Her steely gaze sent a shiver down my spine, and I was suddenly aware of the quiet in the camp, of the questioning stares surrounding us.
Cora seemed to sense it too as she shifted anxiously from foot to foot. “Should we find Salinda?”
“Yes,” Ailan said. “There is much to discuss.”
* * *
Cora
It felt odd being inside the tent of the elders without them, without the ritual incense burning—like an act of sacrilege. It was rare enough for even one non-elder of the Forest People to enter the tent, much less outsiders like Mare and Liam. The one time I’d called a meeting of the elders had been a bold act—unconventional, to say the least, and firmly against the rules.
But rules no longer seemed to matter now that the woman who’d taught them was the one breaking them.
Ailan folded her long, graceful, brown legs beneath her as she sat in her usual seat of the Wise Woman and motioned for us to sit as well. As if in defiance, Salinda avoided her regular seat of honor and sat next to me instead. Mareleau sat on my other side.
“For two women who have been looking for me, you don’t seem happy to have found me,” Ailan said, chin held high as she observed me and Mareleau.
I searched for words. “We didn’t expect you to be…”
“She didn’t expect to discover her Wise Woman had been a fraud,” Salinda said.
Ailan said nothing in reply.
“Why did you hide your identity as Nalia, anyway?” I asked, my tone gentler than Salinda’s.
“I needed to protect myself and this land,” Ailan said. “If you have discovered who I am, then I assume you have also learned who I have been protecting this land from. You know how dangerous my brother is, correct?”
I nodded. “I know a little about him.”
“And you’ve already seen what his son—someone with a fraction of Darius’ power and ambition—can do here. The only reason Darius hasn’t wreaked havoc on Lela is because of the work I’ve done to keep it safe from his knowledge. Morkai nearly destroyed that. It would have served no one to know who I was until now. For all I knew, even the whisper of my name could have led Darius here to find me.”
“But why stay here?” Salinda asked. “Why pretend you are Faeran?”
“I never claimed to be Faeran, and I don’t see that it matters.” Ailan’s voice held a fierce edge. “Your ancestors included me as one of their own. They invited me to take my place amongst them. Am I not one of the Ancient Ones? Who knows the truth of the Ancient ways better than I?”
“Then why is so much of what we are taught inaccurate or incomplete?” I asked. “Much of what I know about the Ancient Ones, I learned in—” I stopped short, not sure I was ready to reveal my visit to El’Ara. “—I learned on my own. And much of it conflicts with what I’d learned as a child.”
Ailan let out a light laugh. “It is not my job to be record keeper or scribe for my people. As Wise Woman, I was simply to allow the Ancient ways to stay alive, to flourish with the Forest People. Tales will be distorted with time; it is the natural way. I made no move to thwart the progression of storytelling, only to steer our people back to the heart of our ways when they veered too far.”
The wisdom in her words reminded me of the Nalia I’d known.
“Why did you let us believe you were dying?” Salinda said in a rush. The hurt in her voice was palpable, revealing the true source of her anger. I could feel her feelings as if they were my own. The woman she had loved and looked up to her whole life had been on the brink of death. I could feel how broken and hopeless she had felt about that. Now, a new pain had replaced it—the pain of betrayal.
“You let me—all of us—think you were dying.” Salinda’s voice broke on the word. “You should have told us the truth. You should have protected us from that pain.”
Ailan nodded as if she too understood the source of Salinda’s fury. “I’m so sorry, my child. I didn’t know what else to do. I saw my body growing younger, felt a power I hadn’t felt in hundreds of years returning to me. I didn’t know what it meant, but I had my suspicions. It is rare for me to hear the whispers of my weaving these days, but suddenly I heard a demand telling me to wait. Wait. Wait. All I could do was trust it, to hide and suppress my power while I waited.
