Karlol

by Phoebe Nix

  “This tea is bitter. Diwa never adds enough Brier dew in my drinks,” the King complained, seemingly distracting himself from much more disturbing thoughts.

  “Just tell me,” Karlol softly requested.

  “Fareej,” the king began, nodding. “He won’t be fighting alongside you today.”

  Start a war and cower in the shadows. Just as I expected.

  The King shook his head. “I suppose he’s too old to fight now anyway, but I’m worried about you.”

  Karlol scoffed. “He’s only sixty. Barely a quarter of his lifetime and –”

  “It’s not him I’m worried about, Karlol,” the King bellowed, his brows furrowed and his lips trembling. “And this drink is atrocious!” his voice wavered, devolving into stifled sniffling.

  Karlol took the cup from his father’s fingers, placing it on the granite floor.

  The King’s thick gray locks swayed in the direction of the wind, some of his wavy tresses caressing his forehead. He swallowed hard, his throat bulging. “Fareej is a good man, but if I lose you, he becomes King. I don’t trust him on the throne. Some Vogels are fit to lead, others are made to follow. Fareej can never lead. He’ll be blinded with his conceit the moment this crown,” he said, sliding the bejeweled gold crown off this head, “is his.”

  “I will never let that happen,” Karlol promised. “I guess, all I have to do is avoid getting shot in the eye, right?”

  The King smiled through his tears, placing a comforting hand on his son’s knee. “As King, I’m required to remind you that our people’s lives are in your hands. That today decides our fate, but I can’t think of myself as a leader now.” He paused, wiping under his eye where a tear shed. “I can only think like a father. My son,” Mendius sighed. “If you ever find yourself cornered and are compelled to save yourself, do so.”

  “Father, what on Lookar are you talking about? I can’t leave my people behind.”

  “That’s what we were once taught, back when our species was not threatened by extinction,” Mendius reminded him. “We’ll find a way. The Savior will find a way.”

  Jocelyn certainly thinks she has.

  Karlol was tempted to tell his father everything that Jocelyn had passed on, but the King’s thoughts were already clouded with pessimistic predictions. He looked desperate for any alternative plan, and disclosing Jocelyn’s visions would only confuse him. He had doubted that she was the savior, and his suspicions had only grown when his uncle decided to wage the war, and all Jocelyn could do was ask him to consider another way.

  The Prince rose from his seat, turning to his father. Their expressions were stoic, as though certain that what was to come was not in their favor. Mendius climbed to his feet, his wings and arms spreading for an embrace.

  “Don’t you dare say goodbye,” the King said, his voice faltering.

  “I won’t,” Karol mumbled, pulling away from his father.

  In the distance, mist settled on the floating boulders surrounding them. Although the sun had risen, the air was frigid and still, stinging Karlol’s nostrils as he took a deep whiff of his home’s scent before he set out for battle.

  The sheen of longswords bounced off the walls, blurring Karlol’s vision as he walked into the Armory. He narrowed his eyes, his vision slowly coming back into focus after he shifted his gaze away from the blinding light. Wooden racks were nailed to the stone walls of the triangular rooftop chamber, which was commodious enough to fit hundreds of Vogels comfortably.

  In one corner, two wooden hand wheels were connected to bigger wheels fixed to the wall. Some of the Vogel soldiers sat on benches, ready for instructions, while others tested the sharpness of their swords with their thumbs. Lore and Darneel were clad in their steel armor, and they seemed like they were arguing by the longsword rack.

  “Do you know what this could mea-” Lore was saying before Karlol walked up to her. She turned around, bowing in sync with Darneel.

  “Is something wrong?” Karlol asked in a tone loud enough to be heard over the clashing of metal in the background.

  Darneel shrugged, while his sister turned around, pretending to browse the weapons behind her.

  “Lore,” Karlol called out. “What is it?”

  Her hand travelled across the rack and it stopped at a longsword with a golden hilt. It made a schwing sound as she pulled it out of its holder, securing it in her scabbard.

