My feet hit the ground like an arrow onto an iron shield, but I had landed where I needed to be: the city of Karakhorum. Outside Karakhorum’s patchwork wall, its breaches filled by loose rubble, tribes of men and goblins tended to their horses and roasted meat over fire pits. White, domed tents radiated out from the city like pimples on the cheek of the Earth Mother. Giants in crude leather armor kept watch for Lord Changhan, who ruled the city.

At least, he ruled it for now. I didn’t come all this way for the view.

My brother, Batu, groaned. “When does the nausea stop? Eternal Blue Sky. I see why you pulled me away from the feast.”

I tapped his gut. “Everyone does, actually.”

“Well, forgive me for riding a horse next time,” he said. “Men weren’t made to travel hundreds of miles in an instant, Kublai.”

“Some men,” I said.

Two moons ago, after weeks of chasing hearsay and the hushed words of drunk men, I’d found my way to the entrance of an abandoned dragon temple. Most people only told me of its location because it was, according to legend, impenetrable. Its doors, strong as steel, were built to open only to dragon fire – and all the dragons were dead now. A chest without a key. And when you show a man a keyhole, the world becomes shaped like a key.

It took me a few hours to dig underneath the door. But when I returned to our village, covered in ash and soil, I had a map that allowed me to travel anywhere on the continent – in an instant, with the press of a finger. And with this map, my brother and I travelled here, to Karakhorum. The nausea didn’t affect me, even when I’d used the map for the first time.

I rolled the map tightly and put it in my satchel. “Shall we?”

“One… more moment.” Batu had slumped down and was sprawled out on the ground. “Alright, alright. Help me up.”

I strode toward the city, dodging horses and men. The little town bustled with an industry of goblins, chains clattering around their necks, plodding after their slave masters. Women pulled children off the main path. Spoons hit pots, asses thudded against the last patches of grass, and training swords clashed.

The giant directly behind the gate perked up. One of his eyes was bigger than the other, and his lower jaw dangled as if he’d been punched one too many times.

“Who?” The giant’s voice cut through the noise of the town. “Say name. You.”

The town paused for a moment, like a man tripping on a stone. After a few seconds, the clattering started again.

“Kublai,” I said. “I’m here to speak with Lord Changhan.”

A few nearby men chuckled, a local gang judging by the number of goblins peaking from behind their knees. They ate apples, too, which seemed an expensive luxury.

“See. Changhan.” The giant pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. “I don’t. Know.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

Batu scoffed. “You may as well ask a horse what its favorite star is—”

I waved Batu back. “Your name, giant?”

“My name?” He paused, as if he hadn’t said it in years and had to think about it. “Chair-Wax.”

“Well… Chair-Wax,” I said, “You see, I’ve got an important message for Lord Changhan.”

“Message.”

“Yes, a message. But Chair-Wax, I can’t give it to him from all the way out here.”

“You. Come in?”

“Yes, exact—”

“No.” Chair-Wax picked up some rubble from the top of the wall and held it over me. Dust sprinkled onto my shoulders. “Changhan. Said no. Entry. Anyone.”

Batu stepped out from the shadow. “This looks like the start of a healthy and prosperous friendship.”

I didn’t move. “Chair-Wax, that’s exactly what the message is.” I dropped my voice to a whisper, but kept it loud enough for the giant to hear. “Changhan says there’s some new exceptions. You know how you let some people in, but not others?”

“Yes. Some.”

“I’m one of those people. The ones you let in.” I slid my hand back into my satchel, ready to snap open the map and blink away if I needed to.

He puffed out a breath. “You. Lying. Yes? Outside. Men bad.”

“But I’m not from the outside. I’m from the inside.”

“Inside. Here?”

“Inside here.”

He drew his arm back and patted the rubble back into its place in the wall. A rock came loose and almost crushed a rotten cabbage merchant, who scowled up at the giant.

“Come. In.” Chair-Wax pushed the gate open with one of his fingers. He glared at Batu. “Kublai. Only.”

