then they are introduced to Elenil society. You’re not—none of you are—any different than me or Madeline. You’re humans. You’ve been twisted by magic, but you’re humans.”
“It’s not true,” Hanali said, but the tone of his voice made it clear he was uncertain. Darius imagined this new truth working backward through Hanali’s life, making puzzling moments suddenly clear, transforming odd comments into perfectly understandable ones.
“It is true,” Darius said, pulling the little book from his pocket. “The Pastisians gave me this. Quotes from your ‘father,’ Vivi, about you. How he chose you. How he brought you here. How he convinced you to leave behind everyone and everything you loved so you could be an Elenil. But you can’t remember any of it, can you?”
Hanali straightened and looked to the tower. “None of this matters now. None of it. We must find the archon. We can deal with these lies after.”
“I
t does matter, Hanali, because you’ve built your whole system on the idea that the Elenil should be in charge, that the Elenil were called to rule from Far Seeing. But the Elenil are just more humans. The Scim are as much Elenil as you are. The Elenil are a myth. You’re human. The Scim are human. The Aluvoreans. You’re all just humans twisted with magic.”
“Wrong!” Hanali shouted, spittle spraying Darius. “The Elenil do exist. We made ourselves. However it happened, we became something more than human, something better. I am trying to change the world, and you are seeking to make it seem like those changes are insignificant.”
“Change the world? You killed the woman I love for this?” He waved dismissively at the garden, the tower, the city. “You killed her, and I wasn’t even there because I was with you.” Darius grunted, disgusted with himself.
Hanali spoke, his voice cold. “You weren’t there because you chose to seek after this revenge. You chose this over her. Now you are going to let your revenge slip away too. You cannot get Madeline back. But you can still kill the archon.”
“I will kill the archon,” Darius said. “Maybe I’ll kill two.” The sword sang for joy in his hand.
Hanali glared at him. “So be it. This way.” He led Darius inside the tower, and they set off together to find revenge.
32
LOSS
Command me any task, be it possible or no, and I will perform it.
FROM “JELDA’S REVENGE,” A SCIM LEGEND
Jason had tried to swim to the island, but it defended itself with magic. The water spit him out. His feet sank into the ground if he moved toward the water again. He raged and shouted, but it wouldn’t let him close. Baileya said it was to prevent anyone from interfering with the new birth of magic, but Jason didn’t care.
When he eventually gave up, he knelt on the shore and wept. Baileya sat near him. Sometimes she put her hand on his back. Sometimes she wandered away for a time. She stood ankle deep in the water for a while, staring toward the island. By sunrise Jason was exhausted and had no more tears. Baileya appeared beside him with fruit she had gathered in the forest. They ate in silence—a red fruit with soft white flesh and bright green seeds—and he felt his strength returning.
“You should have let me go instead of her,” Jason said.
Baileya closed her eyes, and he could tell that this hurt her. It was the first sentence he had said to her since Shula had left, hours ago. “She did not wish that,” Baileya said at last.
“She shouldn’t have died!”
Baileya’s eyes flashed. “And you should have?”
“It would have been a relief,” he snapped.
“You have taken a vow to be truthful,” she said hotly. “Will you throw it away because of your grief?”
Jason blinked, stunned. She was right. He didn’t want to die. It was only that he didn’t want Madeline to be dead, and some part of him thought that his dying to prevent that would have been better. He took Baileya’s hands. “I’m sorry, Baileya. You’re right.” He looked at his feet. “Thank you for staying with me. Thank you for breakfast.”
She wrapped her arms around him, and they held each other. “You would given your own life for a friend. A friend who had little time left even had you saved her. It is a noble thing. You are an exceptional person. There are great things in store for you.”
“You’re literally the only person who thinks that,” Jason said sullenly.
Baileya let him go and stalked to where she had left her weapon standing sentry in the sand. She pulled it out. “There are fires coming from the south. We should leave this place.”
“Wait, are you angry at me? For that?”
“We do not need to speak of this now. Let us go. We can discuss this at another time.”
“No, Baileya, I want to talk about it now.”
“You are grieving.”
“I’ve been grieving ever since you met me. First Jenny and now Madeline. Life is full of grief, unending, forever.”
Baileya shook her head. “Life is full of life, Wu Song. Grief is reserved for when it is lost. Life is not defined by grief.”
