CHAPTER 2
KINKOW
Brady ran his fingers through his hair. Catching his reflection in the bathroom mirror, he repeated the action with more urgency. Again and again and again until his raven black hair became disheveled and fell into his eyes. He checked himself once more: hair that looked the right amount of tousled, a t-shirt and pair of shorts that reminded people of his youth, and the machete tucked into a sheath at his waist.
Brady saw himself reach for the hilt of the weapon. His fingers tightened around the brown leather, curling around the bumpy and worn down fabric.
This wasn't his first weapon. He had spent his childhood surrounded by prickly objects that boys of his age either yielded with unbridled confidence or cowered away from. His first weapon was made out of wood and blunt, wrapped with thick cotton. He used to take it around with him everywhere—at the dinner table, where he'd lay it across his lap as he ate; during the night when he'd tuck it under his pillow because his father always told him to never leave himself defenseless; and during most of his childhood, where he pretended to be the knight to the kids who were younger than him. His favorite pastime was role playing because he could imagine being strong enough to protect those dearest to him. Young and determined, he would hold the power to make the evil disappear with a single swipe of his arm and his loved ones would never trouble themselves with the fear that came with the dangers of the island.
But any gratification Brady received from boyish dreams washed away the older he got.
Ever since the day that took the lives of several people, including the King and Queen, nothing on Kinkow had ever been the same. Brady's friends were gone, taken to a far away place so someone else could protect them. His mom was no longer there either; just a remembered smile and a warm hug that made his skin itch for more.
His father decided his fate for him. Brady learned how to make a fist and throw a punch that would land. He learned the sensitive parts of the body; how to disorient someone by using a well placed kick. His toy sword became a bow, then a spear, then a machete. He knew how to parry and block a sword attack. He could draw blood, if he needed to. Brady went from a fantastical knight to one of Kinkow's top guards. And he was only a teenager.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed his hair out of his face and marched out of the bathroom without a second glance at himself.
He took the grand steps that lead down to the main room of the castle, known best as the throne room. Plush red cushions provided padding for couches cut from stone. A chandelier hung on thick chains overhead, unlit due to the morning light streaming in through the wide openings in the walls. And at the head of the room, placed in such a way that you couldn't peer into the room without seeing it, was a single chair, raised and carved more delicately than anything else in the room: the throne.
Guards stood at attention, flocked by the entrances. When they nodded at Brady, the boy returned the gesture.
Then voices floated to him from the dining hall. Brady stopped dead in his tracks.
He was certain that the voices didn't belong to any of the castle's staff. People hardly spoke around here, trained early to never raise their voice in front of a royal unless permitted to. It didn't matter whether or not they liked to talk. They never really had much to say anyway.
But the delighted, airy voice that was met with a quieter, more critical one reminded Brady that the island was no longer trapped in its period of reconstruction. It also reminded him of the events that took place yesterday evening. The princesses were finally home. No, not princesses. Starting today, they were now Kinkow's Queens.
Brady felt his chest swell with pride while his face grew hot. Yesterday, when the girls had arrived via hot air balloon, they were frazzled. Servants immediately flocked their side, showering them with flower necklaces, fruits, and other assortment of gifts.
The girls reacted differently to the island. There was Rebecca, a dark skinned beauty, who held her mouth agape and never gained the ability to crank it shut. Her shrill voice made Brady's bones vibrate under his skin. Rebecca was the first to ask questions, and hungrily ate everything, from food to information. She more or less dangled off Brady's shoulders while the boy gave them a tour of the castle. It was then and there that Brady decided he would not talk to the girl unless she was in a neutral state.
That is, if someone like Rebecca possessed that sort of state.
Then, standing off to the side, quiet but restless, head sweeping the area again and again as if she was looking for something important, was Rebecca's sister, Mikayla. Mikayla hadn't said much, only speaking up to scold Rebecca. Not once did she meet Brady's eyes, but the boy believed she hadn't really looked at anyone. When Brady took them up to their room, located at the very top of the castle, the girl had finally spoken more than a few syllables.
"Mom and dad," she had murmured, eyes locking on the painting that hung on the wall above the pool table. "Where did you go? Who are you?"
Perhaps the words were just meant for her. A secret mystery that she stumbled upon and a mystery she would solve on her own. Maybe they were words meant to be shared with Rebecca, a private moment that could only occur between siblings.
But Rebecca had disappeared further into the room, probably to admire the gold plated bathroom and Brady couldn't sit by idly. Mikayla's eyes clouded with a distant gaze. Her brows furrowed and her lips sunk into a deep frown.
"More than ten years ago, there was a war on Kinkow," Brady had whispered the words so as to not startle her. He leaned against the pool table to get a better look at her face. Not like he'd get much of a view; her long mousy brown hair seemed intentionally positioned so that getting a taste of her side profile was near impossible. "The castle was attacked. It's taken more than a decade of reconstruction to return Kinkow to its former glory. But we suffered casualties, including the King and Queen—your parents."
