The Iron-Jawed Boy

  Ion took a cautious step back, all too aware of the stories that surrounded this girl. Her name was Solara and she was a Guardian—one of six gods forged by the Illyrians to serve as their protectors, though Ion tried not to think too much about them. Imagining how much power a protector of the Illyrians would have just made him sick to his stomach. Thankfully, Guardians rarely made public appearances, keeping to themselves and their shadows. In fact, no one had seen a Guardian in years. Except, of course, for Solara.

  A reporter from the Eldanarian Times ran an article on Solara once, claiming it was common practice for her to turn men into ladybugs before squashing them beneath her sandals. No one had seen the reporter since.

  “S-s-s-s-so-Solara,” Dread said, choking on his tongue. “I w-was going to get back to you, b-but things s-s-sort of came up.”

  “Lies!” she said, and the locusts screeched. “I give you two of my most trusted nymphs as maids, and this is how you repay me? By lying to my face? The audacity!”

  A locust crawled across Dread’s lips. “I couldn’t c-control them!” he whimpered through the bug. “The politicians—they wouldn’t trust me. I-I-I tried! I really did!”

  Solara stood there, staring at the judge, daring him to say one more thing she didn’t want to hear. She snapped her attention to Ion. He, in turn, yelped like a wounded dog. She looked down at his jaw, her face twisting in disdain. “How disgusting,” she said, before turning back to Dread.

  “As the Supreme Judge, you have access to every politician in this city. Your job was to sway their vote on this forsaken bill, yet you didn’t, which means you haven’t kept up with your end of the bargain.” The judge looked seconds away from crying. “Believe me, I would love to let you get away with this, but I have a reputation to uphold here. If people see that I let one bug defy my order, they’ll think me too lenient, weak even.” Another locust crept over one of Dread’s eyes. “Changes will have to happen, Dread, to everyone’s lives involved...yours most of all. You don’t want that, so I’ll give you until tonight to come up with a plan to reverse the damage you’ve done. Good idea?” He stood there, cowering. “Fantastic! I’m glad you agree.”

  Solara tapped Dread in the chest, and he flew back into his office, flipping over his desk with a painful thud. Solara cackled and turned on her heel. She looked down at Ion, her lip curled in disgust, and then started down the hall. Her heels fluttered away as locusts, then her ankles, then her waist, until she was no more. The surrounding insects shot off the walls, croaking and hissing as they made their whirling exit through the windows above.

  Ion cautiously approached the door and peered inside. Dread was hobbling to his feet. His legs were trembling, his hands as well. If Ion had never seen the face of a man who’d met the end of his road, he most certainly did now.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A VOICE IN THE MIST

  The carriage ride home went a bit quicker than all the others before it.

  Dread had exploded out of the courthouse and demanded Driver take him back to the mansion “on the double!” While the carriage went screaming through the Protean streets, Ion clung to the back of it like a nervous spider monkey.

  The carriage flew over the top of a hill, smashed through gardens, plowed through markets, and somehow decapitated a statue of an Illyrian, which Ion didn’t think was going to help matters much. The carriage took a sharp right down a one-way-only road, and once Driver discovered the right way was the wrong way, the carriage blasted through a watermelon cart on the left and sped down an alley. With very large, very frightened eyes, Ion watched sparks fly from the sides of the carriage as it battered the stone walls flanking it. The back wheels popped off like corks, and ten wobbling seconds later, the carriage stopped at the front of the Dread mansion.

  Ion hardly had time to catch his breath before Dread dragged him through the mansion and up into his bedroom, where the judge threw open his dresser drawers and began tossing his nicest clothes at Ion.

  “Pack up my things!” Dread shouted, his hair now resembling a wild shrub. “If we evacuate before sundown, we’ll be perfectly fine!” He ripped a drawer right out of its socket and underwear showered the room.

  “Schn-n-nookums,” said Nexus, who stood trembling beside Ion, “y-you’re scaring me.”

  Dread ignored the comment and disappeared into the depths of his closet, which was so large it could have doubled as a dungeon.

