Heart of the Land

by Sarah Prineas

  As she spoke, Meilin saw the shadow of the great vulture cross the sunlit rock just beyond their hiding place. She stilled, trying not to breathe.

  And she remembered what the emperor had said to her—that the Marked of Zhong should belong to Zhong. He had seen her not as a person, not as Meilin, daughter of General Teng, but as an asset and a resource. “If we were just Marked,” she whispered slowly, “and not Greencloaks, eventually our countries would use us as weapons.”

  “But there’s no war,” Conor whispered.

  “There would be,” Worthy put in, his voice sardonic.

  Meilin didn’t nod, but she agreed. Without the Greencloaks to keep the peace, the great countries of Erdas would fracture. Everything would fall apart.

  “We would have to fight each other,” Conor said, and Meilin could hear the horror in his voice.

  She felt it, too. Fight against Abeke? Against Conor? Against Rollan? No. Never.

  But what if none of them were given any choice?

  Abeke’s voice was the barest whisper. “It’s up to us. There is some force that’s trying to disband the Greencloaks. It will try to divide us from each other. In the same way, it wants to divide the great nations of Erdas from each other. But we have to fight it. Together. The gifts will help, starting with the Heart of the Land. And so will our friendship. We are all of Erdas, united.”

  At Abeke’s words, Meilin felt goose bumps prickle over the skin of her arms. She had always admired her friend’s wisdom, but Abeke had spoken a deeper truth. They faced a mysterious force that had already killed the Emperor of Zhong, and now it was going after the Greencloaks. It would try to divide them. To destroy the Greencloaks forever. After that, there would be chaos. War. Death.

  There was a long, awed silence.

  “So you’re saying we really do have to be glue,” Rollan whispered. “I guess that means we’re stuck with each other.” Meilin could hear the strain in his voice. He was trying to lighten a heavy moment.

  Moving slowly, Meilin edged her hand over the cool, lined rock until her fingers touched his.

  Yes, Rollan, she thought. We’re stuck.

  THE NEXT MORNING THEY LEFT THE STONE LANDS, moving into a rocky, forested area thick with pine trees and loud with waterfalls. Rollan remembered passing through land like this before, on his first mission with the Greencloaks—before he’d actually been a Greencloak. They’d followed Conor’s vision of Arax, trying to find the Granite Ram talisman. In this part of Amaya, the air was dry and cold, and the sky was a deep blue without a single cloud.

  The lake with the island called the Heart of the Land was not far away, Anka told them. They only had to stay ahead of Wikam the Unjust and his Oathbound trackers for a few more days, and they would be there.

  And then, they all hoped, they would figure out how to reveal the rock.

  Rollan still wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly. The night before, Meilin had brought the rock out again, had unwrapped it, and they’d gathered to look at it.

  “So what’re you supposed to do with it?” Worthy had asked.

  “Reveal it,” Meilin had told him.

  Then he’d reached out, grabbed the rock, and started picking at the scales that seemed to cover it.

  “Stop that!” Meilin said. “You’ll break it.”

  Worthy had dropped the rock on the ground, then bent to pick it up again. “It’s a rock. It’s not going to break.”

  At that, Meilin had snatched the rock away from him, wrapped it up, and turned her back on Worthy.

  The masked boy shrugged. “I was only trying to help.”

  After a day of hard travel, they set up a rough camp at the side of a stream that rushed loudly through mossy stones. They ate a cold dinner of travel biscuits, jerky, and dried apples. Anka, of course, was not to be seen. Conor sat quietly talking to Abeke, Briggan close to his side. Uraza was at the edge of their camp, on guard. Worthy sat on a fallen log, throwing bits of twig into the stream.

  Jhi, who was not the best traveler, had been dormant all day. With a flash of light, Meilin called her out. The panda’s black eye-spots made her face seem almost mournful as she looked around the meager campsite; then she lumbered to a nearby tree and started stripping it of its brown, late-autumn leaves.

  “Not her favorite,” Rollan said. His arm barely hurt anymore, and didn’t need any more Jhi spit. He still had a smudge of a bruise, a sore spot over his cheekbone, another reminder of their fight.

  “She’d rather have bamboo,” Meilin acknowledged.

