EPISODE ONE

  Part 2:

  “Why Is Everyone Trying to Kill Me? I Literally Just Found Out I Have Powers This Morning."

  Sai woke with a start. It took a moment to shake his disorientation. He was lying on a sleep mat, the air thick with the familiar scent of swear, flour dust, and soot. The floor was wooden, bare, uneven; the sunlight, muddied by grimy windows. He was in the attic of the millhouse. He was home.

  He sat up, blinking blearily around him.

  The upper floors of the millhouse were reserved for sleeping, while the lower ones held the whirring mills and stone ovens. This attic he shared with a dozen others was the closest thing he had to personal space. Right now, every other mat was empty. But from below, he could hear voices, loud, clustered, animated.

  That made sense. Days at the millhouse started at sunrise, and judging by the light, work would be well underway by now. What didn’t make sense was that no one had shaken him awake. His stomach growled. He was starving. But he already knew better than to hope for food. By now, the morning’s servings would be long gone.

  As he rose to his feet, faint memories stirred. Of stumbling away from the clinic, Millie’s voice chasing after him, ignored. He inspected his shirt. There stain of dried blood, a tear just below the ribs, where Bahla’s blade had gone in. But beneath it? No wound. He touched his side, fingers pressing against smooth, unbroken skin.

  So he hadn’t dreamed it. The pain vanishing. The impossible healing. Which meant… the stained-glass windows, the floating throne, the unearthly woman upon it, had any of it been real? And what of the trumpet? Millie had reacted to the sound, but she hadn’t shown any indication she saw any of his preceding visions. Sai reeled. The line between hallucination and reality seemed stubbornly blurred.

  He crossed the room to the wall of duffel bags, where his was slouched among the row. His pulled out his spare shirt, his only other shirt. It was more tattered than the one he was wearing, ut at least it was blood-free. As he peeled off his shirt, he caught his reflection in the jagged shard of mirror in the corner, and froze.

  In the pale light, his body was even more defined than it had appeared the night before. Muscle cut clean across his chest and down his abdomen, like a sculpture come to life. He stepped closer, breath shallow, staring at himself as though he might catch his reflection dropping its ruse.

  Was it possible to catch a disease that made you more fit? No, that was silly. In which case, he had no idea what was going on.

  He threw on the shirt and went downstairs. The sound of voices grew louder, but there was a notable absence beneath it. A silence where there should have been the steady rumble of mill wheels.

  He reached the bottom floor and found everyone, every last one of the fifty-three residents of the millhouse, gathered in uneasy clusters across the work floor. They were talking, yes, but their posture was taut, eyes darting, movements nervous. For a moment the chatting lulled, as every head turned, and every eye lifted up at him. Sai paused on the last step, a half-second of tension rising in his throat. Had they been waiting for him?

  But just as suddenly, the chatter resumed.

  “Sai! Over here!”

  Collin waved from near the stone ovens, where he stood with two others, Jostin and Oliver. He’d been drinking with them the night before.

  As Sai joined them, Collin shoved a small bowl into his hands. “Here. Saved a mouthful fer ya.”

  “Ah thanks, yer a godsend,” Sai mumbled, already shoveling the warm mash of oats and carrots into his mouth.

  “Fine day to oversleep,” said Jostin. He stood off to the side, arms crossed, a sour expression wrinkling his face. Older by a few years, and always looking for a reason to sneer. “Mornin’ of a war.”

  “There’s no war,” Collin said, with a roll of his eyes. “Will ya stop it with that!”

  “War?” Sai blinked mid-spoonful. “What’s he on about then?”

  Jostin glared. “Are you serious? Didna hear the trumpet? Or did ya sleep through that too? What I’d give to face the world with as little wit as you.”

  Sai’s thoughts raced. So the trumpet had been real. Everyone in the Town had heard it. Maybe even everyone on the island.

  “He wasn’t in bed when it sounded,” said Tomas. Tomas was a mousy boy with large ears, a year younger. His bed mat was next to Sai’s, so he would know.

  “You weren’t in bed?” Collin’s brows lifted. “Where were you?”

  Sai avoided his eyes. “Got into a scuffle with Bahla on my way home last night.”

  “Bahla?!” Collin looked stunned. “Freia’s sake, how’d you manage that?!”

