The leopards worked as a pack. One dashed straight at Zawne, and the others flanked to attack Nkem and Stingl. Zawne’s leopard leaped into the air and pounced onto his chest with its heavy paws, knocking him down and trying to bite out his throat. Zawne caught it by the muzzle and yelled in its face, “Not today, beast!” He flung it off him. At the same time, Nkem and Stingl were fighting desperately on the desert floor.
Zawne clambered to his feet and ran at the leopard, catching its paws in midair and headbutting it on the top of its skull. It gargled and landed on its feet. Its hair stood on end as it snarled, hissed at Zawne, and made its second attack.
But Zawne was fast. He kicked the oversize cat in the snout and knocked it sideways, then stood astride it. He punched its face—once, twice, three times between the eyes—until the leopard groaned and backed away snarling, then dissolved into the heat of the desert.
Zawne stood powerfully in the sand, his shirt ripped by the claws of the leopard. A primitive look had possessed him during the fight. It was as though the warrior spirit had entered his body, as though the memory of Lordin’s tragic demise had turned him into a savage. He looked at the sky and roared in triumph.
Stingl was on the ground not far from Zawne, struggling beneath the ferocious attack of another leopard. Zawne ran to help. He drove the animal off Stingl, man and beast rolling through the scrub. They spiraled in a mess of fangs and claws, spritzes of blood flying as the leopard tore off chunks of Zawne’s chest. It ended with Zawne on his back and the leopard in his grip. Zawne had his arm wrapped around its throat, choking the cat as it flailed and hissed. Then it was unconscious. Zawne pushed the leopard off him and into the dirt.
“Stingl!” Zawne stood up and dusted himself off. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Stingl said. He was dabbing at the blood weeping from a gash in his arm. “It’s just a flesh wound. But where’s Nkem?”
Zawne looked around. There was no sign of Nkem. “They must have rolled into the riverbed,” he said. “Come on, let’s go!”
They found Nkem slumped against the wall of the gully, blood leaking down his face. He was panting, hands limp in his lap. The leopard was gone.
“What happened?” Zawne asked. He skidded down the loose wall of the riverbed and knelt by Nkem.
“It ran off,” Nkem said. “I shoved my arm down its throat, and it ran off gagging, but not before it clamped its fangs down on my head.” He gestured to the tooth marks on his scalp, chuckling as he said, “That’s probably going to a leave a mark.”
“You bet,” Zawne said, cracking a smile. He took off his shirt and ripped off a long strip. “Here, let me bandage your head. You don’t want the wound to get infected before we reach the coast.”
Whatever animalistic spirit had invaded Zawne during the fight had gone with the leopards. He was normal again, even cheerful, as he bandaged Nkem’s head. He used the rest of his shirt to wrap Nkem’s chest and Stingl’s arm.
Afterward the three friends sat against the wall of the dried-up riverbed and talked about their victories. Stingl was a little upset because he had not defeated his own leopard, but Zawne comforted him.
“It’s all right, Stingl. You faced a leopard and lived. We worked as a team to overcome wild beasts. That’s what the Aska training is all about: perseverance, mastering the mind, the value of life, the value of others.”
“Yeah,” Nkem said. “There was no way Zawne or I could have defeated all three leopards alone. We needed to be a team. The same as we need to be a team for these next thousand miles. After that, a quick swim across a shark-infested channel. It should be a piece of cake.”
It wasn’t.
They stood on the shoreline, looking across the strait to Lodden. “It’s right over there,” Nkem said. “Maybe twenty-five miles.”
“Twenty hours of swimming, I reckon, with breaks,” Stingl said. “It’s not bad.”
Zawne was nodding to himself. He looked across the water to where the continent of Lodden lay shrouded in fog. “Not bad at all, Stingl. Our wounds have healed. Our minds have been fortified. We could walk another four thousand miles in our sleep, probably in half the time.”
“I reckon you’re right,” Nkem said. “It feels like even though we have been eating bugs and dirt, I’ve gained muscle mass. I bet we make it across in fifteen hours.”
Zawne flashed him a smile. “I’ll bet we do it in twelve.”