  Rollan pointed upstream. “Essix saw a waterfall up that way,” he said to Meilin. “Want to take a look?”

  Meilin set aside the sword she’d been sharpening obsessively and got to her feet.

  Worthy turned his slitted pupils on them. “Where are you going, Rollan and Meilin?” He grinned. “Reilin, I mean.”

  Looking over at Meilin, Rollan saw that her face had turned bright red. He knew he was blushing, too. For once, he didn’t have a sarcastic answer ready. Instead, he just glared at Worthy.

  Worthy laughed—until Meilin turned her own glare on him. “Yipes!” Worthy said, and fell off the log he’d been sitting on.

  Rollan stalked out of the camp, heading upstream. Meilin followed him, leaving Jhi to her dinner.

  Reilin. Ridiculous!

  They went along the stream in awkward silence, climbing over mossy rocks, winding around ferns and pine trees, until they came to the pebbly bank of a pool. The fresh, clear water stood at the base of a waterfall, which poured from a notch in a cliff high above. The falling water hitting the pool was so loud, Rollan could feel it in his bones.

  The air was colder here, and a chilly mist from the waterfall drifted over them. Meilin shivered, and Rollan stepped closer. In silence they watched the swags of white water pour down, turn to lace, and then slam into the pool at the base of the cliff. Rollan had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

  He moved even closer to Meilin, speaking right into her ear so she could hear him over the roar of the waterfall. She had droplets of water in her braided hair, shining like pearls. “I remember something Tarik once told me,” Rollan said. “He said, I want to know Erdas in all her different forms of beauty. And so do I.”

  Meilin nodded, her face still and serious. “Erdas would be less beautiful if it was divided, or at war.”

  Rollan looked down, because meeting her eyes would be too intense. “I can’t imagine having to fight you, Lady Panda.”

  “For one thing,” Meilin said, smiling, “you’d lose.”

  Rollan laughed. That was true.

  And then, a smile still on her lips, Meilin leaned closer.

  They had kissed each other once before, but it had been during a moment of excitement and happiness, and it had lasted about two seconds. Maybe less. Was she … Were they going to kiss again?

  Rollan felt half afraid, half excited, and half …

  Wait, that was too many halfs.

  Shut up, he told himself, and, leaning toward Meilin, he closed his eyes.

  A shrill scream pierced the air, even louder than the booming roar of the waterfall.

  Rollan jerked away from Meilin. His eyes popped open.

  There were sounds of shouting and yowling—Worthy—the roar of a big cat—Uraza—and then the clash of weapons.

  “The camp,” Meilin gasped. “It must be under attack.”

  As one, they turned and raced toward the others, dodging trees, skidding over the mossy rocks. The sun was close to setting—it was hard to see where they were going.

  Meilin reached camp first, Rollan half a step behind her. Their friends were in the thick of a battle, one they were already losing. The shadowy forest around their campsite was swarming with Oathbound fighters, who darted and hid between the trees, not venturing into the clearing, but flinging knives, shooting arrows, and hurling spears.

  Briggan was a gray blur as he leaped on the nearest Oathbound and bore her, screaming, to the ground.
Conor had pulled out his ax, but he had nobody to use it on—the Oathbound attackers kept striking briefly and then melting back into the darkening forest.

  There was a scream from among the trees—Uraza was out there, stealthily hunting, a swift and deadly shadow.

  A thrown spear had pinned Worthy’s crimson cloak to the log he’d been sitting on; he was frantically trying to get the cloak off so he could stand up and fight.

  Abeke had just finished stringing her bow. From his place on the edge of the camp, Rollan saw an Oathbound aim an arrow at her.

  “Abeke!” he shouted. “Look out!”

  The enemy arrow streaked across the camp. Calmly, Abeke looked up, and with leopardlike speed, snatched the arrow out of the air, flipped it, nocked it on her bowstring, and fired it back in the direction it had come from. Rollan heard a cry as it struck the Oathbound archer.

  Meanwhile, another Oathbound was venturing into the camp with a spear ready, approaching Conor from behind.

  Rollan drew his long knife and opened his mouth to yell a warning to his friend, when Anka struck the spearman from nowhere, a focused blow to the face. Then she disappeared again, and the spearman dropped to the ground, blood fountaining from his nose.

