Word of Truth

by Rhett C. Bruno

In an instant, Sir Mulliner returned from the precipice of death. He coughed a few times. All the color slowly returned to his face as he looked around, confused before his gaze stopped on Sora.

  “You?” he rasped.

  “I… yes…” she panted, barely able to form words. Clearly, she hadn’t recovered yet from all her exertion against Nesilia and then on the beach.

  “By Iam, how did you?” Nauriyal rushed over, patting Sir Mulliner, then lifting him to check the exit wound. “It’s a miracle.” She leaned his head back and offered him water.

  In Winde Port, Whitney had once told her not to give a homeless boy gold because it wouldn’t help. It’d feed him for a day, he’d said, and all the rest of the ghetto would remain starving. She loved Whitney, loved his eccentricities, but she finally knew how wrong he was.

  Sora wished she could tell him so. Rub his face in it. Watch him squirm.

  It was true, she couldn’t help everybody. She’d pass out long before, but she was tired of using her powers for destruction. Wasn’t that what undid the mystics in the first place? So, before Nauriyal and Sir Mulliner could offer their profuse thanks, she moved on to the next body.

  There were limits. She wasn’t sure of all of them, but she knew she couldn’t regrow limbs or bring anybody back from the dead. She healed who she could, stunning the entire tavern into silence. After a handful, her legs were so weak Nauriyal had to help her walk, but she kept going. And even more, drawing on her own innate connection to Elsewhere like a proper mystic was no longer possible.

  So, she snagged a surgeon’s knife and cut her hand like she used to. And as the sacrifice flowed, she healed with blood magic. Whatever it took. Over and over, it was like she couldn’t control it. Her vision went dark, and all she witnessed was the next body in front of her. She mended fractured bones, broken ribs, mortal wounds. She didn’t hold back until she was done and took a step, then collapsed over a stool.

  Aquira dug into her shoulder and flapped with all her might to keep her standing until her injured wing caused her to flop onto the bar. She squealed in pain, and the last thing Sora remembered was slashing her own left hand and healing Aquira’s broken wing before she fell hard to the wood floor.

  “Sora, you’re all right.”

  Her eyes blinked open, and an unexpected face appeared above her.

  “Here,” Torsten said, offering a cup of water. “You need to replenish your fluids. You lost a lot of blood.”

  Sora absentmindedly grasped at the cup. Her hands stung so much, she nearly dropped it, but Torsten helped her hold on. Her throat burned with dryness, and her muscles shook. She struggled to raise her arm without his help.

  She gulped down every ounce, forgetting to breathe. Torsten took the cup and placed it on a bedside table. Only then did she finally look around. She was within an opulent room that was obviously in the Glass Castle. Well, somewhat opulent, at least once upon a time. The blinds had been torn by goblins or grimaurs, and much of the furniture tipped and broken.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  She placed her hands on the bed to try and sit up, but again, her palms stung. Turning them over, she noticed the slashes on each, as well as smaller cuts up the length of her arms. Then, she recalled healing Sir Mulliner and so many others, until the memory became a fog.

  “The way Nauriyal tells it, you healed dozens of people until you, yourself, collapsed,” Torsten said. “Even Sir Mulliner spoke in praise, and he’s much harder to please than me. Thank you, Sora. You did a great service to the Kingdom.”

  Sora grimaced. She looked inward, hoping the power to heal her own wounds might emerge, but she was too weak. “I’m surprised you see it that way,” she muttered. “Didn’t I taint them with my cursed magic?”

  Torsten frowned. “It was much simpler when that was the answer, wasn’t it?”

  She wasn’t sure how to respond, and he just kept looking at her—or, rather, his magical blindfold remained fixed upon her. Either way, it was unsettling.

  “For you, perhaps,” she said, a slight smile forcing itself onto her face.

  “You really are his, aren’t you?” he asked softly, like the very question might send the castle into ruin.

  “I’m not—huh?” He’d caught her completely off guard.

  “I can see it. Not the eyes, thanks to this.” He tugged on his blindfold. “But something… you’re not fully Panpingese.”

