He could do a great many things, but not that.
There wasn’t enough magic in him for that miracle.
“I will do my best to watch out for you,” Amja said. “Like a real family would.”
Wesley swallowed. He didn’t know how to react to that.
Nobody had ever promised to watch out for him before.
“I’ve never much liked families,” he said, leaning against the wall as indifferently as he could. “Bad experience and all.”
“That’s fair,” Amja said. “I’ve not had the best experience with grandsons.”
Wesley couldn’t help but laugh at that.
“You mean that time you cursed your entire Kin to send your illegitimate grandchild across the realm to live with strangers?”
Amja let out a large sigh. “Yes. Though you could have said it with less of an attitude.”
“Sorry,” Wesley said, with a shrug. “I’m from Creije. Attitude is a requirement for survival.”
“Tact, then.”
“What’s that?”
Amja shook her head, though there was the spirit of a smile on her stern mouth. “We need to speak about your future, Malik.”
Wesley wished she would stop calling him that. He wished everyone would stop trying to mold him into who they wanted him to be, because he finally liked who he was.
“I already know my future,” Wesley said.
It was behind that door and in the city they would travel to tomorrow.
“What about your destiny?” Amja asked. “You were supposed to be our Liege.”
“Saxony is your Liege and she’s earned it.”
“And you should rule by her side once this war is all over,” Amja said. “That’s who you are.”
Except it wasn’t. So many people thought they knew Wesley, when he had been careful to spend a lifetime making sure the exact opposite was true.
“You might see me as a prodigy for your Kin,” he said. “But when this is all over, I’m going to stay in Creije, because that’s where I know I belong.”
“Vea didn’t intend for you to stay there forever,” Amja said. “She sacrificed her life to keep you safe, hoping one day you’d return to us. You can’t know what it’s like to care for somebody that much. To a love person so much that you would give up the world for them.”
But Wesley did know.
He’d known for a while.
“Does that busker girl mean more to you than your family?” Amja asked.
Wesley’s jaw ticked.
“Watch yourself,” he said. “Tavia is my family.”
Amja sighed again. “Perhaps I’m selfish wanting to keep you after this is over,” she said. “I just don’t want to lose my grandson so soon after getting him back. My dream would be for you and your sisters to be by my side forever.”
“I’ll get Zekia back,” Wesley said. “I swear it.”
“And then you’ll leave.”
Wesley hated the softness in her voice. This woman who had lived through wars and led a Kin, and Wesley was somehow making her feel fragile.
“I’m sorry that I can’t give you what you want,” Wesley said. “But that’s not what’s important right now.”
“Then what is?” Amja asked. “What do you want, Malik?”
Wesley ran his hand across his wrist, over his scars and up the lines of his tattoos, meeting the first of his staves. So many parts of his life now intertwined across his skin.
A past forgotten, a present lived, a future promised.
“What do you need?” Amja asked him.
Wesley’s fingers traced over the stave and he breathed, like he was breathing in the magic.
“To win,” he said.
Wesley would end the battle for Uskhanya and for Creije.
He would return home and fight like never before, with an army that loved him and an army that hated him.
He would win this war.
He could win back his home and have the life with Tavia that he’d always thought was out of reach. Nothing was going to stop him.
32
ZEKIA
Dante Ashwood, leader of Uskhanya’s magical nexus and capital city of Creije, was sipping Cloverye. He let Zekia have some, mostly because she was bored and he didn’t seem much for conversation in the late hours of midmorning. Ashwood was like a moon flower, blooming best at night when the shadows and the darkened skies came out to play.
While he sipped his Cloverye and the glass disappeared beneath his cloudy lips, Zekia toyed with the core of an apple.
They brought her out in a rash whenever she ate them, but she liked the taste, and scratching away at her skin almost felt like she was scratching away all of the evil things inside of her, like the fruit was bringing the rotten parts to the surface and Zekia could scrub them into nothingness.
“There’s still much to do,” Dante Ashwood said. “So much left to conquer, even after Yejlath falls.”
Zekia nibbled at the apple core.
“Your once Kin, for example,” Ashwood said. “Your once family ran and escaped like the treacherous rats they are. They couldn’t face us and our vision for this great realm.”
Zekia put down the apple core and scratched at the rash on her hand.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt them. You promised that we’d wait until I was ready. That busker Nolan—”
“Gave me what you couldn’t, little warrior.” Ashwood shook his head and placed his Cloverye in the center of the table. “You and Wesley are starting to disappoint me.”
Zekia looked to the floor and kept scratching, but the more she did, the more a voice scratched at the back of her mind. As though Wesley, upon hearing his name through the winds of the world, had come to say his piece.
Zekia, he whispered.
His voice touched at the back of her mind, like he was tapping against a door.
Zekia opened her thoughts to him.
“Let me tell you a story,” Ashwood said. “About a little boy who grew up on the streets of Creije, long before you were ever born.”
He wiped a hand across the surface of the table, smudging the dust between his forefinger and thumb.
