“Mom?” The word slips from my lips as my brow furrows. Confusion roils inside me, stealing my breath and clutching my heart in a vice grip.
She’s taken aback by my words but looks at me as if she doesn’t know me. I leap to my feet and reach forward to hug her, but the guards stop and restrain me and the courtiers gasp at my action. Clearly it’s not acceptable to charge a queen, because this is what she is in this time.
“I thought you were dead!” I grit out as I struggle against the guards.
The queen inspects me closely, her eyes narrowing as she allows her gaze to travel from my head to my feet and back again. When she meets my eyes again, she tilts her head slightly to the side. “I have no idea who you are, but I can guess why you’re here. You’ve come to fulfill the prophecy.”
“I’m your daughter,” I state defiantly. “That’s who I am.”
She steps close, so close that she’s inspecting my features, looking at every detail, no doubt trying to find some piece of herself within me. We look exactly alike and I realize that she’s very young, too young to have a grown daughter. This meeting is taking place before she’s ever given birth to me.
“My own daughter would not come here to kill me.”
To fulfill the prophecy I must kill the queen and king or stop them from ever meeting. I guess I’m too late for the latter option. Grand Master Levi said I wouldn’t have it in me to kill them, and he was correct. Somehow he knew that my mother was at the beginning of time, responsible for the setting off the prophecy of the Masters.
Of course I would never hurt her; I’ve spent most of my Wandering life trying to find her and, finally, here she is standing before me. How will I set everyone free now? How will I save Bishop’s family?
While I’m piecing the information together, she utters several words in the direction of the guards in the ancient language. They respond by dragging me away.
“Stop! You’re making a mistake,” I cry out. “I’m your daughter. I’m Seraphina!” My screams echo off the interior walls of the space, but she doesn’t respond. To my dismay, she allows them to carry me away, and as I’m screaming for her to listen to me, someone smashes the back of my head and the world spirals, soaking my vision in black.
•
I awake in a dark pit, lying on a floor of dirt. The walls are high, at least twelve feet. Sitting upright doesn’t make anything any better. Pain shoots from the back of my skull to my forehead as I stand and wobble to the wall, placing my hand against its coolness to steady myself. From here I catch a glimpse of the moon. Its low position in the sky tells me it’s been at least twelve hours since I arrived.
Several figures appear up above, and a guard throws down one end of a rope. It bangs against the wall, falling to the floor at my feet. For a moment, I consider whether I should take it, but I have a better chance of survival if I’m out of here.
I coil the rope around my arms and hold tight, allowing the guards to drag me up the side. When I reach the top, they pull me to my feet, yanking me by my tunic.
My mom, the queen, stands before me. Carefully, she looks me over but gives no indication of whether she believes me.
“Follow me,” she finally says.
The guards stay behind. At least this is a positive sign.
I follow silently behind her as she walks across the courtyard, taking in my surroundings along the way. The darkness is dotted with fireflies, just like the fireflies that I dreamed about the night Mona told me I was a Wanderer.
Beneath the moonlight, I catch a glimpse of her mark, stretched along her spine but mostly hidden beneath her long locks. The ancient hieroglyphs glisten at this angle. She’s a Chosen too, just like Terease explained.
She guides me into the palace and down a hall with grand columns, just like one of the rooms I saw in her journal. Now I realize that my assumption that she researched the palace was incorrect. The drawings weren’t sketched from descriptions from others; they were drawn from her own memories. She’d actually been here herself and sketched the drawings that represented her life.
The queen steps out onto a balcony and stops at a railing lined with torches to stare out at the twinkling stars. With no lights from the city of the modern world, they’re the brightest I’ve ever seen. Despite their beauty, I lean against the balcony and stare at her instead. I can’t believe that I’ve found her here, of all places.
“Do you believe me now?”
She sucks in a shuddering breath and lets it out softly in a sigh. “Yes.”
“What changed your mind?”
