It made it worse, almost, to see Night’s Breath like that. Like he was an animal and didn’t know any better. That maybe the horrible things he’d said had all been brute instinct. Madeline’s stomach dropped away beneath her, and she fell on her knees beside him. She leaned down beside the Scim. She whispered in his ear, “May the Peasant King welcome you today.” Isn’t that what he had said to the dead Scim woman? She couldn’t remember the exact words.
A stinging slap knocked her face to one side. Her own hand flew to her cheek, which burned with the imprint of Gilenyia’s palm. “The Majestic One gives you back your friend, and you speak the Peasant King’s name? Such small decencies should be common sense.”
“I didn’t know,” Madeline said.
Gilenyia’s gaze did not waver. “Now you do.”
Jason coughed, and his eyes fluttered. Madeline rushed to him. Gilenyia removed her gloves from her cloak and meticulously pulled them on, straightening each finger.
Jason opened his eyes, and they focused in on Gilenyia, who now stood a few feet away, the sunlight catching her pale hair. She looked glamorous and perfect despite the smoke and ash of the battle, despite Jason’s blood on her gown. “I knew it,” he said. “I’ve died and gone to Hollywood.”
Madeline, beside herself with joy, threw herself onto him and hugged him, long and hard. “You’re not dead!”
Jason frowned. “Madeline?”
She laughed and helped him to his feet.
He leaned on her for a moment while he got his balance. “I didn’t even know you were one of my groupies.”
“It has been a long day,” Gilenyia said. “Return to your homes, all of you.”
Jason seemed slow, almost dreamy, most of the way back to the city. He kept talking about his unicorn, needing to find his unicorn. Then he stopped, agitated. “Where’s Baileya?” he asked. “Did you see her?”
“I don’t know who that is,” Madeline said.
“Baileya. And the burning girl. I can’t remember her name . . . Schoola? Something like that.”
“Shula?”
“Yes! They took her, Mads. They took her, and we have to get her back.”
“They’re long gone by now, Jason. It’s been hours since they retreated.”
Gilenyia looked back at them. “The Knight of the Mirror has given chase,” she said. “He will not fail. They will soon be returned to us.”
Madeline didn’t answer. She looked away, pretended not to hear, though she desperately hoped it was true that the Knight would bring Shula home.
Jason’s face darkened when he saw a group of people carrying a Scim body between them, throwing it into a large pile. “Something isn’t right,” he said.
Madeline squeezed his arm. “Let’s get home.”
“Something’s wrong.” He stopped short. He stared out across the field, toward the ridge the Scim had appeared on hours ago. “Does the name Night’s Breath mean anything to you?”
“Night’s Breath?” she asked, her heart beating so hard she could feel it in her throat. “Nothing,” she said. Nothing, nothing, nothing, she said to herself, and kept saying it all the way back to the city walls. She promised herself never to tell Jason this one thing. To spare him, at least, knowing that he owed his life to a fallen Scim warrior.
There was a strange squeaking sound from somewhere behind them, like a balloon the size of a van squealing as air forced its way out. Jason perked up, a glint of light returning to his eyes. “My unicorn,” he said. “I hear my unicorn.”
Madeline turned to see a rhinoceros barreling toward them over the battlefield. She thought it was farther away than it was, because it was so small. It was about the size of a golden retriever, and it leapt up onto Jason, knocking him over and leaning against him like an overly affectionate dog.
“They shrank you!” Jason shouted. “This crazy magical battle. I can’t believe they shrank you. It’s good to see you, girl, good to see you.” He scratched her ears and patted her belly. She wouldn’t leave his side, practically tripping him as they walked the rest of the way to the city.
They passed through the shimmering golden curtain that awaited them at the city’s gates. Hanali met them there with a jovial shout and a promise of a ride back to their homes. He clapped Jason on the shoulder and laughed along with him as he described discovering his unicorn was actually a rhinoceros, saying, “We have always called such beasts unicorns.” His carriage came, and Madeline scarcely remembered climbing into it—rhinoceros and all—or the journey to Mrs. Raymond’s house. She barely said good-bye to Jason. She didn’t think he noticed, because two bloodied human boys came rushing up to him, cheering and jumping around and admiring his unicorn and congratulating him on his first battle.
