The Storyteller

by Traci Chee

  You don’t get to walk away from this, he said. He was standing bare-chested on a stony shore, with snowflakes like dandelion seeds drifting in the chill air. You don’t get to walk away from us.

  Archer had been here before, on this icy beach, he was sure of it. He tried to run. I wanted to help people! he said as he stumbled away. I wanted to do something good—

  But wherever he went, Kaito followed. You wanted to kill people, same as me.

  There was a revolver in Archer’s hand. Had it always been there? Leave me alone. He pressed the gun to Kaito’s forehead. I’m done with you.

  Kaito didn’t move. The black ink on his forearms was spreading over his skin, up his elbows and over his shoulders and chest, until it had eclipsed everything but his eyes, glowing red. I know what you are, Archer. You can’t be done with us.

  Archer pulled the trigger.

  The gunshot startled him awake, panting.

  “Archer.”

  Kaito? Coming back so I can kill him again?

  No. There had been no gunshot; the gunshot had been a dream. There had been no Kaito; Kaito was dead. The words had been real, though—Kaito had said them all, the night the bloodletters tattooed their arms with words that now sent shivers down Archer’s spine.

  We were dead, but now we rise.

  What is written comes to pass.

  “You’re safe, Archer.”

  “Sefia?” he whispered.

  As she peered down at him with dark eyes, the previous day’s events came rushing back to him. The appearance of the candidates. The black, all-consuming panic. Vaguely, he remembered Sefia fighting with Tanin, being teleported to the Current, the departure of the Alliance.

  “The Guard is planning an attack on Roku,” Sefia said, tucking the Book under her arm. “And I think I know how to stop them.”

  Nodding shakily, Archer drew back the covers and began pulling on his clothes as she explained her plan.

  “But it’s the Book,” he said. “If it wants us to go to Roku, doesn’t that mean we shouldn’t?”

  “And let all those people die?”

  He said nothing. She’d been right, back at the Trove. They were being drawn into the war again and again and again . . .

  She shook her head. “If I pull this off, what is written won’t come to pass, because I’ll be rewriting the future. If the Book doesn’t know what’s coming, it can’t trap us, no matter what information it reveals or withholds.”

  She was going to fight. She was going to fight the Guard. And he—

  He would fight, yes. He would kill, one Alliance soldier at a time. He would make more corpses, the memories of the dead would continue to haunt his dreams, and he would never be able to rest.

  But he had to do something, didn’t he? The Guard was still out there. The candidates were still out there. He couldn’t rest, either, if he didn’t try to stop them.

  But what if the panic came for him again?

  He followed Sefia through the burned-out remains of Haven’s compound, avoiding logs and blackened furniture where buildings must have once stood. Passing the collapsed wreck of the barn, he covered his nose to stifle the smell of charred fur and bone.

  Haven’s leaders were gathered around a table in the middle of the trampled garden. A woman was seated at the head of the table, one of her legs elevated, her brace gleaming among her voluminous skirts. She was Isabella Behn, Archer realized, the legendary gunsmith who’d made the Lady of Mercy. She wasn’t saying much, but she would cock her head toward whoever was speaking, smoothing her thundercloud of hair behind her ear. With strong, plump hands, she placed stones on a map of Kelanna laid out in front of her: one for the western front of the war in Oxscini, one for the Gormani Resistance in the north, the smallest for the outlaws at Haven.

  Beside her stood another woman who could only be Adeline Osono, the Lady of Mercy. With her shock of thinning white hair and liver-spotted hands, the slender old woman looked frail compared to Captain Dimarion, who loomed over her shoulder as he peered down at the map, but by all accounts, she was still the quickest gun in Kelanna—quicker, even, than Captain Reed—and Archer didn’t miss how the others kept looking to her for opinions as they discussed their next moves.

  Some wanted to go north to join the Gormani Resistance.

  Others wanted to disperse. Haven was a failed experiment. The outlaws should take their chances with the sea, as they’d always done.

  “I have another idea,” Sefia said, marching up to the table.

