Ellenessia's Curse Book 1: The Shadow's Seer

by Fran Jacobs

  As I worked I became gradually aware of the feeling that someone was watching me. It was mild, at first, nothing more than a vague sensation, but it grew until I felt as though there were eyes burning into my back. And I was sure that I could smell something sickly sweet and cloying, and strangely familiar, lying heavy in the air. I couldn't see anyone, when I turned around, and I knew that Silver's spell prevented anyone from watching me with magic, or being hidden in my room, but I still couldn't shake off the feeling that there was someone there with me, someone I couldn't see.

  Return to Contents

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  VISIONS AND PROPHECIES

  "Do you know the difference between a prophecy and a vision?" Mayrila asked me, looking at me over the top of her teacup. We'd been sitting together for over an hour now and hadn't gotten anywhere. I'd watched her eat her supper and make two cups of tea, search through leather-bound books for something and reorganise vases of flowers. I had listened to her talk about nothing in particular, in a friendly sort of way, as though there was nothing wrong in the world, but she still hadn't mentioned the reason why we were all sitting here, until now, when I had almost lost my temper and been about to snap at her.

  "No," I said. "I don't know the difference. I wasn't even aware that there was one."

  "A vision is a flash of the future. For instance, the dreams of you in the dark cell with bars on the window. A prophecy would be an allegoric message, for example, the dreams of the three-headed dragon devouring the sun."

  "You know about the dark room with the bars on the window?" I whispered.

  Mayrila smiled at me and sipped her tea. She was so calm, collected and neat, with not a hair out of place. She was so cold it unsettled me. "I know many things," she said. Trellany coughed, firmly, and Mayrila shot her a quick glance before rolling her eyes. "Candale, every woman in my line, every daughter, was brought up knowing that one day a son of our blood would be the Shadow Seer. We were taught the signs, some of the visions that had been had about his life and how to help him. The dreams of you in that cell are old, I don't know what they mean, or ... or what you do to end up there ..." She looked uncomfortable, as though talking about this hurt her. Not for my sake, I was sure. I was her son, but I doubted she cared that much about me to truly be concerned about why I should end up in a cell. It was probably Trellany's steely gaze that had unsettled her. "Anyway, back to the topic at hand. A vision is an event, a prophecy is how that event might come about, symbols that will lead to it."

  "Oh." I swallowed and nodded slowly. "All right. Do ... do you think I can avoid what was seen for me?"

  "No," she said, without hesitation. At my strangled gasp, she continued. "Think of the White Rose. She ran away from home to try and avoid the fate she had foreseen for herself and it was that very action that led to her prophecy coming true. I believe that stopping a prophecy is doomed to failure. Either you will be unable to, or, should you succeed, something even worse will happen because of it."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Just that. Candale, you can't know what will happen if you change what has been foreseen. For instance, what if you had a dream about a young girl dying and saw how you could help her and then rushed off and saved her life, but she was never meant to live? What would happen if that girl then married a man who was meant to marry someone else, and the children that other woman was meant to have, children who could have done great things, were never born and never able to do those things, all because you saved the life of a girl who was meant to die?"

  "But ... but how do we know that visions aren't warnings, things that are sent to us so that we can try and stop them? Going along with them, like you want to, could be what we're not meant to do."

  Mayrila just smiled at me, as though I were an idiot. "If we were meant to avoid it then we would, Candale. Fate knows what it is doing."

  "Then what's the point?" I cried. "Why does anyone even have visions if we're not meant to do anything about them?"

  "I don't think that there is a point," Mayrila said. "I believe that it's an accident when a person catches a glimpse of the future."

  "An accident? You think that all of this, who I am, what I can see, what people have seen for me, is just an accident?"

  "Why not, Candale? Does everything need a reason?"

  I stared at her, my mouth open, and she just smiled at me. My head was reeling with the very calm way that she was dismissing the horrors that I had seen as being totally pointless. She couldn't be right, it couldn't just be an accident that I had seen what I had, that other prophets had seen what they had, there had to be more to it.

