Page 118 of The Cruel Dawn
“I apologize for our highly entertaining disturbances.”
“Don’t ever give in to guilt or to someone else’s plans,” he says, now serious. “Though you owe Zephar Itikin nothing, Kai, you will give him life through your wisdom. He doesn’t understand, but only because he doesn’thaveto understand. He doesn’thaveto make decisions like yours. That’s not his legacy.”
“But what if walking away was the wrong choice?” I ask.
Malik Sindire shakes his head. “If you continue to search for answers, people will ultimately forgive your honest choice. Isn’t that right, Adjudicator?”
Elyn grunts. “Sure.”
“You, Kaivara, are on the path that will change the course of this realm.”
“According to man’s prophecies,” I say. “You’ve said that before.”
Malik Sindire clutches his heart. “Man’s prophecies?Didn’t you just return from the Abbey of Mount Devour to learn more about how we’ll all die if you don’t stop the traitor? Did you forget that the Council will send the most powerful Mera to destroy Vallendor if you fail? That your father, too, will be annihilated—?”
I hold up my hand. “I’m changing the course of this realm. I understand.”
“Yet all Zephar Itikin can think about is toppling some cottages and burning down some poor farmers’ wheat fields.” The Dindt rolls his eyes. “Such a tiny mind in that big body. The Lord of the Shielded Fount and Prince of Lissome Blades can be a…hejelink.”
“Asshole” in Yeaden.
Thatmakes Elyn laugh. “Hejelink, indeed.”
“Are there any additional updates,” Malik Sindire asks, “besides the quiet buzzing of whispered concern?”
Over glasses of wine the color of late afternoon skies, I tell him about all that’s happened since I left here with his gifted armor and a new dagger—from reuniting with Jadon Wake Rrivae at Mount Devour and claiming the signet ring from Gileon Wake to destroying Celedan Docci, to Miasma sweeping through the abbey.
“And where is Wake Rrivae now?” Malik Sindire asks, his eyebrows knitted.
“In the safest place I could think of,” I say. “Cloistered at one of the smaller sanctuaries down in my temple.”
“Your temple?” He tugs at the collar of his robe. “But…”
“We know, ser,” Elyn says, holding her glass idly between her fingers. “Our choices of location were few. He presents a great threat, and we wonder if, by destroying Celedan Docci, we’ve made the problem worse.”
“We didn’t have the chance to consult theLibrum Esotericabefore the wave of death swept over the abbey,” I add, draining my glass. My face stings from the strong wine—a better sting, though, than the kind in my cramped toes. “I must admit that I regret giving theLibrumto Syrus Wake back then.”
Malik Sindire flaps his hand between us. “It’s not your fault he abused the power of knowledge to gain terrible power and conspired with the traitor to gain even more.”
“Maybe some things shouldn’t be written down,” I say, staring into my empty glass.
“First,” Malik Sindire says, pouring more wine into my glass, “books, even the worst ones, are magical. If the mind can capture abstract concepts in a form others can grasp, we are better for it. And second,youdidn’t write theLibrum. The Adjudicator’s family, the House of Fynal did—and they will continue to be the stewards of that knowledge. While you are Blood of All, Beloved, you aren’t a scholar. I don’t intend to offend you, but this is not yours to grieve.”
I snort. “Fikx vai.”
He smiles and lifts a finger. “I didn’t say that you weren’tsmart. You can curse in seven thousand languages. Are you content in books and papers, your fingers stained with ink?”
“No.”
He chuckles. “Exactly. So, the Weapon: you said that the marking on his hand has spread. Can you describe it?”
“Do you have paper and ink?” Elyn asks. “I can draw it better than describing it.”
Malik Sindire sets before Elyn sheets of thick white paper and different-colored inks.
By the time I’ve sipped half of my wine, Elyn has drawn a remarkable depiction of Jadon’s right hand.
Green, red, black, yellow, and blue inks that comprise a hand with one fingertip a flame. Another fingertip as ice. Water. Earth. Darkness. A drop of water disturbs a pool that ripples out, out, out to create rings within rings.
