Fatal Heir Read online

  When I turned my head toward him, he met me with a frown.

  “You are dying,” he informed me.

  I nodded and pointed a trembling finger to the corner where Tan stood, staring solemnly at me.

  “Tan says I can play with him again when I die.”

  The Man snorted. “Tan will have to wait.”

  He looked down at the glass decanter he held in his hands. I followed his gaze and watched with exhausted curiosity as he pulled pieces of leaves and little bottles of dark liquids from a pouch. He poured them into the larger decanter, swirling the ingredients in one direction, then the other. He dipped the bottom of the bottle into the flame of a candle he had set on the table beside my bed.

  Despite the imminent peril of a stranger in my room at night, I was rather comfortable in The Man’s company. I felt no fear. I was so close to death that it made no difference whether it was the stranger or the fever that killed me.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Birch bark.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “It will make you feel better.”

  “How?”

  The Man pressed his lips together in irritation. He didn’t answer.

  “How?” I asked again.

  “Rest, Izayik.”

  “Who’s Izayik?”

  “You are.”

  What a strange man. Maybe he was lost and thought he was tending someone else.

  “That’s not my name,” I said.

  “Of course. What do they call you here?”

  “Don.”

  “Don,” The Man repeated. He shook his head with an amused smile.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “Your name.”

  “My name is not funny!”

  “It’s just so plain.”

  “That’s a mean thing to say!”

  The Man swiped his little finger over the lip of the decanter and licked the liquid from his skin. He looked up as if reading messages written on the ceiling. After a moment of contemplation, he added a gray powder.

  “What’s that?”

  “Ground dragon bone.”

  “Dragons aren’t real.”

  “Not anymore, but their bones are still here.”

  “Dragons were never real.”

  The Man was silent a moment before asking, “Who told you that?”

  I frowned. “No one. I just know. I’ve never seen a dragon before.”

  “Your world must be pretty small if you only believe in the things you’ve seen.”

  I was mystified. I fell asleep with the memories of Tan’s voice drifting like a mist through my dreams.

  “Wake up.” The Man’s harsh tone jolted me from my feverish sleep. I had no idea how much time had passed. The sun had not yet peeked over the horizon, but a bluish morning light invaded the dark corners of my room. Tan was no longer standing in the corner.

  The Man’s little fire had been extinguished, the candle stowed away. He held the decanter out to me, jiggling it impatiently. I struggled to sit up.

  “Drink it,” he said. “It could save your life.”

  I squinted at the blackish liquid. It looked like swamp water mixed with boogers and smelled like the manure of our old cow, Gussie.

  “I think I’m okay dying, sem,” I said.

  The Man grabbed me by the hair. His touch burned my scalp, but I was too surprised to cry out. He shoved the lip of the glass decanter against my mouth and forced me to drink. The potion was the single most disgusting substance I had ever tasted. It was somehow a mixture of licorice and salt and tar, and it writhed down my throat with the consistency of six-day-old pea soup. I struggled and gargled and choked, but The Man was relentless. He forced me to drink the whole bottle. When he released me, I collapsed onto my blankets, feeling too abused to cry. The back of my head ached where his skin had touched mine. The Man held the empty decanter up to his face. He smiled at me.

  His smile reminded me of a wolf about to consume a helpless lamb.

  “Good boy,” he said. Then my father opened the bedroom door, and The Man disappeared right before my eyes.

  My fever broke an hour later, and by midday, I was eating solid food. Within two days, I was back in the gardens with my siblings. Mum declared it was all a miracle, but I knew the truth. I knew that my recovery was the work of The Man. He had come to my room the night before and forced me to drink his disgusting concoction, but he had saved my life.

  This was not the last I would see of The Man.

  When I was ten winters old, I saw The Man again. Snowfall was heavier than usual that season, and it lasted well into the spring. My friend Jagger and I were playing on the frozen lake out past Ketcher’s Place when the ice cracked with a sound like thunder, and we both tumbled into the frigid water.

