“How?” The question was a whisper from the girl’s great-grandmother. “How? That shouldn’t be possible!”
The Lord turned a serpentine grin toward the girl’s great-grandmother. “Shouldn’t it? Were we not meant for more than these forms?”
These forms?
Her mother hissed through the blood in her mouth, causing some to splatter out onto the floor.
“No.” The word was a sharp crack across the space. “No,” her great-grandmother repeated. “We were not meant for more. There needs to bebalance, Alois.”
Alois. The girl catalogued his name at the top of her list of those who would pay for the crimes against her people.
“This IS balance. Don’t you see that? That is where you’re wrong, Great Mother. I know we’ve always had our . . . differences. But it’s long overdue for us to set aside our petty arguments. We have a mutual respect, a mutualunderstanding.” Alois moved quickly to where he was towering over her great-grandmother.
Her great-grandmother scoffed. “No, Alois. We’ve gonefarbeyond understanding. Eradicating my people in some deranged effort for more power. You won’t win, Truthsayer. Even with the information in that book, you won’t win. Then what will all of this be for?” She gestured one of her shaking hands around the space.
Alois seemed to contemplate her words for a moment before jerking his head toward the second man. “General d’Alvey, if you please.”
The General stepped forward, procuring a gleaming dagger from his waist as he moved. He clutched it almost reverently in one hand as he gestured with the other for the soldier holding the girl’s mother to step aside. The soldier bowed his head and moved to the other side of the room, away from the inevitable carnage.
The General gripped her mother’s shoulders and gently, yet firmly, pushed her until she was standing over the stone circle in the middle of the room.
“Recite the words. Unlock the door, willingly, or I will spill every drop of her blood,” Alois said almost lackadaisically. Silent tears tracked down her mother’s face as the General lifted the blade to her neck.
The girl’s great-grandmother sighed and met Alois’ dark gaze with her own milky-white one. “I may not have the truths that you do, Alois, but every personal future I’ve seen ends here. You will kill us both; slowly or quickly it does not matter. Each vision showed the same outcome in a thousand different ways.” She walked away from Alois and toward the girl’s mother. Her gnarled hand reached out to stroke the tears away from her face. “I am sorry, my child.” She pressed a quick kiss to her forehead before stepping back.
“May I?” She gestured to the blade in the General’s hand. The girl’s breathing came in fast, shallow pants as she watched her great-grandmother grip the dagger as the General stepped back from her mother.
“I will see you soon, my dear,” her great-grandmother whispered as she plunged the dagger in between the girl’s mother’s ribs, angling it so it hit her heart. Her mother whimpered once before her body slumped to the ground, as lifeblood pooled around her body and over the runes. Her great-grandmother removed the dagger from her side with an accompanied gush of blood, before slicing open her own hand.
The Matriarch didn’t flinch, didn’t even watch to see the length and depth of the cut. There was little care in the way she opened her hand, blood dripping down her fingers and dribbling onto the floor.
“Here,” she said, voice hard and devoid of emotion as she shoved the dagger back at the General.
The General apprised the girl’s great-grandmother with a look that carried an immense weight of respect. He tilted his head slightly to the side and offered an almost indecipherable nod. Her great-grandmother gazed into his eyes, uncaring of the wound that was spilling blood onto the floor. The General didn’t break eye contact with the Matriarch, even as he cleaned the dagger on his pant leg before sheathing it.
Their locked gazes seemed to stretch for infinity, the other soldiers becoming restless with the way the girl’s great-grandmother was reading their General. Even Alois seemed slightly uncomfortable with the sudden turn of events, if his shuffling body and gentle throat clearing were any indication.
The Matriarch ignored them all, suddenly reaching her bloody hand out to grasp the General’s face as quick as a viper. The girl heard a few soldiers shout and begin to move toward the General, swords drawing from sheaths with a cacophony of rasps.
“Relax,” Alois drawled, “there is no magic she possesses that can hurt him.” He waved the soldiers off, and they slowly sheathed their swords, but most remained poised to strike, hands still on the pommels of their weapons.
The girl drifted closer to her great-grandmother and the General. Her great-grandmother had a faraway look about her, as if she were reaching through Solace. But that couldn’t be right. The girl was more connected to Solace than ever before and couldn’t feel the Matriarch.
Her great-grandmother hummed as she smeared her blood across the General’s face. The girl gave the General a begrudging form of credit—he stood stock-still, eyes locked with her great-grandmother’s, letting her probe him. The girl thought she was having a vision, or maybe multiple, as the time seemed to stretch for eternity.
After a few more tension-filled minutes, her great-grandmother startled and took a deep breath, her eyes refocusing before she moved her second hand to grasp the other side of the General’s face. He moved both of his hands to rest over the top of hers.
“How interesting that as I face my death, your future is what I see,” she mused aloud. “There is so much more to happen, the roads of Fate open and constantly branching. But one thing remains certain.” She paused to stroke her thumbs across his cheeks before pulling his ear to her mouth and whispering, her next words for her and the General only.
“You are not what you seem, and she is not what she seems. When she comes, welcome her. And when she leavesfindher. It is of paramount importance thatyouare the one to find her.”
She pulled back suddenly before gazing once more into his eyes. The General said nothing, simply dipped his head in acknowledgment.
Alois harrumphed. “What did she say to you, Rohak?”
Rohak. The Warlord finally provided the girl with a second name for her list.
Her great-grandmother held a small smile as she released the General’s face before turning to Alois. “You, of all people, know that what is said between the Keeper and their subject is for their ears only.” She raised an eyebrow in challenge. “He couldn’t speak of it even if he wanted to. He’s forgotten what I’ve said.”
