by Maggie Platt
Silas did not interrupt, and his solemn gaze stayed locked on Tovi. When she finally paused, he took a deep breath before responding. “Those are very good questions. It’s going to take the rest of your life to answer all of them, and I know that will frustrate you. I could tell you the answers right now, but that won’t help you understand. We have years and years ahead of us, and we will walk through it all. Every question that you have. For now, we will start with this: if I used my power to make you trust me, against your will, it wouldn’t really be trust. Does that make sense?”
“Not at all.”
“Think about it this way. Would it prove that you love Ganya if I chained you to her and never allowed you to leave her side?”
“No.”
“Does it prove that you love Ganya when you choose to spend time with her, delighting in your conversations and listening to her wisdom? I don’t use force to try to win anyone’s heart. It wouldn’t work. I spend my time building our trust so that you will be prepared to make decisions when the time comes. What was the first tactic that Calix used in his attempt to win you away from here?”
Tovi thought back. “He told me he didn’t believe the stories about Adwin.”
“Exactly. He knew that if he began to dismantle everything you had been taught about me, he would be able to convince you to leave.”
Eyes squinting in concentration, she asked, “Is that why he always met me at the ridge? He knew that was my special place with you, and that I was getting closer to understanding who you really are.”
He nodded. “That’s exactly why he used the ridge for those meetings. He wanted to make you think of him instead of me when you were in the place that is closest to your heart.”
“That’s horrible!”
“And it worked, didn’t it?”
She nodded. “You said that a Master already came through the barrier. How did they know they could?”
“I don’t think it was a matter of knowing he could get through,” Silas said, his mouth curving up into another amused grin. “I think he was determined to force his way through with his own power. He was pretty surprised by how easy it was. Do you feel strong enough to get up and look out your window?”
She nodded, unsure why this was important. Silas helped her sit up and scoot closer to the window. Sitting on the floor of the porch, leaning against the railings, Eryx was fast asleep. His chin rested on his chest, and she couldn’t see his face. There was a plate of untouched muffins next to him, along with a mug of tea that looked like it had gone cold long ago.
Silas chuckled. “Ganya has been trying to get him to come inside, but he is being a little stubborn.”
CHAPTER 47
Many miles from Adia and the mountain, Tali followed Meira through the thickening underbrush. With every mile, the heat had risen. Even with a torn sleeve from his tunic wrapped around his forehead, sweat dripped into his eyes.
He hadn’t known what to think of this girl when she showed up at the cave to liberate him from Leeto’s ropes. She was dirty, and her hair was wrapped in filthy cloth, yet she carried herself like someone who was in charge.
Then, she had explained who she was. More importantly, she explained who he was. “Tali, I need you to believe me, even though I know that will be hard,” she had said, offering him bread and water.
Famished, he tucked into the refreshments before looking up. “Okay, tell me what you have to say. I’ll let you know if I believe you or not.”
She told him all she knew about his identity, and he couldn’t get used to the idea. A royal prince? Offspring of an evil king? Why hadn’t Silas told him? And what would Tovi say when she found out? He smirked at the thought. His sister would not like this news.
“Silas sent me to get you out of here, and we need to get going,” Meira said, not giving him time to let it sink in. “It won’t be long before Leeto comes to check on you. Also, the army from the mountain is coming. Let’s go.”
He looked into her eyes and saw excitement—not fear—in them. He recognized the same anticipation that he felt when heading off to a new adventure. He hopped up and followed her out of the cave.
Instead of leading him back to Adia, she took him around the north side of the mountain. They circled to the east and then veered south. They didn’t talk much, but it was an easy, companionable silence. When they did speak, they found they had many similarities. A thirst for adventure. A natural positivity and hopefulness. A trust in Silas. A willingness to go wherever he sent them.
The journey continued through untouched wilderness. There was no shortage of steep ravines and high passes. If Tali’s estimates were accurate, they were gaining only about ten miles a day due to the difficult terrain. Meira did not seem to tire, and this spurred him on.
When most would grow exhausted and want to give up, Meira seemed to grow lighter with each day. She was preoccupied most of the time, with smiles playing at her lips on more than one occasion. It was clear: She couldn’t wait to see her mother and the sea. Tali had to admit he felt the same.
Finally, after several days, they had reached their destination.
“Here we are,” Meira said, her eyes alight with excitement. She pulled back several thick ferns that were the same height and width as a fully grown man. Through the foliage, Tali took in his first glimpse of the vast ocean.
His feet discovered soft sand, and he breathed in the salty air. Bright turquoise water rimmed with foam lapped at the beach, and he had never heard anything like the rhythmic roar of the waves. Palm trees towered, their trunks covered in vines with bright pink flowers, and noisy white and yellow birds soared through the air.
Two huts stood on the beach, less than ten feet apart. One was weather-worn and bleached from the sun. The other looked brand new, the palm fronds making up the roof still green.
Meira gently pushed Tali out of the way and ran toward the huts calling, “Mom! Mom! I’m home.”
