by Jada Fisher
“That’s just it. There’s no way for you to give up your power because it’s not yours. The curse is balanced, one dragon and one broken seer, remember? Both to maintain the balance and uphold the history of our people. Bound to each other for eternity, their fates all tied up in each other.”
Maedryell mouthed the words silently and I could almost see the memories flashing behind her eyes. “Vyinde said that to me, before the curse was laid. She wanted to make sure I understood…”
“I don’t think I’m following,” Lakshmi said. “A broken seer? What exactly is that?”
“It’s what our people used to call themselves, back on our original plane of existence. And a broken seer meant, uh, I’m not quite sure how to put it into words.” Because I’d never heard anyone explain it. I just knew in my heart what it meant and how Maedryell had fit the bill.
“It means a seer who’s lost everything. Who knows what the worst pains and the lowest lows possible are. It’s a seer with no family, no legacy, who’s as familiar with agony as they are the back of their hand.”
“…oh.”
“You need a dragon,” Bronn said, his grip on me tightening. “That would be me.”
I chewed at my lip. We were about to get to the part where I knew people were gonna have real objections. “I wanted to ask you, but yes, the way I figure it, we use all of our powers combined to transfer the spell to Bronn and I. Both Maedryell and Faeldrus will lose their powers then, badabing, badaboom, we defeat him.”
“What then?”
“I’m sorry?” I asked, looking to Princeton.
“Let’s say we all agree, and let’s say your plan works. What then? The worlds all stay like this, half-fused and people popping in an out of existence? Monsters, storms, and teleportation?”
“The ritual isn’t complete,” Maedryell replied helpfully. “He needs to establish himself as the well source of power for all dimensions. There is a chance, although I find it unlikely, that we might be able to…reverse at least some of the effects of the convergence.”
“Wait, really?” Mal said, the first time she’d piped up in a bit. “There’s actually a chance of that? That’s a thing?”
“No, it’s not a thing!” Mickey snapped. “Because you’re not transferring some curse to yourself so you can become a…a…a grim reaper! You’ve already sacrificed yourself once, Davie. Do you really think I can go through that again?”
“Actually—”
“Then who, Mickey? This is the best shot we have, and if you haven’t noticed—” I wiggled my stump of an arm for emphasis. “—I’m definitely a broken Seer.”
“Me,” Sokhanya said, striding between us with a determined expression. “Should be me.” She thumped her chest for emphasis. “No family. No future. Nothing. I hardly do speaking. Me.”
Blood roared in my ears. Sokhanya, beautiful, lovely, whip-smart Sokhanya wanted to give herself up when she’d never even gotten a chance to live?! Unfair. No. She deserved goodness and cushion.
“If you would—”
“As the only dragon we have access to currently, I think I should be able to vote who I spend eternity tied to.”
“Right, so me,” I said, crossing my arms and daring my sister to challenge me.
“No.”
Now that was surprising. “No! What do you mean, no!?”
“I’m with your sister on this. You’ve already given up everything and died once. And what after? We will need a leader, and you fit the bill. You deserve some goodness in your life after…well, after everything that’s happened. I’ll accept anyone in this room. But not you.”
“So, what, you’d want to spend your eternity without me?” I cried.
What a time for relationship drama, but I couldn’t help but feel a little hurt. I knew that dragons lived longer than humans. Wasn’t he happy to hear there was a way we could be together forever?
“Not if it means you don’t get to live the happy life that you deserve.”
“What about the life you deserve?” I cried, the conversation quickly escalating. I could tell the newcomers were exchanging uneasy looks, but I didn’t care. The broken seer had to be me. It had to. And that wasn’t just my penchant for self-sacrifice talking. I felt it down into my bones.
“Look, I understand that all of you are desperate to protect each other, but there’s something you’re missing here.”
Somehow that worked, and we all stopped to stare at the woman. “Say what now?”
“Time isn’t exactly linear to a grim reaper. You act outside of it. Assuming we get a tomorrow, I might shepherd someone who died yesterday, and another day, I might shepherd someone who dies twenty years from now. That was one of the reasons it took me so long to find you. To me, I’d just found out about the error and went hunting.”
I turned those words over in my head and why she had said them. “What do you exactly mean by that?”
“I mean that me dying the day the curse was put on me wasn’t a part of the spell. That was a part of my punishment. You could take on the curse and probably live out your entire mortal life before passing on. It wasn’t until you took your last breath that you would become the shepherd. …probably.”
“Probably?”
“This is all conjecture, of course. It’s not like there’s any precedent. But from what I’ve learned trying to research the curse, all of this makes sense. The curse will affect Bronn immediately, most likely. He won’t be able to die. He will be connected to power the likes of which he’s never felt before. He will become a seer, which, mind you, is different from an oracle nowadays.”
“Wait, but I thought we were se—”
“Seers are your ancestors, and yes, you are essentially seers, but after generations spread out and evolving, there are some…physiological differences, I’m sure. Nothing too significant, but something I feel I should mention.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, putting all the pieces in order. “So, the curse would effect Bronn immediately, but not me.”
