“You should’ve seen your face!” He holds his sides. “You should’ve seen your face.”
We paddle into the harbor soaked to the bone. It’s an easy matter to tie the boat where we found it and make our way through the deserted village. We silently enter through the foyer of the manse, sneak down the hall, slip into my old room, and shut the door behind us. I collapse onto the floor, the whole ordeal having taken little more than a couple of hours.
Phaestion strips out of his sopping-wet linens and dives under the covers of the bed.
“No one’s seen a leviathan for over a hundred years!” he whispers excitedly.
“Yeah.” I feel numb.
“You just walked right up to it,” he continues. “You, who’s afraid of everything!”
“Yeah” is all I can think to add.
“How’d you know it wouldn’t kill you?”
“I didn’t,” I say quietly as I strip off my wet linens. I grab a sheet from the built-in closet, wrap myself in it, and lie down on the stone floor.
“We better get some sleep,” he says. “There are only a few hours before training.”
Sleep comes in fits. I’m plagued by something more than a dream, fainter than reality.
I’m running. I hear the monster’s laughter behind me, the leviathan.
“Why run, boy?” His voice vibrates through me.
Then he’s in front of me. His dragon face spews noxious fumes from his maw. His great green eyes, slitted, bore into me.
“Why run, boy? You can wait billions of years, but the stars will burn out. Space will go black. Your life, all life, will end.”
The truth hits me like a cold wave.
“You will not even be a memory. So why run? Why run from me?”
I awaken with a gasp, sweating.
“Edmon?” Phaestion asks groggily. “Are you all right?”
“A nightmare,” I say.
“Tell me?”
I hesitate, but then I tell him everything.
Phaestion nods. “I had a dream I was an orca once. Only I wasn’t running. I was swimming at the head of a pod, hunting. Nothing mattered but my prey. Not yesterdays or tomorrows. It felt good to know what I was supposed to do.”
I listen to the steadiness of his breath, like a metronome, so clear, so sure.
“They say young orcas kill their own fathers,” he adds.
“Why do they do that?” I ask.
“To lead the pod, they must take the old leader’s place. The orca is where our ritual of patricide comes from.”
“Patricide?” I ask.
“A noble scion becomes a Patriarch when he murders his father and takes his place. Didn’t you know that?”
“Oh” is all I think to say.
“What do leviathans do?” he asks.
“I don’t know.”
We sit for a moment staring into the darkness.
“Thank you for saving me,” I add. “Earlier today.”
He shrugs. “You’re my best friend.”
CHAPTER 6
ACCOMPAGNO
Cycle’s end arrives. Alberich stands in the foyer, but this time he’s not bringing someone with him; he’s taking someone away. Phaestion is next to him dressed in his black uniform and cape, the silver circlet of nobility returned to his brow.
My mother waits imperiously atop the staircase. “You’ll not take my son,” she commands.
Of course my mother would try something dramatic.
I know that she’s been planning with the village elders, sending communiques to Drum, Rock, and Leaf, and whomever else will listen to the whispering of rebellion. But I’ve been training to fight every day. I’m beginning to understand the strength of these Nightsiders. Even if every island rose up to throw off the rule of the Pantheon, I think they would be crushed.
More than that, I feel different since the arrival of Phaestion. The fosterage has given me a friend and opened a window into a world I’d only glimpsed before. It’s the world of my father and of war and of men. I’m curious to climb through, but my mother’s rash words threaten to close the window forever. She should have warned me!
Alberich sighs. He expected my mother to protest. “My lady, I’m sorry. This is not something you’re able to choose.”
“Edmon is my son! I’m his mother. By the laws of Bone, you have no right to take him from me without consent.”
“Laws of Bone are not recognized by the Synod,” Alberich states. “My lady, there comes a time when a boy must leave the comforts of a mother’s arms. For Edmon, that time has come.”
“Not yet!” Her voice cracks.
A cadre of Leontes guards, with blue uniforms, flashing silver gauntlets, and pikes at their sides, burst into the foyer.
“I’m sorry,” the seneschal says. “If you won’t let him go, I’ll have to take him.”
“I’m no warrior,” she admits, “but Bone has friends among the other islands—Leaf, Drum, Conch. They have pledged their support. As Bone goes, so do others.”
At her signal, islanders, men of the village, appear at the top of the steps. They hold spears and fishhooks, nets and oars. They brandish the tools as weapons, outnumbering the Leontes guards at least two to one. It is a standoff. Nadia is there next to her father, her eyes burning with dark intensity.
She knew about this and didn’t tell me?
“You see, it is not just my son, Edmon. None of Bone’s sons or daughters will ever be taken by the Pantheon again to feed the thirsty blades of the Combat against their wills.”
The air crackles with tension.
“You’re suggesting open rebellion with Meridian?” Alberich looks around the room warily, calculating his next maneuver. “You cannot fathom what you would bring down, nor the bloodshed you’d cause. For what? Because a father wants to educate his son? Think, my lady, before something happens that cannot be undone.”
“Edmon, come here,” my mother says.
Alberich is right. If I go to her, I won’t be able to stop the violence, and I’ll be taken anyway. I have to show her I am no longer a child. I have to save her from herself. If she’s killed, if Nadia—
“Mother,” I say quietly. “I want to go.”
She looks at me aghast. She glides down the steps toward me. “Is this truly what you want, Edmon?”
I wish I could stay here with her and Nadia and the island and the music. I wish my father wasn’t my father.
“It’s only temporary,” I say. “In the meantime, you and the other islands shore up your defenses. Resisting now won’t do either of us any good. Wait until I’m grown, until I’m stronger.”
She watches me for the lie beneath my words, then brushes a dark lock of hair out of my eyes. She straightens my linen robes as if to make sure that I look proper for my leave. “My brave little warrior. How did you become so clever?”
“Killing isn’t something to wish for lightly,” I say. “You taught me that.”
There’s something more I don’t say: I can’t be here forever. There’s more waiting for me out there.
She embraces me, fighting back tears, then steps back, her gaze landing on Phaestion. “Lord Julii, since the fosterage in your house commences, I expect that you’ll carry my son’s things from here on?”