Finally, Mikayla's eyes slid from the painting to Brady. She didn't speak or look away. She just stared at him.
It made him feel like an idiot. Brady drew away from her and let his fingers tease at his belt.
Rebecca had chosen then to come out of the bathroom, arms full with mounds of toilet paper. "Kayla, you gotta feel these! It's heavenly."
When Mikayla didn't respond, eyes still locked on Brady's frame, Rebecca turned to look at him too.
Brady didn't doubt that he was blushing. The heat in his face must have come from somewhere, a source called embarrassment. A helpless stutter tied to Brady's voice when he had said, "Your coronation is tomorrow. Kinkow—your villagers—everyone...they can't wait to see their Queens."
He had continued his tour, avoiding Mikayla, and verbally tripping over his words.
Regardless of his behavior yesterday, Brady still had a job to do. Who knew what his dad would do if he knew Brady decided to skip a day on the job, but since his dad is the reason he earned this position in the first place, Brady didn't want to find out. He took a shaky breath and marched in the direction of the voices.
"Brady!" A shrill voice assaulted his ears as soon as he stepped into the dining room. The owner of the voice, Rebecca, sat directly opposite of him on the long table. She waved her arm in the air urgently, gaining the boy's attention.
Across from her, Mikayla turned in her seat to glance at him, but she went right back to lifelessly stabbing the food on her plate with a fork.
Brady pretended his heart didn't ache like the eggs she assaulted. He bowed at the waist. "Good morning, my Queens."
"Good morning, Brady," the girls chorused.
"Brady." Rebecca said, no less energetic than she had been the prior day. "What fruit is Kinkow best known for?"
Startled by the question, Brady took a few moments to digest her question. "Bananas. There are many things the island grows, but the farmers are best known for cultivating bananas. We also grow coconuts and it's found in almost everything—food, drinks, even in our hair products."
"Thank you, Brady," Rebecca said, giving Mikayla a knowing look.
Mikayla heaved a sigh. She reached for the fruit platter placed in the middle of the table and grabbed a banana. "Happy?" She asked her sister as she peeled open the skin of the fruit.
"Fabulously so," Rebecca admitted, smiling. She turned back to Brady. "Are you hungry? I'm starving after being stuck on that balloon for three days. But I can't eat all this."
Rebecca gestured to the table before her. The chef hadn't just given the girls breakfast, Brady noted. He gave them three full course meals. There was a plate stacked high with pancakes, one with toast, one with salad, and one with a full cooked chicken.
"I'm sorry, my Queen, but I can't." Brady bowed only his head this time. "Servants aren't allowed to share meals with the royal family. And I'm just a guard."
Rebecca waved a hand dismissively before her face. "Oh Brady, why are you so formal with us? You're, like, the youngest person here. Aren't we the same age?"
"I'm seventeen."
"Only a year older than us!" Rebecca exclaimed. Her smile reached the tip of her ears. "Come on, Brady. Who's gonna stop you from sitting with us? Kayla and I are in charge now. If people got something to say about the rules, they better get ready 'cause they have to go through us."
Brady scratched the back of his neck. If this was how Rebecca would reign over Kinkow, he was kind of scared.
"I will stay here until you've finished, but I can't eat with you." Brady decided out loud. He honed a stoic expression that would make his father proud, but his face itched as though he was bitten by a Waka Waka bug. It didn't feel right. "There is something I forgot to show you yesterday and it's important I show it to you before your coronation later today."
The girls nodded in agreement and turned back to their plates.
Brady dragged his fingers along the leather of his belt, back and forth, as he stood by the entrance. He spent the next hour suppressing any butterflies that swarmed through his stomach.
After breakfast, Brady led the girls to the throne room.
"What's left to see, Brady?" Rebecca inquired.
Brady stepped up to one of the walls. The stone here was carved deeper than the rest of the wall and had a vague outline of a rectangular door. A single line zigzagged right down the middle of it, implying an opening between two parts of the wall. Next to this was a small electrical panel with a keypad. Brady pressed a memorized code into the keypad.
The wall slid apart at the zigzag, revealing the contents behind—
"Gold?" Rebecca asked. Then she cried, "Gold!"
Brady automatically sidestepped the second he saw the ball of red, brown excitement hurling towards him. He turned to Mikayla without meaning to, but from her lack of movement, it was clear that she would do nothing to stop Rebecca from clawing at the shelves of gold.
"Yes, my Queen," Brady tried to placate the girl, but Rebecca didn't seem to hear him as she examined a necklace. "This is where we keep our treasures and more importantly, the Great Book."
Brady slipped beside her and removed something from a lower shelf. He placed it into Rebecca's outstretched arms...only for Rebecca to promptly double over, knees sinking to the concrete ground, and the book Brady gave her collapsing with a resounding THUD!
"What was that?" Rebecca asked.
"The Great Book," Brady said simply, bending down to retrieve the said object.