  “You don’t look like you were in a scuffle,” said Oliver, a lanky freckled boy, eying Sai skeptically. “Matter of fact…is it just me, or do you look like you’ve put on? Been hoardin’ food behind our backs?”

  Sai choked on his next bite. “What? No!”

  “Sai’s whereabouts be cursed,” Jostin snapped. “Am I the only one worried about the bleedin’ war?!”

  “There. Is. No. War.” Collin was clearly at the end of his patience.

  “Will someone please explain what he’s talkin’ about?” Sai asked, eyes darting between them.

  “That’s the prophecy, eh?” said Jostin. “’A trumpet like thunder, a banner o’ swords, council o’ jokers’ and whatnot. You know!”

  “You mean ‘the trumpet thunders, the banners soar,” Collin said with a snort. “What on earth would a banner o’ swords even look like? Yer talkin’ shite.”

  “Yer Ma’s talkin’ shite!” Jostin snapped.

  As their bickering escalated, Sai stood frozen, his mind spiraling. He knew what Jostin was talking about. The Song of Crowned Queens. The first lines were:

  The trumpet thunders, the banners soar

  A court of jokers, the songs of war

  The song wasn’t referring to just any war. It spoke of the Heavenly War of Crowns, a conflict that, legend claimed, returned every hundred years, leaving kingdoms toppled in its wake, thousands dead, and fields drenched in blood. It was a very melancholic tune. But it was just that, wasn’t it? A tale with a bit of poetic drama? Good for when the usual dirges ran dry at a wake. Or for one of those ale-soaked nights when the mood in the tavern turned mournful, and a few sorry souls would sing the first verses in chorus before someone shouted for something cheerier.

  No one really took the Song of Crowned Queens seriously.

  Not since Old Man Rummy anyway. The old drunkard, who liked to tell children stories, had died not long after he’d told the wrong kind of story. Was it a coincidence he’d passed only days after he’d told a tale based on the song? Sai had long buried the idea that he might have been killed. Conspiracy theories were for children and fools. Sai considered himself neither.

  “You need to calm your paranoid head,” Collin was saying, as Sai’s presence of mind returned to the conversation.

  “Well, I’m not the only one who thinks this,” Jostin said, gesturing wildly. “Just look around. Does anyone look calm to you? See Quintin.”

  Across the room, on the edge of the workfloor, stood Quintin, a hunched man with a sallow complexion who barely spoke more than three words to anyone in a week. He was crouched over something in his hands, muttering to himself, his fingers working feverishly on some contraption.

  Sai squinted. Was that… a crossbow? “Where’d he even get that?”

  “I think he made it,” Oliver.

  “Who cares?” Jostin cried. “He’s armin’ up!”

  “Yeh, well everyone knows Quintin is off his rocker,” Collin muttered.

  Sai couldn’t stop staring at Quintin fiddling with the crossbow. He was crouched against the wall, jaw clenched in frustration, struggling with the latch as he tried to load a bolt. H was muttering to himself, no doubt cursing the shortcomings of his own handiwork.

  And then, something shifted.

  A sensation bloomed at the pit of Sai’s gut, an unshakeable sense. Not mere suspicion. Not even instinct. Certainty. Quintin was about to let the bolt loose. It would be an accident, of course. Fingers slipping, latch giving. But it wouldn’t matter. The bolt would fire. It would slice past Sai’s face, five inches off, and bury itself half an inch beneath Oliver’s left eye.

  Oliver would scream. Then he would bleed. Agonizingly, for fifteen minutes, his hands clawing at his face, the air filled with shrieks. And then, he would die.

  Sai shivered as the feeling deepened, settling into his bones.

  And then…

  The snap of the crossbow cracked across the room.

  The bolt flew.

  The world slowed.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Sai moved before thought could catch him. His hand stretched out, air thick and viscous around his fingers, bending and rippling like water. A strange chill kissed his skin, like he was brushing the edge of another reality. He knew exactly when the bolt would pass through the space before him. The trajectory. The speed.

  His hand closed around it. And it was effortless. Elegant, even. Like plucking a flower from its stem.

  Time snapped back. Sai was standing upright, bolt in hand, its steel tip hovering inches from Collin’s face. Oliver swore and staggered backwards, landing hard on his backside. Everyone turned to stare in stunned silence at the horror that almost was.

