“Why?”
“Prisoners are treated like deserters under his Emperor’s mandate. If you leave Kaippon for any reason, you’re a deserter. The Imperial Court beheads deserters.”
“But that’s not fair—”
“Nothing is fair,” she interrupted. “Toran wants our war to end as much as I do, maybe even more. It’s been nine years since he’s seen his family.”
Jaime breathed, “I had no idea.”
“He’s afraid, too. Of many things.”
“Really?”
“He . . . ” She paused. “Never mind.”
“You said you trusted me,” he teased.
She sighed. “You have to promise not to tell. Toran’s really sensitive about it.” When he nodded, she lowered her voice. “In Kaippon, they draft any boy older than twelve. They’ll behead you if you try to avoid the Imperial Conscription. Toran hates his Emperor. I think it’s why he let my father’s bondmen capture him when they stormed his village. He says he didn’t have a choice. But . . . I think he’s afraid of dying.”
Jaime lifted his head in astonishment.
“I—I thought I was the only one,” he croaked. I thought I was a coward for feeling that way.
“You’re not.”
Compelled by her honesty, he whispered, “I’ve never told anyone this before, but . . . I’m afraid to do what everyone expects of me. They think I can just kill my father because Lord Jaypes wants me to, but—” He raked at the growing locks of his hair. “Eridene, I’ve never had a real father before. I’ve seen the terrible things he’s done, but I still love him.”
“It’s okay—” she began, but he shook his head, fighting to keep his voice steady.
“That makes me weak, doesn’t it?”
“You’re not weak, Jamian.”
A horde of cicadas buzzed against the walls of his chest. He couldn’t sit still. He couldn’t keep it in anymore, so he leaned in towards her face. Forced the words out.
“Eridene, I—”
“Juno!”
Jaime whipped around. Toran closed his grip around his shoulder and yanked him backward.
“You’re awake! Look at all these beans I found!”
The joy in his friend’s voice was stilted. He dumped out a knapsack of green pods.
Jaime seethed.
He’s doing this on purpose. To keep Eridene and me apart. Why?
Every tendril of his body screamed at him to blow Toran off the hillside. But his mother’s voice filtered into his head.
Breathe. Breathe, Jaime.
“We should probably get going.” Toran fought the congestion in his voice. “Put some distance between us and the royals before a storm comes.”
Jaime glanced at Eridene, his jaw clenched.
Are you on my side, or his?
She avoided his gaze and squeezed her friend’s fleshy shoulder. “Toran’s right. We should go.”
Toran’s right.
The cicadas died in his chest. Jaime walled the emotion from his face and marched out to untie his horse.
Toran was not right. Toran would never be right. Eridene did have feelings for him. He was sure as the storm clouds pulsing over the hills.
For two months, they rode through slopes of wild manna, poppies, and heliotrope until dark peaks appeared over the horizon. Jaime raised his head, his breaths coming out light and fast. Sojin mentioned peaks would appear just before he reached the High Temple.
The final stretch of their journey was coming to an end.
It felt like he’d swallowed a stone. It sat in his belly, growing heavier and heavier. First of September. The date of the prophecy was less than a month from now.
What could the airpriests possibly teach him in a month?
By noon the next day, the summer heat grew frigid. This was the same northeastern air he grew up with on Mount Alairus. Home was close. But he veered away from it, riding further north.
Nostalgia squeezed his heart.
On the third day, the shadowy foothills of the Lunar Peaks appeared through thick mist. By evening, just as Sojin has promised, a shallow ford intercepted their path. A storm of purple blossoms snowed over their heads. Windflowers. They raised their heads in awe.
“We made it,” Jaime whispered.
He led them across over the ford. A new airmarker rose above the reeds. Jaime bent over, touching its stone.
Silverwind, the medallion whispered.
He took their windcloaks out of his knapsack, and without a word, they rode the new current for an hour. It kept them low, never more than twenty feet above the ground.
Within the hour, they reached the base of the peaks. A narrow stone path vanished into the first row of pine trees marking the end of Usheon’s world, and the beginning of the untamed north.
The three of them climbed.
At midday, Jaime swore this was the most grueling part of his journey yet. Sweat lathered his armpits and thighs. His legs crumpled from burns. The air grew icier the higher they ascended, until not even birds flitted within the isolated wilderness.
On the fourth day, Toran started lagging. Jaime stopped to wait for him. Dark patches sagged under his friend’s eyes.
“How are your allergies?”
“What?”
“Are you okay?”
Toran’s shoulders hunched more than usual. “Just tired, and kind of homesick.”
One week later, Jaime was the first to climb all the way up the side of the tallest peak. He helped Eridene up, then Toran. Thick mist obscured whatever lied ahead. The medallion hummed against his chest with energy. His insides fluttered.
Together, they took hands and stepped forward.
A suspended bridge led them into a network of mountains that stretched into the horizon.
Jaime gasped.
The skylight was an ethereal gold. His eyes darted to find the sun, but all he could see was the moon—a massive crescent falling through a bath of evening clouds.
“We’re in the sky,” he said in awe.
