“No,” Mirana replied. “We fall before those arrows.”
“Ashtar can drink a waterskin dry by himself. Take the brute to the well,” her father said and placed a hand on her shoulder. ... Leave his place ... Now ... She blinked at the intensity of his call. ... Ride south and follow the river ... Do not stop until you are within Deren’s gates ... Do you understand? ...
... I can’t leave ... If the Ford falls, it’s my fault ...
“Biraena,” her father cautioned.
“Mirana, did I not just remind you of the importance of caring for the horses?” Lord Garis said. “Listen to your father and go.” He enunciated each word. “Now.”
She picked up one of the waterskins from the mud. “What is your horse’s name, my lord?”
The Trine scowled. “What?” He shook his head. “He has no name. He answers to a call within the Aspects. Why?” He looked at her father, then back to her. He picked up the other waterskin and brushed her hand as he gave it to her. ... I said leave ...
“I wanted to call him something when I watered him.” She slung the skins over her shoulder. “I will be right back.”
She was not leaving the Ford no matter how much her father and Lord Garis wanted her to. If she could see some minor movement of the Ken’nar forces, sense some scrap of information, she had to try to give the Fal’kin any advantage she could. She would never make the mistake of silence again. And she did have her long knives.
CHAPTER 19
“To see the skeins of the future is a gift of the most terrible kind. In my heart, I long for blindness. But one cannot embrace both ignorance and knowledge.”
—The Codex of Jasal the Great
Thunder rumbled in the distance as Mirana walked Ashtar to the garrison’s well. They had outridden the storm, but it now caught up to them. The horse trotted over to the well and slurped at the water, his nose nearly submerged.
If only she had believed her first viewing of the attack on Two Rivers Ford, in which she had seen some five thousand Ken’nar descending on the unsuspecting outpost, they would have had at least some time to gather Fal’kin from neighboring provinces. Surely, some would have arrived at the Ford in time. Anything would have helped. Lord Garis’s reassurances may have saved her life, but they did nothing to resolve her guilt. It preyed on her like grynwen on a blooded deer, relentless and unyielding.
Lightning forked overhead, its glare reflected in the water, looking all too much like the white light that flared from Jasal’s Keep.
Her hand drifted to one of her long knives.
“Lord Garis needs my help to understand Jasal’s Keep, Ashtar. He said it might be able to stop this war.” She gripped the knife’s hilt a moment longer, then released it.
“No. I will not leave. I will make this right.” She clenched her fists. For the first time in a long, long time she hoped her Seeing Aspect would give her the most graphic vision she was capable of receiving. Teague’s pendant warmed against her skin. She wanted to know every step, every hoof fall the Ken’nar were making. Right. Now.
As she dipped a waterskin into the trough, the well disappeared from her mortal eyes.
“Mirana! Go! Now—!”
Teague cries out in pain. His body collapses, lifeless, on the stone pavers. The blood from the wound in his side leaks out in slow pulses, trickles from his mouth, a red so dark it looks like a liquid bruise. It congeals in the icy rain.
“Teague!”
Lightning crashes overhead. The pinnacle of Jasal’s Keep, a crowned skull in the garish light.
Light explodes, more brilliant than the inside of a thunderbolt.
Mirana sucked in her breath. No. Not this. Anything but this.
Teague approached the well with a pair of waterskins. He stopped and stood still, his eyes wide.
She blinked. Was he part of the vision or was he real?
He dropped the skins with a cry of relief, ran to her, and enveloped her in his arms. “Miri! I’ve looked everywhere for you. After you ran out of the Choosing Ceremony, I tried to see you, but they wouldn’t let me. Even my parents wouldn’t tell me what happened to you. I’ve looked for you every day and night since.” He stood back and held her face in his hands. “Are you all right?”
No. No, she was not all right. She didn’t think she’d ever be all right again. The sense of his peril had been present for sevendays but undefined. Now, her Aspects had given her a vision to make her fear concrete.