Her room was empty. Shula’s bed was perfectly made, like in a hotel room, like no one had ever been there. Mrs. Raymond brought Madeline a steaming wooden bowl filled with stew. Madeline set it on the wooden table under the window and sat in front of it for a long time. She kept thinking of the grey-skinned corpse that had been Night’s Breath. I did the right thing. I did the right thing, she said to herself again. He was a monster, bent on destroying the world. He wanted only darkness and pain and death.
Which is what she had given him.
Outside the birds sang, and the sun shone as bright and clear as ever.
15
SCARS
Three things we cannot live without: clear water, deep stories, a heart that is loved.
A KAKRI PROVERB
Jason woke up with his legs pinned to the bed by Delightful Glitter Lady. The affectionate rhinoceros had gotten into the habit of sleeping at his feet. He reached over and rubbed between her huge, rabbit-like ears, and she let out a contented squeak. He had learned in the aftermath of the first battle, twenty-seven days ago, that she hadn’t been shrunk by the enemy but by their own side. The Elenil didn’t see much use in keeping their giant animals huge except in battle. They were easier to feed and care for if they were smaller. Jason had been given a dial—a small, round, black device with a red piece of shell set in the center—that when turned to the left shrank Delightful Glitter Lady to about the size of a full-grown golden retriever. Mini Delightful Glitter Lady weighed about seventy pounds, and she loved to climb onto his lap and get her ears scratched.
The same dial, turned to the right, made her normal rhinoceros size, and then gigantic war-rhino size. This was the reason Jason’s bed had been replaced the first time Delightful Glitter Lady had fallen asleep on it. The dial was turned too easily. According to Mrs. Raymond, war beasts were not allowed in the dorm rooms. But Jason figured, what were they gonna do, kick him out? Mrs. Raymond had told him multiple times this was a possibility, but he doubted it.
David Glenn had already left the room. He got up early. He said he liked to watch the sunrise, which was ridiculous because the sun never set, not really, in the Court of Far Seeing. But David said he could feel the change as the sun came up over the horizon, if not for the Sunlit Lands, for everyone else.
Kekoa, on the other hand, would sleep until forced out of bed. Jason leaned close to Delightful Glitter Lady. “Hey, Dee,” he whispered. “Dee! Where’s Kekoa?”
Dee’s long ears perked up, and her eyes opened.
“Where’s Kekoa? Where is he?” Jason mimed looking around, like he couldn’t see his roommate sleeping twelve feet away.
Dee sat up, her thick, ropelike tail thumping against the blanket. “Where’s Kekoa? Go get ’im!”
Dee gave a delighted snort, scrambled from Jason’s bed, and flung herself across the room, flying up to land full force on Kekoa’s back. She trumpeted in triumph, and Kekoa yowled in pain. “Ay, Dee! C’mon, tita, I was sleeping!”
“I got one,” Jason said. He, Kekoa, and David had been playing a game. These first twenty-eight days, Jason was supposed to be learning all about the Sunlit Lands. In this game, Jason would mention something weird about the Sunlit Lands, and his roommates had to either (a) explai
n it, (b) trick Jason into thinking a fake explanation was a real one, or (c) admit they didn’t know the answer. Jason got a point if he stumped them, and they got a point if they tricked him.
Kekoa pulled his pillow over his head. “It’s too early, brah!”
Jason ignored him. “Why aren’t there any Elenil kids?”
Kekoa pulled the pillow off his head. His hair was pointing in every direction. “Man, are you serious? You just now noticed that? You’ve been here a whole month.”
“It’s weird, though,” Jason said. “No babies. No pregnant ladies. No toddlers or even teenagers. They act like Rondelo is a kid, but he’s—what did he tell us?—three hundred years old.”
David slammed the door open and shouted, “Good morning, roomies! The sun is shining!”
“It’s always shining,” Kekoa grumbled, then yelped when Delightful Glitter Lady jumped off him and ran, panting, to David.