Tali stood back, not wanting to interrupt the reunion but longing to run to her as well. A woman who looked just like Meira came out of the hut. The only differences between the women were the slight wrinkles on the older woman’s face and her pure white curly hair with a hint of sea green at the very ends.
“Lena!” she cried, running to embrace her daughter. Tali smiled. Of course, he thought. Lena was her real name. He would have to get used to calling her Lena instead of Meira.
It was beautiful to witness the reunion, and he watched with a deep hunger and pain that he didn’t want to show. But try as he might, he couldn’t shove it away like he usually could.
The two women were talking animatedly, but the crashing of the ocean waves drowned them out. He watched their faces, unable to look away, yet feeling like he was spying on something sacred, a place where he did not belong.
Lena gestured to the spot where Tali stood. Thomae’s face suddenly lost its smile, and her eyes widened in a look of horror or shock. She lifted her hands and clutched her cheeks. Both women turned to look at Tali. Thomae’s knees gave way, and she would have collapsed if Lena hadn’t caught her.
Tali stepped from the shadows. It had been a long journey, and he had enjoyed getting to know his newly-discovered sister. But this was bigger and so much more. He had never known about Lena, so he hadn’t had the opportunity to miss her. He had always known he had a mother somewhere, and he had always longed to find her, even if his longings hadn’t been as vocal or demanding as Tovi’s.
And there she was. His mother. She was just feet away. And she was far more wonderful than he had dared to imagine.
They walked toward one another, and when they were close enough, she reached out to touch his hair with trembling fingers.
Not knowing where the word came from, and having never said it before, he sobbed, “Mama,” as his face crumbled.
Through her weeping, Thomae’s smile returned broader and more glorious than anything he had ever seen before. She wrapped him in her arms and kissed every inch of his face, laug
hing and crying and whooping.
“My baby! I never thought I would see you again!” She kept laughing, and Lena joined in. “I’m going to kill Silas when I see him. He told me to build another hut. He didn’t tell me it was for you!”
The three cried and laughed and talked into the night, never tiring enough to sleep.
CHAPTER 48
“What is he doing here?” Tovi asked, eyeing Eryx.
Silas took a long time, apparently trying to decide how much Tovi should know. Then he said, “Eryx followed us from the palace to the edge of the city. He saw everything. He saw the swords go through me, he saw the barrier go up, and he saw you collapse on the other side. He ran at the barrier at full speed, scooped you up, and brought you all the way here. The guards were irate. Knowing that Eryx was a Master, they didn’t try to stop him. They probably thought that he was trying to stop you and that he would be caught by the barrier.”
“Wait, Eryx brought me here? I thought you did.”
“I would have,” Silas said. “He just beat me to it. And Hesper helped.” Tovi looked out the window again. She didn’t know what to make of that man.
Tovi sat back against her pillows. Changing the subject, she asked, “Why does Ismene see you as an old man?”
“How old am I to you?”
“My age. You grew up with me.”
“And, how old is Ismene?”
“Ancient. Do we each see you as our own age?”
“Yes, but it’s more accurate to say that the only way you are able to understand me is through your own experiences. When you are a child, with simple wants and simple needs, you see me as a child. A friend and playmate. As you grow up, you get more complicated. Because you get more complicated, your understanding of me gets more complicated, too. But, there’s more to my appearance than that. Do you remember how Xanthe saw me in the mural?”
“Yes. Brown eyes, brown hair.”
“Here’s a hint: When Xanthe was born, her eyes and hair were brown. And someday, when she is loyal to me, they will return to that color.”
Tovi thought long and hard about this.
“Okay, let me give you some more clues. To Tali, whose deep-down allegiance has always been to me, even when he didn’t fully understand, I have blue hair and a purple star in my brown eyes.”
“Seriously? But how does it work? Does everyone see you differently?”
“Yes. When you were born, you were completely unique. You might have the same color eyes as someone, or a similar look to your hair. But, no one out there is exactly like you. I know that you and Xanthe theorized about how your colors work, and you were mostly right. When your deepest loyalties shift to someone other than me, you take on their colors. Jairus is still loyal to his sister, so he looks like her. In turn, Xanthe’s allegiance is to Jairus, and she looks like him. That’s how it works most of the time. But with me, it’s different. You see, when I sit in my studio and paint people into existence, I give them a piece of me. I know this will be hard to understand, but when you are in your true, intended colors, you reflect that part of me that I gave only to you. This shows up in your strengths, your passions, and even in how you look. It’s when you give your heart away to someone else that you lose that resemblance.”
“And I was always most loyal to my brother.”
“Yes.”
“And, that means Eryx was loyal to me?”
“For the past few months, yes.”
“But I want my allegiance to be to you. It took me a long time, but I’m sure of it now. When will my colors change to show that?”
“Take a look,” he said, handing her a small hand mirror from the top of her night stand.
She was astonished by what she saw. The thick make-up had been washed away, and astonishingly blue eyes blinked back at her. “When did it happen?” she asked in awe, combing her fingers through her light brown hair with thick golden streaks.
“When you were in the throne room with Damien.”
