by T. K. Kiser
“What about Esten then?”
“To be honest, I think Grandfather hopes it will sort itself out. Or he thinks it will get much, much worse, and wants Marcel to return and take kingship of the ruins.”
“Don’t say things like that,” Carine said, her stomach twisting.
David’s dad was already dead, a victim of the border wars. If his grandfather, the king, planned to do nothing about the Heartless Ones, even if he thought that the situation would worsen, then there really wasn’t hope for Mom and Didda. She pictured them now at home where the windows were shattered and the door marked for death if Didda ever returned from the pig sty, if Mom ever escaped the baker.
“Sorry,” Prince David said, bumping her intentionally with his shoulder.
The friendly gesture surprised her, and before she knew it, she was telling him what had happened with Selius coming to her house and the prowler after her heart. Her voice was no louder than a whisper, so David’s head bowed close to hear.
“Mom told me to run, and I did. At the time, I thought it was the only thing I could do. My parents can’t bear to lose another child. It would kill them. But now…” She looked up, and David met her eyes. “Now I feel like I abandoned them, and when I picture a future in Ilmaria, it means nothing to me without them.”
“You didn’t abandon them,” David assured her. “And don’t worry about Ilmaria. We’re not going to dump you off somewhere to let you fend for yourself.”
“Then what will I do? The princes’ knights can’t babysit a Navafortian shoemaker.”
David thought. “You want to see your parents again, right?”
“More than anything,” she said softly.
“Then somehow we’ll have to get you back to Esten after it becomes safe again. In the meantime, you’re right; you can’t rely on our knights to protect you. How good are you with a sword?”
15 Weapons Training
Prince Giles pushed himself off the mast with his shoulder and stepped over a pile of winding rope. A braided metal dragon’s tail, part of his helmet, covered his nose. “People believe that the key to protecting oneself is through blocking, constant defense.”
Carine smiled. “I think I’ll be able to remember that, Your Highness.” Defense was her life’s mantra.
“People who believe that are mistaken.” His eyes pierced. “If you are to survive, you need to know a few basic advancing steps. If you can only block, your opponent will slice you through. Understand?”
Carine nodded. She was dressed in David’s chainmail and held his heavy sword in her right hand.
“Very well.”
Prince Giles slashed his sword at Carine’s side. She swung to block and succeeded. A smile spread over her face, but Prince Giles struck again. This time, he danced around the rope piles and behind a crew member that crossed the deck eating a baguette. The metal of the sword rapped against her chainmail, sending waves of motion up and down the coat.
“See? You are dead, in this case.”
“Okay. May we try again, Your Highness?”
Prince Giles grinned. No sooner had he done so than he swung at her side. She blocked, ready this time. It was the same first move as before. But Prince Giles moved swiftly. Inches from her face, he blocked her sword with the chainmail in his arm, placed his blade up to her neck, and with his free hand, crushed her hand on the hilt of her sword. He now had control of both swords, and pushed her back to the main sail. A few crew members stared, watching. The eating one seemed to think he was at a theatrical performance.
She was pathetic.
“See?” Beads of sweat formed under Giles’ dark hairline. “You’re thinking defense. Take action.”
“Let’s try again.”
She could do it this time. She would step first over the rope and strengthen her grip on her sword. This match would be hers, and no one would think her pathetic, not the eating man or David who sat against the cabin wall grinning.
Prince Giles stepped back, preparing to fight with the most extraordinary posture. Carine lifted her neck, trying to imitate him, to impress him. Her lips pressed together in concentration.
His Highness bowed slightly. She curtseyed. Without hesitation, she advanced, lifting her sword to crash into his shoulder. Before it did, his blade’s point touched the exposed chainmail on her stomach.
“Overzealous,” His Highness Prince Giles said, grinning.
Carine let her arm drop, defeated.
“You’ll get it,” Prince David said. His bleached shirt flapped in the wind.
