Selese laughed.
“I suppose, then, that we shall make a good team.”
Indra smiled back, feeling surprisingly at home with Selese.
“I must admit,” Selese said, “at first I was afraid of you. A woman who can fight the way you do, who is unafraid of men.”
“And what is there to fear?” Indra replied. “Either you kill a man, or they kill you. Fear won’t make a difference.”
Indra shook her head.
“I must admit,” she added, “that I was afraid of you, too.”
“You—afraid of me!?” Selese asked, shocked.
Indra nodded.
“After all, it was you who emerged from the land of the dead. From the other side. It was you who had not only faced death, but knew it. And by your own hand, no less. I fear death. I try to make myself afraid of no one. But I do fear death. And I fear anyone who has been too close to it.”
Selese’s face grew serious, and she drew a long breath as she stared into the flames, as if remembering.
“What was it like?” Indra asked, unable to resist. She knew she should not ask, should not press her, but she had to know. “Is it unbearable down there?”
As a long silence followed, a part of Indra hoped she would not reply, did not want to hear the answer. Yet another part was dying to know.
Selese finally sighed.
“It’s hard to describe,” she said. “It is not like entering another place. It is like entering another part of yourself—a deep, and sometimes dark, part of yourself. Everything comes back to the surface, back in your face, everything you did in life—everyone you loved, everyone you hated, everything you did and did not do. Love given and love lost. It all comes bubbling up before you, as if all happening once again. It is an odd state, a review of your life that never ends. It is a place of memories and dreams and hopes. A place, most of all, of unfulfilled desire.”
Selese sighed.
“For me, more than most, because I took my own life, I was sent to a different place below. It was a place I was sent to reflect, to understand what I did and why. Memories play on repeat, and never end. On the one hand, it was cathartic; on the other hand, it was torturous. Because of the way my life ended, everything felt incomplete. I felt myself burning for one more chance, just one more chance to fix mistakes, to get it right.”
Indra could see how deeply Selese felt it all, reliving it in her eyes, lost in another place. She felt that there was a translucent quality to Selese, as if a part of her were here, and another part still down below.
Selese turned and set her eyes on her.
“And what of you?” Selese asked. “What has driven you here? Was your life perfect?”
Indra thought long and hard about the question; she had never considered it before.
Indra shook her head.
“A far cry from perfect,” she said. “It was anything but. I was raised in the Empire. In the Empire, one lives life as a slave. I lived inside a great slave city, and slaveship was my life. I witnessed everyone I love and knew be killed.”
Indra sighed, feeling sick at the thought, it all rushing back to her as if it were yesterday.
“I could live with the bondage,” she said. “I could live with the labor. I could live with the beatings. But what I could not live with was watching my family in bondage, watching them being slaves. That was too much.”
Indra fell quiet, thinking of them, remembering her parents and sisters and brothers.
“And where are they now?” Selese asked. “What became of them?”
There came a long silence, nothing but the crackling of the fire, as Indra felt all of the others listening, watching her for a response.
Indra shook her head as she lowered it, feeling her eyes well with tears. She could not bring herself to say the words, so she just remained silent.
Selese reached up and laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
Finally, after a long while, Indra caught her breath.
“I watched them die,” she said, the words sticking in her throat. “Each and every one of them. And there was nothing I could do. I was shackled to the others. I was helpless.”
She sighed.
“I vowed to survive. I vowed to become a fighter. I vowed vengeance. The need for vengeance is a very powerful thing, more powerful, even than the need for food, for water, the need to live. It is what sustained me. It is what kept me going. I vowed to do whatever I had to to kill all those who took my family from me.”
Elden came close, sliding over, and draped an arm around her.
“I am so sorry,” he said. It was the first time he had spoken in a while, and the first time in as long as she could remember that he, always so silent, expressed his emotions.
But Indra shrugged off his arm, and despite herself, felt annoyed. She could not help it—it was the defensive part of her overwhelming her.
“I don’t want your sympathy,” she snapped, her voice dark, filled with anger. “I don’t want anyone’s sympathy.”
Indra suddenly stood, crossed the chamber, and sat on the far side of the room, turning her back to all of them, bringing her spear with her. She sat there, facing the wall, looking out the window into the night, and held up her spear beneath the moonlight. She brushed away a tear, quickly, so that none of the others would see her like this, and she raised the shaft to the light, examining it. She watched all its diamonds sparkle, and she took comfort in her new weapon. She would kill them all, every last Empire.
If it was the last thing she did, she would kill each and every one of them.
*
Thor dreamt fast, troubled dreams. He saw himself sailing on the bow of a beautiful, long ship, brand-new canvas sails above him, rippling, the ocean glistening beneath him as they cut through the water like fish. They headed, he and his Legion brothers, toward a small island up ahead, an island marked by three distinct cliffs, like camel humps, yet white as snow. It was a visual that Thor could never forget.
As they sailed closer, up above, on the highest cliff, something caught his eye, reflected in the sun. He narrowed his eyes and made out a small, shining bassinet. He knew, he just knew, that inside it lay a baby.
His baby.
Guwayne.