  The outlaws parted for her. Scarza slung his arm over Archer’s shoulder, pressing their foreheads together. As was the rifleman’s way, he said nothing, but he didn’t need to. He’d probably already heard what had happened aboard the Black Beauty. He, of all people, would understand why Archer had fallen to pieces.

  Quickly, Sefia explained what she’d read in the Book: In three weeks, the Alliance was going to invade Roku. If they succeeded, they would control four of the Five Islands. After that, it would only be a matter of time before Oxscini fell, and the Alliance—the Guard—conquered all of Kelanna.

  For a moment, the group was silent.

  Then, crossing her arms, Adeline spoke: “Well, you’re a bright little ray of sunshine, ain’t you, kid? Who wants to spend their last months drunk? There’s got to be a cache on this island that Tan and her boys didn’t touch.”

  At the mention of the candidates, Archer flinched. Though he only closed his eyes for a second, he saw the dead in his mind—red-eyed and led by Kaito. He reached for the worry stone hanging at his throat.

  Scarza squeezed his arm.

  “Addie, hush.” Isabella patted the Lady’s hand. “Let the girl finish.”

  With a grateful nod, Sefia continued, “Archer and I can teleport to Braska to warn Roku about the invasion. If we leave today, that gives them three weeks to fortify their defenses.”

  Scarza ran a hand over his silver hair. “If the invasion fleet is anything like what we saw at Epigloss, fortifying the defenses won’t be enough.”

  “And you said half the Black Navy’s in Oxscini,” said one of the outlaws, a short woman with scars flecking her face. “Sovereign Ianai won’t have the ships.”

  “That’s where we come in,” Sefia said.

  She’d go to Roku like the Book wanted, and she’d have three weeks to master excision, the first tier of the Scribes’ powers. If she did it right, she could erase some of the Alliance ships right out from under their sailors, dropping them and their cannons into the water before they even reached the capital of Braska. It’d be dangerous, toeing the edge of destiny’s plans, but in the end, she’d rewrite destiny itself.

  And she’d be ready to begin the work of capturing Guardians and taking their powers.

  “Can you really do that, dear?” asked Isabella.

  The hint of a smile tugged at Reed’s lips. “These two are gutsier and more talented than most anyone I’ve ever met. If anyone can single-handedly sink a fleet of ships, it’s them.”

  Sefia worried the edge of the map. “I don’t think I can do the whole fleet, Cap,” she admitted. “That’s why the outlaws would need to sail for Roku too. To support the Black Navy when the Alliance comes.”

  At her words, the outlaws erupted into disagreement.

  “Three weeks,” said someone. “The Current could make it, but what about the rest of us?”

  “The Current could guide us.”

  “Let the kingdoms fight it out,” said the captain with the scarred face. “It’s no concern of ours.”

  “As you well know, Captain Bee, they’ve hunted us to the brink of annihilation,” Dimarion said. “It’s everyone’s concern.”

  “Look who’s gone all good and noble now!” Bee snapped. “You’re a pirate and a slaver. Don’t lecture me about the good of all.”

  “I admit
to every one of my crimes, and I’m doing what I can to—”

  “I say we look after our own hides,” someone interrupted. “The land’s for them that need it. The ocean’s for the free.”

  Reed lifted an eyebrow. “You think the ocean will still be free if we let the Alliance win?”

  Snatching up a rock in her wrinkled hand, Adeline banged it twice on the table. “Shut it, all of you,” she said. “You have the facts. You have a proposal. These two kids are goin’ to Braska to warn the sovereign the Alliance is comin’. They’re gonna do what they can to prepare for the invasion. Question is: Are you gonna sail south, against centuries of tradition, to risk your lives to protect a kingdom from the greatest threat to the outlaws Kelanna’s ever seen? Or are you gonna go your own way, as you’ve always done before? Talk to your crews and meet back here in an hour with your decisions.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Archer and Sefia returned with Scarza to the bloodletters, who had been helping to fish the dead out of the lagoon all morning. In the water, the wrecks of the outlaw ships were like a ruined city, burned and broken, half-submerged beneath the waves. Covered in white sheets, corpses were lined up in dozens of rows along the beach.