  "Now," she continued calmly. "Your grandfather told me a little, that you've had trouble sleeping, been short tempered, is this all your ailments?"

  I hesitated and then shook my head. "I'm not always aware of what is going on around me," I said softly. "Sometimes time slips away from me, one minute it's light, the next it's dark. I don't know where my mind goes, or what I'm thinking in that time. A-and-" I glanced quickly at Trellany who was watching me and I swallowed and turned away. "Apparently I talk to myself."

  Mayrila drew her black woollen shawl closer around her shoulders. "Interesting," she said. "And you've had two visions and heard one conversation?"

  I nodded. "It was the voices that really frightened me. E-even though they weren't about anything really, and there was no blood, no death, as there was with the visions, i-it scared me so much to just hear those voices coming out of nowhere, like ghosts were talking to me."

  Mayrila nodded, seeming almost sympathetic. "Voices are part of the Seer legacy, but they're not the same as a vision or prophecy. They're more an after-effect from being connected to the time you're foreseeing. Because of this they will be rare, so you don't have to worry too much about them, but they're still fairly important, and should be recorded."

  "How do you know this?" Trellany asked.

  Mayrila's stare was withering. She could express so much distain for someone, so much annoyance, with one quick look of those violet eyes. I wondered if mine were as expressive. "I told you. We were all taught about the Seer, what to expect, how to help him and about his gifts."

  "And how did your ancestors know?" Trellany asked. "Or is this all just made up from guesses and limited information?"

  "I don't know how they know," Mayrila replied. "I can only trust that they did, as you have to trust that I do now."

  "And why should we do that?" Trellany asked, folding her arms across her chest. "What reason do we have to believe that you're telling the truth about any of this?"

  Mayrila's eyes flashed. I don't think I'd ever seen her look angry before, but then it was gone and that cold fa�ade was back and she was just ignoring Trellany, as she turned to me instead.

  "I will help you to sleep," she said, "by teaching you a relaxation technique. If you can sleep well at nights, that might do much to help with your short temper. At the very least it will give you energy and improve your concentration so I will be able to help you with everything that comes with the awakening of your gifts."

  "And how will you be able to help with that?" Trellany asked.

  Without even a flicker of an eyelid, Mayrila replied with harsh words. "Say one more thing, Trellany, that hinders me or raises doubt about my abilities and I will ask Sorron to have you removed." She smiled at me brightly, turning to fetch a soft blanket from over the back of a chair. "And I'm sure that he will do so, knowing how much he wants me to help his grandson. I don't even know why you need guards when you come to see me, Candale. Does Sorron think that I will hurt you? Because the gods know, if I wanted you dead, then you, the boy and Trellany here would be."

  "Grandfather doesn't fear you," I said. "But there have been two more attempts on my life from those who poisoned me. Silver and Trellany are both here to protect me in the corridors when I head back to my rooms." At least, that was part of the reason. Sorron also wanted Silver to keep an e
ye on what Mayrila did with her magic, should she need to use it, so that he could keep my grandfather fully informed about everything that she did.

  Mayrila seemed happy about that. "Good, I'm glad to know Sorron doesn't consider me a threat. And I'm gladder still to know that your grandfather, and father, too, I expect, finally believe what I told them, that people tried to poison you."

  "My tutor committed suicide and three men were caught and hung. Yes, they believe the threat to me now."

  Mayrila's face softened, even though her eyes remained hard. "I'm sorry, Candale. It cannot be easy to live your life in fear like that. As a mage, I'm somewhat aware of what that's like." She wrapped the blanket around me. "I will teach you that technique now, as I said. You can then repeat it yourself tonight, when you're in bed. Tomorrow, when you're fully refreshed I can start trying to help you."

  I nodded, but I was not sure of this. Could she really help me that easily to sleep? She certainly seemed to think so, but I'd tried everything - hot drinks, sleeping draughts - nothing had helped me except Silver's magic. What could Mayrila do to help that was so different from the healer or Silver?