The tides carried them so fast it nearly took Thor’s breath away, and as they approached, sailing as if on the wings of the wind, Thor was filled with a joy and excitement he’d never known. He stood at the rail, ready to pounce, to run up the cliffs, the moment their boat touched the sand.
They suddenly touched down and Thor jumped gracefully over the rail, dropping twenty feet below and landing easily on the sand. He hit the ground running, and sprinted into the dense tropical jungle that bordered the island.
Thor ran and ran, branches scratching against him, until he finally reached a clearing. And there inside, high up atop a boulder, sat the golden bassinet.
A baby’s cries filled the jungle air, and Thor rushed forward, scrambled up the boulder, and stopped at its plateau, excited to see Guwayne.
Guwayne, Thor was elated to see, was there. He was really there. He reached up for him, crying, and Thor reached down and grabbed him, weeping. He held his baby to him, clutching him to his chest, rocking him, and tears of joy fell down his face.
Father, he heard Guwayne say, the voice resonating somehow inside his head. Find me. Save me, Father.
Thor woke with a start, sitting bolt upright, heart beating wildly, and looked frantically around him. He did not know where he was, reaching out, reaching for Guwayne, not understanding where he could be. It took several moments for him to realize he was not there, but somewhere else. Inside.
In a castle. Ragon’s castle.
Disoriented, Thor looked about and saw the others were all fast asleep by the fireplace. He looked out through the high arched windows, and saw dawn just beginning to break in the night sky. He shook his head, rubbing his eyes, realizing it had all been but a dream. He had not seen Guwayne. He had not bee
n at sea.
And yet it had all felt so real. It had felt like more than a dream: it had felt like a message. A message meant just for him. Guwayne, he suddenly felt certain, was waiting for him on an island, a place with three white cliffs, close to here. Thor had to save him. He could not wait.
Thor suddenly jumped to his feet and roused each of his brothers, prodding them from their slumber.
They all jumped to their feet, clutching their weapons, on alert.
“We must go!” Thorgrin said. “Now!”
“Go where?” O’Connor asked.
“Guwayne,” Thorgrin said. “I saw him. I know where he is. We must go to him at once!”
They still stared at him, confused.
“Are you mad?” Reece asked. “Leave now!? It is not yet dawn.”
“What about Ragon?” Indra asked. “We can’t just run out!”
Thor shook his head.
“You don’t understand. I saw him. We have no time. My son awaits. I know where he is. We must go at once!”
There felt a sudden urgency overcome him, an urgency greater than any he’d ever felt in his life. He felt he had no choice.
Thor suddenly turned, unable to wait any longer, and ran from the room.
He burst down the corridors of the castle, down the stairs, and out the front door, sprinting alone through the fields, beneath the breaking light of dawn, one of the moons still high in the sky.
“Wait!” called out a voice.
Thor glanced back to see the others, all chasing after him.
“Have you gone mad?” Matus cried. “What’s come over you?”
But Thor had no time to respond. He ran and ran until his lungs nearly burst, not thinking clearly, just knowing he had to reach his ship.
He soon reached the cliffs, and as he did, he stopped and stood there, looking down.
Their boat was still there, visible beneath the moonlight, looking exactly as it had when they’d left it. The seven ropes were there, too, still dangling over the edge.
Thor turned, grabbed hold of a rope, and began the descent. He looked over and saw the others descending beside him, all of them hastily leaving this place. He did not understand what was happening to him—and he did not care.
Soon, he would be with his son.
*
Ragon emerged from his castle, awakened by an unusual sensation in the breaking dawn, and he marched across the hills, perturbed, using his staff, and studied the horizon. Up above, Lycoples shrieked, flying in broad circles.
Ragon reached the edge of the cliffs and he looked out at the ocean, glistening in the dawn. As he studied the waters, he began to make out a shape: down below, far off, Ragon could see Thor’s ship, sailing off, the currents already carrying it far away.
Ragon, anguished, raised his staff and tried to control the current to bring it back. He was shocked to realize he could not. For the first time in his life, he was helpless to control it, was up against a power greater than his own.
Baffled, Ragon studied the skies, and as he did, he noticed, for the first time, a shape. A shadow. He heard an unearthly screech, a screech that had no place being sounded anywhere above ground, and he felt a chill run down his spine. The shadow disappeared into the clouds just as quickly, and Ragon stood there, frozen, realizing what it was: a demon. Unleashed from hell.
Suddenly, Ragon understood. A demon had crossed over his island, had cast a spell of confusion over its occupants, had lured Thorgrin away under its spell. God only knew what it had made Thor believe, Ragon wondered, as he watched his ship sail away, getting smaller and smaller, away from Guwayne, away from his only son—and toward a danger far greater, surely, than Ragon could ever imagine.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Gwendolyn marched across the Great Waste beneath the relentless two suns of the desert sky, Krohn at her side, as she had been doing day after day, putting one foot before the other, stirring up dust, her legs aching with the endless monotony of marching. They had not stopped marching ever since they had left Darius’s people, all of them determined to cross this desert, to find the Second Ring, to find help.