Jason wanted to believe that, but he didn’t. “My experience tells me otherwise.”
“Ah, Wu Song. We have lost Madeline, but did we not share fresh food a few minutes ago? Did we not hold each other and know affection? This is life, and something to be thankful for.”
“It’s so small compared to the loss,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. She took his hands again. “But sorrow is a gift. It is a sign that we have loved. If we did not love, we would not grieve.”
He had nothing to say to that. He felt like all his reasons for being here were gone now. Why should he stay in the Sunlit Lands? What was he doing here? “Baileya,” he said, “everyone I love dies, and it’s my fault. My sister, and now Madeline.”
Baileya’s face grew hard. “How is Madeline’s death your fault?”
“Remi told me about crossing the river. I could have come here myself and swum across, but I went to find Madeline and Shula instead. If I had come here directly, there would have been no one to stop me.”
Baileya sighed. It was a long sigh, as if she were letting out all of her breath. A tear slipped down her face. “Wu Song. Sit with me.” She sat on the sand. The fires were coming closer.
He lowered himself beside her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I have been considering your story.”
“Our engagement story?”
Baileya winced. “Yes. I am thankful you shared it with me. I have thought on it these weeks. You have told me the story, that your sister, Jenny, was your closest family. That it was her and you against your parents. She became betrothed to a man—”
“Sort of. They were dating. I know you don’t have that here.”
“—a man your father disapproved of. So you did not tell your father when she had gone with him, even though she was late. When you found her, she lay dying, trapped in a vehicle.”
Jason could see the car still, upside down at the bottom of a curvy road. Her boyfriend, Marcus, dead in the driver’s seat, and Jenny trapped in the passenger seat, bleeding. “She blamed me,” he said. “I lied to my parents about where she was. If I had told the truth, we would have found her, she would still be alive. That’s why I only tell the truth now.”
Baileya took a deep breath. “What did she say to you on that night?”
Jason’s voice cracked, but he didn’t cry. He had no tears left. “She said, ‘I was waiting for you.’ She knew I knew where she was. She knew I would find her. She was dying there, waiting for me. She blamed me, and she was right to do it, because it was my fault.”
Baileya squeezed his hand. “I cannot accept this story.”
“What?”
“I cannot accept it. Our betrothal is over. I will not accept this story. It is of great worth. It is a good story. But it is not true, and so I will not accept it.”
Jason’s heart beat so hard he felt light headed. “Are you breaking up with me?”
Baileya looked at him quizzically. “What does this mean?”
“Are you ending our engagement?”
“Yes, Wu Song. Our engagement has ended. It is done. We will not be married.”
“What?” He looked at the small lake where Madeline had died. The sun shone on the ripples as it rose. The rivulet flowing south had become a full-on stream. Baileya was crying now. He wiped the tears from her face, and she didn’t pull away. “What’s wrong with my story?”
“A story is how we explain the world, Wu Song, and your explanation is wrong. You say your sister died because of you, because you were dishonest, and she blamed you. But this is not true. Your sister disobeyed your parents. She kept secrets. She trusted only you, true?”
“Yes, but—”
“She trusted only you. When her . . . her boyfriend?”
“Marcus.”
“When Marcus destroyed their vehicle, they were trapped.”
/> Jason didn’t see where this was going. His hurt was giving way to confusion. “Yeah. I don’t see—”
“Jenny kept secrets. Jenny snuck out. Marcus kept secrets. Marcus smashed their vehicle.”
“I don’t understand. This is all true—what are you saying?”
“But you say, ‘Wu Song is to blame.’”
He felt like he had come up from deep-sea diving, getting a good breath of air, but the waves were threatening to draw him back in. What Baileya said made sense but was so contrary to how he saw it he could barely keep the pattern together in his mind. “You’re saying that it wasn’t my fault?”
“How could it be your fault, Wu Song?”
“But Jenny said, ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’ She’d been hanging there upside down, knowing I could save her but I didn’t.”
“No, Wu Song, she was saying she knew you would come. She wasn’t blaming you, she was praising you. She loved you, and she knew you would find her.”
“She . . .” Jason couldn’t get another word out. He shook his head. Baileya didn’t get it. “No, Baileya, she was angry that I let her die.”
The Heartwood Crown Page 36
