Lives of Kings (13 page)

“Hide them,” Stone said.

He turned toward the door and Kian had no choice but to bolt into another room, around the kitchen, and up the stairs to the bedroom. He ran as quickly and quietly as he could, all the while feeling the Godelan were going to catch him at any moment.

Kian closed the door to his bedroom just as one of them came up the stairs. He lay on the cold floor again, shivering and listening intently but pretending to be asleep.

A Godel walked up to his door.

Kian thought his heart would break free from his ribcage as it pounded in his chest. Then the Godel walked away, sufficiently convinced that Kian was asleep. He let out a deep breath.

Kian knew that everything from this moment on would be difficult. He was in the company of evil men, and they would probably lie to him. They might be kind to him, making him comfortable, but only to fool him. They would try to win him over, or they might be cruel. But it was all for the sake of their own twisted plans.

He knew what he had seen tonight was only a small example of what they were capable of, and lacking magic, he could do nothing about it. But in this world, there were seven people who could. And no matter what deal he had made with Magician, he would do his best to find these people and prepare them to win.

W
e
shivered in the alleyway in silence until Kian limped to some crates stacked outside a door. He sat heavily, nursing his knee.

I took a few hesitant steps forward, afraid to get too close but not wanting to seem distant. Despite all the confusion over the last few months, I was very happy to see him. I just couldn't let myself show it. I couldn't let him think he was off the hook for what he had done. I had forgiven him in the heat of the moment, but the consequences of his actions still followed us.

I had spent weeks wondering what my life would have been like without him. Would I be graduating this year? Or would the seven of us have found each other already? Or would I be long dead, soul and magic enslaved to the Godelan?

I crossed my arms over my body as I shivered in the cold.

“Why aren't you wearing a jacket?” Kian asked.

The concern in his voice nearly made me smile. Nearly.

“I think you owe me an explanation,” I said. I could tell he was stalling.

He nodded, staring at the ground and running a hand through his hair. I knew his fidgets. I knew he was searching for the right words, so I just waited quietly in the cold.

“I was so young,” Kian said finally, “and so stupid when all of this happened.”

I wanted to comfort him but kept my distance. Even after I'd forgiven him, he had left.

“I was seven years old when my brother died,” Kian started. “Eight years old when my father died. Nine years old when my mother died. And ten years old when the Romans made our tribe leave our home. I lived for years knowing that if I could only have been born like him, I could have saved everyone. But I wasn't.”

He was being earnest, and I was seeing the most honest side of him. Tears came to my eyes as I imagined what the life we left behind must have been like for everyone else. When we died, we took hope with us.

“I've had a lot of time to myself recently,” Kian continued, “to think about what I did and why I did it. It was wrong. And I told myself it was right for a very long time. I told myself it was right even when I had to give you up. And you made me realize I had been lying to myself.”

I tried to cut in, to ask him what he was talking about, but he went on.

“After you showed me more kindness than I had ever shown you,” he said, “after you managed somehow to forgive me and then save my life when they came, I couldn't face you without offering what I had initially promised — my help.”

There was a lump in my throat that I tried to will away.

“Why didn't you wait until I woke up?” I asked.

Kian shrugged, smiling slightly. “I figured that when you came to your senses, after all the trouble I had caused you, you wouldn't want to talk to me. I wanted to do something to at least start to make up for things. And I think I found something. I think I can actually help to end what I started.”

I had too many questions for the conversation to move forward.

“You need to start from the beginning,” I told him. “What is it that you did?”

“It's a long story,” Kian replied. “And it's cold. Can I tell you about it somewhere more comfortable?”

I reluctantly agreed. My emotions were still a mess, but I was freezing, so I helped him to limp to a nearby coffee shop. I had kicked Kian in the knee, and though I knew he was trying to put on a brave face, it must have been painful. I apologized, but he only brushed it away.

“Like I said, I deserve it,” he said, smiling.

“You're happy about this?”

“It's nice to be near you,” he replied.

I didn't know what to do with that so I just ignored it completely.

“Why didn't you just say hi? Why did you have to grab me like that?” I asked.

Kian actually laughed. “I figured if you saw me and had time to think about it, you might have blasted me with magic or something.”

