The Iron-Jawed Boy and the Siege of Sol

  Within the aviary rose four trees situated around a courtyard of stone. The trunks of the trees were slick with frost, their branches and leaves a cold, wintery white. As I entered, a flock of tiny, white birds chirped to themselves in the branches above. It was quiet besides their sounds. Most definitely too quiet.

  The voices called to me again and again, so strong I could hear each as their own.

  “Can’t feel!” moaned a male.

  “So cold!” shouted a woman.

  I walked onto the courtyard. Only, when my feet met the stones in the middle, I sensed unsteady earth beneath them. With eyes unblinking, I stepped back until I was no longer on the bricks.

  “Save us!” three voices screamed at once. “Save us! Save us! Save us!”

  Nervously, my hands grasped the air before me, my mind wrapping its kinetic energy around the blocks in the floor. I raised all six of them at once, slowly pulling them from the snowy earth.

  A sour, deathly stench assaulted my senses, and my heart fell to my feet. When I looked below the hovering stones, my breath escaped me and I flung the stones to the sides. For instead of a layer of dirt...

  There was only flesh.

  Hundreds of pale bodies—their arms and legs and heads arranged perfectly into a floor of skin. And as my eyes narrowed upon their faces, I saw the black liquid leaking from their mouths and noses and eyes.

  “Save us!” called the voices, all at once and so loud.

  But there was no one to save, I realized then. These voices were the horrible screams, the manifestations of sadness and pain, left over from a heinous death. Voices left by the Gods of Old, the ones who had come before the Illyrians.

  The birds chirped wildly above me, bringing me out of my thoughts. And when I looked up, they swept over my head and spun in a blur of white on the opposite side of the courtyard. I clenched my jaw, knowing what was coming next.

  The chirping came to a crescendo, and the whirlwind of white became a blur. In seconds, wrinkled hands melted out of the blur, then a robe of pure white, a staff tipped in quartz, and a face seemingly as old as time itself. Her headdress of twisting silver arcs, laden with diamonds, sparkled in the bright light of the Moon.

  “Lady Borea,” I said with a nod, trying to remain composed.

  “Good evening, Lady Lillian,” she said, a venomous smile on her wrinkled face. “Found something of interest to you?”

  I balled my hands into fists, so aware of the Eternity Diamond burning in my forehead. “How could you do this?”

  “How could I do what?” she asked, looking oblivious.

  “Do this,” I said calmly, my hands gesturing toward the floor of bodies. “They were your family, Lady Borea. Though you are no Lady to me. Do not think that I was unaware of your attempt to massacre those involved in your failed plans with Illindria. Nor how you let your granddaughter suffer the punishments of the Darklands in your name.”

  Borea’s face slowly darkened with each word I had spoken, until I was staring upon a face I wished I were not.

  “No,” said Borea. “I would never expect an elf like you to keep your mouth shut and your mind closed. It would be better for you, in all honesty. Just look at Adalantis, my dear grandson. He would’ve kept his speech had he kept his questions to himself.”

  “So you were the one behind the punishment?” I asked. “I suspect he is so afraid of you he makes his guards do your bidding as well? Like poisoning Lady Helia before she could confess what you had done?”

  “I won’t say you’re correct,” said Borea. “But I won’t say you’re wrong, either. For neither shall matter in the end...at least for you.”

  Her grip grew so tight around her staff it made even my elven nerves grow tense. I had heard that many Old Gods had unspeakable power. I did not want to imagine what that meant for an Old God who had survived the rest.

  “Before you do whatever you think you can get away with,” I said. “I have one question for you: how old are you really? Because if you looked as old as time itself back in the days of the Norse, surely you came from a time before then...”

  She smiled pleasantly at me, leaning her head against her staff. “Oh, Lady Lillian. It isn’t polite to inquire about a woman’s age.”

  Borea flipped through the air quicker than I had ever seen a being move, her small body like lightning before my eyes. And when she landed, her staff cracked upon the floor and a wall of snow and sleet crashed into me. I was flung out of the aviary, my body smacking against the back wall of the chambers.

