Seventh Born

by Rachel Rossano

  “With time and patience, we might be able to touch those parts of him that the Elitists didn’t strip, but I cannot promise even that. I can promise that we will do all we can.”

  Donata rose and then knelt before her husband. Placing a small hand on each side of his face, she directed his gaze to her. Blan lifted his own hand and touched her hair, burying the fingers between the strands of golden brown. “You need to go with these men now,” she said.

  I rose and opened the door to tell the healers that we were ready for them. As the dark red robed healers passed me into the room, I cornered the leader of the defenders that still stood in the corridor.

  “The man is a friend. The healers will take care of him, but I need you to take care of his wife. Her name is Donata and she has been through a very traumatic experience. Find her clothes and food and then bring her back to the healers’ for examination.”

  “Are you sure they are safe?” he asked.

  “As sure as I can be under the circumstances.”

  He wasn’t happy with the answer, but he obediently turned and began giving orders.

  “Hadrian.” Renato appeared at my side. “I want to stay with her. She is fragile and needs someone to help her and answer her questions.” Renato’s golden eyes were a troubled brown, but there were lines of determination about his mouth. “I am family after all and she is carrying his child.”

  I nodded my understanding. “I need time to think anyway. Go and help her as you can. Just be cautious.”

  “You don’t think that she is dangerous, do you?”

  I watched as she emerged from the room on the arm of a defender. “I don’t think so, but that doesn’t rule out the possibility. The world is getting more dangerous.”

  “I understand.” The defender led Blandone’s young wife in the direction of the kitchens. “I will be careful,” he promised before turning away to follow in their wake.

  I walked off in the direction of the back exit. I needed time to pray and think all of this over. Something was forming in my mind and I didn’t like what it was promising to be.

  LATE THAT NIGHT, LONG after the rest of the compound was asleep, I sent for Renato and Tristan. They appeared at my doorstep, Renato dragging his cloak and Tristan’s silvery hair standing on end. I ushered them in and offered hot Jaloium tea. Once they were sitting and the mugs securely settled on the table, I made my announcement.

  “I am going on a Progress.”

  “A what?” Renato asked as he hunched over his steaming mug.

  “Previous Sept Sons have done it. I and a small select few from my staff are going to travel about the country, overseeing what the trainers are doing and speaking with trainees.”

  “Somehow I suspect there is more at stake here than visiting the Trainers,” Tristan commented as he met my gaze. “Why don’t you tell us what exactly is going on.”

  “We are preparing for war.” I ran my hands through my hair. “I have been thinking about the events of the past week and the news that we keep getting of unusual increased activity around the known Elitist-sympathizers. In light of what we know of the inner-workings of the settlement on the west coast and their purpose, I believe that a full confrontation between the Elitists and the non-talented is unavoidable. When that time comes, the only thing standing between the non-talented and annihilation will be the talented. With that knowledge, I want to do everything in my power to be ready.”

  “Now that they know that Blan was a spy, they will move the time of attack closer.”

  “But they don’t know that,” Renato said. “If they had known that, they would have killed Blan.”

  “He did disappear from within the settlement, though; so, they would be foolish not to suspect that he was,” Tristan pointed out.

  “So, let us assume that they know that Blan was a spy. They know that they have razed his mind, leaving nothing usable to us, which will buy them time.” I swirled the amber liquid in my mug.

  “And they are limited by the age of the children,” Renato added.

  I nodded slowly. “Yes, the oldest children are now in their fourth year. Even if they show immediate promise and extraordinary concentration skills for little ones so young, it will still take about three years for them to reach a level of usefulness for the purposes of Thrasius Parzifal’s plans. So, if he doesn’t wait for more of the children to reach the age of usefulness, we will have three years. On the long side, I would estimate seven or more years. Regardless of how long we have, I intend to use that time to prepare.”

  “Why not take action now?” Tristan asked.

  “I want to avoid repeating the massacre of Sept Son Tyronus. If there is anyway that we can peacefully diffuse the situation between now and then, I am praying the Almighty reveals it to me.”

  “Fair enough.” Tristan drained his mug.

  “I will begin the preparations tomorrow,” Renato offered.

  “And I will begin researching how we might defend ourselves against the unethical tactics of the Elitists.” I met their gazes across the table. “Remember not to tell anyone the true reason for this. Secrecy is our only defense right now.”

  Both men nodded and rose. After quick farewells, they left for their beds and I returned to my prayers. Without the Almighty’s guidance, all of this would be in vain.

  Chapter XVI

  Zezilia

  “What are you going to make with your berries?” Candra asked from the shaded depths of the brandleberry patch. I didn’t look up from my task.

  “Eloine promised to teach me how to make jam.” With my training finally complete, I had been focusing on more domestic persuits as I awaited my final testing.

  “Eloine? Have you tasted her jam?”

  “Candra, you promised,” I exclaimed, straightening to frown at her over the sea of dark leaves and speckles of maroon red berries among the waves. Candra had made a pact with Selwyn that she would refrain from speaking negatively about things for a week. Almost everyone was wagering that she wouldn’t even make it a day, much less the three that passed before this comment.