  “Quintin!” Collin screeched. “What the fok is the matter with ya!”

  Quintin turned beet red, muttered an apology, and shuffled upstairs.

  Collin whirled to face Jostin. “That’s who you’re takin’ cues from? That nut?!”

  Jostin, who had turned white, just patted Sai on the back, stuttering, “Good lad, good lad…” Then he ambled off with head bowed.

  “I swear, ya couldn’t gather a thimbleful of sense in this house if ya tried,” Collin muttered, shaking his head. He helped Oliver to his feet. “You alright?”

  Oliver nodded, a little wobbly. Then he turned his bright eyes to Sai. “How’d ya do that?” His eyes then fell on the bolt that was still clutched in Sai’s outstretched hand.

  Sai didn’t answer. He was still staring at the bolt himself, brain scrambling for a reason, a word, anything that made sense.

  Before he could speak, a voice suddenly boomed across the workfloor:

  “What’s going on here?”

  The upper floor of the millhouse was held up by two walls and stocky pillars, built open to allow as much light and breeze as possible to the floor below. Which also meant, the pocket gatherings on this floor were in full view of every passerby on the street. Now a guard stood in one of the archways, face pinched in irritation. “Get to work, you lazy bums!” he barked.

  Grumbling rippled through the room as the groups broke up, and people drifted towards their stations. Oliver shot Sai one last glance of gratitude before slipping away.

  But Sai didn’t move. He was still staring at his hand.

  Collin hovered at his side. “Seriously though, how’d ya do that?”

  Slowly, Sai opened his hand. The bolt lay in his palm. He must’ve squeezed too hard when he caught it.

  It was broken in two.

  OOO

  The mood in the millhouse was somber till about noon. Then the rumors came.

  The first rumor passed from breath to breath across the Town, until it reached the millhouse by way of Ilyo, the cobbler’s son. A royal ship, he claimed, had arrived from the mainland.

  That alone was enough to cause ripples. Ships only came once a week, and even then, they rarely brought. They were merchant ships. They came to collect: foodstuffs, salt, herbs, metalwork, uncut gems, and other essentials that drove the economies of the mainland. Royal ships almost never visited.

  And then came the second rumor.

  This one came just after lunch, carried by Perkins the apple seller. As always, he set up beside the ovens, slicing his wares and serving them at a copper a piece. This time though, he served his fruit with a side of gossip. He’d overheard near the keeper barracks that the royal ship had brought a party of envoys. He wasn’t clear on which kingdom had sent the envoys; only that their purpose was to assess those with high magic potential, and bring them back to the mainland.

  Everyone on the floor buzzed at the news. Obviously, the arrival of a royal ship must have something to do with the trumpet at dawn. And if Justin was to believed (and he was loud about it), this was all part of a draft. For the war.

  It was funny, how quickly that second rumor changed the air in the room. The nervousness didn’t vanish. But beneath it now ran a current of something else. Excitement. Hunger.

  Royal ships were rare. But the departure of locals to the mainland? Unheard of.

  The rumors amounted to a lottery. The idea that someone, a neighbor, a family member, a friend, might be whisked away from Nowhere. Off this island that took, and took, and took, and offered little in return. For some, that was worth a hundred wars. Any reason was fine, so long as it meant not having to stay here.

  By evening, the mood in the millhouse was cheery. A strange kind of cheeriness, not unlike the kind that overtakes a funeral march when the deceased was greatly loved, and had fully lived. There were even a few songs as the house, at least those who drank, marched down the street to O’Weenie’s for ale and merriment. Because while only three out of that house of fifty-three could use magic in any meaningful way, it might as well have meant they were all getting off the island. One house member’s fortune was reason enough to celebrate.

  As the tavern, the company of the millhouse drank and laughed while the three magic users entertained. Petra conjured fire, Elena bent the wind, and together they filled the air with fizzling sparks that made the workers titter like children. Allya, who could sing in seven different harmonies at once like a one-woman choir, led the entire tavern in shanties so loud they shook the very frame of the building. It wasn’t clear how that would be helpful in a war, but no one was thinking about that. They were having too good a time.

