Chapter 13 #3
“With the emergence of his powers, his father fell asleep. And my brother… my brother was ruined.” My voice trembled as I spoke. I knew the next question would hurt, but I had to ask. “Dricus… how did your parents die?”
He fell silent. He stared at the drawings, as if searching for answers.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked quietly, though he must have expected the question.
“Did it have something to do with your power?”
He was silent for a long time before answering.
“So they say.” His voice was hoarse. “I was a child, no more than a few years. A fire broke out in my chambers. My parents ran in to save me. They died, and several of the servants with them. They found me unconscious, in the ashes. That’s what I was told.
I remember nothing.” His hands closed into fists.
“Since that day the fire has always whispered to me. It has always tempted me.”
He stood there, utterly broken. Even more than me. I could feel pain in him. I wanted to touch him. To hug him. To tell him he wasn’t alone. Power had torn through his life like a battering ram and left nothing behind.
“Dricus,” I said, stepping nearer, unsure whether I should touch him or not. “It wasn’t your fault. You were a child. You couldn’t control it.”
“I know.” He gave a crooked smile, but grief smoldered in his eyes. “I only wish to know why it was me.”
Silence fell. The flame of my torch flickered.
“Each of our Families has lost something,” I said, my own voice sounding strange, as if another spoke. “Perhaps you are right, that this is no accident. The only people who might know the truth right now are Cassandra, and my parents.”
“Getting secrets out of Cassandra won’t be easy.”
“Do you know whether any Family has a fourth heir?” I asked. “One who might wield earth?”
“The strongest in this element are Mermont and Dorthal. But if their children had power, we would surely know about it by now. Such things are spoken of with pride. Usually…” He looked at me with a smile.
“Perhaps somewhere in the lesser families… but I don’t think anyone in the palace has the ability to control the earth. I would have felt it.”
“Felt it? Did you feel it in me,” I asked, and a strange shiver went through my neck.
“Yes.” He nodded slowly. “It comes with time. A faint vibration, pulling. And we are not the only ones. There are people who hold a native spark without an Elementar, but it is delicate, like your mother’s. Nothing so mighty as in me, in you,” he said, then added, unwilling, “and in Aidenar.”
“And the Plague,” I asked, forcing my mind to the words, though my heart hammered like a smith’s stroke. “How long has it been known? On the islands they spoke of it only these last months.”
Dricus sighed and kept his eyes on the images.
“The Plague has been with us longer than you think. The monsters were seen long ago, even when I was small. They came over the desert with the wild tribes. Cassandra knows. My parents knew. It is not spoken of openly, so the folk don’t fall into terror.
” He lifted his gaze to mine. “The Dominium pays the Cineris for the protection. And I do what I have to.”
“You burn whatever tries to pass,” I whispered.
“I do,” he said without tremor. “Our world is quiet and ordered, so far as it may be. But someone must pay the price.”
“What lies beyond the desert?”
“No one knows.” He shook his head. “Caravans that dared the crossing did not return. They say those lands were once green, but the sun grew harsher, the rivers failed, and the desert swelled and swallowed all. Now only small towns cling to the coasts and trade in scraps of what can endure. Whatever was beyond, we have no contact with it.” He paused, then added, “As for the Plague, the veil will not hold much longer. A little more time and not even Cassandra will keep it contained.”
I felt myself growing faint. The air in the catacombs was heavy, smelling of dust and stale smoke.
“I must take some breath,” I said, steadying myself on a column. “I have to get out.”
I didn’t wait for his reaction. I walked quickly toward the exit, my footsteps echoing through the cold corridors.
We passed again through the temple. I left Dricus and took a long path along the palace walls. I needed to order my thoughts, though I knew it could not be done.
Was my power a coincidence or a cause? Why the three of us?
I climbed the narrow stairs until I stood high upon one of the palace’s domes.
I had never been here before. White City lay open beneath me.
The town breathed with life, yet from that height it seemed hushed, the masts in the far harbor pricking the sky.
A faint wind touched my face, a rarity in that stifling place.
In that quiet I heard only my mother’s words echoing.
Darkness is coming. You must be ready.
She knew. She knew more than she ever told me. And she kept it hidden. She always had these riddles of hers.
Weary of my thoughts, I began my walk back. My heels clattered rhythmically along the stone paths, and one question still echoed in my mind, one I was afraid to say aloud.
Were we truly the salvation, or perhaps the beginning of the end?