  “Sorry,” she called before disappearing beneath a swell of branches. “Though technically I wasn’t criticizing, I was simply speaking the truth?”

  “Somehow that didn’t sound like truth spoken in love.”

  My companion grunted in response and then occupied herself in catching up with my yield. Deciding to give her a chance to close the gap between my four pail loads and her one and a half, I paused and soaked in the flickers of morning summer sun that reached us so deep within the shadows.

  This particular brandleberry patch bordered a broad meadow near the front edge of the Silas property. Only a few feet away, the shadows transitioned abruptly into glaring sunlight. The field, crowded with grasses and weeds, waved in the slight breeze that came from the north and wound its way to the sea. The branches of the oak and maples above us bobbed in the wind causing the flecks of sunlight to dance madly over the secret depths of the bushes.

  I spread out my senses, watching the movement with the extra assistance of my energy. In the year and a half since Selwyn began working with me, I had learned to stretch my senses beyond the bounds of the farm. True, I couldn’t sense things as well as when I concentrated on a smaller area, but it was enough to detect where each living animal, bird, insect, and human was and which direction they were moving.

  Selwyn encouraged me to keep stretching. As he was constantly pointing out, my capabilities had not reached their limits yet. I had two more years to go. According to Errol, I would be spending those two years under the guidance of the Sept Son. I felt nervous every time I thought about it.

  True, I had met him once. I sort of liked him then too, but working with him everyday was going to be different than a tour of the High King’s gardens. I feared it would be awkward. After three years without much contact with the outside world, I was beginning to worry that I wouldn’t fit in when I had to return to it. The parties, social visits, and
duties of a king’s daughter seemed so far away. I much preferred the simplicity of this little home with Errol, Adreet, and the girls. I was going to miss Candra a great deal.

  In an attempt to distract myself, I traced the road just beyond the far side of the meadow with my eyes. Then, when I could no longer see it, I traced it with my second sight. The dancing particles in the wind, the warmth of the sun, I slipped into observing the path of a turtle as he began the laborious journey across the baked surface.

  Then something brushed my thoughts or rather I brushed it. Either way, a strangely familiar taste filled my mouth and then was gone. I quickly drew within myself and turned my attention to my full pail. My energy was still extended, but I was no longer seeking, just detecting.

  “I am going to catch up at this rate,” Candra commented as she appeared at my side. “I keep catching you daydreaming. One would think you had a beau like Eloine. She at least has a reason to gaze of into nothingness.”

  “And I don’t?” I asked.

  “Don’t tell me you have a boy interested in courting?” Candra grimaced at me, screwing her fourteen–year-old face into terrible contortions.

  “Stop it,” I said, laughing in spite of my efforts to not. “I have no such thing and you know it.”

  “Good.” Candra sighed in relief. “If you had said you did, I would have had to throw this at you and then you would be ahead by three pails again.”

  The presence that I had felt before was continuing to move closer. Though I did not taste his thoughts, I could sense that it was a man and he was being drawn by the sound of our voices. I couldn’t exactly drag Candra beneath the bushes and hide, though I had a strong inclination to just that. Of course, he would probably detect us there. Instead, I said, “Candra, someone is coming.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. He is coming from the direction of the road and following our voices.”

  “Friend or foe?” She had developed a habit of asking that whenever I announced someone’s impending arrival. This was one of the first times that she actually sounded serious.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  “What?” She frowned up at me. We had both grown, but I still stood over her by a head. “The one time it is crucial and you cannot tell me? What is the use of this gift of yours if you can’t tell me whether or not those approaching are going to hurt us or not?”

  “He isn’t going to hurt us. I mean, he doesn’t have the intent to hurt us. Candra, I brushed his mind accidentally. I could be in real trouble here if he isn’t a talent.”

  “Then let me look.” Evading my attempt to hold her back, Candra dropped her pail on the ground, hitched up her skirts, and waded through the tall grasses toward the center of the meadow. “Who goes there?” she called to the approaching stranger, still just out of my range of sight.

  “A friend,” was the reply. His voice carried clearly. “Candra is that you?”

  “Ilias.” Candra let out a shout and ran at the new arrival with arms flung wide. I stepped from the shadows of the trees in time to see the man enfold Candra in his arms and sweep her around before setting her on the ground again. I continued my tentative approach.

  “My, you have grown. Ever the ruffian, I see,” he said as he pulled a leaf from Candra’s wild red hair. “Selwyn says that you managed to finish that tree house that we had been planning.”

  “Oh, yes, but I didn’t do it all by myself. Zez helped a lot.” Candra suddenly turned to me and smiled. “See, Zezilia, I told you Ilias was a real man,” she crowed.

  Heat climbed my cheeks as I lifted my eyes to the man’s face. Over the last year or so, I had proclaimed to Candra that Ilias couldn’t have been an actual man. All the stories that everyone told couldn’t be true of only one man.

