Only Helmuth didn’t care about any of that. Already this was the best day of his life, and not by a small margin.
“You might as well settle in—this will take a while,” Vrinn said, grinning at him.
Helmuth grinned back. It would take a while because they were climbing all the way to the clouds. No, above the clouds.
Grinning at each other, they sat on opposite sides on wooden seats affixed to the walls. Helmuth’s fine, new crutches rested on his lap. He was feeling bold, recklessly so. “Why don’t you look at my legs?” he asked, his own gaze darting to the withered, spindly things he usually avoided talking about at all costs.
Vrinn’s eyes stayed level, not so much as fluttering. “They are just legs. I have seen many of them.”
“But mine are…different. Useless.”
“Different. Not useless. You can still use them to balance, no?”
Helmuth had never considered that. Though his legs could not support his weight, they had enough strength to work with his crutches to allow him to remain upright, at the least. He nodded. “But—”
“But nothing. Your perceived deficiency can be corrected with crutches. There are those who are born with worse, deficiencies of the mind for which there are no crutches.”
It was a different perspective, and perhaps it should’ve made him feel better about himself, but it didn’t. For whenever he felt the slightest ray of hope, a thousand voices assaulted him from the past, their screams obliterating all peace. “The Maimed Prince,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just…thank you. You are kinder than most I’ve encountered.”
A silence settled in after that, each lost in their own thoughts. Eventually, what felt like half a day later, the box jolted to a stop. Helmuth’s eyes met Vrinn’s and they both smiled. “Are you ready?” Vrinn said.
Yes. Oh, yes. Helmuth bit his bottom lip and nodded.
Vrinn stood, unlocked the door with a small key, and dragged it open.
What Helmuth saw stole his breath from his very lungs.
The world was gone. The hustle and bustle of the largest port city in the world had disappeared beneath an endless carpet of fluffy white clouds that spread in every direction. The sun was pure and powerful, warming Helmuth’s skin from head to curled toes. The sky was cerulean blue, unmarred by so much as a wispy cloud or the black speck of a bird. With nothing to stop it, the wind was a powerful force, billowing their clothes about them.
If Helmuth hadn’t already pinched himself, he might think he was in a dream.
Vrinn laughed, having noticed his gesture. “It was worth the wait, no?”
Helmuth didn’t have the words to respond to such a simple question, because the answer was too complex to fathom. He crutched forward, to where an ornate metal railing surrounded the apex of what had to be the tallest building in the world. In fact, there was only one word he could think of to speak:
“Why?”
Though it wasn’t the clearest question, Vrinn seemed to immediately understand, gripping the railing between two white-knuckled hands. “Because he could,” he said, and there was grit in his tone, the honey richness gone.
“Who?”
Vrinn swallowed, wincing slightly. “King Streit.”
The man who saved me from a life of labor in Blackstone. The man who bought me.
The thoughts were a stark reminder that he wasn’t in control of his own fate, if he ever had been. It was a reminder that he was, by definition, a slave, even if he’d been treated well so far. He’d been treated almost like a prince, if he was being honest, which was more than he could say of his life in Castle Hill, when he actually was a prince.
Vrinn turned toward him, and his eyes were no longer sharp, but as clear and blue as the sky above them. There was something wistful in his expression, almost lazy, like they could spend a decade up here and never grow bored. “Have you ever wished you could fly?” he asked.
Helmuth’s heart stuttered. “I—” Yes. Every day of my life. “I can’t even walk. To dream of flying would be foolishness.”
“You don’t need legs to fly,” Vrinn said, his words airy, though the air was thinner up here, each breath requiring more effort.
“True. You need wings, which I am also sorely lacking.”
It was intended as a jape, but Vrinn didn’t so much as curl a lip, nodding seriously. “Or maybe you just need courage.”
“Again…lacking,” Helmuth said, though that no longer felt true, exactly. He hadn’t quite admitted it to himself, but in his heart, he knew running away from everything he’d ever known was a courageous act. Then again, he thought perhaps staying would’ve required even more courage.
