by Elin Peer
The third obstacle was jumping from one platform to another. I fell down once but was quick to get up again. By the time I made it to the fourth obstacle, the balance beam where large balls were swinging from side to side, I was ahead of Mason by six seconds.
Mila kept encouraging me. “You’re doing great, Jonah. Keep going and be careful.”
The fifth and sixth obstacles were tricky, but I kept up my time until I got to the last obstacle, the tree. I wasn’t as agile as Mason, who had climbed the tree in an almost running manner.
“Come on, Jonah, get up there,” Mila shouted and it made the dogs bark at her excitement.
My arms felt twice as long as usual, my lungs were hurting from working overtime, my muscles were burning, and I was panting. Still, I pushed myself to keep going up that stupid tree, ignoring my fear of heights.
Why did you say yes to this stupid bet? You have nothing to prove. He’s just a boy… so what if he thinks I’m slow and weak?
Crawling up and up, one thought stood out clear to me.
I’m not doing it to impress Mason. I’m doing it to impress Mila.
“You have seven more seconds to reach the top,” Mila shouted to me and began counting – “6, 5, 4.”
I turned my head and instantly tightened my grip on the branch when I saw how small they looked down below.
“I can win,” I muttered to myself and moved faster.
Don’t you dare. You’re better than this. He’s a child. You’re a man. You have nothing to lose. He does!
The top was right there. All I had to do was touch the next branch, yet I didn’t.
But Mila… my vanity argued. Mila is watching. She likes strong men.
My arm didn’t move. Instead, I inhaled through my nose and exhaled as Mila shouted, “2, 1, and time!”
Below me, Mason raised his hand in the air and shouted, “I won! Told you all I could beat a Momsie any day.”
My legs were shaking when I climbed down the tree.” Seeing Mason’s pride, I knew I’d done the right thing.
“I’m impressed, Motlander. You gave our young one a run for his money.” One of the guards patted my shoulder hard, a custom I’d observed among the men here.
“Thank you. I would like to say it was fun, but that twirling thing had me almost losing my breakfast.”
They laughed.
“Hey, Jonah.” Mason was smiling at me. “Since you did so well on the obstacle course, how about I teach you how to fight? I honestly think you have some skills, man.”
I waved a hand in front of me. “No thank you. I’m a pacifist. I’d feel awful if I hurt you or anyone else.”
He scoffed. “You won’t hurt me. I guarantee it.” Mason placed a hand around my shoulder and led me a few steps away from the others. “The thing is; you spend a lot of time with Mila, and she for sure can’t defend herself.”
“Mason, I heard that.” Mila’s hands went to her hips.
He shrugged. “It’s no secret that you stink at fighting and as one of your protectors, I would feel better if Jonah knew how to protect you. You know, just in case.”
“You can’t expect Jonah to train in fighting techniques. He’s a councilman, not a warrior.”
Mason looked to the guards for support. “All men need to know how to fight, am I right?”
They nodded and Kal-El suggested, “At least learn how to block so you won’t get beaten up too badly.”
“Thank you, but that’s not necessary. I’m very good at de-escalating any tense situation.”
“Don’t tell me that you’re planning to use words if someone threatens my sister.”
“Why not? De-escalating a potentially violent situation is much better than getting into a fight.”
Mason wrinkled his nose. “I don’t need to de-escalate anything. I’m a fucking excellent fighter. If anyone comes at me, I’ll take them down.”
Tucking my hands under my armpits, I raised my eyebrows. “I’m sure you will, Mason, but it’s not just about you. What about the good people you hurt? It’s always better to avoid violence.” Turning to Neptune, I nodded to his injured hand. “Were you the only one who got hurt?”
Neptune gave a satisfied scoff. “Fuck no, the other guy was a mess.”
Kal-El grinned. “It’s true. I was there, it was a great bar fight.”
“See, my point exactly. Fighting hurts people and it’s impractical and unnecessary.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Neptune protested.
“No? What happened?”
Neptune, who was wearing a tank top that revealed an angry red scar running along his collarbone, pushed out his broad chest and used an accusatory tone of voice, “I was sitting in my favorite bar waiting for Kal to come back from taking a piss when this zombie-looking fathead provoked me into a fight.”
“And how did he do that?”
“I was just minding my own business and then the idiot called out to me, ‘What are you looking at?’.”
“And?”
Neptune lowered his brow and sighed as if I was mentally slow and he was losing patience with me.
"He beat him up of course.” Mason said with excitement before adding to Neptune, “Or at least I hope you did.”
“Of course.”
I closed my eyes for a second, reminding myself that these men didn’t know any better. “You beat up a man for asking you what you were looking at.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you just introduce yourself? After all, you said that your name would make others not want to mess with you.”
“Because he annoyed me. If you’d been there, you would understand. It wasn’t so much what he said, but the aggressive way he said it. I needed to teach him a lesson.”
My tone was impassive. “And how did that work out for you?”
Neptune lifted his hand. “That’s fucking obvious, but the worst thing is that I got banned from my favorite bar for a whole month.”
