4. Three Lionesses
Chapter 4
Three Lionesses
In an effort to do something with her day more useful than being furious at Alexander Bennett, Liliana spent every spare moment that she wasn’t in appointments searching for options to help Ben find his way into their world. Pete and Ben deserved to be happy. They were obviously a far better match than she and Colonel Bennett were. But Ben would never marry Pete, not until he truly knew the wolf-kin—not just the public part of his life, that he was a bio-scientist forensics consultant for Fort Liberty’s CID—but the more secret aspects of his life as a red Celtic werewolf. That would require the science teacher to accept the hidden world of magic and creatures that most Normals believed to be mythological.
Every time Liliana tried to focus, though, she kept bumping into images of Alexander Bennett that would not leave her alone. She ignored the flashes of the prince's handsome face that continually appeared whenever she didn't focus hard on something else. She couldn't get her unruly mind to stop thinking about him, but she could make sure it no longer affected her life.
The one thing she would never do was allow herself to love someone who broke hearts without a second thought. She wasn’t an idiot. Alexander Bennett was a cold-hearted pig. She would have to get over her interest in him.
She would focus on finding a good path for Ben and Pete. Her own love life would have to wait until she met someone new.
There seemed to be a hint of something that might help Ben and Pete in the direction of her favorite client, Janice Willoughby, and her rabbit-kin children, some of whom were Ben Harper’s students. The possibility didn’t seem very solid, though. Given time, Liliana hoped a better solution would come into existence as probabilities shifted.
A more immediate problem had to be dealt with, in any case. The day when four assassins of the Order of the Wolfhound would come to kill her favorite red wolf was almost here.
For the next few weeks, when they met in the woods for training, Liliana encouraged Pete to use combat practice to work out some of his sadness from Ben turning down his marriage proposal. He took her advice to heart. He fought as if a demon lived inside him.
Combat practice was good therapy. The spider-kin knew that from long experience.
Pete sparred with his friends so intensely that he injured Doctor Nudd. A broken ulna was nothing that the goblin's own medicines and magic and a few days' rest wouldn't cure, though. There were still a few days until the Wolfhounds would come. Doctor Nudd had time to repair the damage.
Pete was mortified that he hurt his mentor, but Liliana was delighted. She was even more delighted that he might have injured her if she hadn't foreseen it. The Celtic wolf had become a far more formidable opponent since that first day they met when Pete tried to kill her. If their one-on-one battle took place now instead of back then, Pete might even defeat her.
The red wolf's death, that Liliana had seen as certainty a few months before, now was a tiny flicker of unlikely possibility. In combat, nothing was ever certain, but as long as he had his sword on the night in question, Pete's survival was now as close to certain as such things ever were. Pete would live, Lou Willoughby, Janice’s husband, would live, Doctor Nudd would live, and the assassins from the Order of the Wolfhound would die.
Liliana still hoped to be there, herself, to fight at the side of her favorite red wolf, but none of the future visions she saw included her. She did not know why, yet, but it made her glad that Pete would be able to hold his own, even against four trained killers.
In the meantime, she had neglected her business by taking time off. Several customers had been put off for weeks. She had to make up for it. Liliana spoke with as many as five or six customers a day, where normally, she limited herself to a maximum of four. That many social interactions and that much exploration into their lives with her fourth eyes could be exhausting. She welcomed the distraction, though. As long as she searched the lives of her customers for the best paths toward happiness, she avoided thinking about the handsome Fae prince who had no heart.
One day, a brand-new customer called to make an appointment. Liliana’s phone number was on her sign so that happened sometimes. She knew nothing about the woman except her name, Arel Magoro. Her name wasn't enough to let Liliana find the woman with her fourth eyes. She had to know what she looked like. The prospect of seeing a new customer made her nervous but provided an excellent distraction.
She looked around her business space. Every mystic knick knack was clean of dust and placed for optimum visual impact on her new customer. Brightly colored scarves hung to decorate every surface. Her clocks were polished clean and ticking merrily. The little shop that she’d created from the dining room of her house looked exactly as it should. She gave the crystal ball a last quick polish with her sleeve to remove a smudge. According to her clocks, it was 9:58. Her new customer was due at 10:00.
