“It’s an old habit,” Marieke says with an apologetic tone. “I would always call her Sigourney when I spoke to her directly, but in the company of others…” She doesn’t finish her sentence. It doesn’t matter now. She looks at each of us expectantly.
“We know what you would like to do with Elskerinde Rose,” Kjerstin says. She doesn’t speak with kindness. She doesn’t respect Marieke. Kjerstin feels Marieke is an old woman who still has love for her master. A master who should be dead, no matter the color of her skin. “You would like to bathe her and dress her wounds and give her the warm spot on your bed. Even though you’re free, you’re still a slave.”
“Watch yourself,” Olina says. “If it weren’t for Marieke, the revolt wouldn’t have happened at all.”
Marieke’s arms, wrinkled in their age, are tense. Though I can’t see them, her fists must be clenched in her lap. Her gaze meets mine. She hopes that I’ll agree with her. I’ve shown Sigourney Rose mercy before.
“The girl is a distraction,” Geir tells us. “So is the other we keep in the dungeons. Patrika Årud.” The Elskerinde Årud had attempted to leave Hans Lollik Helle before the night of the uprising, along with many other surviving kongelig. Our ships were waiting for the attacks at sea, and the woman was brought back to the royal island in chains. We thought perhaps that she could be used as leverage, but Geir believes it would have been better to simply kill her. “Lothar Niklasson will have no need for either of them, and the people of this island are angry that they still live. We lose our people’s respect with every passing day that the two kongelig still live.”
Some on the island underestimate Geir. He seems too distant and distracted, his eyes glazed. But while his eyes suggest his mind is elsewhere, I see the sharpness in him. He notices every detail, every twitch and breath. The man has a mind for strategy. Geir promises us that he has no kraft, but he lies. He’s met my eyes as we dissected the maps of Hans Lollik, discussing which way the sea turns and which island of the Fjern would be best to attack first. He looks at me, having already realized that I can sense his kraft because of the power that I hold. His kraft seeps into me, and I see the answers appear before me: Yes, the current would take us directly to Solberg Helle, but this is what the Fjern would anticipate. They would be ready for us, but they wouldn’t think that we’d be willing to sacrifice guards—our people—on a battle that we would lose. The best strategy would be to sacrifice our people in a plan to distract the Fjern as we simultaneously send guards directly to Niklasson Helle while their defenses are down, preoccupied with the battle of Solberg Helle. Geir sees this is the best course of action, and I understand this, too, but neither of us say the words, because the Fjern are right. We would not sacrifice our own people in the way that they happily would. Sigourney’s kraft, still inside of me, lets me see that for Geir, keeping his kraft a secret is a strategy as well. He keeps this strategy well hidden from me, refusing to think on it while in my presence, the words of old songs filling his mind.
When Geir says that the women should be killed, it isn’t only his opinion, but the kraft that tells him the best strategy. “They should both be publicly executed to reinforce the loyalty the people have for their leaders.”
Olina disagrees. “The free nations are paying close attention to how we treat our hostages.”
Olina has been instrumental. At the table, Marieke, Olina, and I can read and write, though no slave should be able to. Marieke also has her connections to the north. She would travel the empires years ago when Sigourney Rose was only a child, passing messages of plans for the oncoming insurrection. But she does not understand the societies of the northern empires or the Fjern, whereas Olina has had the chance to study and learn their customs, and her own connections are more far-reaching. Olina had penned three letters on our behalf, requesting the surrender of the islands of Hans Lollik. The letters were sent to Lothar Niklasson. The messengers were returned to the shores of Hans Lollik Helle on unmanned boats without their heads. Olina focuses on her letters to the empire of Rescela, a nation that is along the coastline of the northern lands. She requests aid from aristocrats of the free nation, but many scouts never returned. We can only assume that they had been captured and killed by the Fjern at sea. For the scouts that do return, the letters have gone unanswered. Still, Olina has hope for one woman in particular who has seemed moved by our plight, though she hasn’t yet promised the aid that we need. Olina wants to leave for Rescela on her own so that she can explain in person the atrocities we have faced, but we can’t risk losing her.