“This morning I heard another voice in my mind, a voice uttering my secret name. The source felt so close. Someone was looking for me.” She eyed me, then looked at Mareleau. “I sensed my kin. Then I sensed Ferrah. I knew it was time for me to act and face whatever consequences awaited.”
My mind reeled, her explanation providing me with more questions than answers.
“I never meant to hurt anyone.” Ailan’s gaze fell on Salinda. “Least of all, you.”
Salinda stared at the ground between them and gave no reply.
“Now I have a question for you, dear Cora,” Ailan said. “How is it you came to know so much about El’Ara?”
I hesitated, still uncertain I was ready to reveal such truths. “We came to ask you questions, not the other way around.”
“I think you will be disappointed with what I know, if I speak first,” Ailan said. “Our stories are clearly entwined with the threads of my weaving, but there are pieces in your story that I must have in place before I will know the significance of my own.”
Her words made little sense, but I didn’t argue. I let out a heavy sigh. “Fine. I’ll tell you what I know.”
Ailan bowed her head with a nod. “Start with what happened after I last saw you. What followed the Battle at Centerpointe Rock?”
15
WHISPERS
Cora
I told her everything.
Ailan listened with rapt attention as I spoke, asking only a few questions here and there. I resisted the urge to pace while I talked, feeling uncomfortable beneath her unwavering stare. Yet I continued, sharing every event that seemed important, hesitating only when I came to details personal to Mareleau. That’s when I would meet Mareleau’s gaze, waiting for her nod of approval before proceeding.
I told Ailan about Liam’s birth and my realization about the truth of the prophecy. I told her about discovering the dragons, our search for the book about Le’Lana, and ended with us Traveling to the Forest People.
Ailan nodded as I finished, then tilted her head to the side, eyes narrowed to slits. When her eyes returned to mine, amusement flickered in them. “In all these years, I never sensed you were a worldwalker. I suppose that wouldn’t be something I could sense, anyway.”
My mouth went dry. “Excuse me?”
“Your ability to Travel, as you called it. That’s the power of a worldwalker, a rare human gift. My brother had it, as well as his human father.”
I shuddered at the comparison to her brother. “I’m an empath, not a—”
“It’s not something to be ashamed of,” Ailan said gently. “You can have multiple talents.”
“But I’m…” I couldn’t find the words. There was no way I could share the same power as the man who’d sought to conquer El’Ara. The man who’d fathered…Morkai.
“The whispers of my weaving never told me you were involved, but clearly you are and always have been.” Even though Ailan’s words were directed at me, she seemed to be speaking more to herself. “Perhaps you were included to protect the blood of my blood.”
Fire raged within me at her words. A shout built up in my throat, begging to be freed. I was included to protect her? Mareleau? My body was damaged to spare hers? So she could give birth to the Child of Prophecy?
My chest heaved as the anger coursed through my veins, beating at my temples, clawing at my lips. I closed my eyes and breathed it away, cooling the flames in my blood, forcing the words to quiet. That isn’t me. I would never think that, I reminded myself.
Ailan didn’t seem to have noticed my moment of distress as she stared at the space between me and Mareleau. “No, there’s more,” she said. Her eyes returned to mine. “What haven’t you t
old me?”
I shrugged. “I told you everything—”
“No, there’s something else. You are linked to my heir. What connection do you have to Mareleau or Liam?”
My brow furrowed as I glanced at Mareleau. “She’s the wife of my husband’s brother. I told you that.” My eyes slid down to Liam, and I realized there was one detail I hadn’t shared. “Also, my husband and I have made Liam our heir. Which makes Liam—”
“The heir to all Lela,” Ailan finished for me, closing her eyes with a sigh.
“What is the significance of that?” Mareleau asked. “Why does the prophecy require that the Child of Prophecy unite the land through royal blood and magic right?”
Ailan opened her eyes and gave a quiet laugh. “This prophecy you speak of is merely the whispers of my weaving. Morkai would have done well not to seek these answers, as they have done nothing more than bring my weaving to fruition.”