  After Ion packed several suitcases full of black togas, tunics, sandals, and sashes, Dread dragged him down to the kitchen. There, Dread emptied three drawers of silverware into a suitcase and filled another with jars of dried fruit from the pantry. He kept mumbling how this was somehow the lesser folk’s fault—that they conspired to get him out of office.

  But the evacuation plan changed when, in all the madness, Dread caught sight of a knife sitting on the countertop beside him. He picked it up and stared at the blade, his smile twitching as he schemed. “It’s decided!” he said. “We’re going to defend ourselves!”

  Ion looked over at Nexus with worry. He could only imagine what she was thinking with that frightened look on her face: Is this really the wealthiest judge in town? How do I get out of this mess with the money? But it was most likely: What of my curls when I’m being mauled by a swarm of locusts?

  Dread handed Nexus a knife that looked only sharp enough to cut butter, and then handed Ion a knife, too. But Dread paused, squinted suspiciously at Ion, the Caller who now had a knife, and quickly replaced it with a ladle.

  By nightfall, Dread had boarded up every window and doorframe in the mansion—all by himself. Since Ion “didn’t know how to do anything right.”

  “There!” Dread shouted, backing away from the front door with hammer in-hand. “Let’s see little miss Solara get in here now. Threaten me, will you? I am Sir Dread, the Supreme Judge of Protea! I fear nothing!”

  As Dread convinced himself of this in the foyer, Ion sat in the living room next door, looking up at the painted, domed ceiling. The chandelier—with all its candles lit—washed a heavy, golden light over the beautiful flower nymphs dancing around in the fresco above. But if you squinted your eyes just enough, their smiles seemed like panicked ones, and Ion suddenly felt a tad more nervous. He tried once again to remove himself from the couch and its flower-print fabric, but the chain attaching him to the leg of the chair wouldn’t stand for such defiance.

  Dread entered the living room, his footsteps echoing about the towering walls around him. “Trying to escape again?” he growled.

  Ion swallowed.

  “When will you learn?” he said with cold fury. “You are a slave, Ionikus Reaves. A slave! Your life is one meant for chains and shackles.”

  Ion turned his head and stared heatedly at the potted plant on the table beside him. All he could think about was how badly he wanted to rip every petal, leaf, and root from the pot, and with that thought, a sharp gust launched the plant from the table. The pot shattered across the floor and Ion looked timidly up at Dread, who was bearing down on him with a murderous look, hammer in-hand.

  “I-I’m sorry,” Ion said. “It w-was an accident.”

  “How dare you use your powers to wreak havoc on my home!” Dread thundered, drawing the hammer above his head. “Shall we remind you of your place, Caller?”

  “Schnookums!” Nexus’s voice took the room. “Beating the slave will not solve our problems.”

  She stood at the top of the sweeping staircase on the other side of the living room, her jewels flashing and sparkling under the light of the chandelier. She looked now just as mad as Dread, and just as panicked as the painted faces.

  “But he—“

  “No!” she snapped, proceeding down the stairs as elegantly as was possible when sporting ten pounds of jewels. “We have other more important concerns. The wood nymphs have gone—I can’t find them anywhere in the mansion.”

  The hammer fell from Dread’s hand and smacked against the stone floor. “They snuck off to
Solara,” he whispered, eyes wide. “T-to tell her of our plans. I bet she’s on her way right now!”

  “Well, she did say she’d be here by nightfall,” Ion mumbled.

  “Shut up, you!” said Dread.

  The room hummed with the most horrific song—a million hissing locusts and their furiously beating wings. Ion’s heart leapt in his chest, and by the look on Dread’s face, his did, too.

  “She’s here!” Dread cried. “She’s here, and she’s going to turn us all into newts!”

  So much for defending ourselves.

  With a monstrous roar, the front doors exploded off their hinges, the boards nailed to it split right in two. Locusts poured in, stormed the living room, and covered the walls. They hissed as they shattered one of Dread’s prized vases, screamed as they smothered the painted faces of the ceiling. And then—like in the courthouse before—a wave of locusts swept down to the chair in front of Ion, and left in its wake, a red-haired goddess.

