Chapter 17
PREPARATION IS KEY
Ifell asleep reading. But not even slumber could erase the dread of Jasher’s warning—no, his promise. It followed me into my dreams.
Images flashed.
Me, cradled in his arms.
Us, flying through a smoke-filled sky.
Him, kissing me inside a cave.
A ripple brushed my consciousness before the water’s call rose like the tide, cresting wave after wave, yanking me back into the waking world.
My eyes snapped open. Warm water lapped at my ankles, and confusion struck. During the night, I’d left my bed, stripped to my undergarments, and entered the pool. Now, I shot my gaze to Jasher.
He maintained his pose against the wall, smoldering as he watched me. Goosebumps broke out over my limbs.
His gaze traced the marks. “What did you dream?”
“Don’t want to talk about it,” I mumbled and sank under the water’s surface. Mmm. Just what I’d needed.
Minutes—hours?—passed as I swam from one side to the other, sometimes grazing the bottom. My every motion possessed a grace I’d never exhibited back home. Getting used to my new (unseen) skin?
I opened my eyes, surprised my eyesight remained clear. The need to breathe was suspended, and it was as odd as it was wonderful. And infuriating. Now, I couldn’t deny it. Couldn’t rationalize the visions or the reception I received from others.
Possible or not, Elowen had changed me.
Eventually, I breached the water’s surface, furious but intrigued.
“What if the king forces you to enter the Ring of Truth, even if you tell him you misinterpreted your vision?” Jasher asked, as if picking up a lagging conversation.
“He won’t. You heard him. He wants to believe Ian is faithful, and he doesn’t want me harmed.
” My feet sank, and I tread, finding my rhythm in the water.
“Don’t worry. I’ll buy us time. Keep studying.
Find the Ember.” Though nothing I’d read overnight had helped.
“I might even decode nonsense. Kangaroos invade lava libraries. Mangoes adopt lost kittens; oceans moo. Ostriches rehearse. Donuts invent eclipses.”
His color drained. He opened his mouth. Closed it.
“What?” I demanded. “Do you know what that means?”
“Do you…remember the…poem in the forest?” He pushed the words through clenched teeth.
“Yes.” Foxes in need dream. Hills eat rain. Was there a connection?
“They—” He opened and closed his mouth yet again, but no sound emerged.
“Are you not allowed to tell me?” I asked softly.
He gave a clipped nod. Then he cocked his head, ear up, and frowned. “Someone approaches.”
The chamber door opened, and Captain Rourke strode inside as if he had every right, grim-faced. “Oracle, it’s time.”
I glowered at him. “Next time knock.”
“My apologies.” He bowed his head, keeping his gaze on the wall behind me. “I’m not used to showing consideration to a prison—guest.”
Jasher growled.
“Oh, no. You did the thing,” Kevin announced, arms now folded as if with exasperation.
“He did, didn’t he, little buddy?” The executioner dragged out the words, his tone dripping with warning. “He looked upon my water maiden.”
His water maiden? “He actually hasn’t looked—”
Tinman arrowed forward as far as his chain allowed, suddenly standing between the newcomer and the pool, his wings flared, to block me from the other man’s view. His shadow rose from his back, as though preparing to launch an attack.
“I suggest you exit,” he commanded with more fury than I’d ever heard from him. “She must dress, and you aren’t invited to watch. Try, and I’ll eat your eyes. Give you an up-close, personal look at my digestive tract.”
The soldier bowed up, vibrating with hatred. “You and your kind are—”
“Enough!” Gracious. I swam to the shallow end and climbed the stairs, drying as I moved. “You heard him. Get out.”
A muscle jumped beneath the captain’s eye. “I’ll wait in the hall. Ten minutes. No more.”
“Thirty,” I insisted.
He pursed his lips. “Twenty. The king was adamant I keep you in my sights.”
“Why?” I asked. Afraid I’d bolt?
He didn’t respond, just glared at Jasher before leaving. I waited until the door closed, Jasher retracted his wings, and the shadow absorbed into his skin before I fully emerged. His protective gesture proved as powerful as a magnet, drawing me closer.
He hadn’t budged from his spot. I hesitated only a moment, then pressed my chest into the soft, folded wings, winding my arms around his middle and kissing his nape.
“Thank you,” I breathed out. For everything. He’d told me what he could about the nonsense note and stood up for me.
At first, he tensed, but it wasn’t long before that tension seeped from him.
“This thing you make me feel changes nothing, princess.” He rasped the words while tracing the tips of his claws along my arms, the slow, barely there strokes devastating my common sense. “You understand this, yes?”
“I understand everything has changed.” Rather than sticking around to argue, I released him and padded to the private bathroom.
Shimmering blue mosaics depicting swirling waves adorned the walls.
A constant shower of steaming rain poured inside a stall with moss-covered stones.
Silver faucets shaped like leaping fish perfectly complemented polished seashell basins.
Moisture carried the faint scent of salt and flowers.
I breathed deep, savoring this moment of calm before the storm.
In the stall, I used the array of toiletries not available in the pool. “Elowen?” I whispered, hoping to see her again. And she should be here. Water maidens sensed a need and pounced. But she never came.
Well, onward and upward. Fresh, clean, and dry, I brushed my teeth and braided my hair.
