Embers of Empire

by Michaela Strauther

  They both stood, and Julian lay down where Sathryn had lain, his head against the bag and his back along the ground. Sathryn curled up on top of him, resting her head against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her; they were trembling. She was warmer, but she was still shaky. And it wasn’t his thick, warm coat or the fire making her so.

  The constant rhythm of his heart lulled her to sleep. Just before she went under, Julian murmured, “Good night.”

  She pretended not to hear.

  ulian was still underneath her.

  She didn’t want to move, didn’t want to breathe too quickly or say anything that would let him know she was awake. She was too comfortable, too warm, even though the fire had died down. She might have also been afraid of what they might say to each other when they rose, but she’d never admit it.

  As much as she could see from her position on the ground, it was later in the morning, but not yet afternoon. The sun wasn’t high enough in the sky. The horse was awake and looked like it had been for a while—alert and standing, wandering around the tree it was tied to and making tracks on the ground. Their little camp looked undisturbed. Her bundle at the other end was still tied tight, and neither of them was dead or captured, so the Arrows couldn’t have been there.

  She must have moved her head or breathed or made a sound, because Julian moved as well. “Morning.” His voice was soft and tired.

  “Good morning.” She couldn’t see his face.

  “I think I fell asleep, but I’m not sure.” He laughed.

  With a deep breath, she got off him and walked over to the other end of the fire. She acted like she was grabbing something from her bundle—a small sack of food. He was warm, yes, and she didn’t want to leave, perhaps, but—and here, she busied herself with excuses as to why she had left him, why she wasn’t looking him in the eye now.

  He understood. Standing from his place on the ground and brushing away the dirt and debris, he grabbed his bow and his quiver. “I’ll catch something.” He surveyed the trees around them.

  “Catch what? I don’t see any animals right now.” She said it casually, but in truth, she was on fire.

  He flashed a sharp-toothed smile and walked farther into the woods until he was lost to the trees. When he came back, he held an upright arrow, a dead squirrel at the end.

  Julian helped Sathryn onto the horse, then mounted it himself. After eating, they both had snuffed out the fire with snow and rocks and cleaned up around their little camp until nothing was left to show that they had been there. Sathryn wrapped her hands around Julian’s waist again, and they rode out of the confines of the woods and back into the sloping valley.

  They stayed silent for a long time. The horse moved quickly, its repetitive beats almost putting her to sleep, if not for the fact that she was sitting straight up and the air was still freezing cold.

  After a while, in the distance, Sathryn saw a tall building and smaller structures lining the horizon. The trees around them were more frequent and in larger clusters, the ground underneath them was loosening, darkening, and sprouting large patches of grass, and the air around them smelled more of fire, food, and horses.

  For the past few days, Sathryn had been surrounded by nothing more than Julian, a horse, and the winter world. Her senses had been cleansed of the rank smell of Deadland and replaced by the cool, wet, fresh air, tainted by evergreen. But as much as she loved the purity of clean, midwinter air, the smell of foods and fires meant there was civilization nearby. So she couldn’t help smiling.

  Julian must have seen it—and smelled it too—because he cheered and kicked the horse to go faster. “Do you see it? It’s right there! That’s Kingsland!”

  The horse ran like it wanted to reach the region just as fast.

  Sathryn had never been to Kingsland, but Julian had. When they rode up to a large, golden gate blocking their entry, he didn’t look the least bit surprised. To the citizens of Kingsland, it was a normal thing for a wall stretching as far as she could see on either side to block the entrance to the land. It frustrated her. She wanted to see what Julian referred to as a “glorious land,” but the wall blocked it.

  A man approached where they were mounted on the horse. He was a round, heavy man with a uniform on, a maroon cloak with a little black dragon shape covering a suit of silver armor. He drew his sword as soon as he looked up at them, pulling out a little brown book as well. “Name?”

  “Vyser,” Julian said.

  The man stepped closer, peering into Julian’s face. “You don’t look like Myrna’s boy.”

