Prophecy's Promise (Prophecy of the Edges Book 1) (22 page)

We turned down an alley, passing children playing. One boy levitated a doll above a younger girl’s hands as she cried and jumped for it. At Kirta’s look, the boy dropped the Mist that bound the toy. “I’m sorry, Grandmother,” he muttered.

“Do you know them?” I asked.

“In a way,” she smiled.

Suddenly I realized that all the people that I had assumed were staring at Bahlym, Adara, and me during our tour were also staring at Kirta.

Grandmother? Probably.

Simple? Definitely not.

Kirta opened a neon blue door accented with deep purple dots arranged in a spiral and shepherded us through. Desha was inside speaking in hushed tones with a man who was about her age– early-to-mid thirties, but stopped and stood when we entered. “You two have your own houses,” Kirta said. “Why are you in mine?”

“Because we know you, Grandmother.” The man kissed her cheek. “You’ve brought the travelers home for some lunch. Although it did take you significantly longer than I’d have thought.”

“Would you two like some lunch, as well?” Kirta asked as she scurried off. Soon banging and rustling sounds punctuated the silence. I knew that I should try to talk with Desha and the man or at least introduce myself to him, but I was too exhausted. I plopped down on a bright pink sofa under the window. Bahlym and Adara meekly sat next to me, one on either side.

“Rcanian thinks that I am too trusting, allowing these Outsiders to roam our streets,” Desha said, raising her voice so that Kirta could hear.

“I do not doubt the Promise, only the Empire,” the other man, Rcanian, retorted. “I would say that I simply wanted to make sure you were safe, but I think only the Promise has enough power to be capable of even messing up your bun. The other two are weak. They’ve been pacified by turning on stale Mist their whole lives.”

Beside me, Bahlym tensed, insulted. I put my hand on his shoulder.

Rcanian disappeared down the same hallway Kirta had taken. After a few moments, Kirta and Rcanian reemerged and presented us with a pitcher of red wine, some bread, orange jam, and dried beetles. They arranged the food on the low table in front of the sofa as Desha located glasses for us inside a cupboard.

“Our young politician has wisely pointed out that he is no longer from the Empire. They would kill these two as swiftly as they did Krineem.” Kirta ripped off a piece of bread and sat on the ground next to the table. “These two Empirites are no threat.”

“Not a threat on purpose,” Rcanian said. “Outsiders bring chaos. And chaos brings change.”

“Outsiders will not cause the Mitanni to change,” Desha said.

“They already have,” Rcanian told her. “Didn’t you hear the hushed whispers? Maybe they speak more easily around me. I don’t claim the burden of rule.” He swirled his wine in its glass, observing the patterns left by the liquid as it tricked down. “Outsiders, Promise, and People alike, we all need to tread carefully. I sense tribulation. We will not be isolated for much longer.”

“Is that Foretold?” Desha asked, grabbing his arm.

“Only partially. That’s what I wanted to discuss with you.” He set down his glass. “This morning, I Foretold myself taking upon the Burden of Rule and I Foretold your attempt to keep it. And now they are here. I do not want to rule, but something has started.”

“I would never do that. As the Chief Priest, I am your steward,” Desha protested, her tone sounded offended. “The priests will always be loyal.”

Rcanian shrugged unapologetically. “I know what I Foretold.”

“Like dreams, what is Foretold is symbolic,” Kirta cautioned. “Desha would never deny either of us our birthright.”

“You are able to sense the future?” I asked.

“My grandson and I both,” Kirta told me. “While many call me Grandmother, Rcanian is my only actual grandchild.”

“They can either Rule or Foretell,” Desha explained. “But, if either Kirta or Rcanian chose the Burden of Rule over Foretelling, I’d step aside in a second. In a second,” she repeated, forcefully.

“It’s not much of a choice. Who would give up the gift of true foresight?” Rcanian smiled.

“So you turned over your rightful rule?” Bahlym asked Rcanian.

Rcanian shrugged. “There is so much more we can do to help our people through the sight.”

“I think that’s so selfless,” Adara gushed. “And you follow a woman? That would never happen in the Empire. It’s quite remarkable.” Adara looked up at Rcanian demurely through her thick eyelashes, and Rcanian’s cheeks went momentarily red.