Carine rubbed her forehead. “I know I’ll learn it over time with practice, but—”
“We still have a few days before we get to Ilmaria,” Prince David said.
Carine sighed, hands on her knees. “A sword will only help me defeat robbers or knights. None of this can fight what I really want to defeat.”
Prince Giles watched his reflection in his blade. “Manakor? Don’t worry about enchantments in Ilmaria or Padliot. The Heartless Ones don’t like wandering south.”
Carine wiped her forehead. “But if they did, is it possible for regular folk to kill a Heartless One? Can you teach me how?”
Prince Giles laughed darkly. “The Heartless Ones, technically, are already dead. They have no pulse, no feelings, no blood, no heartbeat.”
“But dragon magic sustains them,” Carine said.
“Not dragon magic,” Prince David corrected. He spat the name of the tenth dragon. “Luzhiv.”
Carine let the sword drop. “Either way, is it possible to cut them off from the dragon? I mean, without the flame?”
“Decapitation, I hear,” Prince Giles said. He sheathed his sword casually. “They use that method over in Wyre. But imagine decapitating a Heartless One. He can control your sword, your ax, every aspect of your environment.” Giles pushed aside some rope with his boot and stepped to the mast again, leaning his weight against it.
Carine stepped after, thinking of that lifeless body she and Mom had seen by the river. “What about without leaving a mark, keeping his body fully in tact?”
“The flame,” Prince Giles answered simply.
“Then someone must have a flame in Esten.”
“Why?” asked Prince David.
Prince Giles watched the cloudless sky. “Impossible. All flames extinguish one year after the parent flame emerges from Kavariel’s mouth—to the second. No matter what wood, oil, or sap feeds it. Believe me, I have experimented thoroughly.”
“Well, we’re missing something, then,” Carine said. “Selius is dead. I saw his body.”
The boys stood frozen.
“What?” David said. “That’s the Heartless One, right?”
“His body was intact?” Prince Giles asked.
“Not a scratch. I thought at first he might be sleeping, but his eyes were wide open, and ten minutes later, he was still there.”
Prince Giles’ face grew serious as Prince David jumped to take action.
“Captain,” David shouted to the upper deck, “turn this ship around!”
16 Safer in the South
“For the last time, Your Majesty, no. As much as I’d like to help you, I answer to the king and not his son. My mission, under pain of death, is to deliver his Majesty Prince Marcel to Ilmaria. Nothing will change that.”
The captain repeated his declaration until Prince David’s face blued with exertion.
Alviar’s voice boomed from the main deck through cupped hands. “Do not change course, captain. King’s orders.”
The captain shrugged. “There you have it.”
“But I’m a prince!” David said. He trudged to the balcony of the quarter deck. “Alviar, don’t you understand? There’s something out there. We have to protect Navafort.”
“We knew about the Heartless Ones when we left Navafort. Nothing has changed.”
“But now there are more of them! The Heartless Ones will overtake Esten. There will be nothing for us to return to.”
“There’s nothing we can do, my prince. Come down from there.”
“Then we’ll call for help,” Prince David said. “Alviar, we’ll use your enchanted bowstring. You said anyone who plucks it will get help. Let’s call for help for Esten’s sake.”
“That’s only for emergencies,” Alviar said.
“And Heartless Ones loose in Esten isn’t an emergency?” Prince David begged. “Innocent people are dying and terrified.”
Carine swallowed. As much as she wanted to turn around to find her parents, she still had no way to protect herself or her parents once she reached shore.
Alviar sighed. “You trust me, don’t you?”
Prince David scowled then wailed, “Stupid Marcel.”
The prince picked up a tomato and chucked it in the storage room. Red tomato guts splattered the wall as the fruit skin slid into a box of potatoes. Prince David sank to his knees and put his face in his hands. Carine sat by him on the clean floor and put her hand on his shoulder.
