The Unwritten King

9. Déjà vu

The road ran out, crumbling into a dead end in a heap of upturned stones. The chaise came to a stop in a town Nicholas couldn't name, and the driver held out his hand for a tip with a disinterested curl to his lip, like, I don't know why you'd willingly come here and I don't care to.

Nicholas was having trouble remembering himself. The town was an abandoned urban plan, overtaken by foliage but hardly scenic. What buildings still stood were dilapidated. The people sitting around them, too. They looked hungry. As Nicholas rose, the weight of his work bag dragged his shoulder downward. Or maybe that was just guilt, because he had jammed it full of as much food as it could fit on Cairo's dime back in South Simona. He would need it, he knew that, but he had never been comfortable with excess.

He handed the driver a couple extra malon. His parents smiled at him from the ID slot of his wallet, the kind of smiles that scrunched their cheeks and noses and nearly closed their eyes. His father used to remind him to look to his ancestors for guidance, but Nicholas had never bought that a bunch of Brazilian spirits could help him through twenty-first century American growing pains from across the Atlantic. He wondered if he would be able to ask his father for answers now, had he tried harder to understand back then. There was much more than an ocean in the way now, though.

He can still help me, Nicholas thought. He always has.

The driver cleared his throat. Nicholas muttered an apology, half-standing in the chaise, and climbed out.

"Excuse me," he said to a man slouched against a sagging wall. "Which way is the frontier?"

Though Nicholas did not know the town, he had an idea of where he was. The last two towns before it had been much the same. Some centuries ago, long before Caldora and Interra, the land had probably been lush. But overfarming had sapped the soil, and before the land could recover, cities had cropped up where farmland once stood. Or, they had tried to, but as one kingdom split into two and the new nation of Caldora shifted inward, these towns had sunk, forgotten, to the outskirts. They fell under a common name, the Borderturf.

The man raised his jutting chin. His tongue poked heavily between his remaining teeth. "No one ever tell ya knowledge got a price?" he said, looking Nicholas up and down. Nicholas doubted this knowledge was particularly valuable, but he procured another few bills for times' sake - and to make his bag feel a little lighter. The man grinned, gummy and sly, and pointed straight down the deteriorated street. Well played.

Picking between the overturned stones, Nicholas avoided eye contact with the scarce townspeople eyeing his bag. They were all sitting outside, soaking in the sun. Or rotting in it. He opened his journal to Rayan's page. Distant. Detached from his people.

Nicholas walked for miles. The road eventually faded to nothing; the buildings grew sparse, then disappeared. The land turned bright green beneath his feet. He continued on, waiting for some landmark or sign to tell him he was crossing the border onto the frontier. It wasn't until he checked behind him and found himself nowhere that he realized he was already there.

All around him were shallow hills dotted with low trees. Clutching the compass he'd purchased the evening before, he swiveled this way and that until his body pointed south. Nicholas sat, ate an apple and a chunk of bread, and watched the clouds roll above him. They were long, thin, and slow. Stratus, he guessed. He studied his map of Caldora, but there wasn't much it could do for him now. There was South Simona, then the Borderturf south of it, then the frontier: a wide channel of land that hadn't been lived on for centuries. Nicholas could make out the remains of a countryside. Scattered gravel, mounds of mossy stone that might have once been walls - this was all that remained of the Kingdom of Maesia.