  “You can say ‘knife-ear,’” she grumbled.

  He stumbled over a response, jaw hanging in shock.

  “Sorry,” she said. “My head is pounding.”

  “No, I deserve it. I was cruel to you when we first met, and all you’d tried to do was heal me and fight my enemies. I should have seen it then.”

  “Seen what?”

  “The miracle right in front of me.”

  Sora fought the pain in her hands to sit up and build as much distance across the bed as she could. “Torsten, have you slept at all? You sound insane.”

  “No, Sora, listen to me. Everything you were then stood against Iam and against my very being, but so many times, when hope was gone, it was you who saved us. Not your powers, not your blood magic—you. Iam was—“

  “Oh, stop it with Iam,” Sora groaned. “He didn’t place me in those places.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. But I should’ve had you hanged the moment we returned from the Webbed Woods instead of pardoning you. Something inside of me told me I shouldn’t, and now, here we are.”

  “It’s because you’re a good man, Torsten. You wear your hate well, but deep down, you know that so many of the things your church of Iam stood for were perversions of men. They weren’t Iam. Who knows what He truly thinks—thought? Was He the benevolent hero who ended the God Feud and saved us all, or did His stubbornness cause it?”

  The holy knight bit his lower lip but said nothing.

  Sora continued. “I’ve been with all the peoples in this land. Shesaitju, dwarves, mystics… they all tell a different story. But what I know now is all the old names we fall prostrate before, they’re all gone. A memory. We have to move on.”

  “Sora, you’re not listening to me,” Torsten said. He scooted closer. “I followed Liam against all those same peoples. We crushed them, forced them to bend the knee and see the world our way. We made Pantego one giant mirror of our world. A glass kingdom…” He drew a deep breath. “All the conquests, and beauties, and faith in Iam couldn’t fill the void in Liam’s heart.”

  Sora’s throat went tight. She couldn’t respond even if she wanted to.

  “I’ve witnessed miracles,” Torsten went on. “Saw Pi reborn from death. Received sight when I’d lost my own. Saw a dastardly thief give his life to save everyone. But the true miracle was right in front of me all along. In all that hate, in all that war and death, Liam found something he truly cared for amongst the ranks of his most bitter enemies. He found love.”

  Torsten leaned over Sora and ran his fingers through her hair.

  She recoiled, but only slightly, and only out of surprise.

  “You are a miracle, Sora,” he whispered. “Liam gave his very soul to hide you from his worst enemy—himself. And now, here you lay, and all the war-torn streets outside these castle walls speak of the ‘knife-eared’ mystic healing the injured, of the blood mage giving her own blood for others.”

  Sora cleared her throat. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Torsten.”

  “I’m so tired of asking for miracles, and Dellbar told me to open my eyes to receiving them. You don’t have to believe it’s Iam that set us in each other’s path, but I still have faith in the world He wanted, despite all His errors and those made in His name.”

  “Torsten, please don’t say what I know you’re about to.”

  “I had the honor of getting to know the real King Pi after Nesilia’s influence left him,” Torsten said, ignoring her. “He was all the best parts of his parents. I know who Pi would’ve wanted to take the throne.”

&
nbsp; She choked back tears and looked out the window, squinting through wet eyes. “No, Torsten.”

  “It’s you, Sora,” he implored.

  “No…”

  “It has to be. You can bring us together in a way that we never truly were. The daughter of our greatest King and his greatest enemy. The healer, whose ferocity mirrored her father’s when she helped us save this city. If Pantego truly belongs to the Kingdom, then you are born in the Glass, raised by it. A blood mage like those favored in the north. A mystic who could garner the support of the broken East as we repair it. You are strong enough to stand before Mahraveh and the Black Sands and know her deepest pains. You are the bastard child of Pantego and all its many gods, not just the one.”

  “Torsten, I already told Whitney I don’t want it. I never will.”

  “That is why it must be you.”

  “Then why not you?” She sat up further. “You’re offering the Crown to me, but you could walk into that Throne Room, and there isn’t a man or woman who wouldn’t bow. You know that.”

  He shook his head. “It can’t be me.”