  Julian was surprised for a moment. “You know her?”

  The guard nodded, but he was still eyeing him. “Yes. She is one of the housemaids for our illustrious kings.” The way he referred to the kings was like he was programmed to do so, like it was rote.

  Julian nodded. “Of course. I’m a cousin of hers.”

  The man narrowed his eyes, but this time his gaze flicked to Sathryn. “Then who’s this one?”

  Julian waved his hands as if it didn’t matter. “A friend, is all. We’re visiting Myrna for the Spring Festival coming up. Will the kings excuse her for the celebration? We have a lot of plans.” He paired his words with a charming smile.

  The guard rolled his eyes, resheathed his sword, and tucked the little brown book back into his coat before walking to the gate doors. “Sure as hell acts like Myrna,” he muttered. He slid a key into a small hole, then yanked the great golden doors open for Sathryn to see.

  She gazed into the region like a blind man seeing color for the first time.

  The paved roads stretched forever. They winded down market fronts and giant buildings, homes and restaurants, past quick-moving pedestrians and those riding in horse-drawn carriages. The people were people—not a Lynot or a Spade or an imp in sight—and they were all dressed in bright silk clothing and thick fur coats. Their faces were clean, their skin was free of dirt, and their hair was groomed. Around every corner was a bright, glowing fire lined with stones and evergreen trees, but no one hung around them with nowhere to go like they did in Deadland. Everything was purposeful, quick, sophisticated. In the far distance, she could just see the outline of the largest building by far—Kings’ Castle, as Julian had said—high on a hilltop, though it was partly hidden behind the low-hanging clouds.

  As Julian and Sathryn rode into the region, those walking along the street or riding in buggies glared at them, eyeing their matted, dirty coats and messy hair before settling on their method of travel. Sathryn wanted to shrink away—in fact, she did so against Julian’s back, but Julian didn’t notice. He was so entranced by what was around them that he didn’t notice the way people were crowding around the two, dirty strangers who had ridden in on an equally dirty horse.

  When he snapped from his reverie, he leapt down from the back of the horse as if nothing was wrong. After all, this was his home.

  He helped her off the horse, and as soon as she reached the ground, he wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. She hugged him back and smiled. The people around them began moving again, no longer interested in Sathryn or Julian and instead focused on wherever they needed to go.

  “We made it,” he whispered to her.

  “We made it,” she repeated, then pulled away.

  Julian grabbed the reins of the horse and walked down the winding roads. He pointed to the buildings he recognized, his face filled with more joy than she’d ever seen on him. Apparently, each house in the region was required to have a large stained-glass window on the front face of their home that depicted a circle of five crowns and a great, bright-red dragon in the middle. When building the house, a large window was installed already, but, “If you don’t pay someone to paint in the symbol of the kings, you are punished.”

  He lowered his voice as they passed a pair of tall, burly guards. They were dressed just like the man outside the gate. It seemed the farther they wandered into Kingsland, the more subdued Julian’s expression became. Seeing the guard
s and the insignias and the wealth compared to Deadland’s lifeless luster must have reminded him why he was here.

  “They have guards all over the place now,” he said. “More than I remember.” The guards would glare at them every so often too, almost as often as the commoners. They were outsiders, even if Julian had once lived there. His wealthy status in Deadland paled to that of the average person here, as did Sathryn’s status back home—a woman left a store carrying a bouquet of bags filled with clothing and shoes and coats; a young couple rode in a deep-maroon carriage outlined in gold, four horses pulling them forward; little children far younger than her were dressed head to toe in white-gold dresses and tops.

  Sathryn’s shoes, ones that were once her most expensive pair, were ratted down and worn through, but the people here strutted around in black clogs and boots like they owned at least a dozen others of the same pair.

  She changed the subject. “So, where are we going?”

  Julian looked around, confused. “I’m trying to find Myrna’s house . . .”

  “Myrna? That woman the guard talked about?”