  The water was so cold that it stole the thoughts right out of my head. I felt like I was floating outside of my own body, watching myself glide along. I couldn’t breathe. I tried to swim upward, but there was a wall of ice, and my limbs were moving too slowly to propel me. I gulped cold water and felt it burn all the way through me.

  My vision began to fade.

  I gasped back to life when my body hit the cold ground. The Man shoved his elbow against my chest until I spit up water and began to cough.

  I kept expecting to hear Jagger’s voice calling for me, but I heard nothing. Where was Jagger? I managed to mumble, “Jagger?” and tried to sit up. “Where is Jagger?”

  The Man forced me back down. “I only came for you,” he said.

  “But, Jagger!” I gasped. “Jagger must still be—”

  The Man looked bored. He clumsily climbed to his feet, and I realized he only had one — one foot. His left pant leg was cut short and tied in a knot beneath his knee. He saw me staring but said nothing. Balancing on his one foot, he picked up a crutch that had fallen to the ground. He tucked the crutch under his arm and leaned on it.

  “Are you alright?” he asked.

  “Jagger,” I said again.

  The Man shook his head. “I only came for you.”

  He couldn’t save me and just leave my friend to die! He had to save Jagger, too. Or else I would. But I was still so weak and dizzy. I knew I wouldn’t be able to lift Jagger from the water. But The Man was an adult. He had saved me once. He could save me again. I rolled toward the water. Before The Man could stop me, I dove back beneath the ice.

  I thought I was ready for the cold this time, but it still shocked me. It was the kind of cold that was painful all the way to the bones. I forced my eyes to stay open and swam toward the dark shape that must have been Jagger. When I reached him, I wrapped my arms around him and held on tight.

  The Man grabbed my collar and dragged us both to shore.

  “Are you out of your mind?” he snapped.

  I ignored him and bent over Jagger’s unconscious form. Or maybe he was dead. I didn’t know how to tell. I only knew that I couldn’t see another Jagger, so he was probably still inside himself.

  “Help him,” I said.

  The Man wrung out his soaked coat, puffing white air out his lips.

  “Please,” I begged.

  “Don’t touch him.”

  “What?” I was ready to pound Jagger on the chest like The Man had done to me. My hands hovered in the air, then fluttered uselessly to my sides.

  “You’ll draw his spirit out,” The Man said. He let his crutch fall to the frozen ground beside Jagger and knelt, shooing me away with his hands. “If you want your friend to live, go get help. You’ll both freeze to death if you’re out in this cold much longer.”

  I stood on unsteady legs. Could I trust this man? What would he do to Jagger when I turned my back to him? Would he shove him into the lake and disappear? Would he steal Jagger away and torture him with his disgusting potions for the rest of his miserable life? I hovered anxiously.

  The Man ignored me. Both of his hands were splayed out on Jagger’s skinny chest, and he was muttering under his
breath.

  Ketcher’s Place wasn’t too far from the lake; it would take only a short run to get there — if I could run at all. I couldn’t even feel my feet.

  “Izayik,” The Man said.

  I took a shaky step.

  “Boy!” he called, clearly exasperated. I turned back to him.

  “Yes, sem?”

  “Never walk on a frozen lake again, you hear me?” He wasn’t even looking at me, yet I felt his words like arrows piercing through my flesh.

  “Yes, sem.”

  “And never touch a dying person.”

  “Sem?”

  He looked at me with his weird grayish-brown eyes. “The dying trust you, boy. Your touch invites them to die. Now go!”

  I stumbled backward, but didn’t turn away.

  I saw The Man lean over Jagger and blow light into his mouth. Jagger’s body glowed like the rising sun. He twitched. He gasped.

  I ran for help.

  When I returned with Sem Ketcher and his sons, Jagger was shivering alone on the icy ground. The Man was nowhere to be found, and Jagger had no memory of the rescue.