David crouched down and scratched her behind the ears. “Hey there, DGL! I brought you something. I brought you—settle down now, it’s right here, behind my back. Look!” David pulled out a gigantic handful of long yellow grass that the Elenil called sweetsword. It was Dee’s favorite food. She leaned against David while she chomped on it.
Kekoa sat up. “Wu Song’s got one.”
Jason put his hands behind his head and waited for David to look at him. He paused for dramatic effect. “Why aren’t there any Elenil kids?”
David snorted. “You just notice that?”
“He’s slow,” Kekoa said. “I noticed that my first week.”
David grinned. “That Jason’s slow? Or about the kids?”
“I did see a creepy kid in a mask my first day,” Jason said.
“Ugh,” Kekoa said. “That kid is the worst.”
“Human,” David said, nodding his head. “Been in the Sunlit Lands too long. He’s all twisted around with magic.”
“So why no kids?” Jason asked.
Kekoa and David exchanged looks. “The Scim took them,” David said. “Sixty years ago, the Scim kidnapped all the children, and they put a curse on the Elenil so they can’t have any more.”
Kekoa rubbed his jaw. “It’s why they’re such terrible enemies. Scim took all their kids, brah. No way the Elenil can forgive that. Not only did they take them away, they wouldn’t let them celebrate Elenil holidays, or learn the culture at all. They made them into Scim, too.”
David flopped onto his own bed. “Pretty terrible.”
“So the Elenil are going to keep fighting the Scim forever, you know. There’s no way out of that one. No path to forgiveness.”
“Whoa,” Jason said. “That makes sense. That’s gotta be true.”
Kekoa and David burst into laughter, jumped off their beds, and high-fived each other. “That’s a point for us, Wu!”
“What do we have now, seventeen points?”
“Sixteen,” Jason mumbled. “I thought for sure that was the real story. It sounded so convincing.”
David picked up a ball from beside his bed and threw it against the wall. It bounced back to him, and he threw it again. “Happened often enough to the Native people. My grandpa got taken off the reservation, sent to a missionary school, and whipped if he spoke Crow. They cut his hair, wouldn’t let people do the traditional dances, and wouldn’t let them wear their regalia. Couldn’t be any religion other than Christian, either. They even had a saying, ‘Kill the Indian, save the man.’”
Jason sat up and grabbed the pudding cup by his bed. It was always within reach when he woke up. He should have put spoons in the deal too, because there wasn’t ever one nearby. He saw a dirty one from yesterday on the floor, so he rubbed it clean on his blanket and started eating. “Yeah, right. You don’t get points for tricking me about Earth history, only Elenil history.”
David caught the ball he’d been throwing and sat still. He didn’t say anything at first, and a weird silence fell in the room. Kekoa didn’t move except to turn his eyes toward Jason. Even Delightful Glitter Lady stopped, as if she sensed danger, her ears perked up, her eyes still. Jason paused, a bite of chocolate pudding halfway to his mouth. A pit opened up in his stomach. He didn’t know any stories like David’s, but he should have realized it was in the realm of possibility. Was it really any different than what had happened to his own family not so long ago? “Uh-oh,” Jason said. “I assume that actually happened.”
“Man, you should know that’s not a joke,” Kekoa said. “Didn’t they teach you anything in history class?”
Before Jason could reply, David spoke. “My grandfather,” he said, “was of the Apsáalooke. The Crow people. He was whipped for speaking our language. When I was a kid, I didn’t want to learn it. I heard the elders speaking it, and a lot of the other kids even, but I always liked English, you know? My cartoons were in English. School was in English. But my grandfather, even when I was little, he would point at the sun in the morning, and he would say áxxaashe. He would wake me at night and show me the bilítaachiia. He would cup his hands in the river and hold it up to me and say bilé. Some of the other elders, they didn’t feel right speaking our language. Grandfather said they still ‘felt the whip’ when they spoke. They’d speak it sometimes, but they felt pale eyes watching them. When I was eight years old, Grandfather called me into his room, and I helped him take off his shirt. He showed me his back, and he said, ‘When I was your age, I earned these scars.’ That’s what he said, he earned them. ‘I earned these scars,’ he said, ‘so you could learn the tongue of your elders and ancestors.’” David stared out the window, and the strange atmosphere in the room slowly lifted, like a fog evaporating. “My grandfather fought to keep our language alive. After that I never complained.”
