Chapter 38
TERRAN
Obviously, I misheard him.
“What in the stones did you say?”
“I am the human artifact.”
I shook my head. Knocked one side of it, hoping to clear whatever I’d gotten inside. Maybe this morn, stopping briefly to clean in an Aetherian stream, their water got inside and poisoned my mind.
“Listen to him,” Lyra said beside me.
I glanced from her, to my brother, to the others gathered around the table.
And then the king. Looking up, the ceiling now a night sky filled with twinkling stars, I said a silent prayer to my mother to give me strength for this discussion which had gone off a cliff, and then attempted to do as Lyra suggested.
“You,” I repeated, “are the human artifact? The equivalent of the Tidal Pearl—”
“Aye.”
“Or the Wind Crystal.”
“Aye.”
“You don’t have to keep going,” Kael mumbled.
“Or the Stone of Mor’Vallis.”
“Also, aye.”
The man was daft. I’d come here for this?
“Not daft. The relics are pieces of Elydor’s balance. But every scholar’s record, everything those around this table have uncovered… or failed attempt we’ve made—”
“Rowan,” I said, stopping him, “I didn’t say you were daft.” But then added, “Not aloud.”
“I am a seer. And my abilities are stronger than most.”
The fact didn’t surprise me. But most seers gather information in snippets, often without context. This was something altogether different. He’d heard what was inside my head.
“I do not do that often,” he quickly added, “but only wish to illustrate my words.”
“What do you mean, stronger than most?”
“Perhaps if you let him speak, Terran,” my brother said, “he will tell you.”
I ignored Kael, waiting for Rowan to continue.
“Terran, you yourself said opening and closing the Gate are not the same. Galfrid opened it because he carried the relics and the will of a people united. Balthor closed it because hatred wounds more deeply than steel… and relics remember wounds. And I…” Rowan hesitated, his hand brushing his chest. “I am Harrow’s blood.
Keeper born. Every time I touched the relics, they stirred, not because of power, but because I was the piece never counted.
The fourth relic, hidden in flesh instead of stone. ”
Rowan looked around the table, his voice quiet but unflinching. “It was never only the jewels of Elydor. It was always the jewels and the hand that wielded them which provided power. And my hand… my bloodline… is the one the Gate has been waiting for.”
Harrow’s blood. Keeper born.
“What does that mean? Keeper born.”
He appeared distinctly uncomfortable now. Darting a glance at Nerys, who nodded, Rowan spoke, though reluctantly.
“I was never meant to say this. Keepers are sworn to silence, to pass their charge in whispers from one generation to the next. My grandfather warned me… our role was to watch, to wait, and never reveal. To do otherwise was to risk unbalancing the very order we swore to guard. But silence has brought us here. To a Gate that will not open, and a world unraveling.”
As the surprise of his earlier revelation wore off, his words made sense. There had been something about him… Kael agreed, knowing the man better than I.
Rowan’s voice had softened but did not falter. “My bloodline is that missing hand. If I remain silent, Elydor remains broken. So I break my vow, not for myself, but for all of us.”
I had many questions, and likely always would. A man who kept such a secret would not reveal himself completely. But one was more important than the others.
“How do you know it will work?”
Rowan went silent suddenly, as if he didn’t hear the question.
“He has visions.” Nerys spoke for him. “As he’s doing now. They are more clear than most seers’, due to his bloodline and role as the Keeper of Memories for the humans, but still always not fully formed. As he told the others—”
“Apologies,” Rowan said. “I have the ability to block out such visions but do not dare now. Not with so much at stake.”
“Anything important?” Nerys asked.
Rowan’s gaze clouded, distant. “I see a crown resting in the dust. A hand sets it down, not in defeat, but in peace. And another takes it up. The Gate is not the only thing that opens when balance is restored.”
Silence fell.
He blinked hard, as if pulling himself back. “Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything.”
Everyone had stopped eating. Stopped drinking. We hardly even moved, the gravity of his words, and implications for them, understood.
“Terran’s new reign?” Galfrid asked.
Kael responded. “The hand set it down in peace, not defeat.”
In other words, not our father.
“As I told the others,” Rowan picked up where Nerys had left off, “I knew the Gate would reopen.”
He’d seen it. “Since?” I asked, unable to keep the accusation from my voice.
“For some time. I’ve been trained, as are all of Harrow’s bloodline, as Keepers. Interfering with future events is strictly forbidden. Even so, if I knew how it was done, how the Gate would reopen—”
He looked at Nerys. Clearly, this was something Rowan had been struggling with. Lyra’s look of warning to me was not needed.
I silently vowed to remember Rowan was friend, not a foe.
“Thankfully, it is a decision I never had to make. The details on its reopening continued to allude me. But when Mev and Lyra whispered to us that they’d uncovered what they believed was the key, the necessity of a human artifact.
” He shivered. “It would be difficult to explain, but I knew at that moment. The human artifact was needed, and that ‘artifact’ was me. Perhaps it was the reason I was sent to Thalassaria in the first place.”
“Not to meet Nerys and fall in love,” Issa teased.
“That too.” He smiled at his partner, the Thalassari queen.
“When do we attempt it?” I asked. As monumental as it would be, getting Lyra alone was just as important to me. We had much to discuss.
I had a question to ask of her.
“Now.”
For a moment, I thought the response had come from King Galfrid. It was so forcefully and deeply spoken. But in fact, it had come from Mev.
“If it pleases you all,” she added, her tone just slightly softened.
She was her father’s daughter. Of that, there was no doubt.
“Terran, you did not eat,” Lyra began as each of those gathered began to rise.
“I will eat when this is done,” I said. And then for her ears alone: “A feast long desired and worth the wait.”
She slapped my upper arm, seemingly uncaring the playful gesture was noticed by more than one.
As they filtered out of the room, I grabbed her wrist, holding Lyra back.
I added, “The moment we are alone, you will strip out of those garments, lie on my bed, and spread your legs for such a feast. Do you understand me, Lyra?”
As always, her expression, a mixture of defiance and budding lust, displayed the internal war she waged.
But thankfully, I knew which side would win.
To ensure it, I added, “And this time, if you do not cry my name so loud those in The Crooked Key can hear it, I will not allow you up from my bed until that happens.”
Her lips were too enticing not to kiss, and so I did. Quickly, a taste that did nothing more than inflame my already engorged appetite for her.
She attempted to leave the chamber.
Not so quickly, my slippery Shadow Diplomat.
I held her wrist firm.
“Do you understand?”
“We are about to—”
“Lyra?”
“I understand.”
I let her go. Reluctantly.
But not for long.