The Great Book was thicker than the average book, bound by a leather cover. The edges were frayed and yellow with age. To Brady, the weight of the book meant nothing but he dismissed it by reasoning that the girls weren't used to it. They also didn't have Sasquatch genes running through their veins but that was a revelation he suppressed even deeper.
Brady marched over to the couches and placed the book on the coffee table. "This will teach you all there is about Kinkow."
"So we left school only to get assigned reading?" Rebecca grumbled once she was on her feet. "Queens are too cool for that."
For the first time since yesterday, Brady saw Mikayla's features shift slightly. Her eyes brightened as she snickered but the expression and the sound disappeared just as quickly as they came.
Now that she had drawn his attention, Mikayla turned away from him and to the open vault. "What do these symbols mean?"
She didn't point but Brady could tell her eyes were fixated on the engravings carved into one of the shelves. Placed in a straight line across the wood were seven symbols: Ears twice as large as the average size, a pair of closed eyes, a perfect smile complemented by full lips, a forked tongue, a chin as sharp and pointed as a perfect triangle, a wide nose, and a domed forehead. As if in a trance, Brady stepped forward, allowing his fingers to trace over each carving. He explained each one as his hand moved across the shelf.
The ears. "Deception."
The eyes. "Ignorance."
The smile. "Greed."
The tongue. "Lust."
The chin. "Indifference."
The nose. "Gluttony."
The forehead. "Hubris."
When his words were met with silence, Brady explained, "Kinkow values the strength and power of the royal family. To ensure that its rulers are worthy of the throne, their flaws are determined right before they take the crown. These"-he gestured to the carvings-"are the seven sins."
"So, we have to take a test and if we get one of these sins, we're pretty much unfit to rule?" Rebecca asked.
"No test is required." Brady clarified. "But during your coronation ceremony, the shaman will determine which sins you embody. You won't be de-throned on the spot. Your parents were the previous rulers so you have the right to claim the throne."
"Then what's the point of revealing our sins?"
"To acknowledge that you weren't born perfect." Brady lowered his voice. "It does not mean you don't belong here. It is required of you as the ruler to recognize that and be able to grow despite your sin."
"Sounds like a lot of work." Rebecca said to no one in particular.
For once, Brady heard something different to her tone-something quieter and maybe self-conscious-but he couldn't be so sure. Within the next second, Rebecca was shuffling through a pile of gold bars. He sighed in defeat, watching as she walked towards the stairs, mumbling something about phoning a friend and finding access to the internet. Retaining her attention would perhaps be harder than protecting her.
"Brady?"
The boy turned at the sound of his name. Mikayla's eyes finally met his, fingers curling and uncurling at her sides. Brady had to concentrate a little harder to realize that she was bouncing slightly. "Yes, my Queen?"
"Thank you for what you said yesterday," Mikayla inhaled sharply. "Our aunt and uncle told us about our parents but I thought it was a story they made up to make us like them."
"They never told you about Kinkow?"
"Not really. But the way they talked about our parents made it sound like they were borrowing the plot to some tv show or something." Mikayla looked at the open vault. Her eyes swept over the gold bars, the silver accessories, stopping to linger particularly on the markings. "Thank you for telling me what actually happened to them."
Brady held his arm out before him. His fingers were mere inches away from Mikayla's shoulder. But he couldn't make himself touch her. What good would that do? According to the last two days, the girls had barely begun learning about their family and the future they would be in charge of. Years of history came crashing down on them the moment his dad went to retrieve them from their residence in Chicago. Along with the island, Brady was just a strange new idea they needed to get comfortable with.
He let his arm hover in the air long after Mikayla slipped away from him, leaving him alone in the throne room with an open vault and a deafening silence.
"Brady!"
The boy would not be one of Kinkow's top guards if he didn't correctly identify the high-pitched shout and the girl who came barreling towards him. And for the second time in one day, he avoided collision by maneuvering around his attacker.
Prior to this, Brady had been patrolling the castle's courtyard, seeing that the islanders safely took their positions before the low platform in the middle of the area. Now, standing before him in her blue and gold lined coronation uniform, was none other than one of the soon to be crowned Queens, Rebecca.
"Yes, my Queen?" He couldn't mask the sudden change in pitch he heard in his voice. While Rebecca's little attack didn't surprise him, the expression that took over her features certainly did.
Rebecca glanced frantically around the courtyard, perhaps noticing the crowd that stood not too far away. She grabbed Brady by the crook of his arm and dragged him into the corner behind a massive stone statue. She continued to throw quick glances over her shoulder while she spoke. "You'll help us no matter what, right?"
Brady's answer came immediately, "Of course. I swore to protect you."
He couldn't tell if it was his guard side or teenage boy side that was speaking.
"Good. Because I finished changing a few minutes and Mikayla wasn't there. I should've known she was going to do something like this but-" Rebecca shook her head. "I think Mikayla ran away and I don't know where she went."