  As moons faded into seasons, I began to wonder if I had imagined The Man. No one in all of Hazeldown had ever seen him or anyone like him. Time passed, and our quiet little outland village saw no more deadmen and no more mysterious one-legged strangers.

  I grew from a plump little boy into a strong and handsome lad. Even the older girls noticed my increasingly good looks. I was large for my age — all muscle, of course — with curly golden hair that the girls loved to run their fingers through. The other boys were jealous of me. Though I could hardly blame them for feeling threatened by me, I was still tortured by their taunts. Even my closest friends called me Princess or Beauty Locks.

  I decided at last that I would impress my rivals with a great act of bravery. I challenged the other boys to a game of Stick It.

  Stick It was a game as old as fun itself. The idea of the game was to get a scrap of fabric covered in tree sap to stick to the hindquarters of a cow. You had to sneak up to the animal, smack your fabric onto their rump, and run for your life. Then we would watch, giggling, to see which of the scraps of fabric the cow had the most trouble removing.

  But this time, I wanted a bigger challenge. Instead of the cows, I challenged the other boys to the greatest game of Stick It we had ever played.

  Our goal: angry Old Grunt, the bull.

  As one, we crept through the tall grass until we were only a few paces away from the beast. Laron counted down silently, showing us his fingers. When all of his finger had curled inward, he nodded, and we charged.

  We burst into fearful giggles as we slapped our sap-covered fabric scraps onto Old Grunt’s hindquarters. We didn’t take into account that Old Grunt would be so fast. He whipped his head around and knocked me in the side with his big horns. The other boys ran, but I fell onto my face. Old Grunt pawed at the ground, trying to crush me beneath his vicious hooves. I covered my head with my hands, certain that I was going to die. Old Grunt reared with an angry snort.

  A force like a charging ram hit me from the side and shoved me into the dead remains of some old wheat. I landed on my face, winded from the impact.

  I coughed, spat dirt, and turned toward my savior. He rolled onto his bottom and glared at me. His radiantly red hair was longer now, half pulled up away from his dark face. He wore his crutch in a halter strapped to his back.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  The Man said nothing.

  I could hear my sister calling for me and the sound of running feet. Had my companions seen The Man? I turned back to my hero, but he was gone.

  When I told my friends about The Man, they laughed at me and called me fanciful. They believed that haunts would steal their fingers and toes if they weren’t tucked under their blankets at night, and that reapers were waiting to eat their souls if they were naughty, but they would not believe me when I told them that a one-legged man had rescued me.

  I was determined to prove that The Man existed. But how? He only ever appeared when I was a breath away from death.

  I became reckless. Why should I fear death, for The Man was always there? I craved any interaction with The Man that I could muster. Everything about him was a mystery; everything he said, a riddle. And every time I managed to nearly get myself killed, he showed up and gave me another clue. I was terrified of him, and in a childish way, I worshiped him. He was my hero.

  I accepted every challenge the other lads offered. I wanted danger, and I wanted an audience. But The Man was clever about going undetected. He saved me several times, but only I ever saw him before he disappeared once more.

  At last, I devised the perfect plan. I would jump from the roof of Pa’s barn. No way could The Man avoid attention saving me from this danger.

  I gathered quite a crowd on the day of my jump. They stood around my pa’s barn, staring up at me and hollering insults.

  “Have you lost your wits?”

  “You’re mad, Baines!”

  “You’re gonna get yourself killed, deadbrain!”

  “Impossible,” I declared, puffing out my chest.

  I balanced precariously on the center beam of the roof, wobbling a little when the wind blew.

  This was going to be the defining moment of my life. I would jump, and The Man would rescue me. My friends and family at last would believe that he existed. And best of all, The Man would be forced to explain himself. I would finally have answers. It was a perfect plan.

  I jumped.

  The Man did not come.

  He must be possessed,” I heard my mother say.