  I scrambled to my feet, but before I could charge my Diamond and release the energy needed, I felt a burning in my skin. It was all over me in seconds, this searing pain that brought me out of my focus. And then, my skin was pinched from my bones in a thousand places, and I was dragged across the snowy floor. I tried fighting the attack, whatever the attack was, but my skin was raised in so many places as though invisible fingers had been there pulling me along.

  I stopped at Borea’s feet, and was raised before her by invisible fingers on the back of my neck.

  “What kind of power is this?” I spat, feeling my body freeze as I stared down at her.

  “It is a power this world has not seen in a long while,” she answered. “A power that I will direct at the ones you hold most dear should you continue to sniff where you should not be sniffing.”

  My brows scrunched together in confusion. “So you’re...you’re letting me go?”

  I was lowered to the floor, and all the places where my skin was being pinched suddenly leveled.

  “I am. Now,” she said, her voice suddenly sweet, “go on your merry little way, and I will speak nothing of this. I’m sure you understand the word of an untrusted elf means nothing to that of an old, harmless woman such as myself?”

  I said nothing, silenced by the truth of the matter.

  The gates to the palace swung open yards behind Borea, and she stepped aside. “Have a good night’s rest, Lady Lillian. For you never know what tomorrow’s battles might bring.”

  As much hesitation as I believe I have ever experienced, I walked toward the gates, and listened to them crash behind me. And all the while, I could not help but repeat again and again:

  What just happened?

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE THUNDER LORD

  I heard the crack of the copper whips, and I awoke, gasping in the dark.

  I was in my room, covered by the sweaty sheets of my bed. The dim, gray light of the Moon crept through the Forever Clouds and lit my room in the eeriest of hues. The rays washed over my four red brick walls, the blue lace carpet beside my bed, and Mearic kneeling beside me.

  Nervously, he tucked his golden curls behind his ear.

  “I’m sorry to wake you, Thunder Lord,” he said quietly. “I was just seeing to your dressings.”

  As he spoke the word, I became painfully aware of the bandages wrapped around my torso. My back was searing hot, as though I’d been whipped only a few moments ago.

  “It burns!” I hissed. I reached to feel my back, but Mearic’s hand wrapped around my own before I could.

  “Don’t,” he warned. “You’ve...you’ve been badly burned. You can’t touch the wounds without clean hands, especially in this air that the gods have tainted. But the bandages must be replaced, Thunder Lord.”

  “Don’t call me that,” I spat, moving to sit on the side of my bed. I cringed at the heat—a heat so bad I was fighting tears with every second I was awake. “Your father’s mad as the gods.”

  “I know,” said Mearic, his voice gentle like Mother’s. “I-I tried to stop him, but he’s—”

  “Unstoppable? Yes, it seems that way. It also seemed to me that Sol has seen a spectacle like that before.”

  Mearic did not reply. “Normally the victims aren’t burned. Your whipping was worse. Father, he—”

  “Was waiting to do that.” I sighed. “I suppose I deserved it. After what my past lives did, I would never expect someone like him to
forgive me.”

  I moved to touch the bandages once more, but Mearic caught me again. “No,” he said sternly, looking me in the eye. “Let me do it.”

  I grimaced at the idea of another person touching my searing wounds. “No. I’ll see to it myself.”

  “You’re stubborn,” said Mearic. “That doesn’t work for me.”

  I stood and bore down upon him, my teeth bared. “I’ll see to it myself.”

  He flared his nose, and in a flash, reached behind my back and tore the bandages off in one painful swoop. I screamed louder than I believed I ever had and fell to my knees.

  “Sorry,” he shrugged, throwing the bloodied bandages in a wooden bowl by the bed. “Had to be done.”

  The anger surged through my body, my bones, every inch of my skin. The repercussions of my Dark Training showed its ugly face when I swept my arms toward Mearic and a gale of screaming wind pinned him against the nearest wall. The winds continued to pound against his chest as I glared at him, my blood boiling.