An open door led into the closet, where I hoped to find tunics and leathers.
Oh, wow. An array of water maiden queen couture.
A treasure trove of flowing, ethereal garments woven from the finest sea silk and what appeared to be enchanted gossamer.
Shades of deep ruby, crimson, and scarlet caught the light, dominating the space.
A single gown of cascading sapphire hung alone, with an intricate bodice decorated with mother-of-pearl inlays, tiny opalescent beads, and fine coral filigree.
Guess I’d be attending my trial dressed as Water Maiden Smurfette. I selected the blue, and yeah, okay, I admit, I was drawn to it.
When I emerged, Jasher was on his feet, exactly where I’d left him but facing me now.
He seemed to stop breathing as he looked me over.
“Perhaps you should give me a sponge bath before you go,” he suggested with wry humor, so like the man who’d once played in a natural spring with me.
I nearly whimpered. “I find I’m suddenly quite… filthy.”
“Careful,” I teased. “You almost sound like my Tinman again.”
He said nothing else, but my mind whirled. We were down to the wire. I needed to come up with the right wording for my “apology.” I had to do it without lying, creating distrust in the future.
But. The journal. It waited on the mattress, exactly where I’d dropped it when I’d drifted to sleep. Even outside the Ring of Truth, truth was a weapon.
With little more than five minutes remaining on Captain Rourke’s countdown clock, I raced to the bed, sat and turned to Ahav’s last entry.
To my beloved Princess Moriah, our destined queen,
The moment you were born, I was remade. I had loved you long before that day.
Loved the promise of you, the breath I imagined you would one day draw.
But when I held you against my chest, everything I was rearranged itself around you.
My heart did not simply swell. It transformed, making room for you, its rhythm forever altered.
Every rise and hollow of it now bears your imprint.
You are not merely the reason it beats. You are its purpose.
Impossible. This journal was written in this loop. Yes? I was born in Kansas. Yes? So how had Ahav met me? Held me?
The very idea struck like a blade between my ribs. Had Queen Sandrine returned to Hakeldama after giving birth?
Another impossibility. She’d given me this journal before I left Ozworld. Before my birth. These words should not yet exist.
Unless this wasn’t the journal I’d started with…but came from another loop, sent by a past Moriah. The same one who’d sent the pack.
My pulse thundered as I read on.
I have tried, oh, how I have tried to protect you and your mother from Ian’s wrath.
To prepare you both for the war that shadows our every dawn.
Queen Elowen believes the surest way to guide you is not through strategy or bloodlines, but love.
She urged me to tell you our story. Mine and your mother’s.
Are you ready?
I met Sandrine two years ago, when she washed upon our shores.
I had gone riding without plan or escort.
A reckless impulse I cannot explain, and something I hope you never do.
But I digress. I told no one of my path, and yet, there she was.
Unconscious, bruised, and bloodied. Whispering nonsense through cracked lips.
Words she repeated. I’ve never forgotten them because she sometimes still mutters them while sleeping. “Shaburr shwin.”
After finding her, I bundled her up, intending to rush her to a healer. That’s when she awoke. She had no memory of who she was. Still doesn’t. But that’s all right. We know who she is now. Ours.
Memory loss, twice in her life? Like the two cave-ins with Morris, this wasn’t a coincidence but a pattern.
When she’d spoken of the “mental cage,” she’d mentioned memories she couldn’t quite reach. Did they stem from her life pre-Ahav?
Had she gone through a waterway, traveling between worlds? That would explain why Ahav had found her upon a shore.
I loved her the moment she opened those beautiful hazel eyes, peered up at me, and boxed my ears.
A startled laugh escaped me. I could hear him chuckling as he wrote that. Could see the scene as clearly as if I’d been there myself.
My mother. The ear-boxing champion of Hakeldama.
We laugh about our meeting now, though it took me months of patient courting to earn her trust. And her hand. I failed often, but I persisted, anyway. And in the end, I won. Marrying your mother is the finest decision of my life.
And there you have it, our love story. I wish I could tell you I found the Ember, as I found your mother, sparing you the weight of war and the cruelty of choice.
But there are forces at work older than our kingdom’s crown.
I have begun to suspect the Ember does not wish to be found so much as it needs to be recognized.
It’s here, it’s near, and there’s a great chance we’ve overlooked it.
If these words reach you when you are lost or afraid, I pray they steady you, as Queen Elowen believes they will. Above all things, my Moriah, never forget that I love you.
Across kingdoms. Across lifetimes. Across whatever comes next.
Your father,
Ahav
Thoughts tore through me, a cyclone fiercer than the twin storms that had carried me between worlds and through time. Recognized. Not found. Not claimed.
Recognized.
Elowen believed this story could lead me to the Ember. Not the maps or the legends. This. So why hadn’t she told me herself? She’d had plenty of opportunities.
“You look ready to laugh and sob again,” Jasher said quietly, drawing me back to the present.
“My mother lived a life no one knows—” My voice cracked. I pressed the journal to my chest like a shield. A lifeline. “Never mind. My father said the Ember wants to be recognized.”
A knock sounded before he could respond, then the captain opened the door, his eyes once again trained on the wall behind me. “Time’s up.” He motioned to the exit. “This way, Oracle.”