“You told me your name.” She turns to me. “It’s the one I hope to name my daughter, a name I haven’t shared with anyone yet.” She reaches for her belly and rubs it in a circular motion. From the fullness of her dress, the tiniest baby bump appears.
“That’s me?” I point. “You’re pregnant? But, but—”
“Yes, and with one child who’s already died and the other hidden away, I’ve held on to hope that this child will be strong enough to survive.” She turns to me. “I want to hope that you’re telling me the truth, that you’re my child. But if you are, and you’re from the future, that means that I don’t stay here. My time here is limited.”
“I have siblings?” I shake my head, confused. I can’t even begin to fathom the thought. “But don’t you want to return to Ray?”
“Ray?” She laughs at this. “How do you know Ray?”
“What do you mean? He’s my dad.”
She reaches a hand to my shoulder. “No, he’s not. The king was your father, and he was a great and noble man.”
“Was?” My heart sinks at these words for so many reasons.
“He passed not long ago.” Her eyes glisten in the moonlight; she lifts an elegant hand to brush away a tear before it can fall.
I want to cry too, for her heartbreak and for mine. Ray, the man who raised me, isn’t my dad; at least, not in the technical sense. Maybe it’s something I’ve known all along, something I’ve felt deep inside but never acknowledged. Haven’t he and I always been at odds? Haven’t I always felt disconnected from him? This information should not surprise me but I look away, trying to hold back the tears. Even though Ray and I never really connected, I still love him. He’s the closest family I’ve ever had. The closest I’ve ever gotten to Normal, and it’s another lie that makes me realize I never had any true blood family of my own. No Aunt Mona, no true father…just lies.
“I can see this makes you sad,” she says. “But since I haven’t lived that part of my life yet, I can’t explain how it happened.”
I nod, taking a deep breath. Before, I would have run away from this information, but now I can’t. There’s so much more I need to know, so I compartmentalize the facts, suck in the emotions, and change the subject, hoping it will give me some relief. I wipe a tear away. It’s the only one I will allow for this. Later, I can grieve for my hurts, my losses. Now, I need to focus on my mission.
“I’m confused. How are you here? How am I here?” I gesture to her belly again.
“As you’ve surely guessed, I’m a Chosen too. After growing up and finding myself at the Academy and then at Wandering College, I became disillusioned with that world. I knew it was wrong, the manipulation that they used for time and the mind control of their people. I’d already taken the Oaths, but it took me some time to be marked with the tattoo and decide to fulfill the prophecy.
“I Wandered back to this time, but when I arrived, there was no queen, only the king. I thought that I’d gotten here before they meet. What a wonderful chance for me to curb the engagement as opposed to ending someone’s life. I gained access to the palace by securing a job, helping in the kitchen, so I could watch the king. That’s when I realized that he showed no signs of being a Wanderer as our mythologies suggested. The inaccuracy perplexed me.”
She pauses for moment, her eyes unfocused as she looks back into her memories, then continues. “But one night as I served him dinner, he asked me to
stay. Of course, this was absolutely unheard of, but you don’t disobey a king, and I was curious, so I did as he requested. We talked. By this time I had learned the language quite well. Each night as I served him dinner, he asked me to join him. He was handsome, truly a gentleman, very romantic and powerful. We fell in love, and before I realized what happened, I was his wife.” She speaks with the elegance that you would expect from a queen. “At that point I never wanted our love story to end. That’s why meeting you here is quite bittersweet. Yes, I’ll have a beautiful daughter,” she says as she gently lifts my chin, “but I’ve also just lost the love of my life.”
I pause, taking this in. “So who is Ray to you if he’s not my father?”