  He nodded. “She was my mother’s friend—” A woman shoved him, cutting him off.

  Sathryn turned to look back at the woman—tall with a long velvet coat—and glared. “Are they just rude on purpose?”

  She thought Julian would laugh or joke, but he seemed just as annoyed. “I don’t remember it being like this. The people seemed nicer—”

  “That’s because you were ‘the people.’”

  He shrugged and turned into a narrow street whose homes were much smaller than those preceding them. Each building had an address—hung on tall, golden poles, ones she’d never seen in Pomek—and a bright stained-glass window like the ones near the entrance.

  “Look for K019,” Julian told her as her peered up to examine each address.

  They had reached the far end of the street when Sathryn saw the address K019 belonging to a large, full red-white brick home, adorned in the same glass window and a garden circling around the house—or what would have been a garden had it not been winter.

  Seeing the house, Julian looked shaken. “That’s it. I haven’t seen her since my mother died.”

  Sathryn still wanted to talk to him about his wanting to kill the kings so soon and with so little enforcement, but it didn’t seem like the place to mention killing the rulers of their world.

  They approached the house. Julian, one hand still wrapped around the reins of the horse, knocked three times on the solid mahogany door.

  There was a shuffling inside, then the door swung open to reveal a middle-aged woman dressed in a golden gown. The look on her face changed from hospitable to bewildered to enthralled all in one take as her eyes scraped over the two of them, particularly Julian. Her eyes were watering when she leaned forward to hug him—she was a bit shorter than he was. Julian hugged her back.

  “I haven’t seen you in so long.” She pulled them both into the house.

  It was warm inside, a gold-lined fireplace in the corner spewing constant hot air. The windows were uncovered by the expensive, red-silk, embroidered curtains that hung by them, allowing the white light from outside to leak through onto the fancy rugs Myrna had placed throughout her home. Julian peeled off his coat and sat in a red-velvet sofa, inviting Sathryn to do the same.

  Myrna nodded at Sathryn. “Please, you’re as welcome as Julian is. What’s your name?”

  “Sathryn.” For whatever reason, her voice came out meek and soft. She felt meek and soft, incongruous in the grand home.

  She remembered Pomek well, remembered that it was nothing like this, and remembered once thinking she lived in the grandest place in the world. Where Sathryn had silver, Myrna had gold. Where Sathryn had linen, Myrna had silk.

  “She’s my friend,” Julian said.

  Myrna gave her one last smile before addressing Julian again. “Look at you! You’ve grown so much! Might I ask why I’m blessed with your company?” She lowered her voice. “You know Ajasek is no longer as well respected a name here as it was when you lived here. I don’t even know how you managed to walk through the gates.”

  Julian smirked. “I used your last name.”

  Myrna laughed. She was standing in the kitchen and lighting a fire in the stove. “Smart boy. But why did you come here? Are you thinking of moving back?” She sounded hopeful.

  “No. In fact, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He waited a moment, glancing around as if the kings themselves were hiding beneath the stairwell. “I want to kill the kings.”

  Myrna, who, as the guard said, was a housemaid for the kings and was getting paid well to do so—judging by her home—jerked back from the stove she was lighting and dropped the fire striker. Then, she just stared at Julian with a look that said, “What did you just say?”

  “What?” She rushed to the window by the door and peeked out. “Julian, you can’t say those things in my household. There are guards on every corner. You can’t do that!”

  Julian watched her. “I thought you would be okay with it. I thought you hated the kings as much as I. My mother was your closest friend—”

  Myrna closed the curtains, which blocked out much of the light shining in. “Do you know what would happen if you—God forbid—kill the most powerful beings this world has known? Wars, Julian, famine, poverty—”

  “We have that now. I’ve lived in Deadland now for years and I’ve seen it all. If they’re dead, things will get better.” He kept his voice low and soft, but Sathryn sensed his frustration. “I thought you would fight with me.”