“He was raised by a doting mother, who only wanted what was best for him, but she was too poor and too sick to be of any real use. She couldn’t take care of the boy or give him what he needed.”
Ashwood circled the table, running a hand along the back of Zekia’s chair. She stiffened in response.
Zekia, Wesley whispered again.
To Wesley, she said, Hello! There you are! You didn’t forget about me. And smiled into the very corners of her mind.
“The little boy was fascinated by magic and one day he met a busker who promised him wonders,” Ashwood said. “He begged the crooked fellow to give him something to help his mother. Then the busker pulled out a vial, bright as the sun, and told the boy it was the secret to happiness. And so the boy ran home as fast as he could and poured the elixir into his mother’s soup and watched her drink it. He waited for the moment it would fix all of their problems.”
Ashwood paused with a long sigh.
“The elixir did not fix anything,” he said. “It only made the boy’s mother sicker, until one day she died. The busker had called it happiness, but it was the destroyer of happiness.”
Zekia had never heard this story before, but it echoed with familiarity. Ashwood had named her elixir the Loj because of ljoisi uf hemga—the light of happiness. She had never questioned why he’d chosen that name, but it made sense now.
Zekia had finally given him what nobody else had been able to.
It’s not your fault, kid, Wesley said. Don’t listen to him. Listen to me. Listen to my voice.
Zekia bit down on her lip.
“Before the boy’s mother died, she told him a secret,” Ashwood said. “She told him his father’s name with her dying breath. Magnus Robertsson.”
The old Realm Doyen. Zekia knew the name just as anyone in Uskhanya did.
“But leaders aren’t chosen by blood,” Zekia said. “They’re elected.”
She knew the words were dangerous as soon as she spoke them, because good little warriors knew when to stay quiet.
Ashwood spun Zekia’s chair around and slammed his palms on the armrests. When he leaned in, close enough that she could smell the ash on his breath, he said, “My story isn’t finished yet.”
It’s okay, kid, Wesley said. I’m going to get you out.
There is no out, she whispered back. There never was.
Ashwood righted himself and adjusted his suit in a way Zekia had seen Wesley do so many times.
“After my mother died, I set out to find my father and confront him,” he said. “I vowed to become a man he could never ignore. That’s why I found that busker who gave me the elixir and killed him. Why I approached the then-underboss of Creije with his head as a trophy and earned my place in the ranks. Back then the underrealm was barely organized and poorly maintained, but I had vision. I saw the opportunity to be great and eventually I took charge of the magical trade and became the first ever Kingpin.”
He looked to Zekia.
“When the War of Ages broke out across the realms and the Crafters revolted, my eyes were open to the way the world should be,” Ashwood said. “But by then it was too late. Still, the Many Gods did grant me one favor. Can you guess what it was?”
He continued circling the table until he settled in front of Zekia again and placed a hand on her small shoulder.
“I met my father on the battlefield. I saw the Realm Doyen of Uskhanya, surrounded by death. It was a sign from the Many Gods that my path was true. And so I approached that man, under the light of a shadow moon, the magic of my Crafters embedded into me. I told him who I was. I watched his face change. And before he had the chance to speak, I gutted him.”
Zekia’s hand still itched from the apple, but she was too scared to move to scratch it.
“You see, leaders are born and family must sometimes be sacrificed for the greater good. You know that my vision for the realms will have Crafters take back the world from the weak. I will have magic be worshipped like the gift from the Many Gods that it is.”
He placed a hand on Zekia’s cheek and it was cold, cold, cold.
“I will keep our family safe, little warrior.”
Your family is with me, Wesley said. We’re still in Rishiya and we haven’t given up on you.
I don’t have a family, Zekia told him. I don’t have anything anymore.
Yes, you do, he said. You have me, kid.
Wesley had never referred to Zekia as family before, no matter how hard she tried and how good she was. If something had happened in Rishiya to change that, then Zekia felt very sad that she had not been there for it. She felt a little left out that half of her—the old, with Amja and Saxony and their father—was mixing with the new. With Wesley. All without her.
“You still believe in our future, don’t you?” Ashwood asked.
You never told me your name back when we first crawled into each other’s minds, Wesley said. I guess I never told you mine, either.
Zekia frowned and then righted her brow quickly before Ashwood saw. She knew Wesley’s name, just like everyone this side of Uskhanya did. Only, she also knew his favorite color and his worst nightmares. She knew him well enough that sometimes it seemed like he was a character in a story she had created, each line and curve of his mind a reflection of her own imagination.
Wesley Thornton Walcott, she said to him, uttering a name she knew so many people had whimpered right before their death.
“It’s because of you that we were able to achieve so much,” Ashwood said. “Because of you, I can take the realm that is rightfully mine and carve our new world from the blood of those who challenge me.”
Zekia felt Wesley shake his head inside of her mind and the action jolted her enough that her own head threatened to sway.
Malik, he said. My name is Malik Akintola.