His friends were staring, too. Jaime closed his eyes. The air was thin and stale here. It was hard to breathe. Strange. Hadn’t he climbed plenty of slopes without a problem?
Perhaps we’re too high in the sky. Didn’t Mamá say it was impossible to breathe on high mountaintops?
He forced his panic down.
As windflowers fell, air currents slithered over his shoulders and away into the distance like they didn’t know him.
This range is even taller than the one Arrys took me on. So I haven’t climbed Jaypes’s highest mountain yet.
Eridene pointed. “Look, Jamian. There it is.”
Temple Jaypes rested on the crest of the middle peak. Jaime took the lead and crossed the ancient bridge. Only clouds sprawled under his sandals. His belly squirmed.
The skies grew dusky by the time they arrived at the Temple gate. Jaime glanced at the dazzling crescent. It loomed over him, larger than ever. He shivered. For some reason, the symbol he saw in Achuros’s ledger—and the eye in the center—flashed back.
Eridene held onto his arm for comfort.
He took in a deep breath, and shouted: “I am Jamian Ottega, Prince of Jaypes, and I request to be admitted!”
He waited.
The winds whispered through the pomegranate trees, laurels, and fields of wild hyacinth. The gates stayed shut.
His friends exchanged glances.
“Maybe you didn’t say it loud enough,” Eridene said. But when he tried again, nothing happened.
Toran sighed curtly. Eridene pointed to their right.
“What’s that?”
He followed her finger to a large hole in the side of the stone wall. Water trickled out of it, cascading into the open clouds below.
“Looks like a sto
rm drain,” she said.
“Let’s give it a try.”
They formed a human tower, with Toran on the bottom, and helped each other clamber inside. The walls were barely big enough to fit a child; Jaime’s shoulders were cramped in. The way ahead was dark, but he focused on the present and tapped into his Sage-vision. Violet color illuminated the walls, sharpening every clay brick. All of them groaned as they sloshed knee-deep into water.
“Ew, what’s that smell?” Eridene scrunched her nose.
It hit him in a wave—Jaime almost fell over. The smell of a rotting carcass. All of them went quiet as they passed a dead rat, and then another, and then another, until a trail of them floated out of the tunnel ahead.
His skin prickled. Whispers bit his ears as they winded deeper into the dark. But these weren’t coming from air currents. They were half-formed words; the same whispers he’d heard in the Krete Forests just before the mist-monsters appeared.
When they rounded a bend, a ladder stretched up into a manhole. Jaime splashed forward.
“I think I see an exit!”
Eridene exclaimed in relief. Toran kept silent. Jaime groped for its slippery edges and lifted it open—daggers of skylight cut into his eyes.
He was standing in a giant city. The sky soaked the tips of the white parapets with fiery light. All of these structures were slender and taller than the highest beacon towers in Arcurea. Ancient cobblestones formed a winding river of roads that snaked infinitely into the horizon of Jaypes Kingdom.
The High Temple was completely deserted.
Whispers licked at the sweat on his neck. Jaime shut his eyes, but he couldn’t wall them from his mind.
Kuurjal hzajdi gûl.
“Do you hear that?” he said.
Eridene blinked. “Hear what?”
He met eyes with Toran. Sweat rolled down his best friend’s temple. Toran’s coal-black eyes darted away.
Somehow, Toran could hear the Voice, too.
But how?
And suddenly, Jaime remembered the night of their lanterns—hadn’t Toran mentioned he often had nightmares?
Jaime had never asked what kind.
Oblivious, Eridene stepped past them and looked around. “Where is everyone?”
“Maybe they’re all dead,” Toran said.
Jaime sharply turned on him. “Don’t say that.”
“Why? Gods, will you grow a cock?”
“Shut up!”
Eridene started. “Jamian—”
It was the whispers—they were cornering him into the edge of a sheer cliff he couldn’t see, only feel.
Toran stormed over and jabbed him in the chest. “Look here, meathead. We’re all frustrated and tired, and you’re not dragging us through another half of the Kingdom just so we can run from more soldiers.” He turned around. “C’mon, we’re leaving.”
“Is that what this is to you?” Jaime cried. “Running around the Kingdom, playing Prince like I have nothing better to do? Do you have a brain, or is it all barley bread up there?”
Toran’s eyes burst into hellfire.
But this wasn’t anger—this went beyond anger, to something black and hateful and murderous as the tunnel they had waded through—as the Voice that churned inside his head.
“No, Jamian, I’ve got no brain ‘cos I’m fat old Toran who eats and drinks and burps out jokes. Is that it?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I’ve spent an entire year following you into banestorms. A year in this shithole Kingdom. I thought I’d be back in Glaidde by April, but it’s past summer. I can’t imagine how my family’s working the rice-fields another year without me. They’ve got tax to pay to the Emperor, unlike Your Royal Highness, and I swear I’ll kill you if I have to do this for another month!”
“That’s not fair. You promised—” Jaime swallowed. “You promised back in Arcurea you’d help me win this war. No matter what. Or was that all just a fart?”