  “How dare you lay hands on your god!” I growled through my teeth, unable to see what I was doing or the pain I was causing Mearic.

  He grunted under the pressure, and over the roaring wind, said, “Ion...please...you’re...you’re hurting me.”

  The words struck a chord at once, and immediately the gale died.

  I placed my hand to my head, dizzied by my own actions, and sat back down. “I’m so sorry, Mearic,” I said. “I—I don’t know what came over me.”

  After Mearic had recovered, he smoothed his tunic over his chest and legs, and approached. “I can’t say I didn’t expect it,” he replied. “Now, if you’d like, I can rub some special salve on the burns to ease the pain. They’ll help heal them, too. As best as burns can be healed.”

  I stared at him with narrowed eyes. I just attacked you, and still you wish to help me? What’s wrong with you? Regardless, I nodded, and watched him pick up a wooden bowl of steaming, brown salve from the table beside my bed.

  He sat beside me and I turned my back to him. Minutes passed, where he slathered the hot salve on my burns, much to the relief of my skin.

  But his voice soon broke over the silence. “Why did you do it?”

  “Do what?” I asked.

  “Stay,” he replied. “Why did you stay to be punished when you just could have flown away?”

  “I have a duty as one of the city’s gods,” I said, Illindria’s smile flashing through my head. “I want to help. Because I love this city.” It felt like a lie, but at the same, the truth. That feeling of bringing rain, of giving the people what they had never seen...it was intoxicating.

  More minutes of silence passed, while Mearic considered my words. He finished applying the salve, and reached for a roll of bandages at his feet.

  “When did your mom die?” he asked plainly, as though he was asking me about the weather for the day.

  I turned back around. “Don’t you think that’s a little inappropriate to ask? And so...nonchalantly?”

  “Sorry,” he replied, face taken aback. “But how am I supposed to get to know you more if we don’t discuss these things? Now turn back around.”

  I did as he said, and as I felt him wrap the first length of bandages around me, I replied, “My mother died in the war when I was twelve. She was drafted by the Illyrian gods. And she was killed because of them.”

  “Wow,” he said, though sounding not so harshly disturbed by the news as others might have been. “And your father?”

  “My father...well, he’s alive, but I’m sure he’s not very happy with me,” I explained. “I left him and my sister when I chose the Endari over Illyria.”

  “Quite a decision to make,” he said, his voice suddenly like Mother’s.

  “It was,” I said, staring into the wall, thinking of my father’s face and the pride he’d never have. “It really was.” But it was for a reason, I reminded myself. One day I’ll see him again. One day I’ll see him again and he’ll look on me with pride.

  “My father gave me this jaw when I was twelve,” I said, running my hands over its nicked, iron surface. Why did you just tell him that? I thought. You’re losing control, Ion. Rein your feelings in...

  “That’s strange,” said Mearic. “I thought it was supposed to be when you were ten? Eldanarians have such weird customs.”

  I turned around in a flash, suddenly confused. “Wait, what? Ten? And why would it be an Eldanarian custom?”

  Mearic’s eyebrows scrunched together as he finished up the last rotation of bandages around my waist. “Ion, I’ve seen this type of iron sewn to the skin before.”

  My heart leapt in my chest, my breath caught in my throat. “Who?” I nearly screamed at him, my arms around his shoulders. “Who else would have this?”

  Mearic swallowed, surprised by my panic. “All of Sol.”

  Mearic pushed the sleeve of his left arm upward, and in the wake of the silk, wrapped around the olive skin of his upper arm, was a band of unpolished iron. I grabbed it at once, pulling it close to my eyes, examining the scratches and dents in the iron, running my fingers over the skin around the metal.

  “It’s exactly like mine,” I said breathlessly. “How? How do you have this?”

  He looked even more confused. “Once a child of Sol reaches the age of ten, a band of iron is magically sewn to the skin to mark their allegiance as a knight of the Citadels. It’s been that way since Sol’s walls were first constructed.”

