Page 170 of Into the Isle

Another nod.

The humans.

A gasp ripped from my throat. If the memories that just played through my head were echoes of the true story, and the textbooks from the academy are filled with falsehoods . . .

“Then the elves are not the enemy,” I blurted. “They never have been.”

I stared hard at Elayina. For the first time, perhaps because I had been so entranced by her wrinkled face and strange lodgings, I recognized the slightly tapered point of her ears. Like mine.

The witch said, “The ‘vision’ of the King Who Saw was a self-fulfilling prophecy, child.”

I thought it over. What does this have to do with me, though? Why am I the one seeing this—such a harsh truth? Who else knows about this?

“The elves did not betray the humans during the Taldan War,” I said, mostly trying to make sense of it for myself. “They only fought back once King Dannon went mad with power-lust.”

That must have been what Elayina meant when she called the king’s foresight a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“The vision itself was what instigated the destruction of the alliance between elves and humans,” I continued, starting to make more sense of it. “King Dannon acted first, thinking he was protecting his people from a horrible betrayal he saw in his prophecy . . . yet it was Dannon’s actions that caused the elves to retaliate in the first place!”

He played himself. The King Who Saw led himself to his own downfall.

“Yes, child,” Elayina’s voice grated like moss being cleaned from stone. “You get the gist of it.”

I remembered messages from my youth, in Selby Village—learning alongside Ma and Swordbaron Korvan. I recalled how they told me that in Viking culture, in centuries past, prophecies rarely worked out the way the prophets thought they would.

That was the problem with “prophecies.” They were tinged with truth, yet the completeness of them—the whole—was always much more nuanced and difficult to decipher.

“These memories have not been seen for eons,” Elayina said. She almost seemed relieved. “Now, Ravinica, you must make the difficult choice of keeping them close and secret.”

I abruptly stood from my sitting position, nearly sloshing Elayina’s concoction in the cup I held. I ignored the pain in my hip, ribs, spine. My heart was beating faster and faster.

“No!” I shouted. “I have to tell everyone. This changes everything! Why else would I be the recipient of these memories . . . if not to be their messenger?”

She craned her neck to look up at me. “And who would believe you, hmm? The mutterings of an old crone, spoken from the mouth of a bog-blood?”

My shoulders shook. I bit back my anger, knowing she had meant no offense by it. I couldn’t deny what Elayina was saying, and yet . . .

“I have to try,” I announced, my voice firm. “Vikingrune Academy, and our people at large, deserve to know they’ve been lied to by our history books.”

Elayina firmed her lips. Slowly, she nodded. “You have a strong will, child. I can only hope it does not betray you, in the same way King Dannon’s unbending attitude caused his downfall.”

I flared my nostrils and said, “Thank you for this, Elayina.” I lifted the mug in my hand. “I’ll be sure to take a swamp-bath after using it.”

The witch cackled as I turned around and made my way gingerly down the gnarled roots of her tree-throne.

I thought of the Tree of Life in our legends, Yggdrasil, and wondered if Elayina the bog seer was somehow associated with it.

There was too much to unpack there, and I didn’t have time. I wasn’t sure why I felt hurried so suddenly.

When I reached the end of the roots, close to the narrowing of the corridor that would bring me out of the cave, Elayina’s raspy voice called out, more powerful than before.

“Ravinica.”

I gulped, tossing a look over my shoulder.

“You have seen what you were meant to see, same as the King Who Saw. Now I simply pray you will have the wisdom of knowing when to reveal it.”

I gawked at her. “If I am not meant to spread this knowledge with people who can make a difference . . . then what’s my purpose? Why would it be revealed to me?”

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