I willed myself not to kick Adara. We definitely did not need any complications. My mind flitted to Altis and my own complications. He was probably snuggled with his princess right now. I pushed the thought of him aside. “Has either of you Foretold how to unbind the book?” I asked.

Kirta shook her head sadly. “The Promise’s Counter prevents much of the Foretelling. The outcome is too uncertain.”

“But I feel the power each of you has over the Mist. Can you break the Binding on the book?” Bahlym asked.

“No. The Binding is too interwoven into the book. Any lifting could cause irreversible damage,” Desha said.

“Perhaps we are approaching the problem from the wrong direction,” I proposed. “Whoever bound the book did so to keep anyone from reading it. Why didn’t they destroy it?” I waited for a moment to see if the others were catching on. But of course, I’d been thinking about this whole puzzle since the moment Shezdon first gave me the book. “Because the Mist of the Prophecy’s Promise was too strong.”

Understanding dawned on Adara’s face. “They couldn’t destroy the book, but they could counter. They did the next best thing,”

“Not bad for a prissy Empirite,” Rcanian said.

“Yes!” I responded excitedly, Adara and I both ignoring Rcanian’s comment. “It’s starting to make sense. I have to be able to read it, but if I cannot decipher the text, then the words might as well not be there. So they destroyed the language. But, I’m a Scholar. I could learn.”

“Who is ‘they’?” Bahlym asked.

“That’s what I’ve been wondering. Obviously a power on my Slice. A secret conspiracy that has duped even governments. I can tell you one thing. Whoever they are, we will have questions for them. My aunt is an important person on my Slice. She’ll see to it.”

Kirta’s hand fluttered to her mouth. “Aunt you say? A powerful aunt?”

“Yes…” I answered, unsure of what she was getting at.

Kirta’s eyes opened wide. She gasped in and stared, unblinking, at the ceiling.

“A Foretelling!” Adara whispered in awe.

After a few moments, Kirta collapsed to the ground. Rcanian scooped her up into his arms.

“Your aunt,” Kirta said after several moments. “She was sent with one mission. To kill Sara. To kill your sister. Her reward was a heightened title.”

“No, that can’t be true. I don’t have a sister, and Nazarie would never kill anyone.” But as I said it, I knew my words to be false. The nightmares the night after Merehan had tried to lift my memory block had a girl named Sara. She was the blonde girl that I’d seen in my dreams since I had left Gryshelm City. Her laugh haunted me.

“She was told to kill the whole family, but she could not bring herself to kill her own brother, your father; nor could she bring herself to kill you. She changed the memories of everyone in your town, but now… now they all remember. I cannot see what caused them to remember and for you to not.”

Bahlym nodded. “Adara’s fiancé tried to lift Hailey’s memories. He said that she was holding onto the block. Perhaps he managed to lift the memories of the people from Hailey’s town?”

“Do you want to remember, child?” Kirta asked me.

“If you do want to remember, push past the block,” Rcanian said.

“Look at the Mist! It’s parting. Can’t you feel it stretching across this Edge? It’s beautiful,” Adara whispered in awe.

Everything became fuzzy and seemed to slow down, and then a dozen years’ worth of memories flashed before my eyes faster than I could file them away. Most of the memories were inconsequential, but they were mine. They were who I was. I felt them as if I was reliving them, but through my own adult consciousness.

I remembered my mother. She looked so much like me. She had my blue eyes. I remember her singing me lullabies. Bandaging up a scraped knee. Drying a tear. Teaching me to shoot a bow.

I remembered my little sister, Sara. Sara. Three years younger than me. We were giggling, running around a tree. Dressing up in our mother’s clothes. Stomping around in her too-big shoes. Playing with our daggers. No wonder fighting had come so naturally to me and I had always preferred daggers over a sword. I’d been training with them since I was old enough to walk.