  The only hold out, Sai noticed, was Jostin. He still looked anxious. Smaller, somehow. A shrunken version of the loud, swaggering boy he usually was. Jostin had always been the pessimistic sort, always convinced something awful was going to happen, even without reasonable cause. He took a strange pride in being right, even a little, about bad things. But not tonight. Tonight, Jostin looked rattled.

  It was the first time that Sai felt some kinship with him, even if he suspected their worries weren’t quite the same.

  Sai’s mind kept circling back to the morning. To the moment the crossbow had fired, and the way the world had slowed down around him. No one else had seemed to notice the heaviness in the air, the shift in time. So had time actually slowed? Or had it only felt so to him? And was what he had experienced, what he had done, magic? He had never heard of magic like that. He wasn’t even sure he could recreate it. But he would need to.

  Because if there was even the smallest chance he could repeat it, prove it, then maybe he too could get away from Nowhere.

  By the time darkness had fallen proper, Sai was ready to leave. He stepped out onto the street, just drunk enough to feel pleasantly buoyant, but not so drunk he was worried he’d wake up with a headache tomorrow. He started the walk home.

  Maybe it was the string of strange events since last night, but Sai had completely forgotten what Tavi had told him in the infirmary; that even though Bahla and his thugs had been chased off, they hadn’t been caught. And maybe it was the drink, but it hadn’t occurred to Sai that walking home alone again, at night, might not be the smartest idea.

  This obvious realization only struck him when Bahla stepped out from behind a lamppost.

  Sai froze, and then looked around. He’d been surrounded. Again. This time, by five men, Bahla included. Two of them had clubs. Another, a mallet. Bahla and the fifth cracked their knuckles.

  “Oh for fok’s sake,” Sai said, his heart sinking.

  “For fok’s sake is right,” Bahla said, with a sneer. “Thought you could rat me out to keepers and not get yer arse kicked?”

  Sai raised his hands in surrender. “I already got my arse kicked! You stabbed me, remember?!”

  Bahla gave him a slow once-over. “You’re lookin’ chipper for a lad who got stabbed. Clearly we didn’t do a good enough job last time! C’mere, let’s fix that for ya!”

  Sai saw five men. But suddenly, he knew there was a sixth, coming up behind him. With something sharp. A knife? No, bigger. A dagger, roughly seven inches. It would slide easily into his back, graze against his spine, and come to a rest just between his two bottom ribs. The pain would be excruciating. And when the blade came out, he would bleed out in minutes. This wasn’t future sight. He didn’t see it in his ‘mind’s eye’, there was no vision. He knew it, rather, as fact. As confidently as he knew the taste of an apple, or the feeling of cold water on his skin.

  And so his body, this new thing that felt both foreign and familiar, unknown and too known; that seemed to have a mind of its own… His body moved.

  With a twist and a spin on his heel, Sai was suddenly in the air, his midsection pulling just out of reach of the sixth man’s dagger. The world slowed. And his leg stretched, the flat of his foot cutting through a perfect rising arc, to land squarely, and with bone-juddering impact, against his would-be attacker’s jaw.

  The impact sent the man pivoting downward so hard, his legs wheeled up and over him. By the time his cheek touched the ground, he was out cold.

  The dagger clattered across the stones.

  Sai stepped back from the unconscious body, startled by what he had done. It had felt so natural. Reflexive, even. Like swatting at a fly. No thinking involved. Just doing.

  “Oh gods,” Sai gasped, hoping he wasn’t dead. “I’m so sorry!”

  “YA LIL’ SHIT!” one of the thugs barked. He was unarmed, so he came swinging.

  Sai sidestepped the first punch easily. Then the second. As the third came, Sai’s awareness shifted again. Another thug was coming behind him, club raised. A blow aimed for his skull.

  Sai ducked, just in time for the thug behind him to smash the club into his mate’s face. Sai shot his fist into the club wielder’s groin. And as the man buckled, Sai bounced upright, slamming the heel of his palm into the man’s chin. The jaw snapped shut with a brutal crack that echoed in the street. Both men crumpled to the ground, and Sai winced. “Sorry! So sorry!”