  Myrna sighed, her frenzy dying down to quiet exasperation. “Those kings have given me a job, Julian. I play my harp for them and they enjoy it. I host all their parties, their balls, their feasts, and I’m given a steady payment for it all. I can’t give that up. I’m living so well.”

  Julian tightened his fists. Sathryn wanted to say something—perhaps to neutralize the fight or calm Julian down—but didn’t. She was an outsider. What right did she have to silence or refute someone who had welcomed her into her home?

  “So you, what, love the kings now? Is that your point? You are willing to let others suffer because you are living so well? Don’t you realize that the vast minority of people live like you? Anyone outside Kingsland has been bathing in their own filth for years—”

  “Not those in Pomek, or Riverville—”

  Julian got very loud. “That’s where you’re wrong!” He looked over at Sathryn, but she couldn’t look back up at him until he said, “Sathryn used to live in Pomek.” He looked back at Myrna. “When I met her, she was living in Deadland. Tell her what happened, Sathryn. Tell her why you had to move to Deadland, why you had to leave your prestigious little home to live in a one-room shack.”

  Sathryn stayed quiet. Julian looked back at her, his eyes warning. She nodded and hoped that they would understand her point.

  “Julian.” Myrna held her hands to her face and shook her head in despair—or disappointment. Sathryn hadn’t yet decided which. “You’re too young to burden yourself with these radical ideas. You’re too naïve to understand—truly understand—how this world works. You talk about the poor people, then you talk about me, yet you forget that you’ve always eaten from a silver spoon. You’re too irrational, thoughtless—”

  Julian wouldn’t hear it. He pulled on his coat and hauled his bag over his shoulder. “My mother would be furious with you.”

  “Your mother would think you are just as illogical as I do,” Myrna snapped. “Your mother would have a plan. Your mother would think it through. Your mother was older, had more experience—” She broke off when Julian turned away.

  Sathryn saw his face now. Tears were welling in his eyes at—perhaps—the mention of his mother, but it could have been that he was realizing how thoughtless he’d been. He ran his hands through his tangled hair over and over again.

  “I’m sorry.” Myrna bowed her head. “I shouldn’t have—I’m sor
ry.”

  With his head in his hands, Julian dropped his bag on the velvet couch and sat back down.

  “I hate those kings for taking your mother.” Myrna walked over to Julian and knelt beside him as if trying to look into his eyes, but he kept his head too low. “I hate them. Anya was my sister in all ways but blood, and to see her on that stake—” She choked for a second. “Regardless of the job the kings gave me, I will always hate them. But—but you should wait if you want to risk yourself to rid the world of them. Wait until you have more experience, wait until you have a larger group. There is a reason anyone has yet to rid the world of these kings.”

  She ran a clean, dainty hand through his hair and along his face. “You should wash up. Both of you. The well is in the back, the fire is already lit. I have a shift at the castle in a few minutes, but I’ll make you both something warm to eat, and we’ll talk more when I come home.”

  She wrapped her arms around Julian, planted a kiss on his forehead, and then reached for a long, thick coat hanging by the door. She waved one last time before flooding the home with cold air as the door opened and shut behind her.

  Julian still had his head down. Sathryn sat beside him, watching. She wouldn’t move until he did. And he didn’t move, or even speak, for a long time.

  “What do you think I should do?” he asked her, his head still buried in his hands. It was the last question she thought he would ask.

  “Why does it matter what I think?”

  “Because I dragged you along.” He looked up then, and when he did, his eyes were red. He stared at her, looking straight into her eyes. She stared straight back. “Because I don’t have a plan anymore. Because I have no idea of what I should do.”

  Throughout the entire trip, she’d never seen him so unsure of himself and what he wanted. What happened to the flared bravado?

  “What do you think I should do?” he asked her, softer this time.

  “I think that a lot of what Myrna said was right. That maybe your goal for now shouldn’t be something as brash and impulsive as killing the kings yet, but maybe you should do what your mother did—take your time.”