“If Grandfather didn’t prize him so much, we could be back there in Esten, making a difference. I felt bad about leaving Esten, even from the beginning. We’re their princes. We should be doing something. And now to know that there is yet another Heartless One in Esten, one so powerful that he killed Selius…”
Carine pressed her lips in sympathy. “I know this probably isn’t what you want to hear right now, but you’ll be safer in the south.” So would she, not that it did much good for her parents.
“I know that”—he wiped his face with his fingers—“but what about the kingdom? I have people I’m responsible for, more than just Marcel. Does anybody get that? I shouldn’t have left. I should have stayed and fought. So what if I’m no good with a sword? So what if I can’t compete with Manakor? At least I would die for a cause.”
She patted his shoulder. “King Marcel will figure something out for Esten.” It didn’t seem to help. After a moment of silence, she spoke her true thoughts. “Alviar said I couldn’t escape Manakor any more than I could escape my own skin. Do you think that’s true? Do you think everything has a name that’s being called every minute?”
David’s attention shifted. He had big, brown eyes, so defenseless and attentive. His voice got quiet. “Have you ever been to a funeral?”
Carine’s throat tightened. She had been small when they buried her sister Louise, but she still remembered the red casket and the white linen that covered it.
“My dad died before Giles and I were born,” he said.
Carine had known this. Mom and Didda said it’d been a tragedy when the heir to the throne died in a border skirmish with Padliot when his wife was pregnant. The would-be king never even found out they were having twins. His wife survived, but spent her days allowing foreign suitors to court her.
“They didn’t bury his casket in a grave. They keep it with the other Marcels in the catacombs. His casket is covered in glass, and under the glass on the linen is written my dad’s name in shining Manakor.” Prince David smiled. “Don’t get uncomfortable. I know how much you love that language.”
Carine grinned.
“I used to go down there sometimes with friends. We’d pretend we were exploring, and I would show them the caskets and everything. But I went there mostly to try and figure out why Giles and I had to grow up without a dad. I mean, we have Grandfather, but since we’re not named Marcel, we may as well be unrelated. Grandfather doesn’t want the line of Marcels to be broken. The Marcels are supposed to have a great destiny, you know? I always thought about that name. Was it planned out for my dad to die that way at that age? For a while, I thought it wasn’t fair. But then, one day I got to thinking that if I have a name too, a Manakor name, with a destiny and everything, then that means I might not be fated as the stupid middle child. Maybe I can be heroic like my father, even if it means dying a heroic death.”
It was a new experience, sitting on a stair in the cellar while someone her age, someone like a friend, poured out his heart. All Carine could do was watch his dopey ears stick out when he clenched his jaw and see his pale lips tremble with anxiety. She felt like she knew him, like she had known him a long time, and everything that he did made her want to laugh for its familiarity. And everything he said made her want to cry for his heartbreak.
On the outside, however, she sat casually on that stair, though she thought that if he looked closely, David might see in her eyes the admiration that felt like joy.
Carine exhaled. “Do you want to play a card game?”
Prince David snorted. “Here I am, pouring out my heart, and you want to play cards?”
Heat rose in Carine’s cheeks. “I’m sorry, it’s just in my family, we never talk about my sister. We just make shoes or sing or drink tea.”
“Or play cards,” Prince David suggested. He didn’t ask any details about Louise, thank the flames.
“Exactly.”
The prince’s eyes sparkled. “All right. I don’t know how to play anything, so you’ll have to show me. And maybe after that, we can work on dealing with negative emotions.”
Crack.
Lightning struck. Carine shrieked on her step and huddled against the wall. David jumped up. He stared at the open hatch at the top of the steps. The sky, which moments earlier had been a serene blue, had turned dark. Ominous clouds gathered as rain sprayed down.
“What the—” David held onto the banister, and Carine clung to the wall as the ship rolled. The crates fell, crashing bread and onions over the floor. The water that fell through the hatch flowed down the stairs in a river. When the ship tossed, the water sprayed over the stairs onto the food crates.