Liliana sat in her chair at the small round table with the crystal ball in the exact center and three chairs waiting to be filled by customers on the other side. At precisely 10:00 AM and about thirty seconds, just after the clocks all stopped chiming, someone knocked on the door. The spider seer smiled. She liked punctual customers.
She opened the door. There were three women. Only one woman had spoken to her on the phone. No more than two customers had ever come to see her at the same time, except when she met Pete, Sergeant Giovanni, and Detective Shonda Jackson. They accused her of murder and Pete tried to kill her. The similarity sent a frisson of nervousness up her spine.
There were three chairs on the client side of the table, but the third was just meant to be a place for people to set their things that was not on her table.
The new clients were tall athletic women. The one who appeared to lead was past fifty, but more fit than most twenty-year-olds. She was a lovely woman with skin as dark as burnt oak, high round cheeks, and a shading of iron gray threaded through her braided black hair. Another of the women looked enough like the oldest that she must be her daughter. Her hair was in shoulder-length dreadlocks. The third had dark brown hair and dark olive skin, about the same shade as Liliana's from her Greek and Egyptian heritage. She held herself a lot like Liliana did when lots of people looked at her, as if the air around her were heavy.
Liliana bowed them into her workspace with the usual dramatic flourish of graceful arms and flowing sleeves. "Welcome. Madame Anna sees all. Only the truth of what is, what was, and what might be." She used the proper customer voice with the singsong intonation. She wanted to make a good impression on her new customers in spite of the uncomfortable feeling they gave her.
She sat down in her wooden chair on one side of the little round table and gestured a graceful invitation to her new customers to sit in the other chairs. Rather than sit in the third chair, the daughter stood behind her mother with muscular arms crossed in a way that made Liliana think "bodyguard." She had a good stance, solid, grounded, and balanced, with knees bent and weight shifted forward. If Liliana tried to harm either of the other two women, she had no doubt that the daughter would react in time to protect them.
Liliana approved. It told her that the women were wary of her, but if they knew anything about her nature, that would be sensible.
Looking into their faces for so long overwhelmed her. Fighting the instinctive desire to retreat into a corner, she looked into her crystal ball instead. People expected her to look at the ball, so it had the benefit of making both her and her customers more comfortable.
She started her routine with a gesture to the curtained windowsill. The decorated box with a slot on top that people put money in sat there. Few merchants still dealt in cash, or the modern equivalent, transferrable pay cards, but she did. She had no interest in digital banking or setting up accounts, even in the anonymous computer currencies. Liliana did not own a computer or have much clue what to do with one. Neither did she have a birth certificate or any other form of official identification that she could use to set up an account in person at a bank. The increasing dependency on digital forms of payment made things tricky for her for a time, until the pay cards came along. There were many times when people didn't want all the information about what they purchased, where, and when to be recorded. Pay cards were untraceable. Only the amount deducted from people’s banks and put into the card was tracked. Once in, the card could pass from hand to hand indefinitely, until it was used to purchase something. Then, the money passed back into another bank’s accounting system.
"Pay me what you feel is fair for truth that cannot be seen by other eyes,” she intoned. “I see what is, what has been, and what might be. Ask and the truth shall be yours."
This was when customers asked her questions. Liliana waited.
The three women looked at each other.
"My daughter worked security at The Mirror club in Raleigh," the elder woman ventured. The woman's voice was a melodious alto, the voice on the other side of the phone that had set up the appointment, Arel Magoro.
"Oh." Liliana licked her lips. She fiddled with her sleeves under the table. "I am sorry about your employer," she said to the standing woman.
The daughter snorted. "I doubt that."
Liliana glanced up. It had been a long time since anyone doubted her word.
Arel Magoro gave her an apologetic smile. "My daughter came to work early that morning. She saw the security footage before the military confiscated it."