The nearby gang dropped their apples. Most men never tried actually talking to the giants. They just assumed every giant was a simpleton bent on crushing them. And that had some truth to it, but most giants could be convinced to do just about anything short of betraying their lord.

“I’ll find you afterwards,” I said to Batu. “Stir up some trouble in the meantime.”

Batu grinned.

I walked under Chair-Wax’s finger. The skin looked as if it had been burned, and scars from what must have been a thousand swords weaved into one another like a stitched blanket. When I’d passed through the gate, Chair-Wax shut the door behind me and peered at me with his bigger eye.

“You. Do bad. I.” He picked up a rock and squished it like a grape. “I. Do bad.” He returned to his watch.

That wasn’t an empty threat, judging by the spots of dry blood on the wall. The rest of the city, though, didn’t have a spot on it. Unmanned stalls lined the stone pathways, and tiny homes were caked in dust. Chimes swayed in their windows. The outer city had been abandoned.

At the heart of Karakhorum, smoke drifted from the center of the court’s domed roof. Court was in session. I drew the map from my satchel. The silver encasing was carved to resemble the scales of a dragon, and it always felt slightly warm to the touch like a dying ember. The paper of the map, hard and crusted from decades of lying in the temple, crackled when I unfurled the map. I studied the coasts, mountain ranges, vast expanses of grassland and volcanoes until I found Karakhorum again – a crude circle, the wall, surrounding what looked like a spoked wheel, about the diameter of my finger.

If I placed my finger on the wheel symbol, I could end up on the roof, in the court, behind a guard or under the flooring. But I wouldwill have made a dramatic entrance, no matter where I landed. And that was half the work of convincing Lord Changhan to leave without stirring up a fuss. The other half was already done; I travelled outside of Karakhorum’s walls to be seen – by the gangs of men outside the wall and the giants keeping them out. I intended to rule them all, and you can’t rule by putting walls and ghost cities between yourself and the people.

I held my finger over the circle, braced myself, and planted it into the map.

“If anyone here has treacherous intent—”

I landed on a rafter with a thud that echoed through the court. The entire building seemed to recoil with my arrival: rafters creaked, pillars moaned, the polished wooden tiles screamed, and every pair of eyes in the court locked onto me. No one spoke. No one moved. Birds squawked overhead, perching on the opening in the roof.

“Don’t mind me,” I said, sliding the map back into my satchel. I left it open a little, just in case I needed to dodge a thrown axe or to prove a point. “You, Changhan, I assume, were saying something about treachery.”

Changhan was shorter than I expected. He had a permanent scowl cutting through his cheeks, and he seemed to have grown a wiry beard in an attempt to hide it. His silk robes hung open, exposing a belly hanging over his belt. He had some scars, but I doubted any of them were from battle. His son, who stood beside him, looked like a thin Changhan.

“Eternal Blue Sky,” Changhan muttered. “What devil…”

I dropped down from the rafter. My knees had gotten stronger since I’d first used the map. All of me had, actually. As much as I wanted to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, I hoped Changhan gave me the opportunity to test exact how much stronger.

Ladies of the court pulled their children back from me. Men, practically clones of Changhan, scurried behind their wives. I strode to the hearth and everyone withdrew from it. Three guards pushed through the crowd, hands on their swords, black armour clearly untested.

“Before you decide to try and cut me down,” I said to the guards, “hear what I have to say.”

They looked at one another, then at Changhan, then at me.

“Father,” Changhan’s son said. “This is ridiculous. Ridiculous! He’s a devil. Just look at his hair.”

“Kill… kill him,” Changhan said. “What are you doing? Are you not loyal, you dogs? I’ll have your heads for your idleness! You will wish—”

Changhan’s son ran at me from across the room, blade drawn. His footsteps sounded like the pitter-patter of a mouse in expensive boots. He swiped as he reached me. I dodged it with a small sidestep. The blade whistled as it cut the air, but that’s all he could cut: air.

“Stand still!” He thrusted.