  "A lavender candle," Mayrila continued, "will help to create a feeling of relaxation. You might want to get yourself one. Or a drop of lavender oil, for your pillow, will work just as well."

  I nodded again, watching her as she moved through the room, extinguishing the candles until only one remained lit. The room felt warm and dark, comforting, and it made me feel sleepy, yet my general discomfort of the situation and Trellany's obvious and undisguised hostility towards Mayrila made me feel restless.

  "Slip your boots off," Mayrila told me, firmly.

  I did as I was told, wriggling out of them, glancing at Trellany anxiously. Did Mayrila really expect that I was just going to fall asleep here with everyone watching me? When all the candles were out, Mayrila came to sit beside me. Her voice was soft as she ordered me to close my eyes.

  "I'm going to ask you to relax your body," she told me. "Starting with your feet and then slowly working your way up."

  "All right," I said doubtfully.

  "Then start with your feet, Candale, let them grow heavy, limp. Imagine that there are weights attached to them, that they're pulling you down ..." I did as she asked, feeling a little ridiculous at first. But as she slowly asked me to relax different parts of my body, working her way upwards, I started to feel as though I was being pulled down, away from my body. The feeling grew and my body, the chair I sat in, the blanket, everything, felt distant and detached, a fading memory, somewhere in the darkness.

  And then I fell asleep.

  The world suddenly shattered and I was sitting upright in a chair, my neck on fire with kinks. The room around me was dark and cold. I wasn't in my bed, I didn't know where I was. The shadows of the furniture around me were unfamiliar. My head spun with it all.

  "Candale, are you all right?" Trellany asked, her voice sounding close in the darkness, as it brought me back to my senses.

  I laughed nervously. "I'm fine," I said. "I just couldn't remember where I was at first."

  "Ah." I heard movement as Trellany walked through the room, banging into a few objects on her way, and when she spoke again, her voice sounded distant. "I think that we should head back to your rooms now. Get some proper sleep. Sleeping in a chair isn't comfortable, not at my age."

  "Nor at mine," I said. I reached down, blindly searching for my boots on the darkened floor. "Where's Silver?"

  "I sent him back to his room hours ago. There was no need for him to stand around here all night watching you sleep."

  "Oh." And I grinned, then, as I jammed my feet into my cold boots. "I was asleep."

  "Yes," Trellany said. "You were. For a good few hours."

  "I can't believe that worked! After so many nights of not being able to get to sleep for more than a few minutes or an hour at a time, I can't believe that Mayrila was able to help me so easily!"

  "Don't trust her based on that one performance."

  "I won't," I said. "But you hadn't met her before yesterday. Why are you so quick to mistrust her?"

  The door opened, letting in a flood of light from the lit hallway outside and Trellany waited until I had joined her in the corridor before she explained. "Your grandfather asked me to keep an eye on Mayrila," she said. "She was never meant to tell you the truth about yourself, but she did. He doesn't trust her because of that and he isn't sure why she has to come and help you. She's not maternal towards you, you yourself have said that, and --"

  "She had me for money," I said. "And is helping me for money. I'm not sure why you distrust that. It seems to be a fairly reasonable motive."

  "For a megalomaniac mage who was once in love with your father?" I stopped walking and stared at Trellany and then, slowly, I shook my head. "Exactly. For anyone else I could accept money as a motive, but not Mayrila. I find it hard to believe that everything she has done, giving birth to you, saving your life when you were poisoned, now coming back to help you again, she has done just for money, especially when she was exiled from White Oaks for wanting power and was in love with your father. That's why I have been asked to keep an eye on her."

  "Were you meant to tell me this?" I asked.

  Trellany shook her head. "No. Just as I was never meant to tell you how the Royal Guards had been told to keep an extra eye on you. But I'm loyal to you, Prince Candale, and I want you to be able to trust me, which is why I told you. I won't keep any secrets from you." She tapped her dragon symbol on her breast. "This is more than just a sign to elevate me above the other Guards. This is something I take seriously. I'm yours, Candale. And yours alone."