  “I just received the news that Fareej will not be leading the battalion,” Lore finally answered. “I fail to understand why he would choose to wage this war and then opt out of it.”

  “We share the same sentiment,” Karlol agreed. “But there’s not much we can do about it.”

  “No? Can we not delay it until we at least have time to come up with an actual strategy?” she complained.

  “There is a strategy,” Darneel added, glancing at the Prince.

  “Flying to human territory to claw out their faces is not an effective plan,” Lore insisted.

  “I can’t disagree with you, but it’s already been decided by the King.” Karlol lamented. “Just don’t get shot in the eye.”

  Lore shook her head with a derisive smile. “And there’s another problem.”

  Darneel nudged his sister in the arm.

  Karlol’s eyes flicked between Darneel and Lore, his brows knitting together. “Tell me.”

  “We can’t find the girl,” Lore briskly replied, her brother letting out a frustrated sigh.

  “Jocelyn?” Karlol incredulously asked.

  Darneel nodded. “She might just be exploring the palace.”

  “I can’t smell her,” Lore insisted.

  Karlol threw his head back, running his fingers through his tresses as he let out a groan. A stab of worry pierced through him and he wanted nothing more than to go after her, but his people were all gathered and ready to go. Fuck! “We don’t have any time for this. We have to start moving. I’m sure she’s around here somewhere.”

  Let’s just get this over and done with. All I want is to feel her soft body in mine again. After this, I want to kiss away our argument and ask her to stay on Lookar.

  The twins nodded in agreement, marching their way to the wheels in the corner.

  The Prince turned to the soldiers with his hands behind his back, the thundering of his spreading wings echoing in the room loud enough to shake the dust off the brick lines. The Vogels immediately gathered in huddled groups, beating their wings in salute to their leader.

  Pursing his lips, Karlol whistled an unwavering melody to declare the war, while his guards slowly began to turn the wheels clockwise to retract the roof. The room was illuminated with the warm, golden glow of the sun. Karlol bent his knees and kicked off into the sky, his guards following before the battalion trailed behind them.

  Collective whistling continued, calling out for wild birds to join the flock and form a protective shield around them. The battalion spun in the air as they flew skyward, high enough to be camouflaged by the clouds and scattered birds.

  Despite flying to a battlefield, all Karlol could think about were Jocelyn’s words as the clouds beneath him were now obscured with shadows of hundreds of flying Vogels. Their wings whipped in harmony, resembling a deafening thunder in a rainstorm while the sun shone brilliantly overhead.

  The farther they travelled, the more Karlol regretted the way he’d received Jocelyn’s warnings, as though his own ego had taken the wheel. He couldn’t help but think about whether she was right. Her vision of their past was accurate, and it would only be logical for her premonition of their future to be valid, but it was almost like he didn’t wish for it to be – part of him was thirsty for human blood, specifically Lia’s.

  “We’re getting closer!” Lore announced, whirling around the Prince to signal the others that it was time for a rest stop.

  The battalion tucked their wings back, descending slowly to the treetops, which were a few miles away from the human kingdom. Their talons clung to the shaky boughs before th
ey all kneeled, many of them quickly drawing their swords to sharpen them with stones before they flew into battle.

  Lore and Darneel descended on either side of Karlol.

  “I have spoken to Darneel, and we have agreed that it’s best to keep you safe during the battle,” Lore said.

  “I will fight like any other soldier,” he protested.

  “We need our leader alive. If you die before the battle ends, you know how that would affect your men,” Darneel joined.

  Karlol nodded. In the back of his head, he wondered whether he would ever see Jocelyn again. She had warned him against going to this war, but she had only vaguely explained that she had a bad feeling about it.

  But the more he thought about it, the reality was that there was no real urgency to start the war. Lia wasn’t going to come chasing after him in Vogel territory, not even with a thousand men behind her.

  Before he could part his lips to voice his concerns about what Jocelyn had said, Lore curled her lips up in a pout, hissing as she pushed Karlol behind her.

