Page 53 of Fate Promised

Triska gasped. “Vae.”

The guards turned their faces toward the bowl. The one in front pointed at it. “The bowl is active. Get the princess.”

Juri leaned forward. “Tell Caladin I say hi. Better yet, tell your chef I miss eating his dodos. He’ll like that.”

The guards yelled, and Koschei waved his hand. The image faded, but purple flames, edged with deep blue still leaped in the bowl. “What was that about? Who is Caladin?”

Juri grinned. “I knew I’d seen that room before. It’s in the vae palace, I was there last year. Caladin is their king, and their chef isn’t my biggest fan. Why did you extinguish the connection? The vae are all right.”

“You don’t know what this bowl does,” Koschei answered. “I’ve seen one in use before. Actually, it was the vae bowl, but back then, it was in a special room, masked with dampening spells to keep it safe.” He gestured toward the flames. “Now the vae have it tucked into a dusty study. They’ve grown careless, or they don’t understand it. They should keep it covered or masked. Always.”

A burble of frustration bubbled in her chest. Apparently, she was the only one who didn’t know the significance of these bowls. “Can someone explain what the Herskala bowls are?”

Juri dropped to a knee and wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her back to lean on his bent leg so she had a kind of stool. “Of course. Legend says that when Herskala grew older, he wanted to pass his knowledge on as he had no heirs. He asked everyone with magical talent to come to his palace, and he’d choose one of them to become his heir. It didn’t matter if they were an immortal or a magicwielder. He opened his doors to everyone. He set up a test to see who was worthy, and all the applicants had to go through many trials, each more difficult than the next, until he’d whittled them down to four. These four, and these four alone, were given one of his specially made bowls, representing the four corners of the world.” He grimaced as if in pain. “This story would be much better if I could describe all the trials, but we don’t have the time right now.”

“Those trials became the cornerstone of our academy when we started the school,” Fergal said.

Triska rubbed her cheek. “But why four heirs? And didn’t you say it was five bowls?”

Juri squeezed her gently. “You figured out the problem right away. Yes, finding an heir was never really his plan.” Juri bent and drew a circle in the sand with a claw. “Each one of the magical talents he chose as an ‘heir’ stood for a distinct part of Ulterra. Alvic in the north.” He made a dot at the top of the circle. “Illstrand the Illustrious of the vae.” Another dot, this time to the east. “Sarka, one of the old gods, Queen of the South. And then Jareth the magicwielder, in the west.” He added both of their dots. “Those were supposed to be the four bowls.”

Juri drew two lines, connecting the dots so a large cross lay inside the circle. He stabbed a claw into the intersection of the dots. “They were supposed to be advanced scrying bowls, allowing all four of the heirs to communicate in the normal way but also to share magic. The legends say the heirs found they could do much more than that with the bowls as well. They could scry for things that happened in the past and even glimpse into the future.”

Juri settled her more firmly on his knee and continued, “What they didn’t know was that secretly, Herskala made a fifth bowl, this one able to view the others without notice. With this bowl, he could read the other’s innermost thoughts, even their intentions and motivations. And it could suck power from the four heirs, giving it to Herskala.” Juri frowned. “Hoyt told the hooded man that Morana fed him power and spells through the bowl. I should have thought of the Herskala bowls.”

Fergal snorted. “Why would you? All the bowls were said to be destroyed during the Deciding Wars.”

“How were they supposedly destroyed?” Triska asked.

Juri scratched at the sand, drawing his claw along the line from north to south. “Alvic and Sarka aligned together to overthrow all of Ulterra. They married, and their alliance was the last spark that ignited the Deciding War.”

Koschei leaned down and pushed his thumb into the dot representing Alvic. “Alvic, my father, was already married. He left our island to join Sarka. I was only a child when this happened, but my mother, and many of the people faithful to her, remained here on this island. They did not join the Deciding War.”

Juri stared at him a long moment. “Perun-above, how old are you?”

Koschei ignored him. “All the heirs were destroyed in the battle. Even Illstrand. I knew his son, that was how I’d seen their bowl in action once. It was nicer looking than this one, made of a smoother marble material.”

“Illstrand’s son … Illarion? The Dark King?”

Koschei nodded. “He wasn’t dark yet, although far too powerful for his own good. He used to set things on fire a lot.” Koschei’s lips twisted, the closest to a smile she’d seen from him. “Illarion was a lot of fun back then. I heard he died in the battle as well.”

“No.” Juri paused. “He was bound in the southern Kuls for thousands of years. About one hundred and fifty years ago, he finally broke free. I’ve met him. He performed the wedding ceremony for my Alpha and his mate. For a vae, he isn’t too bad.”

Koschei’s lips thinned. “Why isn’t the vae bowl in his possession? He’d know how to take care of it.”

“He’s sort of … not the king anymore. Caladin is king. He has the bowl.”

Koschei gazed out across the ocean, but Triska suspected he didn’t take in the view of the birds diving for fish in the water. “I know nothing of the outer world any longer.”

Fergal tapped on the bowl. “Let’s see if more of these bowls still exist.” He waved his hand through the purple flames, and another image appeared.

The image was oddly distorted as if looking through a window of a house with old, warped glass. A lush, red carpet spread on a floor; otherwise, all that was visible was a stone wall and narrow window. Overall, the room was dark; lit by a single torch in a sconce, and weak, filtered light from the window.

“Why does it look so strange?” she asked.

“The bowl is inside a locked display case.” Fergal shook his head and chuckled, but the chuckle was short and mirthless. “I know this room. This is Herskala Academy’s display room, where some of the ancient artifacts Herskala left behind are displayed. Including a golden chalice. I always thought that the chalice was far too large to be a cup he drank wine from. Although, I know some wine drinkers who’d welcome a cup that large, myself included.”

Voices floated from the image, and Fergal put a finger to his lips.

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