“What if we could fly?” Vrinn said, again ignoring his attempt at lighthearted humor. Suddenly, nothing about this moment felt lighthearted or dreamy. There was something in the young boy’s tone that scared Helmuth. A dark edge lined with the glittering silver of false hope.
“What are you saying?”
Vrinn smiled, but it was a grim smile. He looked strangely resigned, like he’d come to a long-avoided conclusion. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being here, with me. I’ve been here…alone…so many times. You’ve given me strength.”
Strength for what?
Vrinn looked away, staring out into a dizzying dream world, his teeth clenched. Without another word, he pushed up onto the railing and stood. Helmuth gaped at him. “What are you doing?”
Vrinn looked back at him quickly, and there was a strange peacefulness in his periwinkle eyes. “King Streit is not a good man,” he said.
And then he jumped.
Helmuth’s hands were trembling, and the only way to make them stop was to grip the railing as he lay in the fetal position, the wind washing over him, stealing his breath and using it to further strengthen its bluster.
Vrinn was gone.
Gone.
It was as if the boy had never existed, had been merely a figment of Helmuth’s imagination. The space where Vrinn had stood on the railing a moment before he’d jumped seemed to have a weight to it, as if it was permanently etched with a part of his soul.
King Streit is not a good man. His final words echoed in Helmuth’s mind like a whispered curse.
Helmuth jammed his eyes shut and tried to wish his way out of this dream turned nightmare. For surely he must be deeply asleep, still in his small cabin on the ship, the rocking of the waves as soothing as a lullaby.
He hated knowing he was lying to himself.
Hours passed. The sun fell from the sky. Slowly at first, but then quicker, not dissimilar to how Vrinn had seemed to hang in the air for a moment before his body had plummeted out of sight, sucked through the clouds like a stone through a straw.
Darkness smothered the blue sky, the white clouds, the dying rays of the sun that had felt so perfect earlier that day.
But the wind didn’t die with the light, a relentless presence.
At some point, Helmuth fell asleep, his dreams filled with true nightmares. He watched Vrinn jump a thousand times—a million. Only sometimes the boy didn’t jump—he was pushed. Most of the time it was Helmuth who pushed him—his hands betraying his mind, which was screaming “NO! STOP! PLEASE!”—and other times it was a shadowy figure cloaked in mist. On the dark person’s head, a golden crown shone, sparkling with multi-faceted gemstones.
Helmuth tried to turn away, but the nightmare wouldn’t allow it, forcing him to watch as Vrinn died again and again and ag—
The shadow turned toward him, and its mouth opened, a dark cavernous space that seemed to grow larger as it approached, winged demons flying from its maw. Fangs burst out, glistening with saliva, surrounding him like the iron bars of a dungeon cell.
The mouth swallowed him whole.
Helmuth jerked awake, his head smashing against the iron railing. The wind was gone, and the silence that lingered in its place was so absolute he almost wished
the chill would return.
A sound shattered the silence. A creak. A shudder. It was what must have saved him from the terror of the dream.
A thudding sound drew his attention to the doorway he and Vrinn had emerged from the day before. The door shook slightly, and then began to open.
Two men appeared, wearing full plate, swords dangling from hip scabbards. Their helmets were adorned with green and black plumage. Royal Crimean soldiers, Helmuth thought, shocked his mind was still working at all.
He didn’t try to stand, for he didn’t have the energy. They approached slowly, their eyes darting from side to side, as if expecting an ambush. “Where is your escort?” one of them asked. “Where is Vrinn?”
Helmuth’s lips trembled. His vision blurred. It was all he could do to lift a single hand, clenching each finger into his palm until only one remained. He pointed through the railing.
“In the kings’s name…” the other guard murmured. “He jumped?”
