“He came here to kill King Kistsam, murder his new bride maybe. Would have left all of us alone had it not been for you, though.” The bitter bark of her laugh rattled through the small clearing. “Well, he wouldn’t have stripped the land as he did, at any rate. Maybe would have left more than a handful of souls alive.”
“I’m sorry,” Aida whispered to her feet. Guilt lay thick and acrid on her tongue, choking her.
“As well you should be.” Marilsa grunted and flung the bag back to Aida’s feet. “Eat. Drink. It will be a long night.”
“What?”
“I spent enough time stalling Rhyn Lirkinson and his pet mage. More with that spectacle you made of things. We haven’t much time. Now sit down, shut your mouth, and listen, girl.”
Legs folding, the thick grass was little cushion as Aida fell hard on her backside. With narrowed eyes peering sidelong at Marilsa for what Aida suspected she’d done, Aida snatched up the sack and wrenched it open. Eyes rounding as she viewed its contents, she pulled out the bright green pear, her hesitation lasting only a moment before hunger won and she crunched into the juicy fruit.
“Now, then. Omegas. They say the first to be sacrificed put the mages into an uproar. They hunted down the one who did it, killed him for the atrocity. Many years passed, and there was a great war. Another offered himself up. They weren’t so angry that time, for it won them a war and drove the tribes back into the plains.”
“Himself? You mean there are men like me?”
“I said quiet!” Marilsa huffed, turning her glittering gaze to the fire to stare deep into the flames. “After that, they say it was not so uncommon. The mages were fractured then, unwilling to come together as one. Difficult to beat one who took an Omega’s power to begin with, but as a splintered faction? Pah! They were hunted down then. The younger the better, until babes were snatched from their mother’s arms. More than one taken from her belly.
“You see, they were too strong as adults. The young were easy to shape, though more chaotic. Some power lost but easier to steal. Then Omegas started disappearing. Less and less of them born every season until a mage had to use more power than he gained to find one. Traveling all over the continent and the islands beyond for a single child that often turned out to be sickly and weak. No good, then.”
“But Otaso found me…”
“Chance was all. No one knew it, other than your parents and the nursemaid who was there when your mother pushed you out. He’d been set to sacrifice you then and there, make your father watch. One look and he knew. Those eyes are what gave you away.”
“Why would he want to murder my parents?” Aida tossed the core away, wiping the back of her hand across her lips. “Were they servants of that King you spoke of? Ketsam?”
“Did I not tell you to listen, girl?” Marilsa shook her head, tossing another small branch into the flames to build them higher. “KingKistsam, your father. You have his looks, you know. Your mother was all milk and honey, though not half as sweet. Never liked her much.”
“M-My father was a king?”
“Yes, girl, and they named you Strissina after the goddess of spring and sunshine.”
“If no one knew all of this, how do you know it?”
“Ah, but it was my sister who was your nurse. Never could keep her mouth shut, much like you.” Marilsa grunted, twining the long grass between her knotted fingers. “She spilled her courtly stories to her poor wretch of a sister, never questioning what I might do with that knowledge.”
“What did you do with it?” Aida turned her attention to the bag, her hand delving deep inside to fish out a piece of dried meat. It smelled of smoke and spices, none of the sour rot Rhyn’s had.
“I told the fortune of a boy with a twisted foot that should he be offered riches beyond his imagining, he should accept.” Marilsa’s clawed fingers played a jerky trill through the air, her smile made gruesome by the firelight. “It was his death. My sister’s, too.”
“I don’t understand. You had them killed?” Brow furrowing, Aida stuffed a large bite of meat into her mouth, chewing with a satisfied groan that she stopped at Marilsa’s snort.
“Otaso killed them.” Waving a bony hand at Aida, she returned her gaze to the fire. “This is not about me. It is about you.”
“Why?” Aida plucked at the worn edge of the tunic she wore, stealing furtive glances at Marilsa. “Why are you telling me all of this? You do not care about me, what happens to me. You said yourself you would have killed me.”
“Look around you.” Jerking a narrow shoulder, Marilsa held a crooked twig to the fire until the end took, holding it up as a candle. Her lips twisted to the side, pursed tight as she considered the warm glow seeming to float in midair. As Aida’s cautious gaze slipped around the now lush forest floor, Marilsa murmured, “It used to all be like this. Alive, well. Thriving with the endless cycle of life. When Otaso came, he fouled it all. Stripped what he could, leaving behind something dark and vile. Evil things happen when a people are cut off from the land. You’ve seen the unlucky ones, those who show their scars plain as your pretty eyes. Mages all, their power stripped from their very souls. Unable to even dream of power anymore.”
“What does that have to do with me?” Aida asked, curling her knees tight to her chest, food forgotten as cold dread inched its way up her back with icy fingers.
“You could make it all like this again. Go to Oscara, return it to its former glory. Become a queen if you’ve a mind. Beautiful and terrible if you’d like.” Marilsa shrugged again, thinned lips twitching in a smile that held little humor. “Destroy it and everyone who ever laid foot on this bit of ground if that is your preference.”
“I couldn’t do that,” Aida breathed in horror. Cold and suffocating, fear settled over her. She couldn’t understand, refused to believe that such power could be hers. Terrified of the very idea that she might be capable of anything nearing that magnitude, she could not deny the events that had led her to this very moment. Otaso, Er’it, the guards, even this piece of the woods, all of them affected by her presence alone, and not often for the better. “I don’t want it.”
“It isn’t up to you. This is your lot in life, whether you like it or not, girl. The only thing you control now is how it is used.”
“I’ll do it. I’ll kill myself, then.”
Marilsa snorted, the chilling green of her eyes rolling toward the sky.