  She sat with her legs crossed, shimmering in a diamond-studded tunic and tall, silver headdress of metal ivy. She also wore the slyest of smiles.

  “I just love seeing so many familiar faces,” she said. She looked at Ion and laughed. “Chained to the couch, are we? Nice touch, Dread—I’ve always thought Callers should know their place in the household.”

  Ion would’ve sneered had he not been deathly afraid.

  “S-Solara,” Dread said, “I believe I’ve f-f-found a solution t-to our problem.”

  “Oh, have you?” Solara replied. “Because from the looks of that knife on your belt, I don’t think your solution is going to be a very good one.”

  Dread looked at the blade in utter horror and threw it to the floor. “Oh, that thing? No, no, no—you have it all wrong. I was—um—you see, I was making dinner earlier! Yes, that’s it—dinner! And—”

  “Just be quiet,” Solara said, rolling her eyes. “First, you thought you could escape me, and now you think you can fight back? Obviously, you’ve forgotten who you’re dealing with, Dread.”

  “No, Solara!” he squeaked. “I swear, I wasn’t—”

  “Oh, so now you’re calling me a liar?” she retorted. “I’m just making this all up, am I?”

  The tension was so heavy in the air Ion could hardly breathe. There was a pause, where Dread stared into Solara’s eyes, before diving to the floor and tearing for the knife on the rug. Solara leapt up from her chair—a column of locusts swept down from the ceiling, pinning Dread against the wall beneath the staircase.

  “Why, aren’t we feeling brave tonight?” she said, smiling.

  Dread struggled with the force of the insects against him. Ion and Nexus leapt to their feet. The locusts were screaming so loud Ion couldn’t hear his own thoughts.

  “You can’t…do this...” Dread fought for air. “I am...a judge!”

  “Soon to be replaced,” Solara chortled. “A simple rumor will handle your death. You were sailing the seas outside the Emerald Peaks when a deadly storm just appeared out of nowhere. Or perhaps your dearest Nexus just couldn’t deal with you any longer—how bloody the scene was, they’ll say.”

  Dread gritted his teeth. He looked to Ion in desperation. “Ionikus...use your wind!” he shouted.

  The pressure of Solara’s abrupt attention nearly buckled Ion’s knees.

  “Are you being serious, Dread?” she snapped. “This puny Caller against me? I don’t think I’ve ever been so insulted!”

  “Do it, Ion!” said Dread. “Do it and I’ll…I’ll free you!”

  “Yes, please, Ion,” Solara sneered. “If not for Dread, fight me for your freedom.”

  Ion’s mind was reeling, his insides clenched with fear. Whether or not Dread was going to free him, Ion wanted to live, and he knew Solara wouldn’t allow that either way—not now, after everything he’d witnessed. With his fingers spread wide and his teeth clamped down on his lips, a mighty wind exploded through the living room. It howled and whistled, and tore the locusts from the walls. Then the room plunged sixty degrees. Snow whipped over Ion’s shoulders and sheets of ice spread out from his feet. Ion couldn’t believe what he was seeing, what he was causing. He’d never made snow before. But as his fear grew, so, too, did the storm.

  Through the gales of icy winds and snow, Solara’s voice came strong and unfazed. “Very interesting,” she said. “But it’ll take more than a bit of cold to subdue a Guardian, you filthy Caller.”

  Solara let out a piercing scream and a river of locusts cut through the blizzard and slammed into Ion, tearing him and his shackle from the couch and launching him through the kitchen doors. He slid over the kitchen counters and fell off the other side with an avalanche of pots and pans. His shoulder was searing with pain, but he ignored it and dashed for cover inside the deep, dark pantry. He peered nervously out the crack in the door.

  Locusts burst into the kitchen with a deafening shriek. Ion smacked his hand to his mouth and tried his best at breathing through his nose. Solara entered and the bugs stopped hissing.