“But what does it mean?” I asked. “And what do you mean by your weaving? Wasn’t it your mother who wove the veil?”
“It is time for me to tell my story now, isn’t it?”
“Please,” I said, trying to keep the impatience out of my voice.
“Very well,” Ailan said. “It seems you know some of my history, the story of my mother, her affair with the human, and the birth of my brother, correct?”
The three of us nodded.
“I had to learn it from Cora, of course,” Salinda said, her voice still rich with bitterness.
Ailan gave her a sad smile but didn’t reply. She took a deep breath. “I’ll start with where it all ended, and where it all began. As you know, Darius invaded El’Ara with a human army, using his abilities as a worldwalker to bring his forces from the human world into ours, pulling them into every kingdom as if out of nowhere. We fought them, but Darius was relentless, always worldwalking away before anyone could get too close to him, using our differences in the passage of time to his advantage. He’d spend weeks gathering more troops in the human world and bringing them to El’Ara, when to us it was only days. We hardly had time to recover between battles. Mother realized there was only one thing to do—weave protection around our entire world to keep it separate and impenetrable from then on.
“To do this, we needed the veil to be completed while Darius was on the other side in the human world. Many failed at keeping him away, but I knew I was strong enough. I took it upon myself to fight him, to keep him distracted while my mother wove. I was willing to sacrifice myself, knowing I could get stuck on the other side with him, if it meant my mother and my people would carry on.
“Darius and I battled for what felt like ages. Every time he would attempt to worldwalk, I would grab hold of him, forcing him to take me everywhere he went. I wouldn’t let him out of my reach.
“The veil was working. Mother was weaving it little by little from the opposite end of El’Ara toward the capital kingdom of Le’Lana. She was so close. All that remained was the very center of Le’Lana, the land that surrounded the palace where my mother did her weaving. At this point, however, Darius realized something was wrong. As we were locked into battle in the human world, Darius attempted to pull away and worldwalk into El’Ara. But he was blocked by the veil. He ran, as if to outrun the weaving, and I followed, allowing him to pull me along, worldwalking from one place in the human world to the next, cities flashing by in glimpses of color as I held tight to his arm, refusing to be shaken off. He barely put up a fight, as he was now more interested in finding a place where he could reenter El’Ara than he was in fighting me.
“Finally, he worldwalked us to one of the remaining places between our two worlds where the veil had yet to be woven. He pulled us into El’Ara, and I could see the palace just ahead. I tried to stop him from entering the palace but lost my hold on him. My mother’s dragon tried to burn him, but he worldwalked into the palace as soon as he was out of my grip. That is when he found Mother and killed her. That is when she sealed the veil where it stood.
“I found Mother dead in his arms, while he wailed that he could no longer feel El’Ara. I told him it was because El’Ara was gone and we were both locked outside it forever. He didn’t believe me and worldwalked away. When he finally realized the truth of what had been done, he returned to fight me. Again, we battled for what felt like an eternity, with him always managing to escape my fatal blow. But I wasn’t as concerned with killing him as I was with forcing him off the land you now know as Lela. Once I got him to fight me beyond the border of this land, I was able to wound him. The wound was deep, and while it wasn’t a killing blow, for some reason it stopped him from worldwalking.
“While he was distracted with his sudden loss of power, I was able to grab him and quickly weave confusion over him. He stumbled back, clutching his head. It was only once he pulled the blade free that he was able to worldwalk away. That is when I got the idea for my weaving. If I acted fast, I knew I could weave something to keep him away. I quickly returned to where I felt my mother’s veil, seeking the edges of her weaving. I could neither break nor finish her pattern, but I could add my own.
“I wove protection into the heart of El’Ara that was now part of the human world. My tapestry couldn’t banish Darius like my mother’s weaving could, but it could confuse him and keep him from finding Lela or remembering where it was. I sought weaknesses in my mother’s weaving and strengthened them with conditions of my own. Her veil could be torn, but my weaving added the condition that it could only be torn when Darius could be stopped.”