Helmuth wept. For though he’d only just met Vrinn, he knew the boy might’ve been the first true friend he’d had in a long time. Maybe ever.
Strong hands scooped him up and carried him into the small box.
The rest of the day was like a dream in and of itself. His stomach dropping as the box fell lower and lower. His ears popping once, twice, thrice, as he imagined what Vrinn would’ve seen as his body split the clouds, the entirety of Moray appearing in a rush of color. Fear spreading through him as he wondered what Vrinn had felt in that moment, his own mortality drawing closer and closer. Did he feel at peace? Or did he wish he’d made a different choice?
A darker question tugged at Helmuth again and again, long after he’d been loaded into a carriage and departed the city of Moray, a city that no longer held the wonder it first did.
What had King Streit done to Vrinn to drive him to throw his body from the tallest structure in the world?
One week later
Helmuth felt as if the shadows of his dreams were following him into the waking hours.
Where his time spent on the ocean and his entrance into Moray had seemed vibrant and full of color, the further into Crimea they travelled, the greyer and darker the land became. The stony plains were full of boulder fields, plateaus, and canyons, each of which seemed determined to block their progress forward. The sun disappeared behind gray clouds, and after a week without its warmth and light, Helmuth was beginning to wonder whether he would ever see it again.
He also wondered whether he wanted to.
He was just chiding himself for being so negative when the earth shook.
It wasn’t the slight tremor caused by the gallop of horses or the crash of thunder, but a violent shaking of the earth, like a massive hand had reached out and grabbed it, drawing it back and forth, up and down.
The horses pulling the carriage whinnied in fright as the vehicle ground to a halt. The beasts bucked and stamped, their masters trying fruitlessly to control them.
Helmuth gripped the side of the carriage, peering out through the window. They’d just been rounding a large boulder field, and now, as he watched with wide eyes, portions of the largest boulder began to break away, chunks of rock clattering down the side and bouncing around the carriage, occasionally slamming into one of its large, wooden wheels.
The earth shook harder.
Before Helmuth’s very eyes, cracks appeared in the ground, spider-webbing outward in all directions. They widened into slits.
His vision danced as the shaking intensified, and then there was a sharp cracking sound. An enormous portion of the boulder broke free and fell, hitting the ground with such force it crumbled into three smaller—but still huge—pieces, each tumbling in a different direction.
And one of those directions was right toward the carriage.
Helmuth knew this was the end. Either the ground would open into a chasm and swallow him whole—much as the shadow king of his nightmares had done every night for the last week—or he would be crushed by a stone thrice his own size.
Three things happened at the same moment:
First, the earth stopped shaking, and the feeling left in the quake’s wake was much like stepping onto solid land after weeks at sea.
Second, the horses bolted, the carriage lurching into motion once more.
Third, the chunk of boulder collided with the cart’s rear wheel with such force that the entire vehicle fishtailed, rocking up onto two wheels.
Helmuth felt his world turn sideways, and then upside down, as momentum and the raw power of a world gone mad tipped the carriage over. Despite his efforts to brace himself, he was thrown into the air, landing hard on his shoulder, one of his crutches bludgeoning him on the forehead.
He saw stars amidst the backdrop of the grey clouds. A thin layer of brown mist seemed to shroud his vision, and it took his muddled mind a few long moments to realize it was featherlight rock dust stirred up by the—he didn’t even have a word for it. Whatever act of the gods had tried to shake their world to pieces.
“Are you hurt?” a voice asked.
Helmuth blinked. It was Krako, the soft-spoken man who worked for the king as a carriage driver to and from Moray. He was a thick-bodied man whose head seemed to sit directly on his shoulders without a neck to connect the two. Thus far, he’d been kind to Helmuth, though not particularly friendly, seemingly content to do his job.
The two guards who had first found Helmuth atop the building stood behind him. One of them was clutching his shoulder, which hung at an odd angle. The other was dabbing a cut beneath his left eye.
“I—my head hurts,” Helmuth said. “But I am no worse for wear.”
