Chapter 14 Cero #3
“Not so sure about that.” Musa signaled to someone in the cave behind them. “Since it was a Kegari who came up with the idea. Or two Kegari, really. Clerics?”
Noa and Olnas emerged from the cave. They wore fresh clothing; Olnas’s ankle had been neatly bandaged. Cero looked between them and Musa, bewildered.
“I’ll give you a moment.” Musa disappeared back into the cave.
“Now, don’t be angry, lad,” Noa said once he’d left. “But someone has to do it.”
Cero couldn’t countenance it. “When in the Spires did you even conjure up something so preposterous?”
“It’s not preposterous,” Olnas said in her quiet way. “Musa is right. Our people cannot remain here. We would only be trading decades of starvation for decades of war. We must know if there is a home to go to. Because if there is, then perhaps—”
“This—this could take months,” Cero said. “I know nothing about where Old Kegar might be.”
“It won’t take months,” Noa said. “The stories say that Old Kegar lay west, across the Southern Ocean.”
“It’s a big bleeding ocean,” Cero burst out. “You didn’t see what Aiz did to me, Sisters. She has magic again. Somehow she’s stealing it. Our people aren’t safe. They need me—”
“To find them a way home,” Noa said. “To give them a chance at life.”
It must be you. The voice from the dream echoed in his mind.
“I don’t believe in the Return.”
“Even now?” Noa said. “Even after all that you saw in the dark?”
Cero met Noa’s eyes, startled. She’d known that he snuck down into the tunnels beneath the cloisters when he was young.
She might have even seen some of the scrolls and carvings down there.
But she would not know of the apparition who had appeared before him, green-eyed and dark-skinned, and the words she’d spoken.
The oldest betrayal is that which is between blood.
Cast him into the dark, so that he might see.
“Tell me a dream, little love,” Noa whispered.
She used to say that to the children in the orphanage. You must tell me true, she would warn. Put your dream in the world, and see what returns.
How many dreams had he shared with her when he was young?
Little things that Noa could procure. I dream of a knife to keep myself safe.
I dream of a kite to fly in the spring. And the things that would only ever remain dreams. I dream of my father’s laugh.
I dream of the mother I never knew. I dream of not being a Snipe anymore.
Many years ago, he’d stopped telling her his dreams.
“I dream of a golden land,” Cero spat out, unable to lie but hating the truth, for it was a dream that would never be. “A place where our children can eat. Where our crops can grow. Where our magic can thrive. I dream of something better for us.”
“Then by the Spires, child,” Noa said, “go and find it. You are the only one who can. You know why.”
Cero felt ill suddenly, like all the air had gone out of him. Why was she saying that?
“I don’t,” he whispered so only she could hear, but his heart sank because someone other than him knew. Don’t think it. Don’t think it. Thinking it makes it real. “I’m not the one.”
“It’s all right to be afraid, my love.” Noa leaned her head against his. “But you cannot let it rule you. You have been given a gift. Use it.”
Cero looked out at the landscape. The wind pulled at him, but Cero did not know if it was to urge him or warn him.
Always, he had tried to hold himself apart from his people.
It hurt less than caring for them. But they were his people.
He had starved with them, scrapped with them, suffered with them.
His soul was fused to their fate. He loved them and he hated them and his hope for them was stronger than what he’d once felt for Aiz.
Stronger, even, than his anger at himself.
He had to save them. At the very least, he had to try.
Musa appeared from the cave, glancing between the Sisters and Cero. “Well?” he asked. “Do we have a decision?”
Cero nodded. “I’ll go,” he said. The words weighed heavy with meaning. Yes, the child in his head said. It can only be you, Cero.
Then Musa was clapping him on the shoulder, smiling.
“Knew there was a brain rattling around in there, even if none of them did.” He jerked his head back toward the cave, speaking—Cero assumed—of the rest of the Resistance.
“You can leave from here. We have clothes for you, supplies, a pack, and we’ve built a fine two-seater Sail. ”
“That will only slow me down,” Cero said. “I have a one-seater that will move quicker. It won’t take me long to get it from Antium.”
“Ah, perhaps I wasn’t clear.” Musa smiled, but there was no mirth in it.
“I’m not a bleeding idiot, Cero. The Empire’s future depends on you finding this homeland.
How do I know you won’t take the Sail and run?
I don’t. Which is why I’m sending someone with you.
Someone who can give me regular progress updates. Someone I trust.”
He glanced back, and a small figure stepped out after him, a pack on her back and an ugly scowl on her face.
Karinna Veturia.