“Oh, it’ll effect you, it just won’t turn you all the way into a shepherd.”
“Wait, what? What will it effect?”
“It’s hard to say. I was never alive when the curse was enacted. All I can say is that it’ll probably effect you in some way. You just won’t be a shepherd until you die.
“…probably.”
“You keep saying ‘probably,’” Mickey said, teeth bared. “I don’t think I like that word anymore.”
“Alright, but point is, Bronn and I get to live out our lives together—assuming we even manage to get this curse to transfer and to defeat Faeldrus. Happily ever after and all that. Then when I pass on, I become a shepherd for the rest of eternity.”
“Or until you pass it on to someone else. Now that we know it’s transferable, it can become a sort of…legacy. To pass on to the best of us.” I was surprised when Bopha chimed in again. She didn’t seem necessarily taciturn, but she wasn’t exactly talkative either. “You don’t need to spend millennia this way unless you want to.”
Maedryell whistled. “That would certainly change things. Granted, I think it would be difficult to place that kind of power in another dragon and oracle’s hands, but…I trust you implicitly so maybe you’ll find someone to pass the torch on too. You know, in about a couple dozen centuries or so.”
I looked to Bronn, smiling sheepishly at him. “So, I know this wasn’t the best way to bring this up, and it’s probably moving too fast considering that it’s, ya know, eternity that we’re talking about. But how about it? Do you want to be stuck with me forever? No taksies baksies.”
Bronn looked at me for a moment, only a moment, and then he was striding toward me. Suddenly, my face was in his hands and he was kissing me.
And wow, was it a kiss. He held me there, mouth moving against mine, his hold sure but also maybe a little desperate. Normally, I would be a little flushed at PDA in front of a large group that included my older sister, but at the moment, nothin
g else seemed to matter.
No, all that mattered was he and him and the feelings he was pouring out. The affection. The loyalty. It was incredible that we had found each other, but I couldn’t be happier than I was in that moment.
And the thought of a lifetime with him followed by an eternity was certainly alluring. Sure, I knew after I died, there would be no more kissing, no more holding hands, but we would be together, leading the future generations to their final resting places and guarding the knowledge I’d spent the last couple of years unearthing and protecting.
It would be a new era, just the two of us, for as long as we wanted.
Eventually, we parted, and I ignored the uncomfortable throat-clearing from my sister. Bronn just looked into my eyes, and I saw so much there that I could almost cry.
“I cannot imagine a better destiny than being with you until the end of time.”
I tried to thank him, tried to say something romantic back, but the words just caught in my throat. Or at least they did until Mickey spoke again.
“Alright, I get it. You two are the best match, but that doesn’t mean…” She trailed off as I turned my gaze to her, offering her my one hand. She took it, letting me pull her closer into a hug. It was a little awkward to manage considering that Bronn still hadn’t let go of me, but that was alright. It could be a little awkward.
“Mickey, when you think about it, is there anyone better for this than me?”
Her lips were pressed into a thin line, her brows furrowed in a way I hadn’t seen since she found out I was lying about doing my homework in my freshmen year of high school. “I… You can’t ask me to co-sign this. I’m your big sister. Let me protect you.”
“You don’t have to protect me from this,” I said, squeezing her as tightly as I could. “I want it. I know it sounds weird, but this seems more right to me than anything else. I almost feel… I don’t know, like I was meant to be the next shepherd for our people. How else can you explain how all this unraveled?”
“That terrible Masters’ luck is how I would explain it,” she said bitterly, tears rising in her eyes. Oh, I hated making my sister cry. She’d already been through so much. But at the same time, with every moment that passed, I became more determined to do it. I was going to be the next shepherd. I would defeat Faeldrus and we would restore the worlds as best we could.
“Mickey…”
“I just… I just—” She let out an irritated sound before taking several long, deep breaths. “I just want you to have a happy life, Davie.”
“And I will. I promise. But that’s not gonna happen unless we do this.”
“Not to interrupt this family moment,” Bron said softly, “but does anyone know how to actually transfer this curse? Or is that what we should be the most concerned about?”
“…he has a point,” I said softly, giving my sister a bit of a grin. I understood her. I understood her to the bottom of my heart.
“Alright. Okay. I just, I guess… I need a few minutes. Alright. This is a big deal, Davie. There’s no going back from this.”
“I know. That’s the point.”
“Right.”
She let go of my hand and stepped away, wiping at her eyes. My heart ached for her, it did, but I knew she would eventually get it.
But for the moment, I had bigger things to worry about.
“While we were gone, I was having consecutive visions of Maedryell’s life.”
“What, you were?”
I nodded. “Yes. I think whatever…force it is that gives us magic, the stream that I was stuck in when I was dead, at least in some way wants me to know how to do this.”
“Oh, sweet,” Princeton said, clapping his hands together. “Well then, what’s the layout? How we doin’ this? Because, I’m not gonna lie, I have a fiancé and three daughters to get to and I’d really like it if our world wasn’t turned inside out anymore and my babies can go to college.”
