“Why did you show me this now?” I asked.
She sighed. “You were destined to end it. You must see the beginning in order to end this tale. Bring him to rest as I could not,” the first diviner said. She was the true first, not an amalgamation of all the diviners before but the true first of my line. She was a fisherman’s daughter and the first Queen of Danhad.
“Why me? What makes me special?”
She smiled and brushed my cheek with her hand. “You are born of the old and the new. You carry both our homeland and the native people. You will protect this sacred place and teach your daughter to do the same. You are the priestess reborn. We forgot over time, and we let the old rituals die, but you have been trained in the old ways and you know the new. You are the key.”
“Because I loved Johai, and he sealed my memories, and because I wanted to save him...” I recited my mother’s words to me from long ago.
She nodded. “Go. He is waiting.” She motioned to the stairwell.
I climbed the stairs, unencumbered by my pregnant belly. Time moved like water, and I found the light left strange shadows on the wall. I knew what I had to do. The palace was as I knew it, yet slightly altered. The paintings were different. The style just a bit dated. I walked down the hall to the window where I had often met my mother in my dreams. He was standing there, looking out to the sea.
The specter turned to face me. He was not the cloaked figure with a mask I had seen in my dreams. He was a young man. In many ways he looked like Johai. They had the same thin lips, a long face and sapphire eyes. His hair was dark and tied in a tail at the base of his neck.
“So you’ve trapped me with my old memories. Is this how you planned to defeat me?” he said. I realized why his voice had sounded familiar. It was the voice of the specter in my dreams, but with less menace and more humanity.
“You once told me that we were destined for one another. Is that because you loved the first of my line?”
He chuckled softly. “Yes, I loved her and lost her. She betrayed me as you all have.” He turned to face me. “Except you. You were the first to try to save me.”
“We could end it. End the cycle. End the pain.”
He gripped the windowsill, his hands white knuckled. “Never. Not until the task is complete.”
“She is waiting for you. She has not crossed. She has lingered by the gateway, waiting for you. The power corrupted you, but she knows deep down you are as you were.”
He turned towards me. “Do not think to win me with sweet words, diviner. My wife—what was my wife—is gone, just as I am no longer the man that loved her.”
I gasped as he reached out for me. “This ends here.”
Whatever momentary reverie we shared was over. He grabbed me. I stumbled back as his hands closed around my throat. He recoiled suddenly as if burned. In fact, his hand was smoking red and raw where it had touched my skin.
“Why can I not touch you?” he hissed.
I was as baffled as he. I tried to touch him and found the same effect. My very touch burned him. I felt power coursing through me, the same power Elenna had filled me with. This is too much. If I cannot control it, it will burn me from the inside. My mother’s face flashed before my eyes and then my grandmother and the line of diviners going back to the first. This moment had been a long time coming. The circle would be broken at last.
Where there had once been a window out onto the sea, there was now a door, and Elenna held it open for me. Beyond the gate I heard thousands of voices, and hands were reaching, grabbing and tugging at Elenna’s ankles, and just beyond, the mask of the specter, the remainder of his soul, what he would have brought forth to try to destroy everything. If I did not stop him, that thing would come from beyond the veil. Elenna watched me serenely as I wrestled with the specter, trying to pull him to the gateway. I grabbed at his clothes and his face. I pulled him close to me and pressed my hands to his face. He screamed in agony. I pushed him back towards the gateway, and as we moved closer, the voices grew stronger.
He fought me, clawing at my skin and tearing my hair in an attempt to get away.
“No, I will not go through,” he screamed.
As we drew closer, his form changed and shifted, as if I were looking at him underwater, and where there had been one man, now there was two. Johai and the specter were bound together by a crimson thread. Johai looked at me. His hair was pale as moonlight, and an enigmatic smile pulled at the corner of his lips. I hesitated, and he reached out for me. He pushed the hair back from my face, and I fought the tears that threatened to overwhelm me.
“I love you. Do not forget that.”
The specter’s foot slipped, and he was grabbed by a grasping hand from beyond the gate. It pulled both him and Johai towards it. I cried out and tried to hold onto Johai, but he was slipping through my fingers.
“Let go, Maea. You have to live for our daughter.”
The specter slipped through the door, dragging Johai along with him, and the gateway began to close. I was going to lose my grip on Johai or we would both be pulled beyond. I cannot give up, not yet.
Elenna approached us. “The gateway has not closed completely. There’s time. A life must go through with the specter to bind him to the afterlife.”
My eyes were large as I realized what Elenna was offering. “No. I will not let you give your life for his.”
She tilted her head to regard me. “This was my destiny, Maea.”
Elenna touched the crimson thread. It broke from Johai and wrapped around her wrist. I cannot let her do this. She said Adair’s life would suit. Why is he not here? He was supposed to be the sacrifice.
A gentle hand touched my shoulder. I glanced up; my mother was kneeling over me. “You’ve done enough, daughter. This task is my own,” she said. She unwound the thread from around Elenna’s wrist. It tangled around her limbs and over her chest.
