35. The First Fortune
The First Fortune
The weapon.
I am the weapon. My magic, and Drake’s, combined and stable.
Drake had said the weapon wasn’t in Hevalla’s hands. Because it wasn’t – not really, when he was still loyal to Rhavna.
Then Dezeeves announced Hevalla had the weapon, because it did. In fact, it had both halves of it.
Cosmer seems to sense something changing in me. He pulls me closer.
“Don’t listen to them, Ara. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Don’t let Dezeeves’ mess – his problems – suck you in. I’m going to keep you safe.”
Dezeeves says, “Rike? Did you receive that? We need them in The Bridge. For the plan—”
Cosmer grabs the radio out of Rike’s hand.
“Dezeeves?” he says.
Dezeeves sputters over the static. “Cosmer? Why aren’t you in Meg’s cabin?”
Meg’s cabin?
Cosmer ignores him. “Dezeeves. I have a very simple instruction for you. Find a new plan.” He turns the dial to switch the radio off and hurls it back at Rike. “Let’s go.”
He takes my wrist. Leads me past them.
But Drake takes my other wrist.
I’m torn between them both, my arm stretching out where Drake has clasped it.
“Ara,” Drake says. “You’re doing that thing you do.”
The distance between us grows. I let my hand slip out of his fingers completely.
Keep walking. Keep walking.
“You’re letting your heart rule your head,” he continues, from somewhere behind me. “Think things through. And try to remember the first fortune. It started all of this.”
I don’t look back at Drake. Even though I seem to want to. I can’t fathom that. Don’t have time to fathom that.
Because Cosmer is marching me along, and our surroundings are blurring past so fast I can’t register them. Cosmer only stops, only lets go of me, when we reach a familiar hatch. He gets it open.
We’re inside. We’re safe.
I’m doing the right thing.
He’s unlocked the ship and entered it faster than I’ve ever seen him move.
He leans out of the doorway. It reminds me of the last time I saw him, back on the ground, when he was in the air on the crew rustler’s ship, my ribbon in his hand.
He had felt so far from me then.
He feels so far from me now.
He smiles. Kindly.
Far too kindly.
Why does he have to be so kind?
“Don’t be scared. I’ll get us through this. I’ll take us straight to Vikemy Village. Back to our families.”
I edge towards the ship until I’m opposite him in the doorway, looking up at him. He reaches out for me. Scoops my hands up in his.
“We’ll be with them again.” My words come out whispered, like I’m talking about doing something against Hevallan law.
Because it sounds impossible.
Cosmer’s smile grows. “This wouldn’t be classed as desertion – you can’t desert an evacuated ship.”
He bends out of the doorway. His pupils are wide as moons. The blood in the whites of his eyes could be constellations.
“We’ll be together, Ara.”
He kisses me. I kiss him back.
It’s the most wonderful, and most heart-breaking, thing in the world.
He pulls back. “We can get married,” he continues, his words ploughing on, right into my heart.
“If we want to. My mother would be so happy.” Quieter, voice rasping, he says, “We can have a family someday. Do you want that?” He doesn’t let me answer.
“Because I do. I’ve never known what a father is.
I’d like to change that.” He adds, his smile lopsided, “I think I’d be a great one. ”
“You would.” I believe it, irrevocably.
He sounds full of hope. “Do you want all that, too?”
My chest seizes.
“I want all of it.” I’m barely breathing.
“Come on, then,” he says, slumping back and letting our hands separate. “Get in the ship.”
I don’t move for a second.
But then I do. Grasping the doorway, I hoist myself up…
But fall backwards, in spasm.
I’m confused, panicking, as I twitch on the hot floor, my limbs at odd angles.
Pain. So much pain. Like a punishment.
My head is sound and colour. My eyes feel as if they’re bulging out of their sockets. The metal ceiling above me is rippling outwards like the Queen’s Lake on an overcast day.
I’m vaguely aware of Cosmer leaping out of the ship and crouching over me. He’s yelling my name.
And then my eyelids slam down shut like hatch doors, and I’m aware of nothing but the inside of my dark, simmering mind.
I smell her before I see her.
“Old Mother?” I cry out. “What’s happening?”
She appears in a puff of smoke behind me.
Any rage I had remaining for her dissolves like the light around us. She’s frightened. I can feel it.
I don’t have long, child, she signs.
“Tell me what’s happening.”
A card flies into my hand. I hold it up. All I see are ruby flames. Cracks are drawn on the card, as if the paper itself is splitting.
Fire.
Death.
Destruction.
The Card of The Rupture.
No.
“Bombs?” I shriek. “Bombs are coming?”
Any moment now.
“Then get out,” I say. “Run!”
She caresses my face.
I have always known this was my fate, child. And though it may be possible at times to find alternative options for how futures could present, we cannot outrightly escape what the Sisters have written for us.
I’m sobbing. “Old Mother. Please—”
I need you to listen to me carefully. I can see you have still not remembered the last of the truths. I cannot die knowing you might make mistakes, simply because you don’t have all of the information you need to avoid them.
“I thought you said I wasn’t strong enough.”
You are stronger than ever before. But…
“What?”
Look around you. Your mind is even darker now. Tainted. What did you do, to make it this way?
“I don’t—”
I do know. Ephraine. I killed Ephraine.
I try not to show the truth on my face. But I sense she senses it.
She remains calm. Oh, child. Perhaps what I tell you now will bring you back to who you are. It will, at the very least, offer you the answers you need.
“What do you need me to do?”
Listen.
Just…
Listen.
It’s like listening to a spell being cast.