“I speak to a dame of the Rescela Empire who is against violence toward the defenseless,” Olina says. “I can’t write to the ambassadors, saying we have survived the atrocities of the Fjern, only to kill our own prisoners in cold blood. They will call us hypocrites. They will say we cannot govern our own freedom.”
“They’re eating food,” Kjerstin says. “Drinking fresh water. They’re using our resources.”
“Two more mouths to feed isn’t the issue,” Marieke answers. “The issue is the damn guards eating more than their fill, drinking rum into the night—”
“How would the ambassadors learn of their deaths?” Malthe asks. The table quiets.
Olina frowns. “I’m sorry?”
“Do the royals of the free nations know that Sigourney Rose and Patrika Årud are still alive?” he continues. “The Fjern themselves aren’t sure who has survived, beyond those who managed to escape. The others were killed in the initial attack. For all anyone outside of this island can tell, both Sigourney Rose and Patrika Årud are already dead.”
A silence follows and stretches. Malthe can see that I hope for mercy for Sigourney Rose. I hate the woman, but she’s also an islander who has withstood the horrors of the Fjern, just as any of us still alive have. I see the memories that haunt her—her sisters, her brother, her mother. I can’t help but sympathize with her. I can’t help but want to show her what she’s been unable to see: the possibility of these islands, us all living in freedom and peace.
Because my power mirrors the kraft of those around me, I was able to see into Sigourney in the months leading to the rebellion. I rarely liked what I saw, but I could also see the hatred she had for herself. I saw the love she had for the family she’d lost and the respect and admiration she’d held for her mother. I saw the hatred she had for the Fjern and how, on the quietest of days, she would sometimes wish for a life away from these islands. Beneath it all, she’d wanted a life of peace. She has the potential to change and to join her people. And with a kraft like hers, no one can deny that she’s powerful. If Sigourney were to join our side, she could be an asset. She could help us win this revolution.
I want to show her mercy. It’s for no other reason that he says, “We should execute them. Both of them. There’s no need to keep either alive.”
Kjerstin is pleased. She openly smiles. Geir gives a single, stilted nod of approval. Only Olina purses her lips. If Tuve has an opinion on the matter, he doesn’t share it.
Marieke raises her chin. The woman has had her reasons to hate the Fjern as much as any of us. She has wanted her revenge against the kongelig. She blames them for the deaths of her daughter and the child’s father. She wants to see each and every one of them burn. But in her haze of fury and grief, she has a harder time seeing that she has attempted to replace her daughter with Sigourney Rose, and she doesn’t realize that she can’t love a woman who is her master, no matter if Sigourney claimed Marieke was free. I can feel the roil of emotion inside of Marieke. It’s a wonder that she manages to keep her voice steady. “You have no reason to kill Sigourney Rose. If you do, her blood will be on your hands, and the spirits will hold no love for you.”
“My hands are already stained red. All of our hands are, whether you held the machete that cut the necks of the kongelig or not. Tomorrow night. They’ll both die by beheading.”
Malthe would not admit it, but his decision is only because of his anger for me. He’s
angry because he blames me for Agatha’s death, but he’s angry, too, that I do nothing, and yet seem to have the love of all the islanders on Hans Lollik Helle. He wants to kill Sigourney Rose—not because he feels her presence matters one way or the other, but because he wants to remind me of my place. He wants me to see that he has the power to declare the death of the woman that I wish to see live.
I don’t speak without thinking. With my father and brother, I learned early that to speak without thinking can be fatal. It’s a calculated risk that I say what I do. “No.”
Marieke looks at me with hope. Kjerstin, frustration. Olina glances between me and Malthe with uncertainty and Geir with a similar hesitation. Tuve looks up from the surface of the table, a quirk of his lips in slight amusement that he quickly hides.
Malthe doesn’t ask me to repeat myself. He heard me. Still, I say it again. “No. Sigourney Rose will not die. We need to keep her alive. Patrika Årud—yes, you can do whatever you want with her. But not Sigourney Rose.”