  Of course! That’s why no one had given my jaw much attention when I first arrived.

  “By who?” I asked urgently. “Who does the sewing?”

  Hesitantly, timidly, he pulled his arm back and narrowed his eyes on me. “The Scientists.”

  I stood, unblinking. “What part of the city?”

  “Their temple is on the Fourth Terrace, across from the Hatchery,” he replied. “The only time they leave its walls is to syphon the energy from the Scepter to fuel more weapons.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I grabbed a blue, silk robe from my bedpost, and slung it over my back, ignoring the sting of my burns.

  I rushed to the window, and without explaining anything to Mearic, leapt out of the tower. I soared to the Terraces below, the wind roaring in my ears, mind reeling. As the streets rose up to meet me, I snapped my arms forward and a sudden gust of wind abruptly slowed my descent until I’d landed quietly.

  The cries of newly hatched Skyriders whined in the distance to my left, I rushed toward it. Though the streets were empty, I walked as inconspicuously as I could, careful to avoid any eyes that might be peering at me from the windows overhead. I ran up a hill that swerved to the left, under a collection of overhead bridges decorated with Solara’s glowing blue flowers. The cries of the Skyriders pierced my ears once more, and to my left rose the red pyramid of the Hatchery. I whirled around to my right, and there, rising off the Terrace’s edge, at the end of a walkway flanked by pools of my rainwater was the Temple of the Scientists. It was a slender building, ten stories tall, topped by bulbous domes of blue slate, with high, narrow windows running up and down its sides.

  I proceeded down the walkway, the Hatchery dwindling at my back. I climbed the tall set of stairs to the Temple’s doors, my heart thrumming nervously in my throat. The heaviness of my jaw was so apparent now. I raised my hand to knock, but before my knuckles could make the connection, the doors gave an eerie creak and opened with not a hand to help them. The sound made the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

  And what waited within didn’t help to soothe them.

  The scattered moonlight cast strands of gray light through the soaring windows of the inner Temple, stretching across the tiled floors and up and over the high-ceiling. A hot desert breeze drifted through the thin silks that draped the windows, and played with the strands of my long hair as I entered.

  Before me rose three small stairways, each leading to a platform, upon which sat a chair of stone. And on each chair sat a man—or woman, I could not tel
l—tall, bone-thin, and dressed in deep blue silks as was usual for Sol. A mask of lace hooded their eyes and mouth, though the color of their glowing purple irises was not lost behind the masks.

  “We have been waiting for you,” all three said in unison, their voices slow and ghostly.

  The doors creaked as they did before, slowly shutting behind me.

  “Then you know why I’ve come?” I said, trying to maintain a calm exterior.

  They stared curiously at me from behind their masks. I could feel their eyes dissecting the metal of my jaw, its dents, its unpolished nature. Could they see the three-eyed triangle resting beneath the iron on my chin?

  “You have...questions for us,” they replied. “Questions about...your jaw.”

  I swallowed. “Y-you made it, didn’t you?”

  “As the Scientists, we are the children of Orthys Smith, a man who before he stole the Scepter from Illyria, was known far and wide for his unmatched gifts with metalworking. He passed those talents down to us before he fell to the first plague the gods sent. And it was with those talents that we shaped that jaw and imbued it with the magic of the Scepter, so it could be attached to one’s skin.”

  My heart grew even tighter in my chest. “So...it was you who gave it to my father?”

  “Is that who attached it to you?” they asked.

  But wouldn’t you already know that? “I was twelve when my father found it, when a voice told him to attach it to me. For my safety, it told him. A voice that must’ve been yours.”

  “Alas, while we were the ones who gave the metal its shape and magical adhesive...we were only doing as we were told.”

  I sighed, suddenly feeling heavy. My jaw was cold as ice.

  “Funny,” they said. “That you say a voice told your father to attach it...yet it was not a voice that came to us that night to order your jaw’s production.”