"Oh." The spider seer took a breath. She leaned to the front of her seat, weight partially on her feet, so she could spring up to run at any moment if needed. "I had no quarrel with Lady Daphne and her nest until they tried to kill my best friend. I am sorry things happened as they did."
The three women glanced at each other.
"The Celtic wolf is your best friend? Or the Army sergeant?" Arel asked, still without any sign of aggression or disturbance.
Liliana tilted her head, wondering. "The red wolf is my best friend. I like Sergeant Giovanni, but she does not trust Others, so she keeps her distance from me." Were these women also widow spiders like the Mirror club owner, Lady Daphne, and her nest sisters? Were they looking for revenge? She brought up her hands to rub her eyebrows as if her head pained her. Between her fingers, she risked a glance with her third eyes at the three women to see if they were human or Other.
Their auras held the feral shine of beast-kin. She sneaked a glance from a single, barely open fourth eye to see their Other faces. She saw tawny fur, long canines, and large golden eyes.
"Oh! You are lions!" she exclaimed. "I am a lion's daughter. I lost touch with the pride when my brothers moved away. It is good to meet you."
The three lionesses all wore identical expressions of confusion. Arel Magoro spoke for the group. "We thought you were spider-kin."
"I am spider-kin like my first mother, but my father was Simon, son of Simeon, cousin of Lycurgis, the last king of the lions of Nemea."
The daughter snorted again. "You are a lousy liar. That isn't even possible."
Liliana sat up to her full height. She looked up into the sneering face of the young lioness, chin high with pride. "I am not a liar. I tell only the truth, always." Her shoulders sagged a little. It was hard to be proud of her honesty when she didn't choose to be truthful all the time. Liliana just did not know how to lie, any more than she knew how to write computer code. "I tell the truth, even when it would be better if I didn't."
Arel Magoro gave her daughter a look over her shoulder that made the younger woman shrink a bit. "Forgive Kazi, seer. You must know, of course, that the lions of Nemea have been extinct for centuries. They are little more than a legend now."
"My father ..." Liliana had not talked about her father much with anyone since her brothers moved away to the coast. "Simon of Nemea left his pride so that his younger cousin could be king. He felt he would be a better leader, but my father knew he would defeat his cousin in the Challenge. A few decades later, he heard that his pride had been defeated in battle when he was far away in Egypt with my mother. The Nemean lions were considered too dangerous to be left alive by their enemies. They slaughtered the entire pride, to the last child."
Arel nodded. "We know the legend. The downfall of the greatest pride to ever be is a tale told often among lions." She glanced fondly over her shoulder. "To teach our children that even the strongest can fail."
"My father did not fail his pride. He was not there. If he had been there to fight, maybe things would have been different," Liliana said. Simon of Nemea had been a legend, at least in her eyes.
Arel chuckled low at that. "The story goes that they were outnumbered a hundred to one, and their enemies were led by Heracles, a granite Sidhe Fae with impossible strength. I don't see how one lion, no matter how formidable, could have made a difference."
The spider seer looked down at her hands, blinking to hold back tears. She wasn't even certain what she mourned. Her illusions of her father's invincibility had shattered a long time ago when she saw him ripped apart by a dozen red wolves. "Simon of Nemea is dead, but he was not the last Nemean lion. I had four brothers. Two died fighting beside our mother and father, but two came to America with me and my second mother. The descendants of my brothers, Jason and Petros, still live in North Carolina, I think. I have lost track of them over time, but it is possible that you have some of the blood of the lions of Nemea yourselves. We could even be related."
When Liliana said that last bit, the younger lioness, Kazi, rolled her eyes. "Right."
The lioness with the dark brown hair and olive skin looked thoughtful.
"Oh.” Liliana said. “You do not understand. My father was over eighteen hundred years old when he died ninety-three years ago." These women did not know about the long-term effects of spider seer venom. It was less well known now that most people thought her kind were extinct. "The fate of a spider seer's mate is tied to hers. My father lived for many centuries because my mother did. They died on the same day, fighting side by side."