  Archer began counting them while the bloodletters sat in the sand around him, debating their next course of action. He’d reached seventy before the bodies in the distance became too small for him to see anymore.

  So many dead. Would this be his legacy too?

  “Archer.” Sefia touched his shoulder.

  He blinked, fingering the piece of quartz at his throat. “I’m sorry, what?”

  Frey’s brow furrowed with concern. “I asked if you recognized anyone? When you were fighting the candidates?”

  Archer closed his eyes. They all must have known boys who’d made it through the Cage in Jahara, boys who they’d thought were lost. But he couldn’t tell if the candidates he’d seen yesterday had new faces or old faces or faces of the dead come back to haunt him. When he opened his eyes again, he shook his head.

  “How many were there?” Scarza asked.

  Archer squeezed the worry stone in his hand and looked away.

  “Thirty? Sixty?” Sefia answered. “Maybe more.”

  In his mind, Archer saw them coming at him. He saw their scarred necks. He saw their red eyes.

  No, they were alive. Only the dead, in his dreams, had red eyes. The candidates were alive, for now.

  Unless he stopped them.

  Unless he killed them.

  The bloodletters were arguing. They could join Chief Kemura and the Gormani Resistance. They could go home, like they could’ve done months ago.

  “What about the candidates?” Frey asked, turning her little book of trees in her hands. “They’re our brothers.”

  “They’re not bloodletters,” Keon said.

  “But they could’ve been.” Aljan looked up from a roll of parchment, where he’d been sketching a map of Haven in exquisite detail. He rubbed his eyes, smearing the white paint at the corners of his brows, and continued in a softer voice, “Just like we could’ve been candidates.”

  Frey nodded. “We’re the only ones who know what they’ve been through. We have a responsibility to them.”

  Another boy shook his head. “What are we going to do, make them bloodletters? They’re not going to turn on the Alliance now.”

  “We can stop them.” Frey glanced at the others. “Don’t we owe them that?”

  “Owe them?” Keon asked.

  She shrugged. “If it were me, I’d want someone to stop me from hurting more people.”

  “But why us?” Keon tossed his sun-streaked hair from his forehead. “Haven’t we done enough?”

  Enough. The word was foreign to Archer. He’d started by wanting to do something good, to balance out the harm he’d done. He’d fought for it. He’d killed for it. He’d made mistakes, and his victims had come to haunt his dreams. And he wanted to make up for it. So he fought, he killed, and his victims came to haunt his dreams.

  If he kept going this way, there would be no end to it. There would never be enough.

  He didn’t want to keep leaving bodies behind him. He didn’t want the number of the dead who visited him in his dreams to grow and grow and grow, until they were lined up before him in never-ending columns, their red eyes aglow.

  He didn’t want to be the boy from the legends. He didn’t want to lead an army. He didn’t want to conquer the Five Islands. And, most of all, he didn’t want to die.

  He had to change his destiny.

  And he could start now. By making a single choice.

  “Archer?” Scarza asked gently. “What do you think?”

  “I . . . You heard what happened to me yesterday on the Black Beauty?”

  Frey and the boys nodded.

  “I know the Guard has to be stopped. What’s the best way to fight them? With my fists? With my weapons? With more”—tears splashed onto his fingers—“bloodshed? I could do it. I’d be good at it. A part of me wants nothing more than that. But after yesterday . . . I don’t know if I should. I don’t know if I can take all those lives . . . and still live with myself.”

  “Does this mean you’re leaving us?” Griegi asked in a small voice. Keon quickly hugged the cook to his side.

  Archer wiped his eyes, ashamed of giving up when he could still fight. Of not doing everything he could for what he knew in his heart was right.

  And he was afraid. Because who was he, without violence?

  “It’s okay. You’ll always be our chief.” Griegi was the first person to throw his arms around Archer. Then Sefia. Then Frey and Aljan and whoever else was closest.

  “Stop if you have to,” Frey murmured. “No one will think less of you.”

  Scarza’s voice was soft on Archer’s shoulder: “Let us carry this for you for a while.”

