King of the Rising

by Kacen Callender

  “Yes, well, that isn’t going to happen so easily. If you have to choose, he is the one who hopes to see you executed the most of all of us. Though he’s agreed to keep you here for the sake of potentially offering information against the islanders, he sees you as too much of a risk to let you live much longer.”

  “And you don’t?” Sigourney asked. This was a far cry from the Jytte Solberg she’d known on Hans Lollik Helle. The woman had claimed to all that Sigourney had been a snake. When it became clear to everyone that Sigourney had managed to trick her way onto the island for the storm season, Jytte seemed to believe this was a crime worthy of execution as punishment. Now Jytte wanted Sigourney as an ally against Lothar Niklasson?

  “I would rather see you alive at the end of all of this, Elskerinde Jannik,” Jytte said. “That kraft of yours—it’d be a shame to see it go to waste.”

  Jytte still seemed to be considering ways to have the kraft to read minds and control bodies on her side. Jytte swallowed the last of her wine and handed the empty glass to a slave standing against the wall.

  “Consider the possibility,” Jytte said. “That’s all I ask.”

  She left Sigourney to brave the gathering alone, whispering something to Gertrude Nørup on her way out of the heavy mahogany doors. Sigourney could feel Lothar Niklasson’s gaze on her. He was curious. He wondered why Sigourney and Jytte would have such a seemingly friendly conversation when he remembered how much Jytte Solberg had detested Sigourney. Sigourney could already sense how the man planned to ask her his questions and force the truth from her. Speaking with Lothar was always a risk, so she turned away from him before he could call to her. She walked to the one person everyone else avoided and sat beside Aksel. He barely looked at her. He could hardly see her anyway, with the amount of wine and rum that swam through his blood.

  “I wish you would leave me alone,” Aksel told her. It was the first they were speaking together on this island—the first they spoke together since Aksel had left Hans Lollik Helle. He was lucky to have gone before the night of the revolt. I doubt he would’ve survived the fight.

  “How can I leave you alone?” Sigourney said. “Everyone would think it odd that I would avoid my husband.”

  “Let them think it odd,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re no longer married.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since you helped in the destruction of Hans Lollik Helle with your other little islander rebels.”

  “I wasn’t a part of the revolt. I was taken just as much by surprise.”

  “Excuse me if I find that difficult to believe.” He took another sip of his wine. “No matter. You’ll be executed soon enough. I’ll be free of you then.”

  “But not until I actually am executed.”

  “You take pleasure in torturing me.”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “Was this the revenge you’d always planned?” He meant this as a joke, but it wasn’t one Sigourney found humor in.

  “No,” she answered him plainly. “The revenge I’d planned was cutting your neck in your sleep so that I could take the throne.”

  Aksel laughed, spilling wine on himself. “Death at your hand would be a mercy at this point. I’m trapped on this island because of a rebellion doomed to fail. I should’ve left for the north while I still had the chance.”

  Sigourney has some shame for the next moments that pass. She wishes there was a way to hide these memories from me, but there isn’t any way for her to block only bits and pieces of her thoughts. She hated Aksel just as she hated any of the Fjern, but she also remembered how they had shared a bed in the past. She remembered the pleasure she’d felt, and in that moment, she wondered if it was a pleasure she could find again. She slipped Aksel a thought.

  Perhaps it isn’t so bad that you’re stuck on this island with me.

  He understood her meaning immediately. There’d been a time when he felt sick at the thought of sharing a bed with Sigourney. Especially in the days following Beata Larsen’s murder, he’d felt disgust with both Sigourney and himself for betraying the woman he loved by marrying another. He felt disgust for wanting a woman who was an islander. No matter how much he thought her beneath him, his body reacted without his permission. Aksel still had this disgust for Sigourney, but he felt the edges of desire as well. It’d been a while since he shared anyone’s bed. There had been slave girls, but they’d been unwilling, crying and following his orders without passion. Looking at Sigourney, he felt the harsh truth that his body had needs, as did hers. She stood from the sofa, her invitation silent. He hesitated but followed in step behind her as they left the parlor and went into the halls and toward her room. Both noticed the glances as they left the room, but the body has a way of controlling thought and logic. Neither cared in that moment.