  “Did you teach her that?” Rollan asked Meilin.

  “Duck!” she shouted.

  He didn’t question that kind of order. He hit the dirt, and Meilin aimed a swift blow where his head had been, knocking the swooping vulture out of the air. The bird flopped to the ground, then awkwardly flapped its wings to get airborne again.

  Climbing to his feet, Rollan heard Essix’s outraged shriek—the falcon really hated the vulture. Using the speed of his bond with the bird, Rollan swooped into the clearing. His dagger blocked a knife thrown by a shadowy figure, who now darted behind a tree. “There!” he shouted to Essix, and the falcon dived down to claw at the knife-thrower’s eyes.

  Finally freeing his red cloak, Worthy jumped up from the log, his curled fingers bristling with his retractable claws. Seeing that the Oathbound were hiding among the trees, he yowled in frustration. “Cowards!” he shouted at them.

  But even more Oathbound were coming. The air was thick with arrows that, somehow, didn’t quite seem to hit their targets—Rollan thought they probably had Anka’s chameleon power to thank for that. A dagger flashed past his face and embedded itself in a tree behind him.

  “There are too many!” Meilin shouted as she fought against three shadowy figures at the edge of the camp.

  “We have to retreat,” Anka ordered. She was a blur of night-black and green. “Come on!”

  “But the supplies!” Worthy protested.

  “Leave them!” Anka ordered.

  Meilin disarmed one opponent, ducked a spear thrust from another, and raced to follow Anka. Conor and Briggan followed, as did Worthy.

  Rollan started after them, then took a quick detour to grab the pack containing Tarik’s cloak. An arrow hit the pack as he slung it over his shoulder; he raced past Abeke, who was backing out of the clearing, keeping an arrow nocked, covering their retreat. Uraza bounded past her, and she turned and ran.

  The five Greencloaks and Worthy fled from the camp, past the waterfall, and kept going farther upstream until they had left their attackers behind. Panting, they stopped in a clearing, where they stood knee-deep in ferns. The sun was just setting, and the dim and dusty light of evening had settled over the forest. In half an hour, it would be fully dark.

  Rollan saw Conor cock his head, listening, his hearing acute thanks to his bond with Briggan. “They’re not coming.”

  “We’re clear—for now,” Abeke agreed.

  Rollan pulled out the arrow that had hit the pack and handed it to her; she nodded and added it to her quiver. He was aware of Essix perched on a nearby branch, settling her feathers after her fight with Wikam the Just’s vulture.

  “Is everyone all right?” Meilin asked, inspecting her sword, wiping it clean on her trousers, then sheathing it. She looked around to see everyone nod.

  Rollan frowned. “Why did they let us go?”

  “We were too mighty?” Worthy said with a shrug. “We fought too fiercely?”

  Rollan gave him a look that said, You are such an idiot.

  “I mean it,” Worthy protested. “Did you see that thing Abeke did, catching the arrow?” He mimed drawing back a string and firing a bow. “It was amazing!”

  “Yeah,” Rollan agreed. “But the Oathbound outnumbered us five to one.”

  “They definitely could have taken us,” Meilin put in.

  Rollan knew she was right. Then he let out a breath, realizing what was happening. “They haven’t been hunting us. They’ve been driving us.” He glanced at Abeke, the best hunter in their group, and she nodded, agreeing. “Oh,” Rollan went on. “They don’t want us.”

  “What do you mean?” Worthy asked. “They’re hunting and arresting all the Greencloaks they can find.”

  “They might want us,” Rollan clarified, “eventually. But what they want first is the rock. The gift. Wikam the Unjust must know about the Heart of the Land.”

  Meilin nodded, understanding. “I think you’re right. They’ll wait for us to reveal the rock, and then they’ll try to take it from us.”

  “We can’t let that happen,” Conor said seriously.

  “Maybe we should split up,” Abeke said. “Conor and I could lead them astray while Meilin and Rollan head for the island in the lake.”

  “And me,” Worthy said.

  “No,” Meilin said. “I know we’ve had to split up on other missions, but on this one we can’t. It’s like what Rollan said: We’re glue. We have to stick together.”