“Does Eryx have his true colors now, or does he have my new ones?”
Silas looked at Eryx as he spoke. “He still has yours. Be kind to him, Tovi. He doesn’t understand his own feelings or how to handle them. I hope he chooses to stay in Adia, and if he does, he will need some space. His pride is very wounded by his changing colors, which he sees as a sign of weakness. Be his friend if he allows you close enough. Otherwise, give him room to heal.”
Now that Silas was explaining everything to her, Tovi was hungry for every last bit of knowledge. “What about all the pale-skinned black-haired people on the mountain? Is it because they love Damien the most?”
“Sometimes. But those aren’t his real colors. Damien loves himself more than anything or anyone. He has lost his coloring because he has no one to reflect, not me or anyone else. So, when you see someone with those murky black eyes and matching hair with sickly white skin, they either love themselves most of all, or they are loyal to someone else who feels that way.”
“Okay, I have another question,” she said. “Why did you let Damien break my hand and cut into it? Couldn’t you have stopped him?”
“There was a lot going on right at that moment, things that I’m not going to share with you right now.”
“You were too busy with something else? You just decided not to help me?” she spat, getting back some of her old surliness.
“Tovi, I am not a one-thing-at-a-time type of guy. I’m always with you, whether you see me or not. What I meant was there were many dynamics right there on that patio. I always do what is best for you, even when that means I have to allow you to experience something painful.”
“You were trying to teach me some sort of lesson?”
Appalled, he shook his head. “No, that’s not how it works. I don’t sacrifice you to wicked lessons. I know countless creative ways to teach you, ways that don’t bring you harm. Like I said, there is a lot I’m choosing not to tell you, and I want you to trust me that keeping those things from you is truly best. But hear me say this: I knew that if I intervened in that room, it would have sent Damien into a frenzy. It would have set certain things in motion, and it just wasn’t time yet. It would have been much harder to get you to safety. And, it would have closed the opportunity to cast that barrier exactly where I did, which is exactly where it needs to be.”
They sat silent for a while as Tovi tried to decide which question to ask next. Finally, she went for the one that had been on her mind all morning, but she had been too scared to ask. “Silas,” she said tentatively. “The ugly marks on my back . . . how do I get rid of them?”
“They are already gone.”
She shook her head. “No, I can feel them. They still burn a little.”
Silas reached for her hand and held it between both of his. “Tovi, listen to me. They are gone. Remember how I told you Damien uses tricks to keep you from me? This is one of them. Your marks are not there anymore. They have not disappeared from the world, but they left you the same moment you decided to leave that prison with me. If we had a big enough mirror in here, I would show you. But for now, you’ll have to trust me until you’re a little stronger and can get a good look for yourself. Your back burns because Damien likes to remind you of your marks. He wants you to think that you carry them with you.”
“Where did they go?”
Silas released her hand and turned his back to her. He reached over his shoulder to grasp his tunic and tugged it up as far as it would go. Water welled in Tovi’s eyes as she looked at the circle of black designs imprinted deep in his skin. It didn’t look like hers or anyone’s that she had seen. Instead of the crisp, detailed pictures that had engraved so many backs, this looked like layers and layers of designs, all garbled together to make one big mess. If she didn’t know what she was looking at—this pattern of overlapping snakes, diamonds, crowns, and so on—she would have thought it was just a ring of jagged lines, like a wreath made of bramble or a crown made of thorns.
“Silas . . . ” she sa
id, bringing her hand to her mouth in horror. “I’m so sorry . . . Does it hurt?”
He let go of the tunic and turned back to her. “Yes, and you are worth it.”
CHAPTER 49
King Damien sat on his cold throne, fingers tapping together in front of him. He looked as calm and shrewd as always, but this was just a facade for the frantic thoughts racing through his mind. He could not let Adwin win.
He had gone out to examine the shimmering curtain of light that had sprung up when his guards so foolishly tried to kill Adwin. He knew very well that his old enemy wasn’t really gone. So what was this wall of magic? Returning scouts informed him that it encircled the entire mountain. They said it felt like glass when they pushed, but it would not break no matter what they tried. There was no getting out.
He hated feeling trapped. He looked up and down the translucent waves. Citizens of the mountain were gathering outside, whispering behind hands and eyeing their king. He didn’t dare touch the wall, lest they see his inability to break through the barrier. Not wanting witnesses to his helplessness, he strolled with calculated casualness up the streets toward home.
When he arrived back at the palace, internally fuming, he went straight to the throne room and burst through the red curtain. He looked at each of the four faces. His grandchildren. His heirs. His enemies.
Adwin had Tovi, and Damien guessed that Tali was with them as well. Was it possible that Lena survived just like the twins? Did Adwin have her in his clutches, too? Three of the conquerors gathered by Adwin was a dangerous thought. Three of his grandchildren. What a shocking turn of events.
That left only Jairus under Damien’s control. He weighed his options. If only he could trust the lad, this would be so much easier. With his careless disregard for power and control, Jairus was too likely to be won over by manipulative Adwin. It would be better to take all necessary precautions.