Yet as she looked up ahead, as she had for days, all she saw before her was more monotony, an empty landscape, nothing on the horizon, just more of this red waste. The hard desert floor was cracked, stiff, stretching forever to nothing, and nothing to break up the monotony except the occasional passing dust cloud or thorn bush rolling in the wind. It was the emptiest landscape she’d ever seen, a hopeless, barren place. She felt as if she were marching to the very ends of the world.
Krohn panted heavily, whining, and as she marched, her apprehensions deepening, Gwendolyn wondered what she had gotten her people into. They had been trekking for days now, already running low on provisions, especially water, and there was no hope in sight. There was no shelter in sight, either, and she did not know how many more nights she could have her people sleep out in the open, exposed, on the desert floor, with the freezing, whipping sand winds and the endless critters crawling on them at night. She was already covered in bites, awake every hour, swatting away exotic bugs that swarmed near her ear. Last night one of her men had died from a scorpion bite—and this morning Gwen had herself crushed the largest spider she’d ever seen, right before she put on her boot. It was a landscape of poisons and hidden death, a treacherous place, home only to reptiles and scorpions—and the bones of others who had been foolish enough to try to cross it.
“Did she really think this would lead us somewhere?” came a voice.
Gwen heard a murmuring, and she turned and saw her ragtag collection of people, what was left of the Ring, hundreds of survivors of the Ring, and she felt for them. They had endured so much—battles, voyages, sickness, hunger, the loss of loved ones, of their possessions, of their homeland—their suffering never seemed to end—and here they were, on yet another trek, to yet another destination that might not ever come to be. They were exhausted, cynical, and beginning to lose hope. She could hardly blame them. Her heart broke most of all for the baby, crying, its shrill cry always with them as Illepra carried her carefully, wrapped up to protect her from the sun, never failing her duties for her. Gwen wished she could give her water, shade, a comfortable place to sleep.
“If this Great Waste actually led somewhere,” another person replied, “don’t you think the slaves would’ve tried it already? Don’t you think they would have tried to make their escape?”
“That’s because it leads nowhere,” the other said, “and they know it. They were not foolish enough to attempt to cross it.”
Gwendolyn saw the faces of her people, angry, sunburnt, parched, desperate—and as they looked up and glared at her, their eyes filled with hatred, crazed from the relentless sun—she had to look away. Despite all their harsh words, she could not stand to see them suffering like that.
She also recognized the face of the one who was instigating it all—Aslin; he had been one of the instigators behind the rebellion back in the cave. She thought he had been humbled, but apparently not. She had been merciful to let him live back there; perhaps, she realized, that had been a mistake.
“Where is it that you think this waste will take us anyway?” she heard Aslin suddenly call out, in a loud voice rising above the din.
Gwendolyn was surprised to hear him so emboldened, as if gaining momentum, calling out in open rebellion.
“You really pretend to believe that there exists a Second Ring?” he added. “Why don’t you just call this what it is: you’re leading us to our graves.”
There came a rumbling from some of her people, starting to warm up to him, and Gwendolyn felt her hair stand on end, felt the tension rising in the air behind her. She felt pained to be condemned by them so harshly, especially after all she had sacrificed for them. Was that what it meant to be a queen?
Beside her, Krohn began to snarl.
“It’s okay, Krohn,” she said reassuringly.
“We never should have fought for those village
rs!” another of her people yelled. “We never should have stayed there to begin with!”
There came another disgruntled rumbling.
“We never should have burned our ships!” another yelled.
“We never should have sailed to the Empire!” another yelled.
The mumbling grew louder, and it was followed by the distinctive sound of a sword being drawn, cutting through the air. Krohn turned, snarling, standing before Gwen.
The crowd suddenly stopped marching, and Gwen turned to see Steffen standing there, sword drawn, facing the rebellious people.
“If you wish to complain,” he seethed, “then have the courage to face the Queen and complain directly to her. Stop snickering behind her back like scared little children. It is treason to incite others, and if you continue this line of talk, you will learn what real death means.”
Gwen was impressed by Steffen’s strength, by the authority in his voice, by his deep, unshakable loyalty to her, and she felt overwhelmed with gratitude for his presence. She realized she had felt too guilty for what had become of her people to stand up for herself.
Aslin glowered back at Steffen.
Beside Steffen, Kendrick turned and drew his sword, too.
“You will have to get through me, too,” he added.
Krohn’s snarling intensified, as he began to walk slowly toward Aslin, and Aslin looking from Krohn to Steffen to Kendrick then finally, finally lowered his head.
“I was just saying,” he mumbled, backing down.
Gwendolyn stepped forward and laid a gentle hand on Steffen and Kendrick’s swords, and they sheathed them. She gestured to Krohn, and he quieted and came back to her, as she turned and faced her people.
“I know this journey is hard,” she said. “All worthwhile journeys are. I know our entire exile has not been easy. But we are the people of the Ring. We have suffered worse, and we shall get through this. We are of indomitable spirit. We fight not only for the slaves, but for ourselves, for we are all slaves to the Empire—we always have been, as everyone under the sky. We fight finally for real freedom, to throw off the yoke of the Empire, once and for all.”