  “It can.”

  “No!” he shouted, causing Sora to flinch. His hands squeezed the sheets, trembling. He took a few measured breaths to calm himself. “I can’t,” he said.

  Sora took his hands to try and steady them from shaking. “You say it should be me because I don’t want it, but neither do you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “I don’t want it, that’s true,” he said. “But that’s not it, Sora. You’ve seen what I’m capable of. I don’t—I don’t deserve it. You do. Everything you’ve fought through, all the scorn, the bad looks, the distrust. We have a chance to start over and end all of it. To change.”

  Sora opened her mouth to respond, but couldn’t find the words. She sank back.

  “You know,” she said finally. “Whitney mentioned you all the time. Like you were actually best friends even though you hardly knew each other.”

  Torsten chuckled softly. “He really was a lunatic.”

  “He was. But that’s the thing about Whitney. Despite all the bad things he ever did, the only people he ever cared about were good, deep down. Like Lucindur and Tum Tum. By Elsewhere, he found the soft heart of a monstrous upyr. You aren’t the man you were, Torsten.”

  “Maybe not, but I know my place,” he said. “My life is to serve this Kingdom. I made that vow when Liam knighted me, and I will never break it. And right now, against all odds, I believe that you are what is best for it.”

  “All because I have Nothhelm blood in me?” she scoffed.

  “And so much more.” He backed away from the bed, fell to one knee, and lowered his head. “The Royal Council will hear your story, and they will agree. Dellbar will wake, and a new crown shall find a new head. Sora Nothhelm, from this day, until the end of my days, you have my sword and shield. Or Iam, strike me down.”

  Sora’s heart skipped a beat. She’d never been bowed to before—at least not when Nesilia wasn’t inhabiting her body—let alone by a member of the Royal Council. She supposed that’s why he did it. Those were the types of people he’d always served. Those who’d get bowed to once and realize they were exactly where they were ordained to be.

  “And what if I reject their decision?” she asked.

  “Then that crown will find a lesser head,” Torsten replied. “And the Glass Kingdom, whatever it is to become, will be a lesser place.”

  His head remained bowed, and Sora couldn’t help but stare. He actually believed what he was saying about her. If her birth were really a miracle, it had nothing on that. Only a year ago, he’d been disgusted by blood magic and her appearance.

  She didn’t answer right away. What she did know is that she didn’t want to be Queen. There was nothing he could say or do that would ever change that. And she shouldn’t be Queen. In charge of everyone simply because of a bloodline?

  Without that, Torsten wouldn’t even be considering it.

  But she knew him. Torsten was bullheaded, even if he’d opened his mind beyond the strict dogma of his faith. He wouldn’t back down unless she left him no other choice, and then council members and lords and ladies across Pantego would squabble over the Crown. There’d be more wars, more death—the very things that led Sora to grow up in a small village hidden away from everyone.

  Yet, it was in that town she’d met Whitney. What would he do here? She recalled one of the lessons he’d imparted to her, unable to hide a small smirk. “The best way to get someone to do what you want is to make them think you’re doing what they want,” he’d said.

  That was it. Her grift was in place. She’d take the crown, like all the treasures Whitney had stolen just for the fun of it, and then she’d do what Whitney often wound up doing without him ever realizing. She’d do the right thing. She’d place the crown upon the head of someone who’d proven he deserved it.

  Epilogue

  Tum Tum and Lucindur stood at the edge of Port Street—what was left of it. No longer were the shanties and decrepit buildings looming over the waters, those had all been cleared away to make room for new things, better things, stronger things. If anything were true and agreed upon by all, it was that Pantego would indeed become stronger through this trial.

  They would learn. All of them.

  The undertaking was unlike anything Tum Tum had ever been a part of. Sure, he’d run the Winder’s Dwarf in Winde Port, and even built Gold Grin’s Grotto in Yaolin City, but this… this was something else altogether.

  The Shesaitju and dwarves had stuck around to clean up the city before returning to their own lands to deal with their own messes. New alliances forged between King Brouben and Caleef Mahraveh and the Glass Kingdom would ensure mutual aid between the powers of Pantego—at least until the next war came. Though Tum Tum hoped that maybe this one time, this last war might actually be the last one. Still, he wasn’t naïve.

