Riven Earth by Zammar Ahmer

Author:Zammar Ahmer [Ahmer, Zammar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2024-06-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter fourteen

Damn this boy. He will be the death of me.

Reflections by King Isaiah

Kaido stirred and stretched, feet bulging through the cramped fabric of his tent. He rolled over to his back and stared at the tinel-infused canvas. Its darkness was a sign that the night hadn’t passed. He sighed, restless and aching from the hard ground. His head hurt. His eyes drooped. And he was too tired to get up, his legs heavy with exhaustion, his feet sore. Yet his buzzing mind would not let him rest. Already the nightmares had woken him once. Sleep would not come again. Not tonight.

He closed his eyes and listened to the breeze billowing his tent. He could almost hear Jaswyn’s words on it. “Where are you?” And a few moments later, “Come home.” A hollow pit grew in him, a crippling guilt.

He’d left her on such impulse, given her little more than a hasty note. He knew better than that. She’d be consumed by worry, dwelling on the day her parents died, fearing this time the news would be of her husband.

He hoped she’d find comfort thinking he was with Nial. He should have been with Nial. Instead, they’d parted at the forest’s edge. And from there, he should have gone straight home. Instead, he’d donned Kaius and visited village after village. For a week, he’d lived among his eastern subjects, the poorest of his people. He’d witnessed firsthand their struggles, even as they offered him gracious hospitality. He’d shared their scarce food and slept in their tiny tents, bundling with them against the chill of the coming winter.

He’d done whatever he could to help. He’d hunted game for families, lent his body to build homes, his fingers to sew wool. And whenever it was time to move on from a village, he’d left behind signed writs. Promises from the Crown. New tools for an old smith, jobs for the unemployed, forgiveness of Crown debts. They were little things. But those little acts felt like more than he’d done in a year on the throne. It exhilarated him, made him feel alive like nothing had in a long time.

Then word spread that the king was secretly visiting villages. They readied for him. A few towns decorated their roads with meagre lanterns and banners sprawled on birch paper. In others, burly men walked the paths with clubs in hand and scowls on their brow, ready to air their grievances with the man responsible for their lot in life.

In all cases, Kaido had skirted the villages and melted into the shadows of the forest.

Another week he’d spent wandering the dark treeways of the Eastern Forest. There were few patches of continuous forest left. But in the east, a broad band bordered the Moonlit Desert. There was little sun but plenty of light. Magical, almost, with the white glow of the canopy at night and the luminescence of myriad creatures, birds with pulsing feathers like darts of light, buzzing fireflies, and florid frogs underfoot.

The air was clean and refreshing.

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