  There wasn't really a lot I could say to that.

  I was apprehensive, as I climbed back into my bed, afraid that I wouldn't be able to repeat the success of earlier, that I would have to spend the rest of the night lying awake in the warm comfort of my bed, trying to sleep. But I was determined to try, so I closed my eyes, snuggled down under the covers, and repeated the process Mayrila had had me run through while in her rooms.

  I was asleep before I was half way through.

  ***

  "They've been asking about you," Teveriel said, glancing at where the four Idryan diplomats stood, seeming, deep in conversation with a group of nobles. I followed his gaze and saw that Katlatai was already looking my way. She didn't look away, as our eyes met. In fact, I was the one who turned away first, feeling as though I had been caught doing something I shouldn't, even though she had been the one staring at me.

  "What have they been saying?" I asked.

  "I don't know. They asked if they could talk to me about you, but I said no. I wouldn't gossip about you to anyone, Candale, least of all a group of Idryans!" At my surprised look at the depth of his anger, he explained, "I overheard one of the men talking last night, at the gathering Lord Disiris' had thrown to welcome them. I've never heard anything so ... nasty in my life. After that I decided that I didn't want to talk to them at all, if I could help it."

  "What did he say?"

  "Well, a polite version is that it's wrong for King Sorron to have a mage here, that it's violating the natural laws and will encourage a curse."

  "Hmm." I frowned. "I'm surprised to hear that a diplomat was being so, well, undiplomatic, even at a private gathering."

  "He was talking to Lady Darylee at the time. She'd spent most of the night expressing her disgust, to anyone who would listen, at the idea that a 'common little farm boy' could be trusted with the prince's life, all because he has this gift, so I imagine he felt he was in safe company."

  "Ah." I nodded. "I'm sorry, Tev, but that comes with the job, I fear. And as Court Bard you will have to just nod and smile politely at that sort of thing. You can't be seen to have an opinion about this, not if you want to go on being asked to perform at private events, as well as public ones."

  Teveriel frowned. "You're right," he said. "Gods, I wasn't thinking. It's just hard getting used to
this new situation, to knowing what to say, how to act, especially in the face of so much ..."

  "Petty, backstabbing spitefulness?" I suggested.

  He grinned at me as he nodded. "Yes."

  "That's Court for you, Tev. Intrigue and betrayal is the lifeblood, I'm afraid. It isn't all bad, though. I don't want you to think that. There are plenty of nobles who have more on their mind than gossiping about those they call their friends, and trying to climb the social ladder. You just have to find them."

  "I think I'll have to take you word for that at the moment, Dale."

  I left Tev after that to take my seat for supper, aware that, not only were the diplomats watching me, but so was half of Court. Something was going on. I wasn't sure what, but I knew it concerned me and it was making me feel very uncomfortable. I wanted to ask my grandfather about it, but he was deep in conversation with my father. Even when the rest of Court had taken their seats, and supper had been served, he and my father were still deep in conversation, leaving me no choice but to eat my meal and wait for a moment to speak with him.

  I was chewing on a chunk of bread, when I caught my father's bearded bodyguard, Davn, looking my way. Davn and I had never really gotten on and privately he had always made his contempt for me painfully clear, but I had learnt to ignore him and pretend that he didn't exist, as well as I could. But something in his eyes, in his smile, made me stop now, however, and look at him properly. He almost seemed to be gloating.

  I started to choke on my mouthful of bread, coughing hard. I sat forward in my chair, gasping and retching, and then Sorron took matters into his own hands and firmly whacked me on the back. The half eaten chunk of bread shot out across the table, pinging against the water jug, and I gave a final, miserable cough.

  "Have you forgotten how to eat?" Sorron asked me.

  I gave him a faint sort of grin. "Sorry," I said.

  "Be more careful, son," was his reply, before he turned back to his conversation with my father.