There’s a moment of quiet before Kjerstin gives a small laugh of disbelief. “I suppose what everyone says is true.”
Despite the respect so many have for me, islanders have questioned the closeness I kept with the woman I called master. They’ve thought that I might have shared Sigourney Rose’s bed. If it were true, most would see it for what it would have been: me, a slave, without choice and without pleasure. So many of us have been forced into the beds of our masters. Kjerstin herself understands this well. She realizes that she’s cruel, to suggest what she does—that I was a personal guard, looking for power or rewards by pleasing my mistress. I would have rather killed Sigourney Rose myself. There have been enough rumors on my past. There have been enough whispered stories of the ways the kongelig had treated me on this island when I was a child. Even now, the memories tighten my muscles beneath my skin. The insinuation by Kjerstin is a betrayal.
I tell her this. I speak the words plainly, and I can feel the shame in Kjerstin rising. It’s a long pause before she apologizes. “I spoke in jest. I see that it wasn’t funny.”
She lies. She hadn’t spoken in jest at all. But there isn’t anything I have to say to this. I address the others. “I want to show Sigourney Rose mercy because she is one of us and because she is powerful.”
“All the more reason to kill her, before she finds a way to become a threat,” Geir says, voice low.
“She was taught only one way to survive these islands. She was taught that she is a master. If she can relearn, she would be invaluable.”
“I do think she could learn, if given the proper amount of time,” Marieke adds.
“I gave her a choice,” I say. “She could have taken her own life to escape us. She knew she would face imprisonment, possible torture, and yet she chose to live.”
“Any coward would,” Malthe says. “This isn’t proof that she’s willing to join us.”
“She’s one of us,” I argue. “She’s an islander, skin dark as any of ours.”
“Don’t be so naive,” Malthe tells me, his voice rough. “Skin as black as night does not make her one of us. If we judged by the color of skin, then you would be dead with the rest of the Fjern.”
He misspoke. He sees it the moment the words leave his mouth. My skin is brown, and my hair and eyes as well, but the blood of the Fjern is still in my veins, and I’m paler than many islanders. Malthe doesn’t see this for himself, but perhaps this is what he hates about me most of all. But his words have gone too far, and everyone flinches on my behalf, except for Geir, who can see that the odds have shifted because of Malthe’s mistake.
“She will join us in this fight,” I say in the silence that follows. “Sigourney will live.”
CHAPTER THREE
My head begins to ache as I leave the meeting room. It’s a slow pressure that grows behind my eyes. I don’t often have headaches. As a boy training in my father’s guard, some of the other islanders might sometimes complain of pains shooting up their back after long days of hard work whether the whip had been used on them or not—and even then, most would keep the pain to themselves, their faces twisted into grimaces. Not many complained of headaches or pains that were caught in their muscles or stomachs or chests. It didn’t seem worth complaining about when everyone was hurt, when everyone had felt the bite of the whip and the blow of the fist.
The pressure grows and sharpens. I pause, my vision going red. It must be the stress. I haven’t had so much responsibility before. I don’t have a clear role in comparison to the others, but I’m still in this meeting room, in our created inner circle as leaders, voicing my thoughts and opinions and being constantly reminded that any misstep would mean all of our deaths.
When I close my eyes, the red of my eyelids covers my vision, and with my eyes still closed I begin to see images—but they aren’t the halls of this manor. I see a cot, the broken wall with its fallen stone, and the island: the burnt fruit trees and the groves of mahogany trees and the field where Malthe’s guards continue to train without his watchful gaze. The sea, as blue as the sky above, shimmers in the heat as its salt comes on the breeze. This sea, so beautiful, is the grave of so many of our people. I often wonder if their spirits walk the ocean floor. As she admires its beauty, Sigourney can’t stop the fear that trickles through her. Whenever she sees the ocean, she’s reminded of the way she’d fallen from the cliffs, Agatha following her—the force of her body hitting the waves, the saltwater pressing its way through her nose and mouth and throat, filling her lungs as she desperately swam through the water, black in night—she’d been so sure she was going to die—
I open my eyes. The headache had grown so much that I was sure my head had been split open with a machete, but it’s gone now. There’s a distant relief of pressure tingling over my skull, like it was a limb that’d fallen asleep. After the feeling is gone, I stand where I am, breathing slowly and taking the air into my lungs, reminding myself that I hadn’t fallen into the ocean and that I hadn’t almost drowned. I’m not confused about what’s happened. I already see the answer, and she does, too. I don’t understand why, but for that single moment, my kraft had connected me with Sigourney.