I watched her, unsure of what to make of this scene. “What are you doing? You died long ago.”
“Time moves differently beyond the veil. Only a moment has passed for me. I saw what trials awaited you. I knew I must guide you, to help you end the cycle. This is how I play my own part. This is my gift to you.” She turned to Elenna. “Thank you for all you have done, but your journey does not end here.”
My mother turned to the gateway. She looked to me one last time. Her face was sad but radiant just as I had seen her in my visions the day she took her own life. She opened her hands, and the gates opened wide. Hundreds of hands reached out and dragged her beyond the gate. Then the gate shut with a thundering slam. I was left holding Johai.
I looked at him, and he smiled. “You did it,” he said.
Then everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-three
I WOKE IN MY CHAMBER. The canopy was blurry overhead. Everything hurt. There was a ringing in my ears that pierced through my skull. My first impulse on gaining consciousness was to feel my belly. My daughter stirred within my womb, as if rolling over in her sleep. I collapsed back onto my pillow. My limbs were leaden, my mouth thick. I need water and to relieve myself. I could not get my limbs to obey. I was beyond weary. I lived. I defeated the specter and saved Johai. Yet so many more had died—Jon, Sabine, hundreds of soldiers and Adair. His death affected me more than I thought it would. Of everyone who died, his death was more upon my hands than any other. He wasn’t the sacrifice in the end. He died for nothing. He had betrayed me and started a war, used me and countless others, but I still felt no justice in his demise. The war! I do not even know what the outcome of the battle was. Have we won? Does the siege continue?
I climbed out of bed; my limbs shook. I had to lean on the bed for support. Where is Elenna? Where is Johai? I had to find them. I needed to see Johai’s face to confirm that what had happened in the Sea Chamber had not all been a dream. I saved him... or rather my mother saved us both. I sank back on the edge of the bed, too weak to try to walk.
My mother said her death was a gift to me.
By taking the specter beyond the veil, she prevented Elenna’s, Johai’s and my deaths. I had resented my mother for so long, thinking she had killed herself for selfish reasons, when in truth she had seen the future and died to protect me. I rested my hand on my stomach. My daughter kicked feebly against the pressure. I would do the same for her. I understood now why she had done what she did.
Everything that led up to the chamber was preparing me. My mother chose my father on purpose. She came to Keisan and gave birth to me. She killed herself, leaving me alone where Johai could find me. I fell in love with him, he took my memories at my behest, and it bound us together. The comingling of our magic created the bond. I was born of the old magic of the Biski and the Danhadines who had come to this land and defiled the original people’s sacred places. If I had not learned about the ancient magic, nor been born of a Danhad noble and a dreau of the Biski tribes, I would not have been the tool meant to save Johai. I broke the cycle, but it was not just me who ended it. Those around me played a hand in ending the cycle as well.
Everything had become clear upon waking, as if the very knowledge had been given to me with the power that had coursed through me. The door at the far side of the room swung open, and the magiker came in, carrying a tray with a cup.
“You’re awake, good. Then you can take your tonic on your own,” he said.
“What is going on? What news is there of the war?” I asked as he shuffled over to me.
He scowled as he set the tray down on the side table beside me. “Drink, and then we shall talk.” He pointed at the pewter cup.
I picked it up with both hands. It was a bitter tonic, but it felt good to have something to wet my dry mouth, despite the terrible taste. Once I choked it down, I looked at the magiker expectantly.
He harrumphed and scooted closer. “I want to check the baby.” He pressed a crabbed hand to my stomach. My daughter twisted around, perhaps feeling the foreign hand outside her home. “The child is active, good; then she has seen no effect from the magic that nearly burned you from the inside.”
“How do you know that?” I sat up a little straighter. Did everyone in the palace know what had happened in the Sea Chamber?
“The priest of Mrawa saw to you at first. He was the one who brought you out of that chamber. He told me what happened and gave me the herbs you would need to heal.”
The priest, he had known what would happen from the beginning. “What news do you have of the war?” I asked instead. I was curious to know the state of the kingdom.
“It’s over, or near enough. The leaders have come to the peace table to discuss terms.”
“Leaders?” I felt a hopeful fluttering in my chest. Had I slept long enough for an election? Was Layton the new king?
“Yes, the council elected Layton Florett as their representative. The Queen of Neaux, the leader of the Biski, and Duke Florett have been in talks for days.”
“How did the battle end? What happened?”
The magiker muttered under his breath, “What am I, the royal recorder?”
I grabbed his hand and sandwiched it between my own.
He looked up at me with his shrewd eyes. He sighed. “I heard only rumors. They say Layton swung in with a thousand men and drove a wedge between the Neaux and Biski forces. The lines of the siege broke, and the enemies began to scatter. Before they could run, Duke Wodell’s men, hidden among their numbers, blocked their escape. They were pinned between them, and that is when the duke called for parlay. He brought forth the proposition of peace talks.”