“Good,” Krako said. “The king will have my hide if I lose two of his charges. Hell, he might have my hide for losing one.”
“You shouldn’t have allowed Vrinn to tarry in Moray,” one of the guards—the one with the bloody cheek—agreed.
“He always wanted to go to the tops of those damned buildings,” Krako said, eyeing the guard warily. “How was I to know he’d do something mad this time?”
It was an argument the two had had for days, and Helmuth was exhausted of it. Because it was my fault. I was there. I could’ve stopped him. Grabbed him, or said something to change his mind. Something…
He sat up, his head spinning. Dazed and confused, he allowed Krako to help him over to a n overturned crate that had fallen from the carriage. “Rest. We’ll have the carriage fixed in no time at all.”
Which, as it turned out, meant the better part of a day. First, they helped the guard with the hurt arm. Krako held him still while the other guard wrenched his shoulder back into place. The man screamed, short and loud, but then went silent, gritting his teeth. He rested next to Helmuth, saying nothing.
The other guard and Krako hitched the horses to the side of the carriage and, after much coaxing, prodding, and, eventually, the snap of a whip, the beasts managed to dig in and right the vehicle. Unfortunately, however, one of the large wheels was destroyed, several of its axels and part of its frame devastated by the stone.
But Krako was a handy man, and simply opened a chest and withdrew several tools, getting to work with a grunt. By the time the sun began its descent, he had repaired the wheel enough that he was certain they could complete the journey to Rockland.
Not wanting to distract the men from their work, Helmuth had withheld a dozen questions, but now that night had fallen and a cookfire was blazing, his lips opened in a deluge of inquiry.
“What was that? How is it possible the entire earth could move like that? Is there a name for it? I thought the cracks would get bigger. Have they ever gotten bigger? Does that happen often?”
“Whoa. Slow down there, son,” Krako said, holding up the wooden spoon he was using to stir their supper.
Helmuth clamped his mouth shut, surprised at himself. He was not prone to much speaking, but something about the way the earth had shook—or perhaps, he had to admit, it had been the blow to the head—had jarr
ed something in him. “Sorry,” he muttered.
The soldiers ignored him entirely, looking grumpy.
“It’s fine. One’s first earthquake is often a shock. I’d be more concerned if it wasn’t.”
“An earthquake? Is that what it’s called?” The name fit perfectly, Helmuth thought. Still… “How is that possible?”
The man laughed. “Some attribute it to the gods. Others say the first quakes didn’t happen until the first King Streit sat on the Crimean throne. Now whenever the current King Streit has indigestion, the earth shudders with his belching!” Krako laughed, and Helmuth couldn’t hold back a smile. It was the most animated he’d seen the carriage driver.
The soldiers, however, didn’t look amused.
Not that Krako seemed to care. “I, for one, believe the scientists. Some have managed to drill deep into the earth and they claim our world is built upon various plates. Sometimes those plates slip past each other and the earth shakes.”
Though such a thing seemed just as impossible as the other options, Helmuth preferred it to the quakes being caused by King Streit’s burps.
King Streit is not a good man.
Krako had continued speaking, and it took him a moment to catch back up. “…happens several times a year. Sometimes more. Most are small, like the one you just experienced.” Small? If that was a small quake, Helmuth couldn’t imagine a big one. “Every once and while, however, there’s a real quake, the kind that topples buildings.”
The words conjured images in Helmuth’s mind: He and Vrinn hanging onto the railing of the tallest building in the world as it swayed from side to side. It cracked and started to fall…
Vrinn looked completely at peace, while Helmuth…
I don’t want to die. The thought startled him. His life had never been…good. Never enjoyable. Though he had moments of happiness as a child, more often he’d found himself sad. Things had only gotten worse since he’d left Castle Hill, a truth that made him feel cold inside. Pitiful.
Still, despite all that, he yearned for a better life, one that he controlled, where those around him respected him.