  “We have to stay true,” Conor added, “like Olvan said.”

  Anka stepped out of the shadows; her features were blurred, hard to read. “Make up your minds. What are we doing?”

  “We can’t turn back,” Meilin said. “Somehow, the four gifts are the key to saving the Greencloaks.”

  “And maybe more than that,” Abeke put in.

  “So we head for the lake,” Meilin said, “and once the rock is revealed, we’ll figure out how to evade the Oathbound trackers. Anka can help us with her chameleon powers. Agreed?”

  The others, including Anka, nodded.

  “Can we rest here tonight?” Worthy asked.

  “It depends on how close the trackers are,” Meilin answered. “Rollan, can you take a look?”

  With a nod, Rollan called up to Essix; he could see her amber eyes watching him from a high branch in a nearby tree. With a rush of wind, she launched herself into the air, swooping high, flapping her wings to gain height.

  Rollan closed his eyes, felt the usual dizzying rush of darkness and wind, and then saw a falcon’s view of the forest. From this high, the sky was pinkish-gray to the west where the sun had gone down, and deep blue-black to the east where the night was rising. The waterfall was a strip of lacy white that almost glowed in the fading twilight; the stream was a shiny black ribbon running through the dark clouds of trees. Essix’s keen gaze showed Rollan the Oathbound trackers in the Greencloaks’ camp, going through the packs, tossing food and other supplies onto the ground. Wikam the Just watched them with arms folded, his bony shoulders hunched.

  “They’re searching for the rock,” he said aloud, without opening his eyes.

  He tried to count. The Oathbound wore black, so they were hard to see among the trees, but he thought there were about fifteen of them, including Wikam. A few had been wounded in the fight; they were being tended.

  From the corner of Essix’s eye Rollan saw a flash of black, and Wikam’s vulture struck the falcon hard from the side—a sneak attack. His vision whirled as Essix tumbled, then steadied as she caught herself and banked and met the vulture’s next attack head on. The two birds clashed together—Essix’s talons tearing at the vulture’s wrinkly red-skinned head and malevolent mud-brown eyes. Its hooked beak—made for disemboweling already-dead prey—ripped at the falcon
. There was a spray of blood, and Essix released her talons and fell away. The vulture gave a harsh croak of victory.

  The ground spun closer as the falcon plunged downward.

  “Essix!” Rollan gasped, dizzy.

  “What’s going on?” he heard Meilin ask.

  “Hold on a minute,” he panted, and felt a hand on his shoulder, steadying him.

  Come on, Essix—fly!

  There was another terrifying moment of Essix plummeting from the sky. Then the falcon’s wings caught the air, and her fall turned into a wobbly glide. Rollan spied the vulture, slower, flapping after her. She went higher, using her speed to stay ahead of the other bird.

  As the falcon climbed even higher, Rollan realized what the vulture had been trying to prevent Essix from seeing.

  With a gasp, he opened his eyes, blinking, then gazing around in horror at his friends, at Worthy, at the faded shadow that was Anka.

  “It’s not just trackers,” he said. “Those are only scouts. There’s a whole army of Oathbound out there. And they’re coming after us.”

  AT THE DOOR WAITED THE LEADER OF THE CITADEL’S Oathbound guards, Brunhild the Merry. “Your Highness,” she said, bowing.

  Princess Song did not turn from the mirror. Her hair was smooth, intricately braided, secured with jeweled pins. Her face was heavily made up, her lips red, her eyes outlined in black, her dainty nose and cheeks dusted with rice powder.

  “Your Highness,” Brunhild repeated.

  Song watched her own face. It was perfect. Unmoving, like ice.

  The proper way to speak to a princess was to call her Your Highness. A ruler—an emperor, a king, or a queen—was addressed as Your Majesty.

  It meant something, Song knew, that the leaders of the lands of Erdas still referred to her as Highness and not Majesty.

  Her father, the emperor, was dead. Zhong needed an empress.

  Lifting her chin, Song considered her own face. Every feature was perfect. It was the face of a Highness, but it was not majestic. Not as her father had been. People did not look to her for guidance. No, they thought quiet and obedient and pretty.