That brought to mind another important issue.

“You're completely magicless now,” I said.

He nodded. “Completely. Luckily, I've been stealing from the magicians for years. Saving for a situation such as this one and hiding the money in various accounts.”

So he had known that one day he would betray them.

“We know who they are now,” I said. “We know they're Godels.”

Kian's eyebrows shot up. I could tell he wanted to ask me how we knew that and pose a hundred different questions, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he appeared to remember his promise. “After my story,” he said, “I'd like to hear yours.”

“Agreed.”

The coffee shop was warm, cozy, and luckily nearly empty. I paid for a hot chocolate to warm up and we found the table farthest away from everyone else.

“Remember,” Kian said, “I told you it's a long story.”

I didn't know how much time passed as he finally told me the truth — all of it. And he certainly didn't spare himself. He told me about how helpless he had felt, how his uncle had wanted him to marry and produce more warriors, how the Romans were gaining power and the situation was on the brink of war all the time.

He told me how he first met the man I had called Third Magician, and how he had used Kian to get to this world.

As Kian talked, tears shone in his eyes and his voice quavered. I couldn't imagine the life he had lived, and for the first time I understood what had driven him to do what he did. His actions during the entire time I had known him took on a new light. I began to appreciate how I must have confused him and frustrated his plans. When he finished, I took his hand again.

“Ten years?” I asked. “You've been with the Godelan for ten years?”

He nodded. “On and off. Fruitless searches led me away, but I would always return like to a tether. Or like a dog on a leash.”

“Don't say that,” I told him. “You were trapped for so long.”

“And now I'm not,” he said. “Thanks to you. And I've had time to finally discover what happened to my people, and to the Romans.”

“And?”

Kian shrugged. “Time did what no man's army could do. Erased all of it. It's all gone.”

I thought back to ten years ago. I was seven years old. Nearly eight. I was living in San Francisco with my parents, whom I was now really starting to miss.

“Hey!” I suddenly realized something. “You said you came here ten years ago?”

“Yes.”

“It must have been Garrison that brought you here. He started getting his memories at seven.” I thought about it some more. “If it wasn't for him, you might not have shown up until we were all grown up. Until I had to stop that earthquake at home.”

“I guess so,” Kian said thoughtfully. Then he looked up from the table as if he was bracing himself for bad news. “So what do you think, now that you know what happened?”

It would be premature to decide anything, though I was doing my best to put my own biased feelings aside and see things from his perspective. He might have drastically changed my life, but I had changed his as well.

“I think the truth helps,” I said. “It's a start.”

Kian nodded. “So will you tell me your story?”

Committing to my promise, I delved into what we had done upon leaving England, leaving out all the parts about my moodiness over his departure. I told him how we got to the islands just to hide, and how fear had blocked off our magic.

We had stifled ourselves to the point of regressing to the people we were before Kian found us, but with the knowledge that we could be so much more.

I told him about the witch doctor and the sleeping potion. Kian gripped my hand harder and interrupted several times during this part of my story, turning into his old protective self. His questions seemed to involve repeating exactly what I had just said, as if he had misheard.

“You went into the jungle with strangers leading you somewhere?” he asked, his voice rising.

“Yes,” I told him, and went on with my story.

“You drank a sleeping potion?” he asked a few minutes later, voice getting even louder.

“Yes,” I said again.

“Those have terrible consequences, Gwen! Have you had any lasting effects?”

I stopped missing the overprotective Kian as soon as I realized he was back.

“A few headaches, but I'm fine. We're all fine,” I reassured him, leaving out the vivid dreams of the past.

At least he quieted while I tried to recount as much of my past life as I could remember living through. And when he heard the sleeping potion had worked and worn off quickly, he relaxed a bit — until I told him about the goddess woman who appeared in the jungle.

“You spoke with one of their gods?” Kian asked loudly.

“Hush,” I told him, looking around at the few other customers in the shop. “Yes.”

When I got to the part about the earthquakes and tsunami, he kept interjecting that he should have been there. My first reaction was to remind him he had no magic and he therefore couldn't have helped, but I changed my mind and simply told him it had worked out fine. I didn't mention anything about how I had become strong enough nor about my connecting to Seth.

