As air flooded into my lungs at last, so did the long-postponed fear. I screamed.
I screamed with every bit of strength, every nerve, every drop of blood in my body. I screamed until I couldn’t scream any more.
My hands grasped at the icy cold stone below me, trying to push myself upright. Shaking, chest heaving with my breaths, I crawled towards the small opening in the jagged walls that encased me.
I stared out, eyes struggling to adjust to the dimly flickering light. I wanted to stand, wanted to squeeze through the gap and out into the light, but everything hurt. My limbs were limp and heavy. Breathing took effort. Between that and holding me head up, my strength was entirely sapped.
Something was pulling me, trying to drag me back and away from this moment in time, but I fought against it. I didn’t want to go back. I didn’t want to return to the hands of the man whose knife I could still feel being dragged across my throat.
Through the small opening, a cavern opened out: a stretching altar sat directly on the other side, only lit by the two lanterns beyond.
And there he was.
Rune.
My Rune.
He knelt at the altar, eyes clouded with the rage I’d not seen since we were younger. His mouth hung open in a monstrous scream. A dirty silver dagger gripped tightly in his hand. The boy beside him, I didn’t recognise, but he shook at Rune’s shoulders. Rune didn’t notice. He stared straight towards me, entirely unseeing. Hatred and fury and pain tearing his face apart.
His hands moved. The dagger plunged towards his stomach.
I screamed.
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Vas was trembling, and I doubted it was due to the cold. “B-But… your majesty… your crown…”
“Has no place in my relationship, Vas. If I wanted it up here, I would have brought it.”
Vas swallowed, but he nodded and remained quiet. Rune gripped my hand, his face beaming with pride. It didn’t feel like a wedding day – or at least, how I imagined my wedding day would feel – but I was glad for it. We didn’t have rows of nobility and streets of people watching us. We didn’t have to think about appearances and greeting foreign dignitaries. It was just us, a few of the people we trusted most in the world, and the mountains.
Rune and I faced one another, our hands tightening.
“We call the Gods to witness,” I whispered.
“Vas,” Rune said. The boy stiffened. “We ask you to bear witness on behalf of the Foxes. Do you accept?”
He gawked. “I… but… um, I’m not…”
“Not Foxeyes,” I said, sensing the distress. “The Foxes. The guides for the Gods. They need human eyes to witness in their place.”
His mouth hung open, but he clamped it shut after Clemence smacked his shoulder. “Y-Yes… I’ll bear witness.”
The surge of energy almost knocked me backwards. I held tighter to Rune, though he and the others seemed unaffected. It was overpowering, scrambling, a fight in the air as something tried to find purchase.
And then she was beside us.
Mercy didn’t seem to notice me staring at her. Her gaze was fixed on Rune: full of pain and an apology that he didn’t notice.
Rune must have went on, for Clemence’s voice broke through my trance.
“Yeah, I’ll witness.”
With his words came another surge. This one was quicker, easier, for Brenon had probably been lingering. He clapped his hands together once he appeared beside Mercy, and she shifted aside to give him room. “Now, this is a wedding!” he said as the wind battered at our three witnesses.
“Nida, we ask you to bear witness…” Rune hesitated. I squeezed his hand. As unnatural as it felt, Brenon had assured us that it meant nothing more than tradition. “To bear witness on behalf of the Fates.”
Her eyes flickered to me, and she smiled. “It’s an honour to.”
The air was still.
No energy rippled. Nothing pulsed through the air. No one answered the call.
Brenon whistled. “Damn… you weren’t kidding, huh?” I sensed his amusement. I couldn’t respond anyway, not with the others watching us. Rune held my gaze, unaware of who stood beside us and who was missing to complete the witness.
I had asked Brenon earlier, what would happen if a Fate refused to appear.
“They’ll always answer the call,” he’d said. “A call to witness pulls you just as the threads do.”
“But if they refuse?”
Brenon had shrugged. “Who could anger Gods enough that they deny a call? That’s a sad, mess of a human right there.”
Maybe not a human, but his words probably stood true. Part of me was pleased: I wanted nothing from Fates, and I wanted to owe them nothing in return. I would have been more concerned if they had appeared.