“Ai. I’m—” She took another breath, stifling the stronger emotions that threatened to break free. “Ai.”
He still hadn’t released her. “You don’t look it. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
She wouldn’t let anything happen to him. Not Teague. If the Aspects Above refused to alter her destiny, could they not, in their infinite grace, spare his life at least?
She gently lowered his hands from her face. “I was with Lord Garis and—what happened to your chest?” She pointed to an angry purple contusion shaped like a horseshoe.
“It’s just a bruise,” he said and shook his head to dismiss her concern. “Listen, Mirana—”
She squinted at the bruise. “Were you the commotion in the camp the other night?”
“Ai, I guess. My horse—your mother gave me your brepaithe’s palfrey, Bankin—she doesn’t like to be approached from behind.” He fished her waterskin from the well and set it down on the ground. “Mirana, we still have time—”
“No horse does.” Those were the words that came from her mouth because she could not speak the words her Aspects demanded she say. A trace of blood had dried by his nose. He was soaked, dirty, maimed, and he never looked so perfect to her. How could she possibly live without him? “By the Light, Teague you could have been killed! You could have broken your neck, you could have been trampled, or—”
“Mirana, listen to me. Please.” He glanced over his shoulder. “There’s still time. We can leave. Together. Before the Ken’nar arrive.”
Oh, Aspects Above, no. He was willing to forsake his duty as an herbsman for her. She was destroying his life without lifting a finger. If she left with him, if he remained with her, he would die.
She shook her head. “No, Teague. I can’t leave. But you should. I had hoped your parents would have talked some sense into you and you would have stayed home.”
His shoulders fell and he snatched up one of his waterskins. “I’m not leaving without you. If you’re staying—” he dredged it through the trough to fill it, “then I am, too.”
Mirana gritted her teeth at his referred pain as he hefted the heavy skin and set it on the ground. She ached to hold him and take away his pain, to feel the warmth of his body next to hers. She longed for his kiss, to let into her mind the love he held in his.
“You’re in pain.” She reached out to him. Frustration. Desire. Longing. Hope. Anxiety. Pain. Of the body. Of the heart. Love. His emotions. And hers.
Teague took her hand from his chest and held it. “I know what you said at the Choosing Ceremony. About us not being together anymore. I know you didn’t mean it.”
She would not let Teague die. “I’m sorry. It has to be.”
“I know you don’t mean that.”
“All of Kin-Deren province knows I am a Trine now. Soon, so will all of Kinderra. Including the Ken’nar. Even without an amulet, everything has changed.”
He took her other hand, held them both. “Maybe so, but I know nothing has changed between us. We haven’t changed.”
To keep him safe, she would have to let him go. If she did not, he would be swept up in the maelstrom of her destiny. He could die. She knew it. She saw it.
“Lord Garis is my patrua and my prime. I ride with him and the Dar-Azûlans now.” She pulled her hands from his. “I don’t want it to be like this. It has to be.”
Teague would want to come with her and Trine. Even if she eluded him and left him behind, he would try to follow her. Pushing him away would save his life, but in doing so, s
he would lose a part of hers. The part that mattered most. His life was worth denying her love. It was worth her own life. It was worth everything.
“Why? Because of your keep vision?” He plunged his other skin into the water. “I’m here now, Mirana. I’m living, breathing. I’m not some vision. I’m not some person who doesn’t exist yet, and neither are you.” He threw the skin down. “We are here, in this moment, not in a nightmare that might never happen. I’ve done everything I can to help you, and I’d do it all again a thousand times over, but you’re the one who’s letting your visions come between us. Not me.”
Ai. He was right. She was. She had to.
“It’s not some childish nightmare. You know that.”
He threw his arms out at his sides. “What is there to see? Rain? Armies fighting? A white light?”
“There’s more to it than that.” She was afraid speaking any more words would make them true.
“You become the Dark Trine? That’s utterly ridiculous!” He then exhaled, calming himself. “If you see something that horrific, then let me help you. The Aspects Above may have ignored me with their gifts, but I want Kinderra’s peace as much as you do. I want to fight for it alongside you.”