“You’re on!” And with that, Nkem jumped into the water.
It was exactly fifteen hours later when the shoreline came into view. It was less than two hundred yards away. “I can see it!” Nkem shouted over the waves. Then he laughed. “I thought there were supposed to be sharks.”
As if to spite him, a huge mass appeared beneath the water, rising quickly below Nkem’s feet. Zawne screamed, “Look out!” but it happened too fast. The shark exploded out of the water and caught Nkem in its mouth. There was a quick image of Nkem’s body being crunched by the shark’s serrated teeth. Then the beast was back underwater, swimming away with its meal. Nkem was gone, only an inky trail of blood in the water to suggest he had ever been there at all.
There was a welcoming party waiting for Zawne and Stingl as they trudged out of the water and collapsed on the pebbly beach, exhausted. They sat on the rocks and panted while the waves broke against them.
Thun came over with a horde of P2 drones hovering over his head. “Well, well, I’ll be damned. I didn’t think you had the guts, Prince Zawne, yet here you are, the first two men to reach Lodden. You must feel so relieved.”
“Huh.” Zawne huffed. “I didn’t think I had it in me. But now I know I can be supreme as a human being. I just had to look at life’s challenges differently. I embraced my pain.” Zawne glanced at Stingl. “And I embraced my teammates. Aside from them, I just remembered Lordin. I kept thinking of our first date, at Lithern Shrine, when we sang together and played the piano. I let her strength and love, my pain and guilt for her passing, and my teammates’ support get me to the end. I would never have made it here without them. But there is one challenge I’m still working on.”
“What’s that?”
Zawne was weeping. Thun waited patiently, but the prince didn’t speak. He just gazed out at the water, where his friend had just lost his life.
“Well, Prince Zawne,” Thun said glumly. “It seems you have learned the lesson of teamwork. You understand now the bitter truth of death, its inescapability. Judging by your wounds, I’d say you looked death in the face and overcame. You’ve defeated your mind’s interpretations of sloth, pain, fear, and infirmity. You’ve learned that it’s within your power to disable a foe’s supremacy while still preserving its life. Well done, valiant comrade! I welcome you to your training in Lodden. This will be your home for the next year and a half. The physical and mental tasks we’ve prepared for you are designed to solidify your learnings and to safeguard Geniverd, starting with the principles of Decens-Lenitas.”
I shook free of Zawne’s memories with a deep sense of understanding. I had known the Aska trials were tough, but I had never imagined that the hardships Zawne and Raad had been forced to endure were so brutal. The deaths seemed pointless to me. I couldn’t understand why anyone would subject themselves to such torture, though I supposed in Zawne’s case, he would have been dead or at least hollow without his Aska training. The loss of Lordin had torn his soul asunder, and the great revelation of his training had mended it.
I took a second to marvel at Zawne’s intense devotion to Lordin. Her memory had literally turned him superhuman, had him wrestling leopards and trudging through the searing heat of the desert for months on end. It made me doubt my own worth. Could I ever have inspired Zawne in such a way? Asking myself the question gave me the answer.
I loved Zawne and Zawne loved me, but he would always love Lordin more. She had been his first, his truest. If Zawne felt for Lordin what I had always, in the deepest chambers of my heart, felt for Roki, we would always be loved
, yet loved in the back seat. Zawne and I were afterglows of other loves, ghosts of a feeling that could never be recreated.
Chapter 18
I had become introspective and hadn’t noticed Roki staring at me. “Well,” he asked, “did you figure it out? Did you get a clue?”
I snapped out of my daydream and looked down at Zawne, the poor man asleep on his couch, all alone in the world with his warrior’s heart fractured into pieces. “Yes,” I told Roki. “The clue is love, indefinable and incorruptible love.”
Roki blinked at me. “The cure is in love? I don’t understand, Kaelyn.”
I smiled, still gazing at Zawne. I was happy Roki couldn’t hear my thoughts. Zawne was such a good man. He deserved the best, and if I truly loved him, I would leave him alone. I couldn’t put another hole in his heart with my confused feelings. I couldn’t be with him and Roki. I had to choose.