“I saw you on the news,” Kian said, showing me the first smile since I started my story. “They called you daredevils. Said you were the luckiest people on Earth.”

Eventually, we knew we had to go and meet the others. Kian had made things as right with me as he could, given the circumstances, but I knew why he was procrastinating.

“Relax,” I told him. “The others will understand. Seth will understand.”

Kian nodded, and I slowly helped him limp back to the hotel.

Though it was a cold winter night, supporting his weight on my shoulders all the way back to the hotel left me breathless. I seriously regretted kicking him, and not just because of the pain he was in.

The lobby was deserted, so at least I was spared having to explain whom I was bringing up. We stepped into the tiny elevator and made it up to our floor, where strange noises made us both stop and listen. My stomach dropped to my feet. It sounded like a fight.

From behind the double doors to our suite, something scratched across the floor. A glass item shattered and a thud sounded like someone was pushed into something. Only one explanation came to mind — the Godels must have found them.

My heart beat so quickly that it ached for my friends as we rushed to the door.

“Wait here,” I told Kian, trying to lean him against a wall.

“No way.”

I didn't have time to argue. I threw open the doors and rushed in. But when we saw the intruders, we both tried to backpedal so quickly, I nearly toppled to the floor with Kian in tow. I struggled to make sense of what I was seeing.

Our hotel room was completely trashed. Chairs and the table were smashed into kindling, cushions had been stabbed, and the stuffing littered the floor. One sofa was turned over. The remains of broken plates littered the floor and random cutlery was thrown around the room. Seth, Garrison, and Moira were backed against a wall, their hands up in surrender.

Seth saw us. “Run!” he yelled.

Too late.

Three large men turned to face us. Dressed in plain brown tunics that resembled something from our past lives, they had trodded mud all over the floor from their big boots. Their faces and heads showed deep gashes, as did their arms. In fact, the wounds smelled putrid and looked torn, as if animals had been picking at them.

Still, the most shocking thing was the random assortment of improvised weapons sticking out of them at all angles. Forks, knives, scissors, and other random sharp things stuck out everywhere. My friends had put up a fight. I spotted heavy candlesticks and picture frames on the ground, blood around the edges.

The men advanced. I hopped across the overturned couch, but Kian couldn't move. One of the men clumsily stumbled toward him as I dodged another, took a mirror off the wall and doubled back to smash it across the head of the man reaching for Kian's throat. The glass shattered and cut my hands. Garrison leapt at the third man and pinned him to the ground.

“Ugh, he stinks!”

For a second, I thought it had worked. The man who had reached for Kian stumbled forward and collapsed across him. Kian was pinned to the floor, his bad leg rendering him helpless. At least the body on top of him went still. But after a moment, the zombie-like man woke up again and turned to me, angrier than ever.

“What are these things?” I yelled to no one in particular.

In the melee, Seth had grabbed the arms of one of the men and pinned them while Moira tried in vain to stab him with some scissors. It would have been quite gruesome if the man had been hurt. Defying all reason, he didn't even bleed.

“Zombies!” Seth yelled.

“Not zombies,” Kian corrected. He was trying to keep one off him by kicking with his good leg. “Ghosts. Gwen, I told you that sleeping potion would have side effects!”

I really didn't think this was time for I-told-you-so. Garrison danced around me, leading one of them on a chase while he thought of what to do next.

“Ghosts?” he asked nervously, continuing to run.

They did have the eerie quality similar to the time I had seen my former husband. Was one of my friends bringing them back from the past? No matter what we did, we couldn't kill them.

“Trust me,” Kian grunted, stabbing a fork into the eye of his attacker. The man, or whatever he was, didn't even flinch. “They're magical. Whoever is conjuring them has to will them away.”

All three of my friends paused. It was clear from their faces that they had no idea who was doing it, just as I wouldn't have recognized my own husband if I hadn't seen him in my memories.

Having the ghosts walking around and trying to hurt us didn't leave a lot of time to think. I took a cushion and felt the fire, always burning inside of me when I had magic at my disposal, extend through my fingers and creep into the material. It was engulfed in flames in seconds.