He did it! They will surely elect him king. How could they not? He practically broke the siege single-handedly.
“How long have I been sleeping?” So much had happened, and I felt as if I had only just entered the dream space in the chamber.
“You’ve been asleep for nearly a week.”
A week! The rebirth of our kingdom was happening while I slept. There is still time. I need to secure Layton’s place on the throne; then I can rest at ease at last.
“What of Johai and Elenna? Where are they? I would go to them right away.” I tried to stand, but my legs only trembled.
The magiker pushed me to sit once more. “You are not leaving this room until I say.” He tutted and shook his head. “I forgot how willful you are.”
“Can you bring them to me, at the least? I would speak with them.”
“The Biski woman is gone. She disappeared after killing the king. Duke Florett has sent men in search of her. As for Johai... he is not well.”
I sat back up. “What do you mean, not well?”
The magiker frowned, and it deepened the wrinkles around his mouth. “The thing that possessed him, it left him a near husk. He lives, but only just. I fear he will slip beyond the veil soon.”
No. Not after everything. I have to go to him. “He needs me,” I said. I could feel his life force; it was a dim candle in a dark room. That was why I had not felt it right away.
He shook his head. “No, you would risk the child to leave your bed. You are not without injury. There is nothing you can do. If the boy is to die, then he must. Nothing you can do will change his fate.”
I cannot risk my daughter, but I know Johai needs me. I was torn. I did not want to go against the magiker’s orders. Johai will live. He has to; my mother sacrificed her life to protect us. I lay back down as the magiker insisted and stared at the canopy. Wait for me, Johai. I will come to you.
With Johai bedridden, Elenna gone, and the palace in chaos as the treaties were made, I found my confinement troublesome. I itched to go to Johai. I have to bring him back. The days ticked by slowly. The first few I slept and ate to regain my strength and did little else. After a few days the magiker allowed me short walks around my room, and then finally visitors when he was certain I was healing. One of the first visitors was surprising. There was a knock at my chamber door. I set aside the book I had been reading and called out.
The maid who had been assigned to take care of my minor comforts poked her head through the door. “Your grace, the priest of Mrawa is here to see you.”
“Let him in,” I replied.
I sat up straighter in bed and arranged the blankets over my legs. My hair needed to be braided, and I could not remember the last time I had a wash. It was a less than ideal condition in which to entertain a guest, but I was desperate for news of the outside world. The priest swept into the room. He wore the crimson robe and white sash of his order. His white hair was long and straight down his back.
“It makes me glad to see a familiar face. I was beginning to fear I would see no one other than my maid and the magiker,” I said by way of greeting.
He smiled. “I thought it was time we talked.” He pointed at a chair beside my bed. “May I sit?”
I waved towards the chair. “Please do.” His visit was unexpected and had piqued my curiosity. What would he have left to talk to me about? Is there some part of the prophecy I have yet to unravel? The very thought made me ill.
The priest sat with hands folded in front of him, staring at me serenely. “I am glad to see you well.”
“Thank you, the magiker says soon I shall be able to leave my chamber.”
“And your daughter?” he prompted.
“She is growing and active.” I smiled.
He inclined his head in acknowledgement.
“I have been told I have you to thank for my treatment. It would seem few magikers know much about ancient magics.”
He chuckled. “Think nothing of it. It was merely what I have been trained for.”
There was a lull in the conversation. I looked to my hands, which were resting upon the swell of my stomach.
“I have a confession to make,” he said at last.
I glanced up, curious, but said nothing and waited for him to continue.
“I played a role in the events that have transpired here, and for that I must beg your forgiveness.”
I frowned at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”
As he spoke, his face altered and changed. The age lines around his mouth and eyes smoothed, and his hair changed from snow white to a gray-streaked brown. I covered my mouth to suppress my gasp.
He smiled. “I am Johai’s father.”
“You were supposed to have died years ago.”
“I did in a sense. My old life died many years ago when I left Danhad. I faked my death and left in search of the magic I would need to take my brother’s throne from him, but not before altering the lives of two young men beyond repair. Johai inherited a book that he used to summon the first king, the one you knew as the specter. Adair, he inherited the Order, which I founded. As a child Adair would come to my cell and speak to me through the bars. He wanted vengeance against my brother, Dallin. He blamed my brother for his mother’s rape and his father’s death. He also blamed him for sending Sarelle to Neaux. I filled the child’s mind with poison, and I tricked him into helping me escape. He stole keys from a guard and unlocked my cell. I learned later on that my escape was covered up and the body of another man was put in my place. I was thought to be dead.
“Had I had your ability, Maea, I might have been able to stop this from happening. But I did not realize the error of my ways until I took on the mantle of the sorcerer myself. By then it was too late, and the plans were in motion. I came back here and hoped to alter the path, but Johai had partially bonded with the specter, and Adair was plotting to take over the kingdoms.”
[fan] diviners saga 03 - diviners fate Page 30