She shook her head, dismissing his foolhardy notion. “You’re Unaspected and training as an herbsman. You cannot take up a sword. Unaspected do not fight, and certainly not herbsfolk. The Unaspected have never fought. We Fal’kin exist so you can exist.”
He tried to draw her back into his embrace, but she leaned back from him. Again, a crushing blow from his heart leaped from his mind to hers. He let his arms fall heavily to his sides. “I don’t care about any of that. I care about you. You are the only thing I care about. You’re going to have to make a choice, Mirana. Do you want to believe in some vision that hasn’t happened yet and may never happen? Or the reality of me standing here, in front of you, now?”
She searched his forest-green eyes for some other answer, any other answer. The Seeing Aspect, however, had already given her one. The only answer. To keep Teague alive, she would have to shatter his heart.
“We cannot be together. I am Aspected, Teague. I am a Trine.” She clenched her teeth, catching her tongue, and tasted blood. “And you are not.”
His shock slammed into her mind like a fist of stone. “Y-You said that never mattered to you. You’ve told me that our whole lives.”
“It matters now,” she said, her voice constricted by the emotion she fought to contain. “We’ve always known this. We’ve just been lying to ourselves. I can’t lie anymore.”
Disbelief flooded away his shock, drowning her. “Mirana, please. Don’t do this.”
Searing loss burned through him into her. “Ben íre, Teague.”
He stood motionless for a moment. Something disappeared from his eyes, leaving them hollow, almost dead. He backed away from her, hefted his waterskins, and returned to the camp.
Mirana sank to her knees against the well and pulled out his pendant. She held it to her lips. A sob erupted from her so deep, so broken, it made no noise. No mortal grief could give voice to it.
Tears streamed down her face and dripped from her chin to the delicate mica sheets. They beaded like droplets of rain on the smooth surface.
“Oë tuda a Ëa.” She clutched the pendant to her heart. He was everything to her. Her body spasmed, forcing the cries from her throat. She clutched Teague’s pendant tighter, its crystalline sheets of mica growing hot against her skin. She had destroyed his love for her, the one thing above all else she was trying to save.
“Damn you, Tetric Garis. Why didn’t you leave the knife in my hand?”
Mirana rubbed her chest. It ached just below her peda blossom pendant. Everything ached.
The sound of thunder came closer. A breath of warm, wet wind came from the south, unfurling the pennant flags atop the Ford tents. It brought with it the smell of rain.
South. South was bad.
She wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand. Her breath shuddered as a warning sense fought for her attention over her anguish. She grabbed the sides of the well and hauled herself to her feet. Teague had disappeared into the camp toward the south. He should not go south.
She looked down at the delicate mica pendant in her hand. It burned her palm, turning it red. The mica sheets. Were the flawed crystal plates working as a crude amulet?
The Ken’nar were to attack the garrison at Two Rivers Ford from the north, crossing the Garnath River bridge just before dawn. That future skein, that direction, had never wavered—not in the seers’ visions, not in hers.
Her mind snapped back to what she saw while unpacking Ashtar upon first arriving at the garrison. The arrows and the grynwen. They had come from the south. She whipped her head around to the west, facing the Dar-Anar Mountains. The star Gabrial. It hadn’t been visible in the night sky in those images. It was not yet dawn.
“No. It can’t be. Not yet.”
She peered at the darkening fields outside of the garrison.
A detachment of Ken’nar, thousands strong, would approach, not from the north—but from the south. The larger force. They were coming. Not at dawn.
Now.
Mirana vaulted onto Ashtar’s back and raced for the command tent at a dead run.
CHAPTER 20
“Derranen fissura crear fár doma u’daingaen.”
(“A split foundation makes for an unstable house.”)
—Ora Fal’kinnen 22:2
“The Ken’nar. They’re coming now. From the south.” Mirana dashed through the entrance of the command tent. “The Ken’nar are coming now.”