For the first time, the brown-haired woman spoke up. "I heard that spider-kin live forever. I didn't know about their mates living so long. If your father died ninety-three years ago, then how old are you?"
"I am one hundred forty-six. I will be one hundred forty-seven years old..." Liliana considered the date on the calendar with the pictures of butterflies that she kept on her kitchen wall. She hadn't realized what day it was. "Oh. I will be one hundred forty-seven years old in three days."
Arel chuckled, showing a gap between her top front two teeth, in a bright smile that matched the laugh lines around her eyes. "And I thought I was getting on in years."
Liliana looked at her with all eight eyes for a moment, now that she knew she didn't need to hide what she was. "You appear to be in excellent health." She looked forward in time to see how far death was from this beautiful older woman. Liliana barely flinched as she saw the woman die. "You have many more robust years to live, assuming you and your daughter escape being murdered within the next week."
It was an unfortunate aspect of watching over her favorite red wolf that she had become less affected by visions of sudden horrific death. She expected it these days.
She looked into the crystal ball focusing her fourth eyes. Now, she knew why these three lionesses had come to her. Arel Magoro wished to avoid her death. Anticipating the questions, Liliana searched for the source of danger and a moment when it could be side-stepped.
The lioness with the smile lines around her eyes would be ripped apart by a group of men in full lion form. In Liliana’s visions, Arel and her daughter both fought valiantly. They took several of their enemies down with them, but in the end, they were pulled down by sheer numbers.
It was all too similar to the way Liliana’s parents had died. Her stomach twisted in horror despite her increased resistance to the sight of bloody death. Liliana shuddered. “You must leave Fayetteville very soon or you will be torn apart by more lions than you and your daughter can fight.”
"That's not what we wanted to talk to you about," the elder lioness said. "At least, not exactly."
"You do not wish to know how to avoid your own death and the death of your only child?" The spider seer had never been more astonished by any words spoken in her life.
"Well, we already know about that." Arel Magoro's voice was rich with sadness. "That's why we need your help, seer."
"Ask. I will give you only the truth, but I cannot guarantee that it will be what you want to hear."
The woman nodded. "The pride-king of North Carolina died recently."
"Andrew Periclum was an unworthy king of lions," Liliana said, lips tight with anger.
Kazi Magoro chuckled. She sounded so much like her mother in that moment. "That's the first thing you said that I wholeheartedly believe and agree with."
Arel sighed. "Periclum was our king, worthy or not. Now that he's dead, a successor must be chosen. There is some disagreement as to who will be the next king since he had no sons."
"Some disagreement," the brown-haired woman repeated with a derisive laugh that sounded almost like a sob. "Arel, the pride is tearing itself apart."
From what Liliana had seen in her vision, that was literally true.
Andrew Periclum had been a cruel, lying, arrogant cur, but his father had been pride-king, and his father before him. The stable continuity of a smooth succession held the pride together. His death had implications that Alexander Bennett didn't consider when he killed the lion-kin with his magic.
To be fair, this was not Alexander Bennett’s fault, as much as a part of her would have welcomed another reason to be mad at him. Liliana would have killed Andrew Periclum herself if the prince had not. That mangey, parasite-ridden garbage eater tried to kill her friends.
"I am very sorry," Liliana said, tightening her lips. She was not even a little sorry Andrew Periclum was dead, but she was sorry his death might cause theirs. "There must be a Challenge to choose the new king. You know this." Somewhere in the pride of North Carolina were the grandsons and granddaughters of her brothers. This was a problem that would affect Liliana’s own family. "I do not know how, but I will help in any way I can."
"Can you tell us who will win the challenge? Who will become the next king?" the brown-haired woman asked.
The spider seer nodded. That was simple enough. She focused her fourth eyes on the results of the ritual combat that would choose the new pride-king. Liliana saw a lot of death. Street violence had already begun to erupt between factions who backed different potential kings. Not just lions. The king of the pride was the arbitrator of all beast-kin disputes, the unofficial leader of all beast-kin. An abandoned hanger on the north edge of Fort Liberty had been put to use as a place for the Challenge. A domed cage made of steel beams welded into triangles was being constructed, as was traditional.