“Ray was a very lovesick boy I dated when I was in high school. He loved me very much, and I cared for him too, just not in the same way Wanderers love. At that time I was still bound to a boy who should have been on my team—the twin brother of Joseph, my Protector, who is now Mona’s husband. But I was desperate to be free of loving this other boy; he was an awful person.” Her eyes closely briefly as she shudders with distaste, then looks my way again. “Because of our Wandering DNA, I had no choice who I loved. So I tried dating a Normal, Ray, a boy from a nearby Normal school. I hoped I could force myself to fall in love with him, but as you know, it’s impossible. Our Wandering ties are unbreakable—unless you become a Chosen. Only then are you free.”
I jolt at this. Though the Grand Master said that I was free of my team, I hadn’t even considered that I could choose to love freely now. I should be happy for at least this little thing because, finally, the face of one boy dances behind my eyes. I push his image away; this is neither the time nor the place because I need to focus. I look up to Mom, who continues to talk.
“Still, I wanted to be Normal despite all the chaos around me. My team was no help. Mona and Joe were inseparable after college, getting married, getting pregnant. And at that time I was already an anointed Chosen, but not marked. I wasn’t even sure if I would ever be. The further I sank into the Society life, the more corruption I witnessed. I spent years debating and calculating the good against the bad. But when the mark appeared, finalizing my transition, I couldn’t allow their evil to continue, so I decided to fulfill the prophecy. It just so happens that at the same time, the Grand Master beckoned me for a task of his own and at that time informed me that he had made me a Chosen, by allowing the twins on my team to live.”
“Right.” I look down now, recalling Mona telling me that Mom had disappeared after college.
“So, it seems that sometime in the near future, I leave Egypt to return to my true time, have a lovely little girl, name her Seraphina, and raise her with Ray?” She looks at me in question.
“Yes and no. You leave me with Ray and then you disappear.”
“Why?”
“Well, from what Terease tells me, you worry for my safety. You leave me with Ray, fake your own death so that the Society and the Grand Master will leave me alone, and then you join the Underground.”
“I see.” She looks down. “But you’re here to kill me, so none of that will happen.”
“I obviously don’t kill you since I’m standing here now.” I smile. “But if I can’t follow through with the prophecy, how will I set everyone free from Nocturna? And set the others free from Wandering?”
“There is a way,” she says hesitantly.
“How?” My voice rises in excitement.
“I’ll tell you, but we have to talk first.”
My mind churns, wondering how I can still set everyone free, but then it migrates to the next thought. “And there’s that small problem of taking back some aqua vitae from some fountain with the obelisk.”
“For the Grand Master?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sure he’s still waiting for me in my true time, just where I left him in Gibeon.” She laughs. “Though when I return, he won’t know that I’ve been here for years.”
“Years! But how? What about schalg?” In fact, I’m starting to feel the effects of it myself. Time travel jetlag makes you groggy after several hours of being in another time.
She smiles coyly and winks. “That’s where the aqua vitae comes into play.”
::39::
Aqua Vitae
“Not only does it cure schalg, but it also gives life.”
“Life?”
“Let me show you.” She waves for me to follow.
Mom leads me back through the palace, up and down several ramps leading to various chambers and levels. We walk quickly through all the beautiful spaces that I remember from the sketches in her journal, and I want to stop and gawk but she urges me on.
She stops in one room and walks to the corner, then does something very unexpected: she flips on a large light bulb.
I watch in amazement as she drifts across the room and lights another. The large glass bulbs illuminate the space, but their power is multiplied a million times over through the use of flat, mirror-like copper panels placed strategically around the room, which reflect the light. “How is that possible? You need electricity for a light bulb.” I inspect the strange invention and shake my head in amazement.
“Isn’t it funny? When you know the right things to combine to make a battery: a clay jar, vinegar, copper wire and a few other goodies—it’s easy.”
“You’re responsible for this? You brought technology to them?”
Her shoulder lifts in an unconcerned shrug. “I needed some comforts from home. Anyway, this is what you’re here for.” She raises her hand, gesturing across the room. In the middle stands a tall obelisk, from which water trickles into a square basin.
“Where did this come from?”