“So, your weaving created the prophecy?” Mareleau asked.
“Like I said, the prophecy you speak of simply comes from the whispers of my weaving. I created a tapestry, or—more accurately—a pattern of one to be completed. I created a vision I would have fulfilled by my weaving, a vision of peace, protection, and safety. A vision where El’Ara could be whole again. However, I did not create how or when it would come to pass, or even what that tapestry would look like in the end.”
“When you speak of a tapestry and weaving,” Salinda said, “you aren’t speaking of a physical creation, are you?”
Ailan shook her head. “It is simply the closest word in your language that I can find to describe it.”
“The Elvan I met in El’Ara described it the same way,” I said. “Except I had to interpret their words through sensing their meaning, rather than actually hearing them.”
“I wondered how you’d been able to speak with them,” Ailan said. “That explains things.”
I blushed, realizing I’d left out yet another detail.
“If you didn’t intentionally create the prophecy,” Mareleau said, “how did you know about me and Liam? You knew we were of your blood when you met us.”
“The Elvan and Faeran can sense their kin through close proximity. I knew you immediately.”
“How did you come to produce kin of royal lineage to begin with?” Salinda asked. “Not to mention, become the Forest People Wise Woman?”
“After I finished my weaving,” Ailan explained, “I joined some of my fellow El’Arrans who were trapped in the human world with me. Most of the Elvan were killed fighting my brother, and the few who remained chose to take Last Breath before too long. Even many of the Faeran made this same choice. But those who survived learned to live a new way, creating tribes such as the Forest People. I lived amongst these groups for many years, until Lela was discovered by outsiders, and we began to see the first cities emerge.
“Following the whispers of my weaving, I entered these new societies, married into noble houses, and bore children. I took on many identities throughout the generations, always departing beneath the guise of untimely death before my agelessness could attract suspicion. I wrote the book you found, sharing only what the whispers urged me to. Then the whispers ceased, and I knew my work was done. I returned to settle with the only remaining sect of Forest People and eventually felt my youth slipping away. This is when I took on the guise of Nalia. By then, n
one remained from El’Ara, and my knowledge of the Ancient ways earned me the respect and position as Wise Woman.”
“You still haven’t explained why Liam is significant,” Mareleau said. “Why did the whispers of your weaving prompt you to have an heir? How is Liam—a baby—supposed to stop an immortal madman?”
“I didn’t know why the whispers wanted me to have children,” Ailan said. “I just did what I felt I was guided to do. Yet, even as I did, I could feel it would someday become significant. Over the years, I’d catch echoes of the whispers here and there, similar to the words Morkai had channeled through his lover. Right by magic and blood. Unite the land. Return the heart of El’Ara. I knew the whispers were now working through the lives of others, bringing my tapestry closer and closer to completion. Now it is done. With Liam being heir to all Lela, the magic recognizes him. And if I name him my heir, he will irrefutably be the next Morkara of El’Ara.”
My mind was spinning to make sense of everything she was telling us, but still more questions came to mind. “There’s something I don’t understand. Why didn’t you ever try to harness the magic and return it to El’Ara? El’Ara began dying because of the veil, because the magic was flowing out into Lela but not returning. You were your mother’s heir, which means you became Morkara when she died. You could have done something about it back then.”
Ailan’s eyes clouded over, showing a hint of regret. “I didn’t know what the consequences of my mother’s veil had been until you told me. If I’d known that El’Ara was dying because of it, I may have done something reckless. I may have even tried to revoke my own weaving. But because my weaving was in place, I was only guided to take actions that supported the conditions my weaving created. Never did a whisper guide me to claim rule over Lela or harness the magic. Perhaps if I had, I would have died because of it, making it that much easier for Darius to inherit my right.”
“So, the Morkara inherits rule through bloodline the same as human royals do?” I asked.
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