I knew the dents and dips of my crown. I also knew that there were bends in the silver base that hadn’t come from my mother’s untrained hand when she made it. A few of the emerald leaves and rubies were gone: stolen or broken off, I didn’t know. I clutched it, turning back to the few people who remained that were ‘mine’. Their gazes in that moment were heaved than my crown had ever felt.
I’d never felt the connection to Estra that my mother seemed to. It was a place of people who looked at me with exasperation or fear. To them, I’d always been the boy who lost his temper one too many times, or hit a little too hard. Maybe I’d knelt to become their heir, but the years since then hadn’t been long enough to mend the distrust my anger had caused.
Now, they looked at me as a King. Helpless, afraid, lost people looking at the only thing that made sense to them.
I didn’t know if I could do that.
“We can’t go back to the city,” I said when the silence grew too heavy. “They won’t just stay south and let us rebuild our homes.”
They merely stared.
“The south is safer,” I continued. “They’ve taken in other Estrans, so they say. You can go south. Find a new life. An easier one.”
Their gazes scared me. No matter how lost they looked, every one stood with this unwavering certainty.
I sighed. “I’m no King.”
Within a small, motionless crowd, someone shifted. People only moved to let the person passed, and before me stood a familiar face. Clemence Grove looked older than he had at my crowning, his broad shoulders slightly hunched, more lines in his viciously stern face.
He held out a small apple.
A small, bruised and dented, red apple.
And he pressed it into my hand.
I could wrap my entire fist around it, but Clemence seemed content. He stepped back. “We ain’t got no fancy, traitor Lord or Lady to give you a daft sword. But something tells me you shouldn’t care for one.”
I snorted, shaking my head. Looking back at the people before me, my shoulders slumped. Holding out the crown, I looked down. “Vas, come do this.”
The boy scrambled forwards, eyes wide and cheeks pale. Clemence had to snatch the crown from me and shove into Vas’ hands. They stained the crown with blood as he took it. I knelt down, head hanging low for him, and he pressed it on without any more coaxing.
My fingers dug into my palms as I stood, and my people knelt whilst I sat down on the makeshift throne. In the entrance of the cave, a small white fox peered inside. It met my gaze, and then raced out once more. Perhaps it was my ancestors mocking the new King Rune.
King Rune of a burnt and broken Kingdom.
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Neither wolf or man saw one another; both crouched with gnawing stomachs, eyes only for the buck that stood between them. I knew what would happen. The man would loosen the arrow. He’d step on a branch, and the buck would be scared off. His arrow would hit the wolf instead. An impossible mistake. One that we were here to make sure happened.
“You can see what you need to do?” Rosin asked, kicking a stone and caring little for the silence of the moment.
“Help the arrow find its mark,” I said, looking at the wolf.
“And you know why?” she pressed.
“Because…” I paused, fumbling as I tried to follow the thread again, trying to sense what lay further down it that had to come to be.
Killing a shadow wolf was said to be impossible in Clarend. To kill one was to kill a bad omen. If this man, weak and poor, managed such a feat, he would take it back to Vercord: Clarend’s capital. He’d present it to the twin Kings, and they would knight him on the spot before even asking his name. After how much Clarend had suffered since the Split, the whole country would cling desperately to the thought of someone killing a bad omen. This man would be famous. He’d be rich. Welcomed into the highest parts of society, with songs and poems written about him for the next hundred years. He’d ask a beautiful merchant’s daughter for her hand in marriage and…
And they’d havae a son.
My heart twisted.
The son would grow strong. Brave. Bold. Spoilt by his mother’s money and his father’s fame. He’d have titles and land and gold and men and women fawning after him. But it wouldn’t be enough. It would never be enough. He’d ache for something, for power, for people to bow before him. A throne wasn’t enough. He wanted his name to be whispered out of fear. And so, he’d said. He’d sail along the coast. Then, he’d sail west.
He’d pillage. Burn. Rape. Murder.
The Mainland would bow to him. And Mercha, honourable and strong Mercha, would see their rivers run red with the blood he spilled.
That was where this thread led. To a man who would become the most abhorrent, most sadistic, most feared pirate of all time.
Something pressed against my throat. Gripped my unbeating heat. And the man moved.
The branch snapped. The buck leapt. The wolf froze.
And I ran.
Twisting in the air, barrelling towards the wolf, the arrow flew straight. My arm stretched. Fingers brushed the metal tip.