“Ooh, do you have any pictures?” another oracle asked, one that hadn’t spoken before. She was an older woman, with honeyed skin and eyes that were wide and had no pupils. She certainly didn’t look human, but considering she was from another dimension, maybe humans didn’t even exist where she was from.
This time, it was my turn to clear my throat, and the two looked to me with somewhat contrite expression.
“Sorry,” Princeton said with a shrug. “I love my lil ones.”
“I’m sure you do. Anyways, we should probably all join hands and just kinda follow my lead, I guess. You think you’re up for that?”
“Sure, I can.” He looked thoughtfully at everyone else gathered. “Alright, which one of you has the least amount of phobias?”
I looked out at the dozen or so faces looking back at me. All oracles from several different dimensions. It wasn’t until we were joined together, Bronn and Mal standing to the sides, that I realized we were the same in number as the council I had seen in my visions.
Huh. That was uncanny.
But I couldn’t let myself linger on it. In fact, I couldn’t let myself linger on much. We’d already spent so long in one place and that was dangerous. At any moment, Faeldrus could track me down and attack us before we figured anything out.
Who would have known that the guy eating my arm would give him an all-access pass sort of permanent connection to me? Talk about inconvenient.
“Ready?” I asked. There was a ring of nods and I realized if this worked out, I would be guiding every person in front of me to their deaths eventually.
That was… That was intense.
“Ready,” came Mickey’s soft voice from beside me, where her hand rested on my shoulder.
“Alright then,” I breathed, feeling excitement, fear, worry, responsibility, all of it coiling in my belly. “Let’s find a way to save our worlds.”
I could feel the energy of our group rise with that, the magic simmering under our call, and then once more, the world vanished into the dark.
8
Elder Knowledge
“Are you ready?”
My same words echoed back at me, but they weren’t from my mouth. Instead, the same ritual room I saw before rolled into being around me, colors rushing in like spilled paint.
The other oracles of my circle were there as well, although we were no longer holding hands in my vision. No, we were spread out, posted at the edges of the room so we could see all of it.
And there was so much to see.
I hadn’t noticed before, but the ceiling seemed to be made completely out of glass or some other transparent structure. Above, I could see no moon in the sky, just stars shining brightly. I knew this planet had to have a moon because I’d heard it mentioned before. Heck, they could have had several moons for all I knew. It wasn’t like I remembered most of the knowledge I’d picked up from my time floating around as a dead person lost to time.
The council, still in their fancy robes as last I had seen them, were standing around the edge of the spell circle that they had all drawn, chanting steadily. I didn’t know what the words were, or what they meant, but at the same time, I felt them as if they were carving themselves into my very bones. Could the others understand them too? That would be one of the only things to make sense.
The words built on top of each other, each syllable rising even if that was supposed to be impossible. I could feel the thrum of them, the importance, reverberating around each other until they rose into a sort of cacophonous crescendo.
And then, almost like a jolt, it all stopped.
I blinked, my own breath sounding harsh in my ears even if I wasn’t actually breathing. And then, the same leader as before spoke.
“Maedryell of the Barvyss, do you hear our call?”
“I hear it.”
“Then drink and surrender yourself to your fate.”
Wait, what?
That was when I noticed there was a vial in the woman’s hand, simple yet elegant, filled with a greenish liquid. She raised it, her thumb popping th
e cork and bringing it to her mouth. But right when it seemed like she was going to down it, she hesitated.
“Do you balk at your task?”
“Uh, no. I’m not. I, uh, I…” She licked her lips, and I could see the first sign of uncertainty on her features. “I know I have no right to ask anything, but please, don’t let me be remembered as a traitor. I know that’s what I am, but I’m doing this to wipe the slate clean. So please, let history forget me rather than have them remember me as that.”
Only silence greeted her, and my heart ached as tears began to well up and spill out from her one good eye. Her mask crumpled, and then she was crying into her hands, the vial clutched between her increasingly wet fingers.
The same small woman from before went to her, raising her chin and drying her eyes with the sleeve of her robes.
“This punishment is to atone. When it is finished, you will no longer be a traitor but our savior. Our guide. And I will make sure they will all remember that.”
“Thank you,” Maedryell whispered, her lips trembling. Something poignant passed between the two of them. Something tender and awful, and it made me want to stumble forward to hug them both. But neither said anything more, and the small woman just leaned forward to press a kiss to Maedryell’s forehead.
“Santha, that is enough.”
The small woman looked back at the others, a storm on her face, but Maedryell just leaned forward, resting her head against the Santha’s side. “Go.”
Another moment, full of words and history that I wished I knew, then the woman was stepping back to the edge of the circle. I didn’t miss how her lips were trembling, her own eyes red and shiny. I wished I had the time and means to ask Maedryell who that was.
With one last breath, Maedryell lifted the potion again and drank it all in one gulp. I could feel the shift in energy in the room the moment she did, billowing inward like she was a void sucking it all up. I felt like my entire body was being pulled toward her, but when I looked down, I hadn’t moved an inch.