“The cure is at Lithern Shrine,” I said. “It was the location of Zawne and Lordin’s first date. I think it is the only place of love that Lordin has ever known. If she stored the cure to save humanity anywhere, it’s going to be at Lithern Shrine.”
I chuckled to myself. “It’s funny, you know. For all Lordin’s evil, she still loves Zawne. I can’t help but think that whatever immoral path she is on now, she’s still attached to her human feelings for him. I’m sure she’s fumbling for purchase, trying to rise as a powerful Min while maintaining her relationship with Zawne. I can’t help but wonder what she would have been like without Emell’s corruption.”
“We can wonder later,” Roki said, taking me gently by the arm. “Right now we have a world to save. Let’s get our butts to Lithern Shrine!”
Sure enough, Roki and I found the cure inside the piano’s casing. It was a green substance in a small vial, wrapped neatly in cloth and tucked inside the guts of the piano.
“Got it,” I said, holding up the vial.
Roki smiled. “Great. Now we just need to reproduce it and distribute it to the people.”
I tucked the vial into my pocket, saying, “I have an idea. We’ll go to my brother at NordHaven and introduce ourselves as defectors from VBione Corp. We’ll say that the cure was already made, but Emell was withholding it. This pins the whole fiasco on her. They’ll have no choice but to arrest her. Even if the investigation into Mama’s death goes nowhere, at least Emell will be behind bars.”
“I like your thinking,” Roki said. “Let’s get to it!”
We left Lithern Shrine feeling like the saviors of the world, holding hands as we soared across the sky toward NordHaven. Once there, Roki unmasked us. The butler announced us to the household, and Tissa arrived after fifteen minutes, Rein and Forschi in tow. The canines barked with excitement.
“Hello. We’re in mourning and meant to be in quarantine, so this had better be good. How can I help you?” Tissa asked. The dogs flopped down on the floor, their wee eyes watching me expectantly. Tissa looked like a whole new person. Had she always worn so much makeup? Her clothing seemed to be getting frillier and frillier each time I saw her.
Yes! I wanted to scream. Yes, Tissa. You can give me a hug!
But I had to keep my composure. I said, “My name is Cerna, and this is my associate Roki. We were the lead designers on the cure for the KS3 virus. We finished human trials yesterday, but the owner of the company, Emell, has refused to allow the cure to be released to the public. We think she’s bent on world domination or something. So we reproduced the cure on our own and brought it straight here, hoping that Gaard-Ma and Gaard-Elder would help distribute it.”
It was a lot. Tissa gaped at me, looking like I had just slapped her in the face. “You’re serious?”
“We are,” Roki said. “The queen herself tasked us with this before—”
“Then get in here right now! What are you doing dallying outside like a couple of salespeople?” Tissa gestured for us to enter, then shouted into her visin, “Raad, we have a cure. Forget the quarantine and get down here as soon as you can.”
Tissa gave us a sad look. “Sorry, but as you know, Gaard-Elder’s sister—you know, the queen of Geniverd—was killed last night. He’s obviously not in the best shape.”
“We understand,” I said. I was overwhelmed by the wish to reveal myself. It was hard not to.
Tissa turned to Roki. “Funny, the late queen had a friend called Roki.”
Luckily, Raad joined us in the parlor at that moment, and Roki didn’t have to reply. When we handed over the cure to him, I wanted to hug my brother and erase the sadness from his eyes. I wanted to celebrate our triumph with my family and friends, but I couldn’t. I had to sit before them as a stranger and give him all the gritty details of Emell’s operation.
“And you’ll sign a testimony saying Emell designed KS3, unleashed it on the people of Geniverd, then refused to release the cure?” Raad asked.
“We will,” I said.
Raad didn’t answer. He was in go mode. He held up his finger for silence as he called someone on his visin and started talking. “I need a team to meet me at the VBione Corp main factory to reproduce the cure for the KS3 virus … Yes … Yes, the cure. I also need a team to arrest Emell again. This time we’re not letting her go. I’ll be at the factory in fifteen minutes.”