  “Must he follow us?” Aksel asked, referring to Kalle, always following closely enough to watch, even if it was from across the room.

  “Unfortunately those were his orders from Herre Niklasson, and I’ve found him to be a very obedient guard.”

  “Then I order you to leave,” Aksel said.

  Kalle didn’t argue—he would not have argued with a Fjern and especially a member of the kongelig—but he also did not take his orders from Aksel. “I’m unable to leave Sigourney Rose’s side,” he said.

  As desperate as Aksel was, he couldn’t imagine bedding Sigourney with another man standing in the room and watching them.

  “You don’t have to be directly at my side,” Sigourney suggested. Kalle agreed to stand outside of the room while the two completed their business. He listened to the sounds within, and when Aksel left, Kalle walked into the room to return to his post without any acknowledgment that Sigourney still lay in her bed, sheets wrapped around her.

  Sigourney had long since tried to push Kalle to the point of response, but his cold silence had endless patience. She could feel his thoughts and emotions, could see how much the man hated her—but this wasn’t something he ever intended to hide. He didn’t seem to mind at all that she could see everything about him, including his past. The boy had been raised here on Niklasson Helle. His father had been sold away to another island years ago, and his mother had died of a storm-season sickness. Kalle had been raised in the guard and survived the brutality most islanders have faced in these islands. He worked hard, as he was ordered, and he was always obedient to his master Lothar Niklasson. But Sigourney was surprised to see another truth in Kalle. The man was not like the islanders of Hans Lollik who felt love for their masters and feared their own freedom. Kalle hated the kongelig. He hated the Fjern. He knew that he was worthy of freedom. Kalle believed in playing this game of his masters. Become a commander, gain their trust, let them think of him as a friend. Marriage wasn’t often considered legitimate for islanders, but he would convince his master Lothar Niklasson that he was worth marriage. He wasn’t fool enough to think he could marry a Fjern, but he would find a woman who was similarly respected and trusted by the kongelig. They would begin a family line that could be separated from the slaves—a new and different class of hardworking, respected, and trusted islanders. They would receive their own freedoms. This is what Kalle strove for.

  Sigourney noted with interest that Kalle was a father himself, though the girl and her mother had been sold away as well. He never learned where they were sent. He hadn’t loved the woman. He hadn’t known her at all. The two had been placed in the same bed by Herre Niklasson, who saw them both as fit slaves with the potential to earn him coin, and they were given their orders. Kalle could tell that the woman, this stranger, was pained by the experience, and it was difficult for him to fulfill the deed, knowing that she had no desire.

  When they were done, they only saw one another fleetingly around the manor. She worked inside the walls, while he was always outside in the sun. He saw when her belly grew and when she one day appeared with a baby in her arms. He watched as the child grew from afar. Most men like Kalle didn’t care for the c
hildren they’d fathered. Many of the guards had been forced into the beds of multiple women, and he couldn’t blame them in cutting away the feeling of connection. It would be too painful, to have so many children and have each taken away.

  But this girl—Kalle couldn’t help but be curious about her. He saw when she began to walk and run on her own, saw from afar that they had the same smile. He tried not to have love for the child. He tried to look away whenever he saw her running her errands from the fields and to the house. One day, he followed her as she held a basket of flowers. He stopped her and asked for her name. She didn’t recognize him. She didn’t reply with love—only the respect she’d been taught to have for all elders. She gave him the name her mother had given her, and he repeated it like a song. He promised her that if she stopped and looked for him whenever she returned from the fields, he would have a gift for her. He would find pieces of sugarcane to give her so that she could chew on the stalks, balls of gooey tamarind rolled in sugar and shells he’d strung together to wear around her neck. She always accepted the gifts with a thank-you, with no realization that he was her father. He knew that she was not his to love, but he couldn’t stop the feeling he had for the child. He saw when she and her mother were put onto the back of a carriage, to be taken to the docks of Niklasson Helle and sold away. The girl had held her mother’s hand. She hadn’t looked back to see Kalle watching her leave.