  And Archer knew then who he was without violence, without killing, without destiny. He buried his face in Sefia’s hair, crying softly—with grief, and with relief.

  I’m a boy who lives.

  CHAPTER 19

  A Touch of Destiny

  An hour later, Archer was sitting beside Sefia and Scarza on the steps of a collapsed gazebo, watching Adeline and Isabella pass Archer’s revolver back and forth, the gold and ivory feathers on its grip glinting in the wintry light.

  “So you found this in the Trove, huh?” said the Lady of Mercy, spinning the gun on her trigger finger. “Pretty. Well-balanced. Ain’t yours, though, is it, my dear? I’d know your work anywhere.”

  Isabella laughed and shook her head. “It was made by some great-great-granddaddy of mine, I believe. He called it Lightning, after the extinct thunderbirds of Shaovinh Province.”

  “Lightning, huh?” Adeline said. She eyed Scarza, who’d been watching her, enraptured. “They tell me you’re a good shot. What do you say—your rifle against Lightning? That is, if it’s okay with you, Archer?”

  Archer nodded, dumbfounded. The Lady of Mercy, using his weapon? He’d be honored.

  Standing, Scarza smiled shyly. “My rifle’s on the Brother, ma’am. But if you’ve got one lying around . . .”

  “Do we have one ‘lying around’?!” the gunsmith cried. “Addie, go fetch him the Long Arm of the Law.”

  With a little bow, the Lady of Mercy ducked away. When she returned, she had a beautiful rifle slung over her shoulder. She tossed it to Scarza, who caught it in his one hand. “Ready, boy?” she asked.

  He grinned, dimpling the corners of his mouth.

  While they shot targets against the burned hulk of the barn, Isabella regaled Archer and Sefia with stories from her younger days with Adeline, the only authority in the lawless territory at the tip of Liccaro, demanding order from pirates and slavers, dispensing justice with quick trigger fingers and a silver-and-ivor
y six-gun.

  “It was a life, all right,” she said happily, rubbing her bad leg. “I wish I could tell you everything before this old memory goes, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day . . .”

  “You could write it down. Or get someone to write it down for you,” Scarza said, lifting the rifle to his shoulder and putting his last shot through the bullet hole Adeline had left in a fencepost.

  The Lady of Mercy let out a whistle of approval. Squinting at the target, she fired, sending a bullet ricocheting off a dented trough and back through the bull’s-eye. Archer, Sefia, and Scarza applauded as she gave them a little bow. Refilling Lightning’s chambers, she spun it once more and extended it to Archer, grip first.

  “You should have it,” said Archer, offering it to Isabella. “If it belonged to your family.”

  Winking, she just patted his cheek. “I’ve got guns of my own, remember, boy?”

  Leaning against the arm of Isabella’s chair, Adeline pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I bet Meeks’d help us get down some of our stories.”

  “They’re good stories.” Isabella kissed the Lady’s hand. “It was a good life.”

  “And it ain’t over yet,” Captain Reed declared, sauntering up to them. He tipped his hat to Scarza. “That was some good shootin’, kid.”

  Ducking his head to hide his smile, Scarza plopped down next to Archer.

  Slowly, the other outlaw captains filtered into the ruined garden until they were all gathered around the map and the makeshift table again.

  “Well?” Adeline said, putting her hands on her hips. “Let’s hear it.”

  Reed was the first to speak up. “The Current’s goin’ south.”

  “Really.” Dimarion raised an eyebrow. “Captain Reed, the quintessential outlaw, is going to risk his life, his crew, and the Current of Faith defending one of the Five Kingdoms. Are you sure?”

  “Sure?” Reed laughed. “I was sure I’d never care for anyone but my own crew. I was sure the outlaws would never come together. I was sure I wanted to live more’n anything else in this whole blue world.” He held out his hands, displaying the tattoos that marked his many adventures. “But I have lived, haven’t I? Now I gotta look to the horizon, ’cause it’s time for another adventure, a bigger adventure, one they’ll never forget for thousands of years—leadin’ the Resistance against a secret sorcerer society bent on world domination.”