When I was your age, I moved into the Palace to provide guidance to the royal family, through my cards. Though my magic usually only allows me to see the near future, I had a premonition of the more distant future while the Queen herself was young.
She would birth a powerful ruler. A son, who would have magic unlike anything in the known world. But he would become a cruel king and would bring upon destruction to his country and bloodline – and thus, his reign would mean the end of magic.
That was the first fortune. The Card of The Tyrant.
Much like you now, the Queen sought to change her fate. She demanded I predict a future where the first future could be bent – or reversed entirely. As I said to you, it is a risky business, cheating the stars. But I managed it. And so came about the second fortune.
When I drew the card of The Soulmates – the card which, of course, is inspired by the old story – I saw a potential solution to the problem of The Tyrant.
I saw that the Prince could be tamed. His magic could be poured into another.
This person – who would need to be someone he could grow to care for – would act as his foil.
In magic, we call it counterbalance. His powers would never work fully without her support.
She would bring him back from tyranny. In return – if they were to unite – their power would be as great, if not greater.
There were many facets of this fortune to be considered. The future queen would need to be of exceptional birth and training. Nothing could be left to chance. And so began the arduous process of selecting the individual.
“Me?” I ask.
No. Your mother. Women were brought to the Palace to be assessed from around the globe for their suitability to be the mother of the female in question.
Their traits were looked at. Their education.
Their looks. Your mother was found in Hevalla and impressed the Queen the most. Your father had already been chosen to be your father, being my great grandson, to imbue you with at least some minor magic – which it did, in your natural knack for languages – and strengthen the magic any heirs would have.
The Prince was three by the time you were born.
Even the name you were given was chosen to compliment his, for good luck.
And so, my sweet child, you see why the fortune gave you your life. Not ruined it.
The Queen of Hubris.
Who not only thinks she can rebel against the stars, but that she can engineer love in order to do that.
“For this fortune to happen, so many things would have to fall into place. What if we didn’t even like each other? Because we don’t, Old Mother.”
I find that unlikely.
“Unlikely?”
You were trained much of your lives in each other’s likes and dislikes. Values. Views of the world. More than that – the way you were raised was influenced by how the future versions of you would perceive them.
“I don’t understand that. At all.”
The Prince was raised in a challenging environment.
It was believed knowing he had suffered – in part, for your union – would appeal to you.
Likewise, it was believed the Prince would value your education and natural ability to think strategically, and that was encouraged in you.
The outbreak of war did not halt their efforts – only offered more opportunities.
The Prince was enlisted as a soldier, to build in him the noble character that again it was believed you would find worthy in a partner when you were grown. And you were exiled to Hevalla—
“Do not tell me that was part of this, too.”
I don’t think I can take any more.
Of course it was, child. The strength you developed while looking after myself and Eric – who himself was conceived to help you develop empathy – would also appeal to him—
“Stop,” I say, cracked. “Just stop. I can’t do this. I can’t have my whole life rewritten like this.”
It is not being rewritten. This is the way it was written. And in the future I saw the Queen’s meticulous planning bore fruit. You and the Prince ruled happily, side by side. His darkness was kept at bay. Magic, and the country, thrived.
“But futures can change,” I say. “Tell me you also saw another future. Please. One where I can choose someone else – choose my own fate – and Rhavna, and magic, can still be saved.”
I have not yet seen a future where that was possible.
“What futures did you see?”
There have only been three. The Tyrant. The Soulmates… And The Tyrant, again.
“The Tyrant again? Why twice?”
In that future, the tyrant was you, my dear. The darkness that was his had spilled into you, and you were more monstrous, even, than he. The result for Rhavna was rather the same as in the first future.
I’m suffocating.
“That can’t be. That won’t be.”
It was the weakest of the futures, yes, at the time I saw it. But it was possible.
I claw at her, desperate. “Well, which is it? Which will come true?”
The Queen hopes – as we all do – that it will be the second. It always seems to be the clearest. But the future is the future. None can know it, that haven’t lived it.
Ara and Drake.
Fate or chance? Drake had asked me, amused, when we met and discovered our complimenting names.
I hadn’t realised the answer to that would be neither.
It was design.
“You’re fading,” I say. She’s petering in and out like a flame under a breath.
I know you believe you have been greatly wronged. But you must hold onto what is real. Your love for me, was real – as was my love for you. Your love for your brother – as is his for you – is real. Even the love of your parents. You and Eric are their greatest joy.
I’m crying. “Stay,” I say. My hand finds hers but closes over nothingness.
I can’t. The bombs are falling now across the country. The Sky Treaty is broken. It is the death of peace.
“Stay,” I beg her. “Live here, in my mind. Where I can still see you. Speak to you. At least in my dreams.”
I am already in them, she replies.
“That’s not the same—”
The death of peace, she repeats again. Which you have the power in you to revive.
She slips away completely.
I can feel the bombs. The ground reverberates around me. My whole body shakes. I’m swiped out from under my feet. On the ground on my back, I hear the crumbling of buildings. The screams of my neighbours and friends. A voice I’m sure is Cosmer’s mother.
I can smell the smoke.
I am the fear of my people, combined. I absorb it all. I can’t even cry, because if I started, I would never stop.
Everything good in me is shattering.
And then, I feel nothing.
A stillness and silence so complete, so unlike any other, that it must only be found at the ends of worlds.
I lift my hand, which had been in hers.
She has left something behind. A card.
I flip it over. The Card of the Choice.
Her meaning is clear.
The card isn’t done with me.
Because I chose the gun, not the oxygen mask.
But there’s one other choice I need to make.