I remembered Euan. Chasing each other through the muddy streets of River’s End. A stolen pre-pubescent kiss. Under the tree. As the memories shifted my understanding into a new perspective, I understood why he’d been so excited to see me and the sacrifice it had been to let me go. I understood that my own depth of feeling, my own love for him is what had preserved pieces of him in my memory, pieces too strong for the Mist Block to fully snuff out. I understood why he’d always expected me to come back for him. And I fully understood his pain when I did come back, but not for him. The loss hit me like the tearing open of an old wound.

But then more memories flooded me, these clearer. Sara and I were cuddled back to back in our bed with Bandit, our dog, curled at our feet. From time to time, my parents would wake us for a midnight surprise, either a Mist lesson or a quick outing, some fun experience, so I wasn’t immediately worried when they roused me from my slumber. But then I saw the worry etched on my mother’s face and the fear on my father’s. I’d never seen them look frightened before. My father whispered that his sister was at the door and that Weavers were with her. Panic rose in his voice, but he fought to keep it level. My mother was going to hide us somewhere safe.

Both Sara and I could use Mist, and these people were going to take us to Gryshelm City—to the Mist Weavers—just like they had stolen Aunt Nazarie thirty years ago. Sara began to cry, so I hugged her close and told her that I was her big sister and I would protect her.

My father grabbed his sword and stood in front of the door. He drew the Mist to himself as my mother ushered us to the window in the back. Sara was scared, so my mother had me go through first. She lifted me up, and I slid my feet out the window. I smiled at Sara, and then dropped to the ground. Then the window slammed, shutting me away from my family. I turned around and was face-to-face with a man I had never met before, but I now recognized him as Kael. I drew the Mist to myself and threw a Lightning Ball crackling toward his head.

He wasn’t expecting it and was thrown to the ground. I heard shouting. I heard my mother. I heard Sara. I had two options. I could run into the forest and hide like my father had wanted, or I could go back into the house for my family.

I ran around the house to our front door. “Leave them alone!” I bellowed.

“Hailey! Run!” My mother demanded.

But I could not. I was a statue, paralyzed from the neck down, but able to stand. I struggled against the Mist that bound me.

“Your Mist is very strong, especially for someone your age, but I’ve been charging this a very, very long time. And so have others for centuries. It’s meant to counter the Prophecy, and that’s why I’ve come. Not to take you away, but to protect The Edges.” As a child, I had not understood why she said Edges plural, but as an adult, I did. She knew about the other Slices. She knew that the world was round and that there was more than one Edge. And I was certain that all the Knights knew.

She held up the large dagger that I had seen in her cabinet the day that Meena and I had rifled through her things. I
had
seen it before. But now—or then at this moment that I was reliving—it was at the height of its Fortifications. Mist swarmed around it like a million hornets. I’d never even heard about something being that Fortified; not as a child and not in my studies at the Keep.

“We’ve been waiting a very long time to find the Promise and the Counter.  You’ve all heard the story that a child would be born to end The Edges, the so called Prophecy’s Promise that the Guardian’s burned into our bloodline. But did you know that the gods made a Counter? The promise would have an older sibling.  The Counter would be the hope of The Edges.  The hope of the universe.”

My father seemed surprised to hear that and looked at me with fear. But this time it was not fear
for
me, but fear
of
me.

And I, as the adult re-watching the events, understood why.

At that moment, I was not the Promise.  Sara was. Sara was the Promise and I was the Counter. But how was that even possible? In my time, my present, I was the Promise.

Nazarie shot a Lightning Ball at Sara. My mother ran to protect her, but Nazarie struck down both of them. I gaged against the smell of sweet sulfur and barbeque beef.

“That was a bit anti-climactic.”  One of the Weavers remarked as he looked at the charred remains of my mother and sister.  My father shouted and struggled against the Mist that bound him. I was too stunned to move or even cry.  I just stared at Nazarie. She had murdered my mother.  She had murdered my sister.

“You must kill them all. Every last one. There is too much risk,” Kael demanded as he entered the house; clothes disheveled from being knocked on the ground. Nazarie hesitated, but Kael stepped closer to her. “You must or the Knights will not petition you to be the Lead Initiate.”

“I don’t need to kill them. I have the dagger,” said Nazarie as she flipped the point of the Fortified dagger towards me.  I saw a flash of golden Mist and everything went blank.

That had been my last memory.