Raad ended the call, leaned forward, and squinted at me. “You remind me of my sister,” he said. “Not your body or your face, but your eyes. Yeah, you have the same eyes. It’s like … I don’t know how to explain it.”
Raad shook his head, got up from the sofa, and said, “I’m sorry, Cerna, I’m grieving and acting weird. But I have to go now to deal with this cure situation. Thank you for bringing it to me. I’ll have someone write a testimony for you to sign. Probably tomorrow. Emell will never see the light of day again for what she’s done.”
I was glad to hear it. Raad and Tissa left, the dogs following closely behind them. Roki and I lingered a moment in the empty parlor. “I’m happy we’re finally getting justice for Mama,” I said. “I’m also happy Raad will be the one to save the world, not Emell or Lordin.”
“Me too,” Roki said. “Can you imagine if they had gotten away with this? It would have been a travesty. Still …” Roki sighed, clearly stressed out. “There is the war in Nurlie to deal with. Surrvul is throwing money around and operating from the shadows. We have a lot of loose ends about to catch fire. And speaking of fire, I need to see a friend of mine. I never did tell you I have a dragon for a friend. Anyway, I don’t know what to do.”
“Dragon … Do you mean the one from the news reports, the one burning down noble mansions and clan retreats all over the world?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Roki said with a half smile. “We have too much to figure out. My fire-starting friend can wait.”
“Okay,” I said, and took Roki by the hand. “We will figure it out together. Now that I’m a Min, there’s nothing in the world that can stop us.”
He smiled, took my other hand, and drew me to him. Our eyes met, and it was like an explosion in my heart. Then I realized, Roki and I are finally together. There are no secrets. I’m a Min. I have hundreds of years to be with Roki.
We were standing with our noses almost touching, the heat between us undeniable. Then Roki said in a soft voice, “We have five centuries to explore these feelings. But I was thinking …” He bit his lip, trying not to smirk. “I was thinking that when the selection comes around for the next Crown of Crowns, we should join as a team. It would mean …”
“Being together for three thousand years.” My breath had caught in my throat, and I thought I would cry. “I can’t even fathom it.”
“Me neither,” he said. “Five hundred years has gone by so slowly. I’ve seen so much. To live six times the amount I already have is mind blowing! But if I’m going to do it, I’ll only do it with you.”
“Wow,” I said, squealing like a piglet. “Imagine you and me, rulers for three thousand years. But … it’s a big deal. I need to think about that.”
“Take your time. We should get a drink to celebrate,” Roki said. “You know, like the first time we met.”
“I’d love to.”
But before we could go anywhere, a strange feeling enveloped me. Then two voices were in my head, saying, “This is Hanchell and Riedel. You must come to Shiol. We need you immediately.”
I looked to Roki and he was nodding. “Yeah, I got the same message. They must be summoning all the Min. It sounds like an emergency.”
“A Min emergency!” I cried. “That can’t be good.”
The Shiol Roki and I arrived to was not the one I knew, the empty vacuum with its peaceful sky overhead. Rather, it was the bright and pulsing city Roki had shown me all that time ago. We were transported into a massive plaza, a place much like Coronation Square in Geniverd’s capital. Around us were other Min in human bodies, and also creatures I could hardly comprehend. There were lizard people, humanoid beings with pointy ears and short limbs, winged creatures without legs, orange-skinned people over nine feet tall, limbless blobs, and countless other life-forms. I could hardly keep from staring.
“This is the real Shiol,” Roki whispered to me. “This is where the Min from other dimensions, other planets, other realities all live in harmony. It’s why the city looks so strange. It’s an amalgamation of a thousand different cultures. When we have time, I’d like to explore it with you. Even after five hundred years, I still haven’t scratched the surface of Shiol.”
“I’d like that very much,” I said. But really, I was overwhelmed. Where did a newly minted Min begin exploring such a grand and infinite city?
“And those are Riedel’s and Hanchell’s true forms.” Roki gestured to the Crown of Crowns, who had just revealed themselves above us on the podium. I balked at their true forms. They were three-headed monsters with scaly gray flesh, yellow eyes, and webbed feet.
Crown of Crowns Page 20