“Whoa,” Jason said. “That’s intense.”
David shrugged. He pointed to a tiny scar in his left eyebrow. “See this?”
“Yeah.”
“Kid named Billy skimmed a rock at me across a pond, and it sailed up and clipped me. I always thought he did it on purpose. Point is, though, I wouldn’t remember Billy skipping rocks that day without a mark on my skin. Scars help us remember. I remember the missionary schools because of my grandfather’s scars. That’s an important thing, Jason. That’s something to ask yourself. One of your weird questions. Why don’t the Elenil have any scars?”
The answer flew into Jason’s mouth. It was so simple as to be self-explanatory. “Because they heal all their wounds right away with magic.”
David got up, threw his ball to Kekoa, and opened the door to their room. “Nah, man. It’s because there’s something they’re trying to forget.”
The door slammed. Delightful Glitter Lady jumped and snorted. She watched the door for a few moments, and when David didn’t come back in she trotted over to Jason and leaned against his legs.
“We better get dressed,” Kekoa said.
“I feel bad, man. I didn’t mean to upset David.” Today was Jason’s last day to wear white. At the ceremony tonight, the Bidding, they called it, he would be able to wear clothes with color in them again.
Kekoa rolled out of bed, already in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He had a habit of going a couple days in a row in the same clothes, even though there was a magic laundry hamper. You threw your clothes into the hamper, and they returned, cleaned and folded, to your drawer within forty-eight hours. Jason had no right to judge Kekoa’s clothing choices, though. It looked like someone had been using white clothes to build a nest around his bed. He scooped them up and shoved them all into the clothes hamper, forcing the lid down over the top until he heard the tiny pop that told him they had disappeared.
“He’s not mad at you, brah,” Kekoa said, doing a quick smell check on his T-shirt. “It’s just . . . Man, you know the teachers at his grandfather’s school? They didn’t have any scars, either. You know what I mean?”
Scars. Jason’s entire chest had been crushed. That’s what they told him, anyway. He barely remembered it. There wasn’t a scar or any o
ther indication he had been hurt. There was a sort of echoing memory of something called Night’s Breath. He wasn’t sure what it meant. Madeline wouldn’t talk about it, and Kekoa and David both said they didn’t know what it was. It sounded almost like one of the Elenil names for a plant. He wondered what it was, what it looked like, and why he couldn’t get those two words out of his head. Another nagging theory kept trying to make room in his head too, but he didn’t want to think about it. He was curious, yeah, but he felt conflicted, too. Maybe it would be better if he didn’t know exactly what had happened. Still, he lay in bed at night and turned the words over and over in his head, trying to find a new way of hearing them, some unattainable insight.
Kekoa said, “Why didn’t you believe David when he told you about his grandfather?”
Jason paused, considering this. Since his vow to be completely honest, he had found questions about his own motivations difficult to answer. Sometimes he didn’t understand his own decisions, and it took time to think them through. Other times the motivations were too complicated—ten different reasons, all intertwined. Some more important than others, yes, but he hated to give an incomplete answer. So why hadn’t he believed David? One, he was tired of being fooled by Kekoa and David’s answers about the Sunlit Lands. He felt like a fool, guessing at weird trivia about a magical and sometimes illogical place. They had just tricked him with their fiction about the Elenil’s children being stolen by the Scim, and something about that rubbed him the wrong way. He was sick of the lies and exaggerations. He worked hard to be truthful, and he didn’t understand why other people couldn’t do the same thing. Second, he had to be honest, in some way the idea that the United States of America would systematically and purposefully destroy another culture seemed unlikely. Which was so ironic, so hilarious, because he had evidence of it in his own life, in his own family. But somehow he had bought into the lie that things must be different for everyone else, that his experience was the exception, not the norm. There was this voice in his head saying, That can’t be true, that’s not the American way! And that voice was keeping him from seeing what was true. But Jason wasn’t letting lies stand in his life anymore. He was rooting them out, replacing them with the truth.
The Crescent Stone Page 17