  Years later, he finds himself wondering about her. If she’s well, if she’s alive, if she has managed to find a piece of joy in these islands. He’ll dream of her sometimes. He worries that the girl is dead, and that her spirit has come to visit him.

  Kalle did not agree with the revolution. He thought of the innocent islanders who were killed in the fighting. He had rage for me and everyone else on Hans Lollik Helle who plotted against the kongelig—not for the sake of the Fjern, but because of the islanders who have had to take our punishments. Sigourney could see this easily enough.

  “Do you believe that the Fjern should be in power, then?” she asked. “Do you believe your only purpose in life should be to serve them?”

  “No,” he told her. “We were meant to have our freedom. The Fjern stole that from us.”

  Sigourney was surprised by how boldly he spoke. “You could be punished for such words.”

  “I assume you won’t have me punished for speaking to feelings you share.”

  Sigourney acknowledged that he was correct. She stood from her bed, sheets wrapped around her, and moved to the dress pooled on the floor. “We do share these feelings. But I’m confused. How can we share these feelings, but you’re against the revolution? Don’t you want your freedom?” Sigourney wasn’t confused at all. She only wanted to hear him say the words out loud.

  “Of course,” he said, “but not like this. This insurrection has taken the lives of so many who didn’t consent to being a part of it.”

  “How would you take your freedom, then?”

  Kalle wasn’t afraid of Sigourney, and she could sense that he admired her, even with his hatred—admired how she had managed to work her way to her position among the kongelig. “The only way I can envision taking my freedom is by playing the games of the Fjern. Play to their rules. Beat them, according to their own law.”

  “Treacherous words, truly,” Sigourney said, but her words were half-hearted. She was intrigued by Kalle. She allowed her sheet to drop and she dressed. Kalle didn’t look away in shame or embarrassment. “I tried to play by the games of the Fjern. You can see where that landed me.”

  “I can see that you lost,” Kalle said. “Maybe you weren’t the best choice to play this game. Just because you lost, doesn’t mean it wasn’t the correct route.”

  Sigourney laughed. “Help me tie my dress.”

  Kalle did as he was told. She’d considered his words. “Maybe it isn’t too late to try again,” she said.

  They weren’t friends. They weren’t allies. But the words were enough to create a shift in Sigourney and one that she could feel in Kalle as well. Sigourney could feel the honesty in Kalle. She could feel how he had no love for his masters and how he was disgusted with any islander that loved the Fjern. She could see how, if he were ever given a piece of power, he would have those islanders executed right alongside the masters they loved so much. She trusted that he was not an ally of Lothar Niklasson or Jytte Solberg or any of the kongelig who wanted to see Sigourney dead. But she could also see that Kalle couldn’t trust her as easily as she could trust him. He couldn’t see the truth that she could; he would just as quickly have her on her knees, machete ready to cut her head from her neck.

  Sigourney hadn’t been dressed long when she felt the tension filter through the air. The manor was as silent as it always was—there was no music, no laughter streaming through the halls, but she’d been able to sense the Fjern around her all the same. She could sense their boredom, their confidence that they would survive this war and return to their lives. She could also sense when Lothar Niklasson passed by her room at that moment. It was a coincidence. Sigourney wasn’t on Lothar’s mind, and he’d been so distracted that he didn’t realize that the door he passed was hers. She could sense another man with him. She could feel this man’s flurry of fear, his discomfort, his certainty that he hadn’t pleased his master—

  Without a word to Kalle and without any explanation, she opened her door and snuck out of her room. She padded down her hall, her skirts bunched around her legs, the stone cold beneath her feet. She rounded the corner, but Lothar Niklasson and the islander had disappeared. She wasn’t certain. She wants me to know that now. There’s no proof that the islander with Lothar, whoever he was, was actually the traitor of Hans Lollik Helle.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  If the man in the halls had really been the traitor, I’d have a hard time believing the spy is actually a part of the inner circle. It’d be difficult, almost impossible, for them to have left Hans Lollik Helle and made it to Niklasson Helle without any interference. It’d be impossible that they would have returned to the royal island without anyone’s notice that they’d gone.