  The man hesitated a moment before lifting his warm brown gaze to meet mine. Then suddenly, it dawned on me who he was and why his taste had been so familiar. The mythical Ilias was the Sept Son.

  Hadrian

  SHE STOOD TALL, SLENDER, and beautiful in sunlight. Warm red highlights brightening her dark tresses as the summer sun kissed her features. She had changed. Not that I could have expected anything else if I had taken the time to think about it. I had not.

  Her striking grey eyes, intriguing and mysterious, glinted in recognition. The heightened color in her cheeks from Candra’s offhand remark about my existence was fading already. She smiled slightly. A memory of her laughter and unrestrained smile, almost three years old, flashed through my thoughts as she inclined her head to me now. Candra was making introductions.

  “Ilias, this is Zezilia.” She caught Zezilia’s hand and dragged her forward. “Zez, this is Ilias.”

  “I caught that,” she responded.

  “We have met before,” I informed Candra.

  “You have?” She looked from one of us to the other for a moment. “When?”

  “At the Caelestis Novem celebration almost three years ago.”

  “Oh.” Noting the disappointment in her voice, I drew my attention away from Zez. “Then you have known her longer than I have.”

  “But I don’t know her as well for I haven’t seen her since.”

  “True.”

  “We should gather our berries, Candra,” Zezilia observed. “It is almost lunch and I am sure Master Aleron is hungry after his walk.”

  “Master Aleron?” Candra made a face. “Come on Zez. He is a friend of the family. You can call him Ilias like the rest of us.”

  “Please do,” I interjected before Candra’s unusual social skills made the situation worse. Apparently considering the matter closed, Candra grabbed my hand and dragged me in the direction of the brandleberry patch on the far side of the field. “After lunch Zez and I can take you to see the tree house. Then...”

  “I can’t stay long,” I said.

  “What!” Candra stopped and glared up at me with her fists on her hips.

  “I am actually here to see her.” I nodded my head toward where Zezilia stooped to retrieve four of the six pails of brandleberries. “I have to give her the final test before she becomes a talent.”

  “Oh, that.” Candra tossed her head and trotted off to pick up the remaining two pails. “After that I am sure you can find the time to at least see the tree house.”

  As I opened my mouth to point out that I also had business with her father, Zez said, “He probably has other duties to perform. He is the Sept Son.”

  “But he was Ilias first and if my father hadn’t trained him, then he would have never been the Sept Son.”

  “I am sure that there were other trainers who would have been willing.”

  “But they weren’t Father.”

  “There were none better,” I interjected. “Can I help carry?”

  I directed the question to Zezilia, who was balancing four pails, but Candra responded. “Sure.”

  “I meant Zezilia. She is the one with four pails.”

  “Why do you think I pick slowly?”

  Zezilia’s eyes widened and then she laughed. “So that is why you always want me to go with you. You know that I will pick quickly and you can be lazy.”

  “I am not being lazy, just slow.”

  Seeing that this could be a long discussion, I interrupted by taking two of the pails from Zezilia’s willing hands.

  “I expected that you would have an entourage,” Zezilia mentioned, pointedly changing the subject.

  I couldn’t help smiling at Candra’s stormy, silent response. I turned my attention to Zezilia’s interested face. “I left them taking the longer way by road while I enjoyed the freedom of a short cut. Your brother is going to lecture me for it, but I needed to get away for a time and remember a freer period of my life.”

  Coolness filled the shadowed hollows in the midst of mysterious monolithic trees. Their roots gnarled and twisted from before I had first discovered their secrets. Now, their massive trunks rose thicker and sturdier than ever while all the land around them changed
with the seasons.

  “When was that?” Candra asked, apparently forgetting her pout.

  I looked up at the living canopy arching high above us. “When I was young and we were all living at home. Those were good years.”

  “You mean with all your brothers?” Zezilia asked.

  Lowering my gaze to her face, I caught glimpses of a similar longing in the depths of her eyes.

  “Selwyn should be at lunch,” Candra offered as she stepped between us. “He promised to bring over Zezilia’s horse this afternoon.”

  “Your horse?” Zezilia nodded at my question, but avoided my eyes. For a moment, I was afraid I had somehow offended her. “Have I done something that needs apology again?” I asked. Mint infused my mouth. She lifted her eyes to mine as a wave of surprise came across the brief link between us before she broke it off. Shaking her head, she turned away to look at the trail passing beneath her feet. Before I could try again, Candra was tugging on my arm.

  “Selwyn is giving me a horse too. He says he has one picked out for me already. Her name is Sprite and she was born in the spring. Did you have a horse of your own when you were growing up?”

  “No. We all had to share one. That poor horse.” I smiled at the memories. “Just imagine one horse and seven boys. By the time I was old enough to ride, he was so slow I could walk faster than him.”

  “Galatea already has a horse. She rides it when her beau comes calling every week. They go out riding with Delmar as chaperone.”

  “So, little Teaia has a beau. My, she must be getting tall.”

  “She is taller than Zez,” Candra offered thoughtfully.