  I opened my eyes a crack. I was lying in my bed in the same place I had first met The Man, but The Man was nowhere to be found. I was in horrific pain. My leg ached. My arms ached. My back ached. I couldn’t really pinpoint a part of me that didn’t ache.

  Why hadn’t The Man come?

  “He’s always going on about this stranger who saves him from death,” Pa said to someone out of my sight. I considered craning my head to see who he was speaking to, but even the thought of dedicating myself to such movement made me hurt. “I’ve never seen a child so enamored with death before in all my life. He’s lunatic.”

  “Has a spirit got him?” Mum’s voice was choked with anxious tears.

  An unfamiliar voice responded. “I will have to look into his mind before I can tell you what ails him.”

  I struggled to get a good look at the stranger, but the effort was exhausting.

  “He’s awake!” my sister Dove said. There was commotion as my family crowded around me. They all tried to offer me various comforts: water, soup, bread, a pillow, more blankets.

  “Leave him be,” Pa called over the din. “Let the seer examine him.”

  The seer was a woman so old she looked like a skeleton with long white hair. Hazy blue eyes gazed down from among a mask of designs painted on her pale flesh. Folks said that seers were servants of the great Seraph Alaudrin. These seers were the closest that common folk like me would ever get to actual contact with the Seraph, who had vanished from the earth a long time ago.

  Pa usually had nothing good to say about seers. He called them suspicious and lazy. He said they leeched off of wealthy benefactors, spewing all sorts of nonsense about the future and the state of people’s souls. Something must have changed his mind about seers, though, because he had invited one into his home.

  The seer dusted my face with a powder that smelled weird and tickled my skin. I wanted to squirm away from her, but I couldn’t move. Everything hurt too much. If I focused too hard on any one part of my body, I would get lost in the throbbing pain.

  I flinched when the seer touched me. Her fingertips were uncomfortably hot against my skin, almost like the touch of The Man, but with less intensity. I tried to tell her that she was hurting me, but all I could manage was a grumble. She asked my parents questions about me. How many clouds were in the sky on my date of birth? What was the moon phase w
hen I was weaned? What direction was I facing on the night of my third birthday?

  What did any of this have to do with anything?

  I wiggled my eyebrows to make her stop touching me, but she just pressed harder.

  “He is awake,” the seer informed my family. As if they couldn’t tell that all by themselves. “He must be conscious for the connection.”

  Connection? I didn’t want any sort of connection with this crazy old lady.

  “Will it hurt him?” Mum asked.

  “Not a bit.” The seer stroked my forehead with gnarled fingers. “He will not remember a thing.”

  Liar.

  I remembered everything. And it definitely hurt.

  The seer murmured some gibberish that was probably supposed to make her sound impressive. She pressed her hot palm against my forehead, and everything twisted. A fire started in my skull. It felt as if the seer had grabbed my brain in her crooked fingers and chucked it across a corn field.

  I saw my life in reverse, a strange assortment of images and memories all jumbled together. I saw Jagger falling through the ice. I saw Tan watching me from the corner as the fever devoured me. I saw The Man. My mind grabbed his face and fixated on it, and all of a sudden, everything stopped moving.

  He looked younger than I had ever seen him. He wore a hat with a plume and a belted tunic that hung below his knees. His appearance was regal and confident despite his obvious anxiety. He looked above me and a little beyond me with an exhausted smile.

  “Willian,” he said with a sigh of relief, his image bouncing as I approached him. I realized that I was being carried toward him, held in the arms of another man. The man who held me breathed deep, ragged breaths as if he had just been running.

  The walls around us were stone. They stretched higher than I had ever seen a building rise, higher even than the walls of Lord Brenden’s mansion. The setting sun streaked through windows made of actual glass, tinting everything with a rosy hue that might have been comforting had I not been so terrified.

  I understood that something was wrong. I heard distant shouts. The stone walls echoed the sounds of angry voices and frightened screams.