Heir To The Sky. Amanda Sun

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       FIVE

      “HERE,” ELISHA SAYS, pulling a pair of beige sandals out of her bag. “I grabbed these for you.” She giggles, holding the shoes out to me as she keeps pulling me forward.

      “Elisha.” I tug gently against her hand, and we stop in the corridor near the stairway. “Wait. I have to talk to my father.”

      She frowns, the shoes resting in her hand against her slacks. “What’s wrong?”

      I shake my head. “I’m not sure, but I need to talk to him first. It’s Aban and the lieutenant.”

      She nods and helps me slip on the sandals before she follows me to the meeting room. Two guards flank either side of the doorway, tall spears in hand. It’s just a formality, of course. The number of humans left in the world is too small to fear each other.

      At least, that’s what I’d thought. The sketch of the Phoenix and the talk of rebellion has shaken everything I thought I knew. I wish the lieutenant hadn’t burned the paper. I need to see what was on it.

      I rest my fingers on the cold door handle, and one of the guards turns his head. “Are you looking for the Monarch, Princess?”

      “I don’t mind if he’s occupied with the Elders,” I say. “It’s an urgent matter.”

      “I’m afraid he’s not in there,” the guard answers as I push in the door to the meeting room, empty and still. “He left fifteen minutes ago, I believe for the village square with the Elders. Some meet-and-greet celebrations.”

      My chest feels empty, as though I’m out of breath. Everything feels so wrong, and I can’t explain why. What does it mean that there are two first volumes of the annals? What was dealt with two hundred years ago? And what in ashes is the unrest now in Burumu?

      “Thank you,” I tell him, my throat dry, and I turn toward the citadel steps.

      Elisha wraps her arms around my arm, leading me into the sunlight outside the great doors. We pass the Phoenix statue, a few stragglers from the celebration still wandering the courtyard. They wave at me, no longer enthralled as I’ve become one of them again. I do my best to smile and wave weakly at them.

      “Kali? You’re acting so weird,” Elisha says. “What happened back there?”

      “I wish I knew,” I say. “Your uncle lives in Burumu, doesn’t he? Have you heard anything about a rebellion?”

      Elisha’s eyes widen with surprise and she shouts, “A rebe—” Then she notices my urgent face and drops her voice down to a whisper. “A rebellion?”

      I nod. “The lieutenant and Aban were talking about it. They had some kind of paper being passed around with some big secret on it. Aban had a key around his neck, Elisha, and he brought out this duplicate of the first annal that he could read. The first volume!”

      “They have been studying it a long time,” she says. “Maybe they’re finally getting somewhere?”

      “No, I mean, he could really read it. The ancient language and everything. I heard him.”

      She frowns. “Why would the Elders pretend they can’t read it when they can?”

      “I don’t know. And earlier, Jonash told my father there was unrest in Burumu.”

      “That’s nothing new,” she says. “You know life is harder there. Work is grueling and there’s little space to live. They all want to move to Ashra. Maybe they’re just exaggerating when they say it’s a rebellion.”

      But I’m unconvinced. “Aban was really worried,” I say. “He said something was ‘dealt with’ two hundred years ago. The ink in the first volume was different somehow. The Phoenix looked newer than the rest of the drawing. And there were these rings and some kind of a machine buried in the drawing, under the Phoenix.” I know how crazy I must sound. I can see it on Elisha’s face. But she’s my best friend, and I know she’ll take me seriously, even if she thinks it’s nothing.

      We reach the end of the courtyard and start along the dirt path to Ulan. It’s not a long way, and we can already see the tops of thatched roofs and wooden shingles. Folk songs played on goat-string harps and carved flutes float up like a cloud from the town.

      “Aban is the most loyal person I know,” Elisha says after a moment. “He’d die for the Monarch and for you. He would.”

      “You’re right,” I say, and she is. I can’t help but wonder if my imagination is running away with me, if the pull for escape and adventure isn’t making a bigger deal out of this than it really is.

      “They probably just don’t want to worry you, and it will all smooth over. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation. Besides, the Elite Guard is based in Burumu. They can deal with problems there. Isn’t that the Sargon’s job? And so what if the drawing in the annals isn’t as old as you thought, or the Elders can read them? What does that have to do with us now?”

      I sigh, trying to let go of everything.

      Elisha nods as we approach the fountain. It gurgles with cool water filtered down from the lake, and one of the women from the village gathers it up into a mauve clay urn which she rests on her shoulder. She smiles at us, and we smile at her.

      “We’re safe now, Kali,” Elisha says. “Monsters can’t reach us this high. Any rebellion will quickly fizzle out when they remember how fortunate we are. We’ve been safe for hundreds of years, and things will continue this way when you’re Monarch, too.” She sidles closer, her voice dropping. “Or is it Jonash that’s on your mind?”

      I nudge her away as she giggles. She thinks I’m lucky, and that the whole thing is romantic. She’s bought into the royal distraction like everyone else. “I don’t love him, Elisha.”

      She stops giggling and sits on the edge of the fountain, her fingers wrapping around the cool stone. “I’m sorry,” she says. “But you have a whole year to get to know him. Maybe you’ll fall for him.”

      I sit beside her, the stone lip of the fountain scratching the pads of my fingers. The trickling water sounds like the gurgle of the waterfall on the edge of Lake Agur, and it fills me with the urge to run there, or to my outcrop on the edge of the continent. “What if I still don’t love him in a year?”

      She shrugs. “Then break the engagement.”

      I let out a laugh. “My father would kill me.” I dip my fingers into the water and splash her. She winces dramatically as the drops spatter СКАЧАТЬ