“Stay here,” David said, pushing past her. “I’ll be right back.”
“Wait!” Carine yelled. She hadn’t noticed any sign of a storm when they had been on the deck. It didn’t seem right.
But David had made up his mind. He was halfway up the stairs when lightning struck again. It hit the water, and the ship rolled so drastically that David crashed over the banister.
He slammed straight through the wood,
splitting the banister in two. His body was sprawled motionless over the cheese and dried meat. Blood flowed from his forehead onto the yams.
17 Flood on Board
“David!”
Carine didn’t dare move until the ship seemed to steady, though now the crew scurried overhead on deck, calling to each other. Slowly, carefully, Carine crawled to the prince. Fruit juice or blood—or both—stained the sides of his soft shirt as his boots grazed the ground. He lifted his head. His forehead folded in pain. Blood trickled down the crease and over his eyebrows. Thank the flames he was okay.
“What hurts?” Carine said.
David moaned. “Everything.”
Carine took his arm and draped it over her shoulders. The banister was in splinters, completely broken through. Water rushed down the stairs in a steady current, rising already to the tops of Carine’s feet. Carine’s fingers fell on his bloodstained shirt to help him stand. When he didn’t, she asked, “Can you move?”
David tried sitting up but fell back onto the food boxes. “Give me a minute.”
“I’m getting help,” Carine said, letting his arm fall.
“No!” David said from an instinctive pride, but then said, “Fine.”
Turning, Carine regretted her resolution. Water gushed in, rising every second. She held onto the post that remained of the banister.
“Try to stand up, David. The water’s rushing in.”
David didn’t answer. She heard his movement as she faced the river before her. The boat rocked side to side in huge, unpredictable motions.
Crack. Crack. Lightning snapped outside.
Bread soaked up water like sponges. Fruit floated over the rising pool. The banister shook in her grasp. Chills made her shiver. She took a breath and leapt up the stairs until she reached the section from which David fell. He groaned, trying again—unsuccessfully—to rise.
She
stepped again. The cold, pelting rain flattened her hair against her skull and made her shudder. Carine scrambled over the water flooding the stairs onto the deck and closed the hatch door behind her, hoping that would keep the rain from getting in.
The deck was flooding too, from rain as well as seawater crashing over the rails as the boat rose and fell on an enormous wave. Carine paused at the hatch door, wanting to go back downstairs. The clouds blocked the sun. The black sky flashed white, enough to see that the waves were two or three times higher than the ship.
Thunder rolled and lightening flashed.
Two crew members struggled to take down the sail, screaming convoluted orders to each other. On the quarter deck, the captain fought the steering wheel. Alviar stood central on the ship, staring up at the sky. Darkness shadowed them again.
She called out to him, but thunder drowned out her voice. On hands and knees, she clung to the deck for her life. One slip and she would slide off into the pounding waves. Water swirled around her wrists, and every ounce was going down into the hatch. If someone didn’t help David, he would drown.
She struggled over the ship to find help. Had she moved an inch or ten feet? The sky went white. Alviar stood before her, his hooves just inches from her fingers. The burns on his face enhanced his frown.
“Firebrand,” he said, not to her but to himself.
Carine’s heart pounded. “Alviar.”
He turned, noticing her.
The world went dark, to the rolling applause of thunder. Suddenly, Carine felt Alviar’s large hand on her shoulder. He placed it there with the same care that Mom used when she told Carine that Grandma had died.
Carine spoke first. “David’s hurt. He’s in the hatch. He needs help.”
“We all do now,” Alviar said. “This is an emergency.”
Lightning struck again. Silence passed between them. Darkness again. Carine’s heart raced. She read the plea in Alviar’s words, but didn’t want to fulfill it.
“Help him.”
The boat shifted. Alviar grabbed Carine’s other shoulder to steady her.