  Darneel did the same as his nostrils flared, the rest of the Vogels quickly joining as they smelled the scent of humans approaching.

  “It’s an ambush!” Lore called out.

  Before they could escape, a swarm of arrows took flight toward the Vogels, many of them failing to evade the unpredictable attack. Jarring screams of pain split the Prince’s ears as he watched many of his men plummeting to the ground.

  Chapter 22

  “This is nothing but a waste of time,” Fareej complained, disgusted by the dust brushing against his bare feet as he strolled through the abandoned city.

  Jocelyn was too distracted rummaging through her mind to try and match the flashing images she had seen with what she was now witnessing in front of her. She spun in circles, Fareej frowning at how indecisive she was as she tried to pick a path.

  “You’ll just get us lost until we fall into one of those potholes; let’s fly back home and come back when you remember,” Fareej haughtily said, eyeing his surroundings with contempt before shifting his feet into talons.

  Jocelyn walked ahead of Fareej and paid little attention to him, but the sound of his drawing sword caught her attention. Without turning around, she stopped.

  “Do you hear something?” she asked.

  “No, I think you may be having difficulty discriminating between reality and your visions. Come, child. Let’s go back home.”

  She turned to him, narrowing her eyelids before she shielded her eyes from the bright sunlight. “Why did you draw your sword if you can’t hear any threat approaching?”

  Fareej took a moment to compose his thoughts. He looked the other way, moistening his lips. “I’m an old man. I don’t always hear danger anymore,” he explained as he gazed into space, then back at her. He pressed the hilt of his sword with one hand, and the other rested on his waist. The way he walked with swagger was overly pretentious, and he seemed more irritable than usual. There was something suspicious about the manner in which he behaved, but Jocelyn, for the life of her, couldn’t put her finger on it.

  I don’t have time to shrink this guy. Think Jose. Think.

  Her eyes travelled back to the road, which was forked into several dilapidated paths. She couldn’t see the monolith from her vision in the near distance, so she pushed herself to her toes as though that would give her a wider field of vision.

  “What are you looking for?” Fareej impatiently asked.

  “The monolith. It’s,” she stammered. “It’s supposed to be somewhere here. It’s opposite the research building, which is right there!” She gestured to the pyramid hidden behind a layer of mist.”

  Fareej sighed. “Let me know when you give up and would like to go back home.”

  “I wish you could be more helpful,” Jocelyn muttered. “You can’t tell me that you’ve never been to this ancient city before.”

  “There are too many of them. They all look the same to me, but I do recall how peculiar I found that one three sided building.”

  Jocelyn rolled her eyes, trotting toward the research center. “Yeah, that’s called a pyramid. But you’ll be surprised what it looks like on the inside.”

  “Fascinating. The human is taking me on a tour,” he sarcastically said.

  “I need to show you so you stop thinking I’m insane,” Jocelyn insisted, taking heavy but decisive steps forward. Fareej followed her, his green cape flapping behind him.

  For someone with wings, you sure seem to enjoy walking.

  The tip of Fareej’s sword spat sparks as he dragged it behind him, the screeching noise sending goosebumps down Jocelyn’s skin.

  She stopped, turning around. “Do you have to do that?”

  “Do you have to stop every time we seem to be getting remotely closer to something that proves you’re not wasting my time?”

  “You seemed to be awfully supportive earlier, and now you’re just acting like a prick,” Jocelyn bellowed.

  Fareej glanced at the red chip on Jocelyn’s ankle, then at the tip of his sword. The way he was acting like she was a burden was starting to get on her nerves, and she could tell she was starting to get on his.

  “I still am supportive,” he calmly responded after a long pause. “I just worry that you’re confusing yourself, or feeding your delusions when you should be resting.”

  “I’m not delusional,” Jocelyn defensively said. “I know what I saw, and it wasn’t just my imagination. That place is real. I know it. I just need you to trust me so we can save your city before it’s too late. Can you do that?”

