Dark Jenny

THIRTY-FIVE

It was spring before we made the trip.

“Are you sure it’s around here?” Liz asked.

“You read the directions, too,” I said.

“I’m not sure the directions can be trusted. Consider the source.”

“The source brought me a sword in a coffin in the middle of winter and asked me to return it to its home. Seems counterproductive to give me the wrong map.”

It was a lovely day on Grand Bruan, and the trees-the ones that hadn’t been burned down-were in the last stages of budding out. Birds sang in the branches, and wildflowers bloomed. Bees and insects frolicked. If you ignored the abandoned towns, destroyed farms, empty roads, and occasional skeletons, it was a beautiful place.

It had not been easy getting here. No boats other than raiders and treasure hunters made the trip. No reliable information about the political situation reached the mainland. The consensus was that the island had devolved back into warring clans and factions, and you crossed borders at your own considerable risk. The heroes of Marcus Drake’s reign were either dead or missing.

Yet here I was. Or rather, here we were, because Liz adamantly refused to let me go by myself. She claimed it was a combination of curiosity and loyalty, although I think a little jealousy might’ve been involved. Liz wanted to make sure Iris Gladstone didn’t get another shot at me. In any sense.

Then again, perhaps that was just my male pride. Liz wasn’t the jealous type.

So we found a small ship willing to drop us off and return in a week to pick us up. The captain came recommended by Sharky Shavers, so I was reasonably sure we wouldn’t be marooned.

We landed with our horses, our bags, and our treasure from the coffin, which I’d carefully disguised as just another sword. I had no desire to visit Nodlon or Blithe Ward, but Cameron Kern’s cottage was abandoned when we found it and had been for some time. There was a grave beside it, but the marker had been destroyed so I wasn’t sure if it was Kern, Amelia, or someone else entirely. The entrance to the Crystal Cave was blocked by a rockfall. Even that dream had been destroyed.

The note Megan Drake gave me that snowy day in Neceda told me where to find the tree where young Marcus first drew Belacrux and claimed the Grand Bruan throne. The trail through the forest was overgrown now but still visible; I was more worried about a possible ambush by bandits than losing our way. And, of course, I kept an eye out for any snakes. But bandits only operated where there were likely victims, and this part of the forest held none. Only ghosts wandered here, and they carried no gold.

A square monument stone said UPON THIS SPOT KING MARCUS DRAKE STOOD TO WITHDRAW BELACRUX FROM THE ANCIENT OAK. Scrawled over this was graffiti that suggested Marcus Drake go have sex with himself.

The tree it marked was much larger than any of the others we’d seen in the forest: its trunk was a good twenty feet in diameter, and its branches rose higher than those of any other trees around it. They were gnarled with age, but their leaves were fresh and vibrant.

Carvings of distorted faces marked the four cardinal directions on the trunk. One large root bore a worn spot where generations of pretenders to the throne had stepped when they tried to claim Belacrux for themselves. I wondered just how many warlords, minor nobles, criminals, and commoners had placed a foot on that root, wrapped their hands around the sword’s hilt, and pulled with all their might. Then I wondered how Kern had arranged it so only Marcus could actually do it.

Liz stood with her arms folded, taking it all in. “So it all started here.”

“No, it started when Drake’s father and Megan’s mother got together. It just went public here.”

“Why did she take the same name, I wonder?”

“Who?”

“Megan Drake. If she and King Marcus had different fathers, why did they have the same surname?”

“I’ll tell you a bigger irony. She also had sex with the island’s king, under circumstances that could be considered rape, except she was the rapist. I wonder if she ever thought she might be retracing her mother’s footsteps in reverse?”

“That’s a very male perspective.”

“And it always will be.”

I withdrew Belacrux from my saddle scabbard. I felt its weight in my shoulder and lower back. It was its own best disguise: the world imagined it as bejeweled and spotless, so no one thought twice about a large, clearly battered weapon.

It shone in a shaft of sunlight filtering through the branches, the nicks on the blade flashing like sparks. I remembered the winter day when I’d retrieved it from the coffin and brought it into Angelina’s. When I raised it so the firelight blazed along the blade, my audience collectively gasped, and Callie put their thoughts into a single heartfelt word: “Wow.”

I’d resisted the urge to polish and sharpen it, as well as to keep it for myself. Someone might recognize it: Grand Bruan refugees had now spread throughout the world. Really, though, deep down I knew that Megan’s request was its only possible fate, even if complying with it meant considerable risk.

From what you told Marcus that day in the tent, I know you understood the dream, her note said, and why it failed. Maybe the next dreamer who draws this thing can make the dream come true. For everyone.

Liz stood on tiptoe and examined the tree. “I think it goes here,” she said, and slid her fingers into a vertical slit roughly the width of the blade.

Then with a shriek she jumped back, waving at the cloud that surged forth. “Bees! Bees! ”

I helped her swat them away and we fell laughing to the grass on the other side of the clearing. We waited until the angry insects calmed down, then I snuck up and put the tip of the sword into the opening. I pushed it in and ran back in case more bees appeared. But none did.

“Well, that’s it,” Liz said.

“Not quite. I still have to check it.”

“Check it?”

“Yeah, you know.”

She shook her head. “Boys.”

I put my foot on the root where so many others had stood, wrapped my hand around the hilt, and pulled. Hard.

The sword that had moments before slid in like butter now refused to budge.

I shifted my grip and braced one foot on the tree’s trunk for leverage.

“That’s cheating,” Liz observed.

I tried again. The sword remained immobile.

I rejoined Liz and put my arm around her shoulders. The wind ruffling the branches made the sun dance around the sword like little fairies of light. It must’ve looked like this when Marcus Drake first approached it as a boy, guided by Cameron Kern toward a destiny that had consumed him. Now it awaited the next Marcus Drake, who would hopefully be older, smarter, and better able to resist his own darkness.

The future king, once again.

Or something like that.