Kal-El placed a sympathetic hand on Neptune’s shoulder. “You didn’t have a choice, man. You can’t let anyone give you shit like that.”
“I know, right?” Neptune nodded. “And I destroyed him, so that was good.”
“No, it wasn’t good. Violence is never good. It’s primitive and barbaric.” This time, I couldn’t keep my dislike for violence out of my tone that became a bit shrill.
My words made Mason and the two guards snort out loud. “You’re just saying that because you wouldn’t be able to defend yourself in a bar fight. If anyone had provoked you…” Neptune chuckled. “Shit, you’d probably piss your pants or something.”
I didn’t like them laughing at me. “No, I wouldn’t wet myself. I would use my words to de-escalate the situation.
“How, by begging him to leave you alone?”
It took all my patience to wait for them to get over their burst of laughter before responding, “It would have been so easy for you to answer him with a de-escalating response instead of letting it get to a fight.”
“Like what?”
“Well, try it with me. Tell me what he told you.”
“Umm… okay,” Neptune stopped smiling and turned serious. “Hey you, what the fuck are you looking at?”
In a calm voice I nodded to his chest. “Your shirt, I like it. Where did you get it?”
“But what if it’s an ugly shirt?” Mason asked.
“Then you can say something like, ‘Did we go to school together? You look familiar.’”
“Alright, I see your point.” Kal-El shifted his balance. “But then let me ask you this. A few months ago, I got in a big fight because a man accused me of looking at his woman. You can’t confuse a woman with a classmate, so what was I supposed to say then?”
“Easy, you just look at her and say. ‘I’m sorry if I was staring but is your name Susan?’ When she says ‘No’ you just tell her she looks a lot like your new dentist or something. It’s not that hard. What matters is that you don’t get into the fight.”
"Huh." Kal-El looked a little impressed. “I actually do have a female dentist, but her name isn’t Susan, it’s Marianne.”
Mason scoffed. “Don’t listen to Jonah. He’s just afraid of pain.”
“To be honest, I’m more afraid of inflicting pain on others.”
My comment made Neptune roll his eyes. “That’s ridiculous. If a guy provokes you, he’s fucking asking for pain and that means he deserves it.”
“Always?”
“Yes, always!”
I thought for a second to find a scenario that they would understand. “What if the man calling you out for looking at him just lost his best friend in another bar-fight? What if his aggressive tone is really just because everything inside him hurts? If you lost your best friend wouldn’t you be grieving?”
“Sure.”
“Would you still beat him up if he’s a decent guy who is full of sorrow and anger because of how much he misses his friend?”
Neptune wrinkled his brow. “Of course I would.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t know he was grieving, would I? I’d just see that he was being an ass.”
I inhaled and exhaled in long steadying sighs. “My point is that you never know what others are struggling with. Being mature and wise means being kind to others, even when they aren’t being kind to you.”
Mason and the two soldiers laughed like it was the stupidest thing they’d ever heard.
Kal-El pointed at me with a wide grin. “You’re hilarious.”
“Don’t you see that the best way to win a fight is to avoid having one?”
That only made them laugh louder.
Mila hooked her arm under my elbow and nudged me forward. “Come on, Jonah. I’m thirsty.”
We walked away in silence with me trying to see things from their perspective. “Sometimes being in the Northlands feels like I’ve traveled back in time.”
“Pearl says the same thing.”
“Why are they so attached to violence? It’s like they refuse to evolve.”
“It’s a matter of conditioning, I think.” Mila’s clear blue eyes were serious. “They fear failure more than pain.”
“Hmm… funny, when to me it would be a failure to cause others pain.”
“I know, but Jonah, they do have a point that we wouldn’t be able to defend ourselves in a fight.”
Stopping in my tracks, I looked down at her. “Mila, I’m twenty-five and I’ve never been in a fight. Like any other civilized man, I use my words rather than my body to argue a point.”
“Which is a good thing. I’m just not sure words will get you far here.”
I gave her a confident smile. “You’re wrong. Words are the strongest tool any man has. The right words can diffuse or escalate a situation. In the past, words have started and stopped wars, so never underestimate the power of words, Miss Sunshine.”
Mila began walking again. “You’re probably right, but I’m not as eloquent as you and Pearl. It’s a special gift you have.”
“I’m happy to teach you, unless you prefer the Nman version of crushing your enemies physically.” We shared an amused smile and Mila tightened her hold around my elbow.
“They tried to teach me how to fight when I was in school.”
“And?”
She gave me one of her charming laughs. “I was horrible at it. As soon as I hit my opponent, I would stop to ask if they were okay.”
I couldn’t help myself, but kissed the top of her head. “I like that about you.”
When she beamed up at me, I added, “But then I like a lot of things about you, Mila.”
I’d been lucky enough to meet her on my first visit to the Northlands a year and half ago, and she was the main reason that I kept coming back.
“I like a lot of things about you too.”
Our smiles grew wider as we walked through the park with our arms linked together. A young gardener waved back when Mila greeted him.
“I’ll bet he envies me that I can walk with you like this. I’m a lucky man.”