The Challenge had been sacred for centuries before Simon of Nemea was born. It might be older than written history itself. Once, the Challenge had been fought in open arenas, but the dome of triangles had been the place for such things for as long as Liliana could remember. Unlike an arena, the dome could be constructed wherever it was needed. Inside a dome, young lions often fought contests of courage and skill to gain rank within the pride. It was meant to be a place where a lion's strength could be honed and tested.
"I see a huge lion-kin with a claw scar over one side of his face that pulls his upper lip into a permanent sneer. Oh.” Liliana recognized the man who drove the car that nearly ran over Alexander Bennett. Tray Bradley had also witnessed his king’s death, but Alexander Bennett’s subterfuge made it look like a simple accident. “It is Bradley.”
"Tray Bradley," Kazi’s jaw tightened.
The brown-haired woman sank in on herself, as if Liliana had placed a huge rock on her. "Not Tray."
"I am sorry,” Liliana said. “If the paths of the future do not change, this man, Tray Bradley, will rule the lions of North Carolina."
Arel rubbed circles into the brown-haired woman's back. "We'll find a way to fix this, Marilyn. Don't give up."
Liliana looked for a connection between the disheartened woman and the lion-kin who would soon become king of the North Carolina pride. She saw Tray Bradley beating the woman, Marilyn, with his fists until she would have had to go to the hospital or die if she were human. Again and again. The woman never left her abusive husband until she had a baby. For a time, Bradley had been gentle with his wife and new baby. But the boy had barely been toddling when his father aimed a casual kick at him for some annoyance.
Emotionally charged events always stood out sharpest in Liliana's fourth vision. She saw the moment when the cowed expression on Marilyn's face changed as she held her crying baby. She went from terrified to a cold rage. Underneath the battered wife, there was still a lioness.
As Liliana watched, Arel Magoro bundled the brown-haired woman and her tiny son in a coat. They rushed in the rain to her car.
Tray Bradley chased them with a shotgun, shouting threats.
Kazi drove the car. She and her mother helped to get the woman and her baby away from the abusive man.
Liliana nodded in satisfaction. That was how it should be. The pride took care of its own.
"Tray is your ex-husband." Liliana assumed the woman had the good sense to divorce such a horrible man.
Marilyn shook her head in denial. "He wouldn't sign the papers. I was too scared to push it as long as he left us alone. Now ..." She put her face in her hands.
Liliana did not have any wish to see Marilyn's fate if her abusive husband became king. She had already seen what would happen to the two women who helped her get away from him.
"This is not acceptable," Liliana said. "Tray Bradley is even more unworthy than Andrew Periclum was. These are not pride-kings. These men would not know honor if it bit them on the leg."
Arel smiled warmly at her. "Spoken like the daughter of a lion-kin prince."
"Are there no better candidates?" Liliana asked them. "If you could choose the next king, who would you choose?"
"I wish someone like Daniel could become king," Marilyn Bradley said wistfully.
The scowl that seemed permanent on Kazi's face faded into a smile as warm as her mother's. Her aura brightened with gold and creamy white; pride and love. "Daddy would make a great king."
Arel shook her head, face tightening with what looked like anger, but her soul shaded acid green with fear. "That's silly talk. Your father is too old. He could never beat Tray in the dome. He'd get himself killed if he tried."
Liliana tilted her head, considering. She looked into Arel Magoro's past. She saw a huge lion-kin with skin as dark as midnight and muscles on his muscles. The man had been a champion of the dome games in his youth. When young lions of his generation tested their skills against each other to impress the lionesses and gain rank within the pride, he had been the best.
Andrew Periclum lied when he told Doctor Nudd he earned his title. He became king because he was born a prince. The dome challenge was intended to prevent large scale battles when a king died without a clear heir, or a fair portion of the pride did not think the heir was a worthy successor.