“I’ve taken the water from Gibeon. Unfortunately, it’s dried up in our true time. The settlement of the original Wanderers is just over the hills at the horizon.” She points out an arched opening where the sun peeks over the Nile Valley desert, painting the landscape with pinks and oranges.
“The Gibeon? Do you mean before it started moving through time?”
“Yes, exactly.” She turns bright red. “I guess you could say through my passing on of technology, I will eventually cause some problems. Do you know the story of why Gibeon moves through time?”
I think back to Mr. Tash and his explanation for this. “The city itself was a gift from our Makers as a place for our kind to colonize on earth,” I say, practically reciting the information. “At that time, the city of Gibeon did not move. For a thousand years, the people happily lived there. But it’s said that a young woman roamed past the limits of the city and befriended those of a nearby village of Normals. Although forbidden by our Makers, she taught the Normals our secrets: magic, weaponry, science, mathematics, farming, hunting, etc., giving them the keys to better themselves, and perhaps, become more evolved than was meant to be. She also fell in love with a Normal.”
I stop and whip my head toward her. “That’s you! You’re the girl who fell in love with a Normal and gave away our secrets?”
“Well, they’ve mussed the information up some over time, I suppose, just like the King Unika myth. Yes, I’m the girl who came from Gibeon and fell in love with a Normal. The part they failed to pass on is that I came from the future Gibeon. But the thing is, the real Gibeon? I’ve been there, seen it for myself, and it’s so different from the future Gibeon, so much more magical and much purer. The inhabitants there would never dream of straying from Gibeon’s perfection to come here. They have no reason to because they have everything they need or would ever want within the city walls—happiness, contentment, compassion, patience, sensitivity, humility, loyalty, intelligence, and most importantly, unending love. It’s a utopia. I spend time there, pretending to be one of them. Because of their complete trust in others, they never even question my presence.”
She glances at me and continues. “But what I visit most is their fabulous hanging garden. Not only is it my favorite place on earth and in history, but it has the
se magical waters with special healing powers.” She gestures to the fountain.
“And what about the other part of the story?” I remind her, beginning to recount the rest of our history. “This secretly continued for some time, until the nearby town, whose rulers had become corrupt, drunk on their new knowledge acquired from the girl, decided to attack Gibeon for its wealth of unlimited enlightenment.” I stop and glance around. “I can see that hasn’t happened yet.”
“No, my kingdom hasn’t attacked Gibeon. Maybe that takes place after I leave?” She looks sad. “But I have no idea who would do this.”
“It doesn’t matter who, it has to happen. We know for a fact that is does, or I wouldn’t be standing here.”
“Yes, of course, you’re right.” She takes my hand and smiles sadly, and then pulls me forward until we reach the fountain. We sit on the ledge facing each other, our knees nearly touching. She leans to the center, removes a copper cup from a hook at the base of the obelisk, dips it into the water, and then she takes a long sip. After, she immerses it again and offers it to me.
“Drink, you must be thirsty.”
I hesitate for a moment but I am very thirsty, so I place the cup to my lips and take a long drink. Never have I tasted anything so refreshing or delicious. She refills the cup and I drink again. Then I fill the Grand Master’s canteen. When I’m done, I loop it back around my shoulder.
“So, Grand Master Levi still rules in your true time, just as he was in mine, and just as he was in 1894?”
I nod.
“He’s sent several Chosen back to retrieve this water for him from time to time so that he lives on to rule the Society. And each time, no matter what true time they come from, they’ve come back here and found me.”
She gives me a wary look, then continues. “The first arrived when your older brother, Bomani, was only a year old. That first Chosen came back not only to retrieve water for the Grand Master, but also to try to fulfill the prophecy. He took the water, and then he tried to kill me. Because I drank the aqua vitae he did not succeed, but he did murder your brother.” Her voice wavers and she clears her throat. “I guess he thought that this would break the chain of events and set everyone free.”
Seeing Light (The Seraphina Parrish Trilogy) Page 22