  The words were barely out of his mouth when Sai felt, knew, the trajectory of a mallet. Coming from his right. In some other version of this night, the mallet had caved in his skull. Tonight, it missed Sai by a half inch, as he moved to the rhythm of his body, his instincts playing like a song; he bobbed, swayed, and wove out of the reach of a half-dozen desperate swings. And then in a final moment of frustration, the thug flung the mallet at Sai’s face.

  Sai tilted his head, felt the mallet fly past, and with a flick of his wrist, snatched it out of the air.

  “Sorry!” he cried, before hurling it back at full force.

  The mallet met the thug’s forehead with a thunderous crack and a mist of blood, bouncing off skull bone to spin back into the air. Sai was already there, his body twirling again and again, through seven-hundred-and-twenty tight degrees. His foot found the mallet, and the kick drove it like a bolt of lightning straight into the last club wielder’s chest.

  Thump-crack! The sound of ribs giving way, and lungs emptying. The man fell to his knees, gasping and groaning, and passed out.

  Sai landed, knees bent, eyes wide with shock, but barely out of breath. His attackers lay strewn about him in groaning or unconscious piles. Sai was trembling. Was this in reaction to what he’d done, or just the adrenalin? He wasn’t sure.

  But even in his muddled state, he counted five men on the ground. Weren’t there supposed to be six?

  Where was Bahla?

  Sai scanned the aftermath, a cold awareness prickling at him. Something was missing. The dagger! The one the first thug had tried to bury in his back. It wasn’t where it had clattered onto the cobblestones. It was the kind of minute detail he would have missed entirely before he became…whatever he was now. Now though, its absence screamed.

  Then—a glint of reflected light.

  His eyes searched the shadows; his body told him to move back! But he couldn’t see anything to react to, so he hesitated.

  Big mistake.

  A sudden weight slammed into him, knocking him over. His back hit the stone hard enough to snatch his breath. As stars burst behind his eyes, he finally saw it: the missing dagger, hovering impossibly in the dim light, point-down, inches from his face.

  This time, when his body commanded, he obeyed. Shooting his hands up, he grasped at what should have been empty air…and found flesh and bone. His grip closed around a wrist, arresting its descent before it could dig into his forehead.

  The space above him warped and shimmered like heat haze, and Bahla materialized from whatever invisibility magic he had cast. Sai hadn’t even known he could do that! The bastard had tricks!

  Bahla’s face was contorted, his arms trembling violently, with the effort of his downward thrust. A thick vein pulsed in his neck. His teeth were bared. His eyes bulged with terrifying, blind fury, as he threw his entire weight onto the dagger, again and again, trying to drive it home.

  “Can…you…just…die already!” he raged, lips flapping with spittle.

  Sai strained against the weight. Even with this new strength, Bahla was easily as heavy as any three men on the island combined, and his bulk bore down relentlessly. The pressure became immense. Then, insurmountable. Sai’s muscles cried out in protest. As the razor tip of the blade inched closer, biting into the skin of his forehead, he realized with sickening certainty, that he was losing. He was going to die right here, bleeding out on the filthy street.

  His whole life, he’d imagined his end not much better than this. Maybe old and gray in the millhouse, perhaps on some beaten sleeping mat. A nobody fading away on Nowhere. But this morning, after feeling that strange power flow through him, after seeing what he could do…he had dared to imagine a different future. How foolish of him. How na?ve.

  The dagger quivered, scratching deeper. Warm blood trickled, hot and stick, over his brow and into his eye. His arms were buckling. One more heave from Bahla, and it would be over.

  What a pathetic way to go.

  “Goodbye,” Bahla hissed. “Prick!”

  CRASH! The bucket shattered against the side of Bahla’s head! Splinters rained down around Sai’s face. Bahla’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he flopped down before he could even release his grip. The dagger fell harmlessly against Sai’s cheek, to clang against the stone. Sai shoved the unconscious body off him and scrambled to his feet.

  Tavi was standing with what remained of her milk pail, clutched in trembling hands. Her wide eyes were fixed on Bahla, sprawled face down, blood seeping from the back of his skull. Then, slowly, she lifted her faze to meet Sai’s. She dropped the broken handle and threw herself into his arms.

  Their embrace lasted only a heartbeat, before a shout echoed from up the street. “Hey! Who goes there?!” A keeper’s voice.

  Sai took Tavi’s hand, their fingers locking tight. And together, they ran.