  Sigourney wants me to understand that I’m thinking too narrowly. I’ve convinced myself that the traitor is, without any doubt, a member of the inner circle. It’s just as possible that the spy could have listened to our conversations. He could have asked questions of any unsuspecting member to gain the knowledge he needed to, before coming here to Niklasson Helle. It would be more difficult for us to keep an eye on every single islander on Hans Lollik Helle, impossible to realize if a guard left the barracks one night after training. It would have taken at least a day of travel to arrive on Niklasson Helle. I could ask Malthe if there was a guard under his command that he’d noticed was missing in the past weeks, or one that had claimed illness or injury to avoid training. And if the spy does happen to be one of Malthe’s guards, I realize that this could mean the man is here on Larsen Helle at this moment. They could have left Hans Lollik Helle to arrive on Niklasson Helle days ago, traveled here with us to Larsen Helle for the battle. They could be helping the Fjern plan their next attack at this moment.

  “This is why I wanted to speak with you,” Sigourney says. “The Fjern—Herre Niklasson… They’ve realized you’ll be attacking Jannik Helle.”

  Yes, this was already clear. They would have to have known, to allow us to take Larsen Helle so easily. “We’re prepared to fight.”

  “You aren’t,” Sigourney insists. “They’ve figured out you will be coming to Jannik Helle, and they plan to unleash the fury of the Niklasson and Solberg guards. The Fjern may be hidden away on Niklasson Helle, but Solberg Helle holds the true power. I’m not sure Lothar is aware of how many ships and guards Jytte Solberg has prepared. There will be ships waiting at sea, Fjern on the docks and shores. Nearly five hundred guards in all. How many do you have with you?” she asks, and immediately learns her answer. She almost laughs. “You don’t stand a chance, Løren.”

  She could be lying to me
. She sees the thought, and I can feel her impatience. “Why would I lie?”

  “You could be doing what you promised Lothar Niklasson you would,” I tell her.

  “Working for the Fjern, by warning you of an attack you will certainly lose? By saving your life?”

  “You could be dissuading me from taking Jannik Helle so that the Fjern won’t have to lose another battle and another island.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” she says. “Why would I lie about something like this? You know that the Fjern wait for you on Jannik Helle. They can’t wait to take your head, Løren. You should see their excitement in finally having you dead. You can see that I’m not lying.”

  “You’ve managed to trick others before. You’re tricking either me or Lothar Niklasson.”

  “I’m tricking Lothar Niklasson. I don’t want to betray you. I don’t want to see you die.” She adds, “I have a higher chance of living if I’m on your side.”

  These are her words, but I can also see what she hopes that I will: Even though I have no love for her, she has begun to see me as a friend. Sigourney has never had a friend before, besides her sisters and her brother, before they were killed. She might claim to care for Marieke, but she never gave the woman true freedom. She had no allies with the Fjern who she served, and she convinced herself that she was better than us islanders, her own people, because of the power she had. I can sense the desperate loneliness in her. She’s been alone for so long that the tentative fear of considering me a friend is fragile. She’s seen my mercy and sympathy and thinks that I could begin to care for her. She’s wrong. I don’t care for Sigourney Rose. The thought that she could consider me a friend angers me. How could I care for someone who treats her people the way that she does? If it weren’t for the rebellion, she wouldn’t have changed at all. She would have continued to live her life of privilege, perhaps winning the crown and keeping her power and her slaves. Maybe the anger I have is mostly for myself. There’s a pinch of truth in her hope. It’s the same truth that fuels Malthe’s anger toward me and his idea that I am a traitor, whether I realize it myself or not.