“I’m not sure about that, Jonah.”
“You don’t think he wants to be close to you?”
“Maybe, but I don’t think he envies you.”
“Why not?”
Mila bit her lip. “You said it yourself, they all think you’re gay or a-sexual.”
That made me frown. “Does it bother you that they think that way about me?”
Mila didn’t meet my eyes. “Yes and no.”
I waited and when she didn’t elaborate, I pressured her, “You can’t leave it at that.”
Mila sighed. “It bothers me because I know some of them think less of you.”
“Doesn’t that come with being a Motlander man?”
“I guess. But if they knew you, they would know how funny, wise, and amazing you are.”
I squeezed her arm. “As long as you think so, that’s all that matters to me.”
“Good. And maybe their assumption isn’t all bad. As I see it, it has given us freedom to have a close friendship.”
Her words released a sadness inside me. From day one, I’d been irrelevant as a suitor. The belief in the Northlands that all we Motlander men had no sexuality made them dismiss me as anything more than a friend to Mila.
In a country where men weren’t allowed to touch a woman, no one seemed to care much about what went on between her and me. The sad truth was that I might as well have been a eunuch with the trust they showed me.
It hadn’t bothered me at first, but over the last year and a half, a close bond had grown between us to the point where we now shared a mutual dependency. When I was away from Mila, I craved her physical closeness.
We had reached the Gray Manor and rain was dripping, but I still stopped, asking Mila one last question. “And is that why you’re so comfortable with me, Mila? Because you assume that I’m a homosexual or asexual?”
CHAPTER 3
The Announcement
Mila
The ballroom in the Gray Manor was filled to capacity with three hundred chairs. In the front were the press corps and behind them, Khan’s devoted supporters, who were all talking while waiting for the exciting news they had been invited to hear live.
When Khan took his position in front of the audience, he didn’t exude his usual aura of confidence. There was a slight tremor of his hands and his movements were faster and stiffer than usual.
Feeling scared for my family, I rubbed my hands together, fingers stretched out and interlaced. It was a behavior reserved for when things were really bad.
Today, Khan would have to share his darkest secret with a nation of ten million men who didn’t value vulnerability. I knew the secret because I’d been there when my grandmother Erika revealed it. She wasn’t in the room and wouldn’t be watching the live show. Instead she was with my siblings and cousins in the entertainment room, where they would be playing games.
Khan didn’t begin his speech until the room was dead silent. “Today is a historic day. I’m going to do what no ruler has done before me." He paused and sucked in a long steadying breath. "Not long ago, an ugly family secret was revealed to me and rather than cover it up, I’m going to share it with all of you.”
My hands were clammy and I brushed them off on my pants looking around to see people’s reaction. Jonah sat next to me with his eyes fixed on Khan like the rest of the audience.
“About a year after my father, Lord Marcus Aurelius, won my mother Erika in her bridal tournament, they received a visit from the ruler at the time, Nikolai Wolf. For forty-eight years my mother kept the unimaginable act of cruelty that happened that night a secret.” Khan swallowed and continued, “Lord Wolf brutally raped my mother, while my father was held down by two of Lord Wolf’s trusted generals.”
A collective gasp sounded and Khan waited for the initial shock to lift before continuing. “My father swore to my mother that he would avenge her by one day killing Lord Wolf and the generals. As you all
know, he kept that promise and became the ruler of our country for almost thirty years.”
By now, Khan looked more determined and stubborn than nervous. “I was a result of that rape, and that means that I’m not the biological son and heir of Marcus Aurelius.”
Loud muttering broke out in the audience.
“I have already proven my worth as a ruler. The prosperity, stability, and constant progress in our country during my reign is unprecedented.”
Some in the back shouted supportive comments and Khan waited for the room to quiet down again.
“We’ve never had a similar situation and there’s no doubt in my mind that my critics will see this as a chance to overthrow me, and take power for themselves. It’s how it’s always been in the Northlands, and many good men have died in senseless civil wars.
“That’s why, instead of waiting for the past to repeat itself, I’m challenging all of you to make up your mind. Do you want me to continue as your ruler? Do you want to keep reaping the benefits of peacetime where Motlander women are coming up here looking for an Nman to love?” Khan’s voice grew lower and he raised his index finger in a warning gesture. “Mark my words; if a civil war breaks out in the Northlands, the Motherlands will shut their border and the influx of women will cease! Do you want that?”
Squaring his shoulders and rising to his full height, he continued, “Today is a historic day because I’m announcing that we’ll have the first election in the Northlands.”
Another wave of shock went through the crowd.
A journalist gasped out loud. “Is he talking about democracy?” He was looking around the room with large eyes, and a buzz of answers expressed how disturbed the crowd was. Some were running hands through their hair and twisting their faces into anger, others were shouting questions at Khan, who stood stoically.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Is this a joke?”
Raising his palm, Khan waited for the room to quiet down. “On April 10th you will all get to cast your vote for me or anyone running against me. It will be a fair process and everyone with the ambition to run for President can sign up. There will be more information available online.”