It’s happened before when I’m standing in front of her, not using my own power to block hers. But I’m not standing in front of Sigourney. She’s on the other end of this manor, down several halls and up a broken staircase, inside the chamber that has become her prison. The night before I’d woken and realized, without a doubt, that guards were on the way to kill her.
When Malthe asks to speak with me, his voice echoes in the otherwise empty hall. I’m still reeling, but I can’t let him see my weakness. I force myself to stand straight and face him. I pretend that I’d only been lost in thought. Malthe doesn’t force a smile in greeting as he approaches me. The tension between us has grown. I don’t like games of the mind or of actions spurred by emotion. I thought that Malthe was the same. He has a silence that engulfs him. It was a silence I’d once admired, but I can see how dangerous it actually is.
I’d spent years as a child training under Malthe, cutting his targets down with a precision that impressed him, though he would never admit to it. I’d looked up to him then. He was the only example I’d had of an islander with his dark skin and thick hair who was close enough to be a father. He didn’t love me. I didn’t think so then, and I know this as a fact now. He didn’t love me as he might’ve loved a son, but he did respect me. He had been suspicious of me when he first learned that I was the son of Engel Jannik, and he assumed that I would think myself better than all the other guards. It wasn’t a wrong assumption to make. I did have some years where I considered myself better and stronger than those around me. I was angry that they would look at me with disgust because of the Fjern blood I had in my veins. I would work hard to prove myself greater than all of them. I’d convinced myself that if I could best them in sparring and training, the other guards would begin to see me and accept me as one of them. As the islander that I am.
These were the dreams of a child. I’ve always been held at a distance. I’ve never been accepted as one of my people.
I’d worked hard enough that as a boy Malthe noted my talent, but he had pushed me away when I came to him, asking him to let me join the uprising. He feared that I’d been sent by my father to root out the rebellion. It was months before I was able to convince him that I hated the Fjern as much as he does, if not more. Malthe didn’t love me as a son, but he had loved me as someone who might be able to follow in his footsteps one day—who he could train to continue his legacy. He didn’t consider that I might one day surpass him.
We walk the halls of the abandoned manor together. I can feel the echoes of Agatha’s loss in every step. Her kraft had made this manor seem like a place of power. She’d fooled all of the kongelig and the islanders who weren’t a part of the oncoming rebellion, making Herregård Constantjin look and smell and feel like a castle of the Koninkrijk Empire. Now, the walls rot, the marble floor is cracked, and mold spreads from the ceilings.
“She’d been gifted,” Malthe says.
“Too gifted,” I add, not because it’s something that I think, but because I can feel the words come from Malthe’s mind. He doesn’t miss the moment, glancing at me. We haven’t acknowledged, not any of us, that it seems my kraft has evolved in ways I wasn’t expecting. This isn’t new. Kraft can grow, just as the person it belongs to grows. I’m not sure what it means yet, that I can still feel the power of Sigourney Rose’s kraft inside of me, even when she isn’t anywhere near, or that I can sense the strategic thoughts filling Geir’s mind so much more vividly than I would have been able to months ago.
“Yes. Too gifted, perhaps,” Malthe concedes. “Her gift made her powerful, and she loved power. It made her foolish.”
“Do you think it’s wrong to feel drawn to power?” I ask Malthe.
He doesn’t answer me. “Your own power has grown,” he says.
King of the Rising Page 3
