“I thought it just happened when you were born.”
“Like green eyes or large stature or red hair?”
“Something like that.”
“Tell me, Gerick, how likely is it that a child has red hair and yet his mother has brown hair and his father black?”
“I don’t know. Not likely, I guess.”
“Then what if I were to tell you that it is far less likely that a boy is born with the powers you have to parents who have none, than it is for a black-haired child with dark brown skin to be born to parents that are blond and fair?”
My stomach tied itself into a knot, and my skin felt cold again, though it wasn’t even night. The red sun shone hot and bright on my skin. “Would it be true?”
“Yes.”
“Then that would mean that Papa or Mama was a sorcerer, too-”
“You know better than that.”
“-or that one of them, or both of them, were not my parents.”
Darzid leaned on the balcony rail and gazed out into the desert. “Tomas was far too powerful for your mother to amuse herself with other men. And I can tell you that while Tomas had women other than Philomena on occasion, none of them were Dar’Nethi.”
The knot pulled up everything so tight, I felt like there was a big hollow place in my stomach. “Then who am I?”
From the pocket of his black tunic, Darzid pulled a flat square of ivory. He put it in my hand. It had a looking glass set into it, and of course when I looked at it, my own face looked back at me. How could Papa not be my father? I could see him in my face. My chin was pointed like his. My hair was the same color, my eyes, too. And even darkened from the sun, my skin had the same red-gold cast. Nellia had said a thousand times how like Papa I was, and how no one but the children of Comigor had such coloring…
The mirror clattered to the floor, and I clasped my hands behind my back as if it had burned me. I wanted to be sick.
Darzid nodded. “You’ve guessed it then. A hard thing to discover that what you believed all your life was false.”
Seri. I was Seri’s child… and her sorcerer husband’s who had been burned alive.
“You and your cousin were born on the same day. Tomas’s son was born early, weak and sickly, like all Philomena’s children. There was no possibility he could survive. The serving sister who attended both mothers had overheard what was planned for the sorcerer’s child and tried to switch the two of you. I caught her at it and decided that it would be amusing to see what became of you. I made sure the nurse was sent to Comigor with you and would watch out for any sign that you had inherited your father’s… skills.”
“So the baby Papa killed…”
“… was his own son. He never knew it.”
“Was he cursed by Seri’s husband? Is that why he was born early?” Everything in the world was flipping upside down. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the sun had started rising right back up from where it was setting.
“Perhaps.”
I didn’t know what to think. Seri. Seri was my mother. I hated her because her Prince had killed Papa, and she had brought him to kill me and Lucy. But surely that meant she didn’t know the truth either. I tried to remember things about Seri, but everything was all blurry and confused. And the baby Papa killed hadn’t been a sorcerer. That changed… something… Before I could clear any of it up, Darzid tapped me hard on the cheek, calling me to pay attention.
“There’s more. Worse than what you have already heard.”
“I can’t see how it could be worse.”
“You should know your father’s name, don’t you think?”
“He was evil, and he’s dead. I don’t see why it matters except that he made me evil like him. I didn’t belong there. I shouldn’t have been born in that other world at all. And Papa… Tomas… was my real father.”
“Don’t be sentimental, Gerick. You were so afraid of Tomas that you stopped talking to him. He would have slit your throat or had you burned if he had even suspected what you are. But the identity of your father has everything to do with who you are, and what you are, and what you will be in the future, for there has come about something so unusual-even for this world that is so strange to you- that it would take days even to speculate on how it was done.”
“I don’t understand.” My head was spinning with hot and cold and red sunlight glaring in my eyes and his words that just would not stop telling me awful things.
“It’s in the names. The names will tell you. You see, Serf’s husband, your father, went by the name of Karon.”
“Karon? But that was the other name they called-”
“-the Prince D’Natheil. Yes, indeed. It appears that your real father is not dead at all, but has been brought back to life. He is now one and the same as our enemy.”
“I don’t understand how it could be possible.” Two different people… yet the same. A dead person come to life again.
“It is indeed an immense enchantment, worked by the old man you saw talking with Seri-the last gasp of a once-talented people. We will teach you all about it and what it means for your place in the world. But for now, you must be ready to face him.”
“Face him? The Prince?” I could not call him my father. I pictured the tall man who had walked with Seri in Grandmama’s garden and could not imagine how the Lords thought I could fight him.
“Yes, this is the most magnificent part of the whole business. D’Natheil has made a great mistake, a mistake that could cost him his control of the universe, not to mention this perversion that he calls his life. You are the key. We didn’t know your test would come so soon, but it’s all to the good.”
Ziddari went on to tell me of how I would be taken into the heart of our enemies’ stronghold, and asked to stand in the presence of my father, the Prince, who also happened to be the man King Evard had burned to death shortly before I was born. “The two of you will be tested, to verify your relationship. The burden is on him, not on you. You have only to be present.”
“Why would he admit that I’m his son if it could lose the war for him?” I was confused.
“He will have no choice. The enchantments that caused him to live past his own proper death have unsettled his mind. In a vain attempt to retain his hold on his power, he has put himself in a vulnerable position. If we play our parts well, then, before another day dawns, you will be acknowledged his successor.”
“But his followers won’t acknowledge me if I’m allied with his enemies.” There was Darzid, thinking I was stupid again.
“Oh, they will acknowledge you. For a thousand years they’ve locked themselves into the stupidities of breeding and bloodlines. They’ll soon discover their mistake. You are no longer the Duke of Comigor, but by sunset tomorrow you will be the Prince of Avonar, sovereign of all Dar’Nethi and Dulcé. And on the day you come of age you will be anointed the Heir of the cursed D’Arnath. D’Arnath was the only one of the Dar’Nethi who ever understood the full depth and breadth and uses of power, and in his pride and selfish stupidity, he reserved it all to himself and his Heirs. In a little more than one turning of the year, on the day you complete your twelfth year of life, all of it will be yours.”