Honorable lions throughout the pride supported Andrew Periclum back then because he was the old king’s only son. Liliana remembered one stocky stranger had challenged, but there had been others in the pride who supported that man’s claim. They must have known he had a legitimate reason to question Periclum’s fitness to rule. With the mess Periclum made of the pride’s reputation, that one man brave enough to stand against him seemed heroic in hindsight. Foolish, but heroic.
Daniel Magoro did not call challenge that day. He helped build the dome instead. Back then, he had no way to know that Andrew Periclum would become an unworthy king. If he had challenged then in his prime, many things might have been different. That assumed that Kazi, Marilyn, and Arel’s faith in Daniel Magoro was well-placed.
"If you believe that Daniel would be a good king, then choose a champion who can defeat Tray Bradley to fight for him." The spider-kin wondered why the three women hadn't already done that.
"A champion?" Kazi said, confusion on her face.
"It's one of our oldest traditions," Arel told her daughter. "A champion can fight for someone else that they feel would make a better king. The champion answers any Challenges, but the king rules."
Kazi said, "Like how Tray beat the crap out of anyone who dared to question Periclum?"
"Like that, only more civilized," Arel said. "Disputes are settled in the dome with the whole pride as witness, not with broken kneecaps in back alleys." She turned to Liliana. "It's not a tradition many people have followed. My grandfather told me about it. But if someone wins the challenge now, they want to rule themselves. People think that being a strong fighter makes them good kings."
Marilyn shook her head, face dark. "It doesn't matter. No one can beat Tray."
Looking into the past and the future, Liliana followed Tray Bradley in several fights, from barroom brawls through dome bouts and occasional leg-breaking enforcement for Andrew Periclum. The big lion was a formidable fighter. He was also heavy on his feet and led with his right too often. "I could beat him," Liliana said.
All three women laughed at her.
The spider seer’s ears flushed hot. She hated being laughed at. She studied the three women with her third eyes, wondering what she said that was so funny.
Oh.
They were not laughing at her. They thought she was joking.
"I defeated a Celtic wolf in single combat."
They stopped laughing.
"The wolf became my ally, then my friend. With his aid, I defeated four widow spiders."
Kazi nodded. "I saw the footage of you and the Celtic werewolf killing Lady Fairchilde. What happened to the others? Kristen, Margaret, Stella?"
"The red wolf killed Margaret."
"You're saying you killed Kristen and Stella by yourself?" Kazi looked down her nose at the petite spider seer. "Kristen wasn’t a fighter, but Stella was the best. She trained all the security personnel. I saw you on the dining room camera get thrown through a glass door. Stella went after you but didn’t come back. Did you trick her somehow?"
Liliana looked into Kazi's dark eyes with her own third eyes for a moment, then looked down. What Kazi did not say was that Stella had been someone she admired. "I am truly sorry for both deaths, but they were necessary. Kristen was pregnant. The nest was murdering people to feed her unborn children. She was in the process of killing Pete so I had no choice.” The spider seer didn’t dare look into the past or she would cry. “Stella fought with honor, courage, and great skill. I tried to let her walk away peacefully, but her beloved would not go.” Liliana closed all her eyes for a moment in regret, but she couldn’t have done anything else. She touched her shoulder where her spider-kin nature had faded even the scar from Stella’s worst attack to unblemished skin. “Stella would have killed me if I had not killed her first."
Kazi's nostrils flared for a moment, then she looked down as well. "Was that what you said to her? There was no sound on the video. You held the red wolf back, let her leave without a fight." She swallowed, then looked back up at the spider-kin. "I also saw that red wolf fight. I’ve never seen strength like that, even in a bear-kin."
"He is even better now. I trained him," Liliana said with pride. "I taught him what my father taught me."
"Your father, a prince of the Nemean lions," Kazi said, like she was asking if Liliana was going to stick with that unlikely story.
Liliana nodded. Her father was who he was. Their belief or disbelief made no difference.
Arel asked, "Seer, since this red wolf is your friend, could you ask him to be Daniel's champion?"