  Fareej scanned her expression, then tossed his sword in the air before he briskly caught it by the handle and tucked in his scabbard. His expression mellowed – although just a little bit. “Show me that research center you speak of,” he demanded.

  Jocelyn’s lips curled upwards in a smile. “Follow me.”

  She could almost hear his eyes rolling back as they ambled to the double doors. With all her might, she pulled them open, a musty stench wafting over them instantly. Fareej turned his head the other way, fanning his face with his forehead puckered.

  Jocelyn scoffed. “It’s not that bad.”

  Fareej slowly straightened his face. “It smells like humans.”

  “Very funny.”

  Their steps echoed as they walked through the long hallway, Fareej’s eyes widening. He looked much less impatient than he did a few seconds ago, and there was a sudden sparkle of hope in his eyes. The man’s gaze was no longer fixed on her, as if she had shifted out of his focus completely. His eyes travelled from the queer-shaped curved desk to the certificates on the walls.

  He took slow, cautious steps, like a cat that would lurch two feet backwards from any sudden movement. It did cross Jocelyn’s mind to make him jump just for the fun of it, but it wasn’t a sight worth getting stabbed for.

  “Is this it?” Fareej asked. His tone was genuine, as though he wished to learn more, see more.

  Is he expecting to see someone? Or…something?

  “This way,” Jocelyn declared as she trotted across the hallway and disappeared to the right.

  She could hear Fareej’s wings beating as he quickly followed her to the glass room, studying the devices surrounding them curiously. Jocelyn ran her hand over the handprint scanner, the beeping making Fareej’s eyes twitch.

  “It’s okay,” she intoned. The doors slid open and she quickly walked inside, memorizing perfectly where everything was. “The last time I was here, it was with Karlol. It definitely sent me to a bad place, but that was before that vision.”

  Fareej caressed everything with the tip of his fingers before lifting them up to his eye-level, as though checking the place for dust. His nostrils seemed to get out of control, widening and narrowing as he took a whiff of the air wherever he stepped. “Interesting,” he noted.

  “Do you smell more humans?” she jested.

  “I smell opportunity,” his gruff voice rumbled as he caressed the hilt
of his sword, his eyes twitching again.

  Jocelyn grinned proudly. “Does that mean you finally believe me?”

  “I might. But is this the place? Is this where you saw the answer you speak of that will save us all?” Fareej asked.

  Her smile faded as she took in a deep breath. “Well,” she began, “not exactly. But it looked like this place.”

  Fareej nodded, following the human into the theater room before he twirled as he marveled at the technology left behind in a pristine state. “I never thought I’d see such sights again,” he mumbled.

  “Yeah? Thought you destroyed it all?” Jocelyn teased, trotting to the control board where she had once summoned a holographic entry. She waved her hand over the scanner, but it didn’t seem to respond.

  “I’d hoped that I did. The human race,” he paused, “as much as I know this doesn’t apply to you. They can be very savage. Deceitful.”

  Jocelyn suddenly felt a surge of sympathy for the man. The way he adhered to his poise in such an ostentatious manner seemed to be more of a defensive mechanism than an act of hostility. She looked over her shoulder, thinking about turning around to face Fareej for a more heartfelt conversation, but decided against it the moment she recalled how cruel he had been to Karlol.

  Maybe it’s not out there, she thought, taking a few steps back from the main control board.

  “That monolith,” she monotonously said, spacing out. “I think it might be here.”

  “I don’t see anything but buttons and seats,” Fareej replied.

  Suddenly, Jocelyn pressed her fingers to the side of her head, her face crumpling and her body slackening as she witnessed another chain of flashing images. The ringing in her ears was unbearable; she could feel it running through her brain like a swarm of wasps. She fell to her knees, groaning in pain, pressing her head harder as the veins in her face and forehead protruded.

  She could see a blurry image of Fareej rushing to her, holding her wrists and calling out her name, but she shook him away and curled into a ball on the floor.