  More important than all of that, however, was that for now, his would be the one and only tavern on the newly erected Dockside strip.

  “It really is a gorgeous sight,” Lucindur said, eyes set on the new building. Construction had been completed the day before, and now the finishing touches were being laid. White plaster was crossed by thick, oak beams. Several windows were spaced out, large enough to see those bustling within, preparing for the night’s grand opening.

  “Somethin no one ever said about Dockside,” Tum Tum jested. “No better place for him, neither.”

  “He’d love it,” Lucindur said.

  “He does love it,” Tum Tum said. “Wherever he is.”

  “I can imagine him, spinning tall tales of grand adventures.”

  “Mother!” Talwyn called from a window on the third floor of the adjacent building. “I can’t find my light purple dress!”

  “Well, then wear another,” Lucindur said.

  “I can’t. The purple was Whitney’s favorite.”

  Lucindur looked down at Tum Tum and rolled her eyes.

  Whitney’s old Troupe had arrived in Yarrington and were now permanent residents. The building, as beautiful as anything in Old Yarrington, would house them all, free of charge. They were to perform daily for all of the patrons in Dockside and beyond. For no longer was the district to be a stain upon the city, forgotten about and ignored, a place only for shipments to pass through. It would now be a haven for cultures brought together by the Glass Kingdom.

  It was the least the former Pompare Troupe could do, Lucindur had told Tum Tum. Even she would play her now-infamous salfio, whose songs filled Yarrington in the days after battle, when all hope seemed lost, inspiring the workers to push through.

  This wasn’t just any tavern. Godkiller’s Tavern sat directly before the landing where Whitney Fierstown had given his life to save the world by killing the Goddess Nesilia and earning the same title without contest.

  “Whitney Godkiller,” Tum Tum said aloud, chuckling lightly.

  “Beats Blisslayer.”

&nbs
p; “Got that right,” Tum Tum added.

  A group of dwarves was hard at work erecting a new statue situated in the inlet, right where Whitney had died. Every ship arriving at Yarrington would have to pass it, which Whitney would have loved. A plinth with torches encircled it, ensuring every guest upon the deck would have their eyes drawn to the sea and recall the legend. It captured him in the very moment. As Whitney ran across the water, the entire world had held its breath. Now, he would be immortalized that way forever.

  “The nose still ain’t right,” Tum Tum complained. “It’s a bit flatter on the end.”

  “Don’t you think you’re being a little picky?” Lucy asked. She laughed. “Whitney would have made a joke about being picky over a nose.”

  “Aye,” Tum Tum agreed. “But no. I ain’t bein picky enough. Nothin’s too good for that damned thief. Nothin.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  Talwyn came out from the front door of the building wearing her purple dress. Gentry followed close behind, Aquira cradled in his arms. Sora had been gracious enough to give the boy guardianship over the wyvern, telling him that she’d come calling for her again someday. Tum Tum, however, knew why she left the wyvern behind. There were too many memories shared between Sora, Whitney, and Aquira, even from the first day Tum Tum had met her.

  Tum Tum scratched her neck frills. “Good, bird,” he said.

  “Found it,” Talwyn said, grabbing her skirt with both hands and giving it a playful twirl. “How do I look?”

  “Gorgeous as ever,” Lucindur assured her.

  Gentry gripped Aqiura tight against his chest, his gaze frozen upon the statue. The boy barely stopped crying since their caravan had arrived, and he’d heard the news about Whitney. There had to be guilt over their last days together. Gentry kept wishing he’d been there. But Whitney had made the right decision in leaving him behind, and no one was going to fault him for it.

  Tum Tum rustled the boy’s hair and said, “He’s in a better place now, lad.”

  Tum Tum knew it was a lie. He knew that anyone unlucky enough to be devoured by the wianu would be damned to live in Nowhere for all eternity, but Gentry didn’t need to know that. No one needed the reminder, not even Tum Tum.