"I could." Liliana looked into Pete's future and saw a problem. The assassins from the Order of the Wolfhound were coming for Lou Willoughby in three nights. The Challenge was also in three nights. Pete could not be in two places at once. He needed to be there to protect the defenseless rabbit-kin mechanic.
Arel saw her hesitation but misinterpreted it. "I know Celtic wolves only defend Normals and seelie Fae, but we've put some money together, donations from a bunch of us. We can pay the red wolf. Tell him that if Tray Bradley becomes king, the whole Other community in North Carolina will suffer. There could be a pride war. Normals are bound to get caught in the crossfire."
"Pete is a very unusual red wolf. He will not fight for money. He would be insulted if you offered. He protects whoever is in danger, Normal or any kind of Other, including Fae of either court. His oldest friend is an oak goblin."
All three lionesses had identical expressions of shock and disbelief. "But goblins are unseelie Fae!" Marilyn said.
The spider seer shrugged. "Pete loves him like a favorite uncle. He is a very unusual Celtic wolf. Pete would be honored to aid you because it is right, but ..." She trailed off.
Liliana had warned Janice Willoughby. The rabbit-kin intended to take her children and flee to New Jersey in two days, ostensibly to visit her mother. The spider seer gave her word to her most loyal customer that her husband, Lou, would be safe. The Celtic wolf would protect him. "I will not ask him. The red wolf has other business that night. People will die if he is not where he should be."
"People will die if Tray becomes the pride-king," Marilyn Bradley pointed out.
Liliana nodded. "I agree this is not an acceptable outcome. But Pete cannot be Daniel's champion in three nights, so we will find another way." She said it with confidence, even though she had not yet decided how to make that happen. Liliana was a lion's daughter. This was her pride, too. She would not permit another unworthy king to be chosen.
She had to be careful, though. It was far too easy to make things worse. If Daniel Magoro was not the man these women believed him to be, then she might be responsible for the evil done by the next unworthy king.
The spider seer dove into visions of Daniel Magoro in the past. Solid visions of him in the future did not exist, only vague impressions, flickery with improbability. Those brief images did seem to be good, though. Arel and Kazi smiling. Marilyn raising her son in peace.
Liliana foresaw that if Daniel did become king, since Daniel had no sons of his own, Marilyn and Tray Bradley’s son would be the next king. The boy would grow into his father's brute strength, but it would be tempered by honor and compassion that his pride family would teach him.
From the fleeting glimpses the spider-kin could see, Daniel would be a good king. But she had to be sure. Power could change people. "Mrs. Magoro, I need you to answer a question for me, now." Normally, she didn't ask clients questions, but this was a special case. If anyone knew this lion-kin, it would be his wife.
"What is it?" The elder lioness gave Liliana her full attention.
The spider seer returned that attention with all eight eyes at once. "Is it simply that he is your husband and you love him, or do you believe that Daniel Magoro would make a good king? Is he a man of honor who keeps his word always? Would he rule with a strong will, tempered with a good balance of justice and mercy?"
"Yes." Arel answered without hesitation. There was no trace of doubt anywhere in her mind. She not only loved her husband, she admired him.
Liliana didn't bother looking into the mind of Kazi, Daniel's daughter. With few exceptions, all men were heroes in the eyes of their daughters.
She looked into Marilyn Bradley's mind instead. "Do you believe that Daniel Magoro is the best possible lion to become pride-king?"
"Daniel would be a better king than any I've ever known." There was little hope in the woman's heart. She did not believe that Daniel Magoro could become king. But there was a great deal of longing. Marilyn, the woman whose trust had been repeatedly betrayed by a man who should have protected her, believed in Daniel Magoro. The elder lion had no reason to protect her and her child. He had taken Marilyn and her son in, sheltered them, treated them like family even though it put his own family in danger, because it was the right thing to do. That was the kind of man Daniel Magoro was.
"I will meet Daniel Magoro. I will come to your house tomorrow afternoon, after my last appointment. If he is the man that you all believe he is, I will be his champion."