“What’ve I been doing this past year?” Toran bellowed. “Wake up! And you tell me if you have a brain—”
“I’m doing the best I can—”
“And man, aren’t you a Sage? Your people need your help, but all you do is hide behind peasants and unarmed councilors—”
Eridene interrupted. “Toran—”
But he pushed her behind him, eyes locked on Jaime. “I made a promise to you, sure, but you’re the one throwing it away. If you had any balls, this war would’ve been over yesterday.”
Something in him finally snapped.
“What about you?” Jaime screamed. “What about you, Toran Binn? You’re useless! You say I have no balls, but you won’t even join the military to defend your own family! At least I’m trying to learn Air, but you won’t even pick up a pike and be a stupid foot soldier! So who has the bigger balls, me or you!”
Toran went stiff.
Jaime realized too late what he said. Toran’s eyes slowly passed to Eridene. She covered her mouth in horror.
“Jamian! You weren’t supposed to—”
A sudden thrust into his stomach.
The world flashed red. For a second, he lost all feeling.
And then his senses rebounded back. It was like a building had collapsed on him. Jaime bowled over, heaving.
Toran reappeared. Shoved him flat against the ground.
At first, Jaime tried to protect himself. But Toran threw blows at his head with the sharp of his knuckles. Jaime started fighting back with equal venom. His nails dug into flesh. Twisted. He bit down on Toran’s arm. Kicked as hard as he could. They screamed things at each other, cusswords Jaime had never used on anyone before—until Eridene yanked them apart.
Toran snarled. Jaime was about to lunge back in. Eridene stormed between them.
“That’s enough!”
Hot tears brimmed Toran’s eyes. Jaime’s breath stopped.
Was Toran Binn crying?
In the heat of his own adrenaline, he noticed Eridene was struggling to hold back her own tears.
“Toran’s right. It’s time for us to leave.”
“No,” Jaime shouted, “I’m not leaving till I find the airpriests!”
“Then maybe it’s time to split up,” she said quietly. “Toran’s right. They are gone.”
Jaime’s blurry eyes widened. Eridene took Toran’s arm, gently easing his limp against the weight of her own body.
“We’ll be waiting at the base of the mountain if you change your mind.”
He stared at their crumpled backs, his shock blazing into fury.
“Fine! Leave! I never needed you anyway—”
He screamed at the sky and ran.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
His chest—all he could hear.
Jaime threw open the door of the nearest tower and sprinted up the steps. They ended into an empty spherical room at the top. Withered petals and laurel leaves littered the ground. He took Aulos’s windcloak out of his knapsack and threw it over the ground, collapsing on it.
The sky grew dimmer, hurling his shadow against the wall. Jaime shut his eyes.
Forget it. Forget what Toran said.
He couldn’t remember what had made them snap—only that his feelings of fear and despair were real.
He wrapped himself tightly into the windcloak and pressed the medallion to his chest. Temple Jaypes whispered to him lowly.
Kuurjal hzajdi gûl, Jaime.
And then there was quiet laughter.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jaime tossed and turned.
He was falling, falling, falling, into a black hole where only nightmares and white mist existed. Dying screams clawed at his ears. Bells tolled desperately. Shadows flitted across sun-drenched streets in Jaypes’s high mountains, but every time he stopped to look at their faces, they vanished.
His eyelids fluttered. Sweat drenched his face.
Kuurjal hzajdi gûl.
The low rumble, like that spoken from the belly of a beast, rose out of the grinning whispers.
You cannot hide from Me, Jaime . . .
His eyes snapped open.
Amber daylight, the color of Arcurea’s firepits, diffused through his window. The winds swirled around his ankles, urging him to wake. A heavier, darker energy—not elemental—poisoned the air.
He rubbed the sweat from his face and closed his eyes. Ugh. Just a nightmare, that’s all. I’ve got to find the airpriests. I can’t leave without them. Gods, Lord Romulus and the other Alliance Lords are warring for me. Where else can I go?
Jaime tossed the knapsack over his shoulder and skipped down the stairs.
The heavy door moaned. He pushed past it and stepped onto the everlasting expanse of white.
It should have been morning, logically, but the hidden sun flooded the mountains with the blood-orange light of late afternoon. An upturned crescent loomed over Jaime as he wandered. He knocked on several doors and poked his head inside, but they were empty.
Where are all of you?
As the winds guided him up a slope, Jaime considered shouting. Someone was bound to hear him. But somehow, he sensed that would be a bad idea.
Come to Me, Jaime . . .
The Voice was returning, louder and clearer than ever before. Something cast a shadow over him from above. Jaime looked up. A bell tower blotted out the sky. Charred and cracked. The ghostly tolling from his dreams prickled his ears.
“Who are you?” he whispered to the Voice.
No answer.
Jaime walked up a new set of steps and into a vast courtyard overshadowed by the moon. A marble staircase led to an enormous temple structure, held up by a colonnade. The open sky framed the balustrades to their right and left.
He slowly bent down.
Dried blood smeared the pattern of stones. It was dark, but not faded—the blood was recent. His chest tightened as he traced the rusty stains to the opposite side of the courtyard.
There was an attack here.
Stormfire Page 23
