“Is it time to break your oaths, Arkin?” Sasha asked politely.
“Yes, I think it is.”
Keither knew that something far greater than himself was happening here and tried to clear his mind. It was close to daybreak, but the moon would not set for some time to come. It was that part of the year when the sun would be rising and the moon would stubbornly hang in the western sky, refusing to bow to its more powerful brother. He sat on his overly large behind. All of them were sitting now. Sasha gave Legon a piece of bread to chew. He would be hungry after all, wouldn’t he?
Arkin took a sip from his water skin, collecting his thoughts. “It won’t do to get right to the part where you two come into this story, so I will start further back.” When he said, ‘you two’ he inclined his head to Sasha as well as Legon. How was she involved in this?
“As you know, there was a war when the Queen took over this section of Airmelia. And in that war, human, Elf, and Iumenta fought. All sides took casualties, obviously; one of these was a dragon. His wife was killed. Now it doesn’t matter what killed her, only that she was killed and his grief was great. All of you remember what I have said about what happens when an Elf’s spouse dies, don’t you?”
They did. Keither wondered how a dying Elf had anything to do with their current state, but he listened on.
“Before this great dragon expired, he used magic and the Mahann to ascertain the future, for he wanted to know how long it would be until the rest of his house fell to the Iumenta.”
Legon spoke, preempting Arkin. “But he didn’t see their end.”
Arkin looked surprised at Legon’s intuitiveness. “No, he didn’t. He saw in the future one man that would either choose to belong to the Elves or the Iumenta. He would be an Elf, but the choice would be his to make. Now this man would do many great and terrible things if he chose, but in the end he would restore order.”
When Keither first started to hear about a ‘prophecy’ he scoffed at the idea, but this was not so much a prophecy but rather a probability. The Mahann used logic to figure things out, and this dragon used the Mahann to tell of these things, so there was logic here. It had to be a probability, but he didn’t see it yet.
“That ‘hero’, as he was called, would be known as the Everser Vald, meaning, in the Elven tongue, ‘the destroyer of great power’. This meant that if he chose the Iumenta side the Elves would fall, but if he chose the Elven side…”
“The Iumenta would lose control of the land,” Sara said, beaming at Legon.
Legon interrupted them all. “Wait, wait. That doesn’t mean that it’s me. You said that there had been others in my situation before. There have to be signs or something to say who it is.”
“Yes, Legon, there have been others. But let me finish. The prophecy spoke of signs that would appear, of course, and I will get to those, but there is more. This hero, this Everser Vald, would be greatly influenced by another.”
Sara said incredulously, “An influencer? I have never heard of an influencer in this story.”
“No, you haven’t. Only a select few have heard the prophecy in its entirety. This was done as a protection, not only to the possible hero, but to that influencer as well. This person would be the deciding factor in what side the Everser Vald would choose, and that meant that we had to step lightly when a potential person fit the signs.”
“But I haven’t had an influencer,” Legon blurted. But he had. Keither saw it, saw her for the first time. Pieces fell into place now. It never made any sense at all to keep one like Legon so deep in the empire but now it fit, she fit! Who else could have had an impact on someone as headstrong as Legon? The same person who had impacted all of them over the past few months. The name came out without thinking.
“Sasha.”
Sasha looked at him, the little color left in her face draining away. But it was her. She had taught him empathy with her episodes, made him a better person. She was his drive for doing everything; he would attack the Queen herself if it would save Sasha from suffering. Keither had truly never seen anyone love another person the way Legon loved Sasha. And it fit. How could he not choose the right side?
“So this whole thing was a setup?” Keither said.
“How do you mean?” Sara said, sounding agitated.
“Sasha is the influencer, so he was put with her to make him the Everser Vald, wasn’t he? And moreover, you said that Legon has been using magic with Sasha during her episodes his entire life. If he wasn’t around her then he may not have turned, correct?”
Arkin looked uncomfortable. Keither knew that he was right and that angered him. All of them had been through hell for this and it was just a setup.
“No, Keither, this is not what you think. Edis and Laura didn’t know anything about what Legon was or who he would become. But yes, he was allowed to stay with them on account of Sasha. Even at a young age it was apparent that she was an unusually good person. If he was taken back to the resistance we don’t know what would have happened. Even being raised on our side wouldn’t guarantee that he was going to turn Elf or-”
“That I wouldn’t become a tool for the Iumenta. I don’t fault you for what you did. I don’t want to think of life without Sasha. Please, tell me of my father,” Legon interjected.
Part of Keither’s mind told him what Legon had said was probably right, and though this made his life harder, perhaps it was better for the world as a whole.
Legon wasn’t affected by the news that Arkin just shared. Somehow he knew it all. He wasn’t sure when he had figured it out but he thought it was when he had been transfigured. The White Dragon had shared a message with him, but he couldn’t remember it. He wanted to know about his father and his mother, but it wasn’t their character that he was worried about. After all, he still viewed his adopted parents as his own. As he asked the question he saw a look of confusion on Sara and Keither’s faces. Sasha was firmly connected with him and she knew what he was looking for.
She was feeling uncomfortable at the moment, having just found out her place in all of this. She had disconnected the weak network she had established with all but him. He sent soothing thoughts to her, reached over and held her hand gently. She in turn gripped his hand harder and he was aware of just how soft her skin was. He felt all of the muscles in her hand contracting and relaxing as she adjusted her grip. There was a steady pulse coming from her. He had never felt someone’s pulse from their hand before, but he did now. He also felt the moisture building from their hands being together, all odd sensations to be having for the first time.
He remembered what Arkin had said about Elf senses and he concentrated on background noise seeing just how diverse it was. He focused on his immediate area, breathing in Sasha’s and his scent. Hers was soft and almost sweet; his was that of the dirt and the horses. He listened to their hearts beating. Arkin was bringing them up to speed about how rare Elf-human children were. He knew this but he waited so the others would understand.
“Now Legon, you wanted to know more about your father. He was an Elf, obviously, and he held a high place in society. He was a good man.”
This wasn’t what Legon was looking for. He put the question to Arkin, knowing the response that it would cause. “Was he ascended?”
Arkin spluttered for a moment. “Why would you ask?”
“If I am to be the destroyer of power, I must have come from good stock, right?”
“You are more than what you were born with.”
“I am aware of that, but there are things that we are born with. So tell me, was he ascended?”
“Yes.”
There was a collective gasp that ran through them. Legon felt oddly saddened by this news. Up to this point he hadn’t been sure what he thought of this prophecy. It seemed to him that if his dad was just a regular Venefica then maybe that’s all he would be after all. But his father was ascended, and that might mean someday Legon would be as well.