  She walked slowly through the kitchen, drawing her finger over each countertop she passed. “There must be something in the air today, for the weak to suddenly think they’re so strong. I mean, really, Caller? Battling a Guardian of the Illyrians? Sure, you can put on a show, but you’re no fighter.” She stopped at a slew of hanging pots and smiled at her reflection. “Rumor has it, Callers stole their powers from pixies. Do you think it’s true?” She wandered over to the pantry, and Ion’s heart dropped. Through the crack in the doors, he watched her lips move. “No opinion, Mr. Reaves?”

  And with a loud ping, the kitchen faucet popped off the sink all on its own, and out came a shower of water.

  “What in the Darklands fire is going on?” said Solara, as a shroud of mist quickly took the room.

  While she vanished within the clouds, the mist pumped through the cracks in the pantry door with heavy breaths. Ion clung to the back, somewhere in between the jars of dried pig tongues and a collection of hanging gourds. Soon, he couldn’t see a thing: his hands, the jars, the gourds—not even the figure standing but a foot away.

  But Ion knew he wasn’t alone. He could hear the breathing.

  He ran his hands along the shelves attached to the wall and tried feeling his way toward the exit. His hands were trembling. He could feel the weight of the shadow’s gaze bearing down upon him.

  “Do not attempt to escape.” The presence spoke with a young woman’s voice. A voice that sounded all too familiar.

  But...it couldn’t be...could it? No. It couldn’t. She was gone. Just like everyone else.

  “W-who are you?” he asked, still in his place.

  The mist drifted to the floor and Ion turned. In the center of the pantry stood a woman, or so he guessed. Her black robes were so heavy and thick she could have been a bear for all he knew. A short, talking bear. He looked down...a short, talking bear in gold sandals...with painted toes.

  “Formal introductions later,” she said. “For now, it’s imperative you come with me.”

  Before Ion could refuse, the woman coiled her hand around his wrist and dragged him out the pantry.

  “Let me go!” he ordered, flailing his arm.

  The woman waved her hand and the mist in the kitchen dissipated. Solara appeared, leaning against a countertop as she picked lazily at her fingernails.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” she asked the woman. “That kid attacked me—he’s mine now.”

  “He didn’t even touch you,” said the woman. “Besides, I’ve seen you do more damage to yourself with a pair of tweezers and a mirror.”

  Solara’s jaw clenched tight. The woman bent down to Ion’s foot, drew a sickle of ice out of thin air, and sliced the shackle around Ion’s ankle in half.

  “If just one bug defies the order,” said Solara, “the others will—”

  The woman stood. “I don’t care, Solara. This one’s no bug. I’m taking him to the Acropolis whether you like it or not.”

/>   “Acropolis?” Ion squeaked. “I’m not going to the Acropolis! Othum is on the Acropolis!”

  If Solara was scary for all the stories that surrounded her, Othum was utterly terrifying. He was one of the four Elders who headed the Illyrians, a storm god who wielded wind as a shield and lightning as a weapon, frying up people, places, and things whenever he wanted, for whatever reason he wanted. Ion hated the gods for ordering the Detainment, but the thought of being in front of one of them, especially the King, made him feel like he was propped up on worms for legs.

  The cloaked woman acted as though Ion hadn’t said a word and started for the door.

  “Fine!” said Solara. “But Dread and his girlfriend are mine!”

  The cloaked woman stopped cold in her place. Without even looking back at Solara, she said, “Do it, and Skylord Othum will know of your attempt to interfere in human democracy. And as I recall, that’s a three-year prison term even for a Guardian.”

  Ion was whisked through the living room with the woman’s small hand tight around his wrist. There was a clatter of pots being thrown in the kitchen while Solara’s screams filled the mansion.

  Ion was torn past Dread and Nexus, who were wise to stay—trembling, confused, and silent—on the couch.

  “L-let me go!” Ion demanded once more as they entered the foyer.

  The woman snapped around. “Or you’ll do what?”

  “I…I’ll bite you.”

  “No you won’t.”

  “Fine, I won’t,” he whimpered. “Just please don’t kill me!”

  She yanked Ion through the front door and past the trimmed hedges of the front yard.

  “Apparently you didn’t hear me earlier,” she said. “I need you alive. Othum needs you alive.”

  “W-why would Othum need me in the first place?”

  “Questions for later,” she said. “Now get in.”