She had her reasons, he thought.Let her show you, so you’ll understand. So, you can see the path forward. For all of us.
Reasons?I stared at him.She’s farther than Lethea!
Aemon’s jaw twitched.You say that now, but you forget, she’s just like Meera. She’s just like Jules.His mouth hardened.
They never killed anyone!
Not yet.Aemon narrowed his eyes.That you know of.
I felt sick, and even without knowing a single detail, or having any proof before me, I knew without a shadow of a doubt it was true.
Not Meera. But Jules. That was entirely possible.
Sometimes the end justifies the means. Sometimes it’s all one can do to survive a world that has been designed to work against them, he thought.
The backs of my eyes burned.
She’s like us, Aemon continued in my mind.Do not judge. Listen to her. She can help you. Tell you things you need to know. Things to help your cause. Information that will help your sisters.
And I should believe you on this? When you yourself don’t care about helping them.
I care about succeeding. And your sisters are powerful forces in this war, whether we like it or not. Anything can still happen. They may aid us. Or I may destroy them. It all remains to be seen.
And I’m just supposed to be okay with that?I could hear the hysteria in my mind. It was like being Ereshya all over again, hearing her lover tell her that after millennia of fighting against akadim, we’d be allying with them.
So, she’s taken lives. So have I! And so will you in the coming war. You’re young now. But you won’t be for long.
Killing in battle isn’t the same as what she did.
Consider this then.Aemon leaned toward me.Will you accept another millennia of suffering, and slavery? Another millennia of vorakh being taken hostage, stolen from their homes and forced into enslavement under Lumeria Nutavia?
All I could do was glare back at him, my chest tightening.You know I won’t.
Then calm yourself. And remember that you are queen.
I snatched my hand from his, and stared back at my so-called court, at my assembly of monsters and liars and … murderers. I tried to settle into my throne, to look unaffected, but my heart was still hammering through my chest. More akadim were moving in agitation, still picking up on my emotions. Particularly the smaller ones. The smarter ones. The day ones.
“Do you have any other questions for me, my queen? Any questions I can answer for you?” Andromeny asked. Her voice suddenly sounded innocent. And younger. Icy almost. The way Meera’s did.
She’s like Meera, I reminded myself. But she wasn’t—she couldn’t be.
I swallowed. I’d never feared vorakh before, not the way everyone else did. But Andromeny was different. Shehadkilled. She had become the very thing we feared Meera becoming. She was the thing Meera most feared aboutherself. But I tried to push the thoughts down, to regain my composure. I needed to understand, to find my way forward. Maybe I didn’t understand. Maybe she had her reasons.
Or maybe, I could help her. Find a way, a path forward for her, so when Meera’s time came, I was ready.
I nodded at Andromeny. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask about the killings—not yet.
“Did you know I was coming, Andromeny?” I asked instead, my voice shaking. “Did you know that I would be born, that I was a Guardian?”
She nodded. “Yes. I knew all of that, and more. A lady, a Goddess, and a queen, Your Majesty. May I show you? I see a great many things. Some inevitable. And some that require a different choice to be made, a new seed to be sown for fruition.”
I frowned. “You can see possibilities?”
“I can.”
“And your visions? How do they appear to you? As symbolic? Or are they more direct?”
“I see paths. No symbols. Just outcomes.”