Zekia dug her hands into fists to keep from screaming.
Malik.
The digging wasn’t an effective technique, because her hands started to shake so much, and then bleed from her nails, that she had to shove them quickly behind her back.
You need to listen to me, Wesley said. I can only protect you if you let me, remember?
Zekia swallowed.
Malik, she said. MalikMalikMalikMalik.
Her big brother wasn’t gone and a part of her wasn’t even surprised. She had sensed it, maybe, all along, and perhaps that was where the desperate urge to please Wesley and make him a part of her new family had come from.
This was the boy whose destiny she had stolen. Whose future had been thrust upon her before she was even old enough to know his face.
“Little warrior,” Ashwood said. “You still trust me, don’t you?”
MalikMalikMalik.
“I trust you,” Zekia said.
Ashwood smiled, but she wasn’t speaking to him. She was speaking to her brother, whispering in her mind and watching over her even now. She was speaking to the boy who would make the world okay again, just like she had seen in that vision.
Malik would fix it all.
Malik would fix her.
“Good,” Ashwood said. “Because I need you more than ever.”
I have to ask you something, Wesley said. I have to ask you to make a choice.
Zekia hadn’t made a real choice in a long time. She wasn’t sure that she still knew how. Somewhere the realms had gone off-kilter and no matter how often she tried to steady them, or pull all the fragments together to create a new and level line, nothing was quite like before.
Zekia didn’t trust her decisions or her thoughts, or even her magic.
“If it comes down to it and we can’t bring Wesley to our side, then we’ll need to kill him,” Ashwood said. “He can’t be a weapon for our enemies. You know that, don’t you? You must be prepared to do what’s needed.”
Is that what you want? Wesley asked. Or will you join us?
I want it to be over, Zekia said. Please, just let it be over.
I can’t promise that, Wesley said. Not until you give me your answer.
Zekia closed her eyes and pictured her brother’s face.
She pictured her visions, side by side: the world she had seen that Wesley could bring, filled with so much light. And the world that Ashwood had shown her he could create, with Crafters no longer afraid.
Just a little blood and they had already spilled so much.
Wouldn’t it be wasted to stop now?
Would that make all of those deaths mean nothing?
“Little warrior,” Ashwood said. “Will you do this for me?”
Kid, her brother whispered. Will you join us?
33
SAXONY
Creije was a city dulled by death.
What was once a dazzling dreamscape of colorful buildings and air sweet with the tang of magic had now been devastated by battle. It was not that the buildings had fallen, or that the streams of the floating railways didn’t still curve in and out of the city like paintings, looking at once sharp as knives and delicate as spiderwebs.
On the surface, it was still the city Saxony remembered calling home, but she was well-practiced in seeing beyond the facade of things, and truth was, to anyone who had named Creije theirs and been witness to the undeniable spell of the city, it was barely an echo.
The street art was chipped and debris-covered, the trick dust once embedded into the cobblestone had faded to a bare glint, and the Steady Mountains that overlooked it all appeared newly ashen.
Even the moonlight, which usually shadowed the most winding of streets to hide the secrets of the city, and cast a bewildering glow on the most beautiful of crevices, kept itself unnervingly consistent: shining equally on
each edge.
Gone were the tricks of light and the need for second takes.
This new moon allowed every part of Creije to be seen in the exact same way.
Saxony looked over to Wesley and Tavia, and though she saw the reflection of home in their eyes, she also saw how their breath hitched in unison and they kept themselves close to each other’s side. Like they needed the familiarity of each other in the face of this scarring reality.
They had both noticed the difference in the city just as Saxony had, and they were equally as pained by it.
Perhaps more so.
Saxony had fallen in love with Creije over time, instead of at first glance like so many people did. Like she had done with Karam.
But Wesley was different.
She knew that he had fallen in love with Creije in a single moment. He talked about it often enough: how it was the blink of an eye and the click of a finger, forever tying him to the city and the ruin it held.
Quick as the death of innocence, she’d overheard him say to Tavia once.
“Where to now?” Saxony asked.
They were in the city outskirts, where only those who had lived in Creije forever—whose families had been born and died there—or those that had come for a dream and found desolation roamed.
Well, them and Tavia.
Tavia, who fled to the outskirts and as far from High Town and the busker dormitories as she could, to hold her morality close and keep Wesley at a distance. Neither of which had really worked, in Saxony’s opinion.
Her old flat was just a few streets away and Saxony recalled the many times they had both stumbled back there, drunk as the fire-gates, and she’d spent the night dozing on Tavia’s sofa and trying to drown out the sound of her snoring in the other room.
“Which way?” Saxony asked again.
She didn’t ask because she didn’t know, but because it seemed necessary to try and fill the mourning silence.
“The alley behind the amity precinct,” Wesley finally said.
Saxony almost sighed in the relief his voice brought. He didn’t sound broken, but then again, Wesley was an expert at hiding anything he didn’t want people to see, especially when those things were as complicated as emotions.
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