Her parents, Tetric Garis, and the other senior Fal’kin looked up from a large map draped over two saddles.
Her mother rushed over and steadied her with a hand on her arm. “Slow down. What do you mean ‘now?’”
“Thousands are on the move. Five—” she gulped a breath, “five thousand. They’re riding up from the south right now. The other five hundred—”
“Will come from the north, as in our vision,” her mother said. Her face went white. “Tetric?”
“I was just about to inform you I sensed an impression that the Ken’nar might be changing their timetable. Your daughter is most perceptive.”
If the situation wasn’t so urgent, Mirana would have hugged the man for corroborating what she had just seen. “Mother, we don’t have much time.” She thought back to Lord Garis’s earlier question on superior forces and inferior odds. “Maybe we should consider a retreat.”
Desde turned to the other Fal’kin. “We cannot fight a force that large. Mirana’s right. We will have to retreat. We must prevent the northern phalanx from merging with the larger force. If they do, even the Aspects Above will not be able to save us. Tell the commanders to deploy their units to the Garnath bridge. Have the garrison troops form a perimeter on the ridge to safeguard our retreat. Go now.” Men and women ran from the tent to carry out her orders.
Her mother turned back to her. “How soon will the Ken’nar be here?”
“I couldn’t be certain, but soon.”
Lord Garis closed his eyes briefly as he held his amulet. “Within the hour.”
“There’s no time to waste.” Her father pointed out the tent. “Garis, get her out of here.”
Her mother shook her head. “She can’t leave now. She’ll run right into them.”
“She can head east back to Deren if she leaves now ahead of them. Mirana, go.”
“No, Father. I will stay with Mother in the command tent and help relay communications to and from the battle seer unit. I can do that much.”
“If you will not listen to your father, you will listen to me. I am your patrua now,” the Trine demanded. “Leave. Immediately.” His mind speared into hers. ... Follow the Anarath south ... I will meet you by the trader’s ferries near the Stairs of Anar rapids ...
She winced at the sudden communication. “But—”
... Do not stop until you reach t
he ferries ... I will meet you there ...
Her mother closed her eyes and gripped her amulet, turning away from the group for a moment. “The battle seers say the northern phalanx is less than five leagues away.” Mirana had never seen her so strong and so helpless at the same time. “Gather the il’Kin. They can guard our backs. We need to leave while we still can.”
Her father gripped the hilt of his sword. “And sacrifice the Ford? Desde—”
Her mother’s shoulders fell. “Kaarl, we can’t possibly repel a force of that size. We’ll regroup. Return. We’ll get fighters from Sün-Kasal, Tash-Hamar, even Jad-Anüna in the east. It’s about time Defender Prime Nambre Dinir remembered Kinderra survives on mutual aid.”
Mirana heard her father’s curse with her ears and her Aspects. He gave an explosive exhale and nodded. “I’ll call Dav and tell him to begin moving the provincials eastward out of the Ford. Keep another two units to hold back the northern Ken’nar phalanx until the garrison has been evacuated.”
“You’ll never make it out of the river valley,” Lord Garis said. “The Ken’nar were lying in wait. You lost the advantage of a retreat the moment you arrived. The southern phalanx will block any escape route eastward the minute they cross the Anarath bridge. You have no choice but to fight, my prime.”
No retreat? Mirana’s breath stilled in her chest. They were trapped.
Her mother lifted her chin. “Kaarl’s plan is sound. We can at least try for one.”
Her mother’s topaz flared in her hand as Mirana overheard her urgent orders called to the minds of the provincial defenders.
The command tent flap flew open. Morgan Jord and Binthe Lima rushed in, followed by the Healers Tennen and Niah.
Teague? Where was Teague? Had he left the garrison, crushed by her words? Oh, Lights. He’d ride right into them and never know they were coming until it was too late. She started to ask the healers about him, but Morgan’s hand on her shoulder interrupted her.
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