I put out a foot and he crashed, chin first, into the floor. Maybe he’d get up looking like Chair-Wax – if he got up at all.

Unfortunately for him, he tried to strike at me again. “Dirty rat—”

I slipped my hand into my satchel, grabbed him by the wrist, and touched the map.

We landed on black sand, somewhere that smelled of sulfur. I started sweating from the heat. Changhan’s son clutched his gut, tearing at it as if to scratch an itch on his intestines. His sword lay beside him.

“What,” he said, “did you do, devil?”

I glanced down at the map. My finger still rested on an ink volcano.

“Devil!” He grabbed a handful of black stones and threw them, feebly, at my feet.

“You’re going to need to put more into it if you hope to hit me all this way from Karakhorum.”

“Where are we?” His voice fell to a solemn whisper. “Is this… hell?”

“It’s about a thousand miles from Karakhorum.” I picked up his sword, a fine blade, and held my finger over the symbol of Karakhorum’s courthouse. “Have a good walk home. It’ll be a different place when you return.”

This time I landed on the edge of the hearth. The stone I’d landed on cracked and fell as I stepped down. The guards drew their swords.

“I left him somewhere just as hot as his head.” I dusted the ash from my clothes. “If you’ll allow me to speak, I’m sure I won’t have to do the same to anyone else.”

The guards shared a look, sheathed their swords, and backed off.

“We’ll let you speak,” one of them said.

“Treachery!” Changhan waved a knife around, as if trying to write on the wind. “See! You all doubted me. Someone has come, just as the seer predicted. A devil, nonetheless! And you all called me paranoid, delusional, mad. Fools, all of you! Look, someone has come for me. He stands before you! Kill—”

“He’s not wrong,” I said, meeting as many eyes around the room as possible and ignoring Changhan’s rambling. “I came for him, and for this city. I’m sure all of you, though you won’t admit it for fear of embarrassment, can barely afford food in the present state of Karakhorum. If you look outside the wall, the situation only worsens. Men cut throats for their supper, and their wives whore for theirs. Goblins have become slaves, beaten and broken on the slightest whim. Giants regard us, the race of men, as liars and thieves. Eternal Blue Sky only knows what the orcs think.

“But iIt doesn’t matter what they think, you might say. But what happens when thoughts become actions? What happens when the goblins turn our whips against us? And when giants decide to crush us in our homes and leave Karakhorum as bare as the Earth Mother, will Changhan keep your families safe? He can barely keep you fed.”

I let the silence hang for a moment. Changhan had scurried off somewhere. But he wasn’t of importance. What few soldiers he could muster, I could deal with on my own. And if Changhan wanted to ambush me on the streets, one man against one man, I’d happily oblige his stupidity.

“What can we do… when they…?” one of the men in the crowd asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “But we can take away the whip entirely, and allow the giants to live amongst us – as full citizens of Karakhorum. As neighbors, friends, members of this court. As equals.”

That caused a stir. Whispers, shaking heads, pursed lips. Giants, goblins, orcs and men had never lived together – men had always enslaved goblins, giants had always lived apart from men, and orcs hated everyone. But that era was over. The Age of Dragons had ushered in this hostility between races, but this was a new era: The Age of Kublai.

“Karakhorum will be the first city of its kind,” I continued once the crowd settled. “A seed for a new era. For a new empire. For my new empire.”

“And just who are you?” One of the old men in the crowd said. “Who are you to come into a city and… just take it as if it’s yours to take? You have no army.”

“No, I don’t have an army. I don’t need one,” I said. “I appeared before your eyes and no one could stop me. Changhan’s son is at the base of a volcano as we speak. I have broken into a dragon temple, and I’ll break into every city on this continent. I’ll be called ‘Your Majesty’, in the end, but you can call me Kublai.”

After the first man bowed, the rest followed, like paper bending to the wind, until the last man bent the knee.

There was one man who hadn’t, though. Changhan. As everyone returned to their feet, distant alarm bells rang and it became clear where he’d run off to.

The last vestiges of Changhan’s men would be on their way to the court. To my court.