He remembered a spear that struck him, just before the magic of the Five pulled him away.
“Did your sister mention seeing anything?” Kinlear asked. “A memory frombeforeshe was born?”
Magus blinked. “I’m afraid not.”
But Kinlear did.
He remembered every moment of the dark place. Before the monster, before the dying forest.
But he didn’t tell Magus that.
He kept it tucked tight to his chest, a secret only for him. He’d never even told Arawn about it.
The old tutor pursed his lips, as if he sensed him holding back, but he didn’t push.
“I believe that all those years my sister suffered, all the times she struggled both in wakingandsleeping...it was because she was paying the price of using her magic,” Magus said. “Powerful magic. The kind that could have turned the tide of this very war, if she’d learned how to wield it. Imagine, what a Veilborne could do, if they were to see things...beforethe enemy made a move.”
Kinlear wanted to laugh in disbelief.
To scream.
Because what Magus spoke of was impossible. There hadn’t been a true Seer in Lordach for ages, and for it to be his own tutor who knew of one?
Not only that, but his tutor’stwin– a sick one, just like him?
Marin’s story was too close.
It couldn’t be coincidence. It could only be the gods...as if, after all these years Kinlear had begged them to answer...
They finally had.
And somehow that frightened him, even more than the memory of his monster.
“Our stories are similar. But...I don’t have visions. I certainly don’t have magic,” Kinlear whispered. “I never Settled.”
Magus shrugged. “Maybe not in the way other Sacred do. But neither did Marin. The visions came when she grew older, as I imagine they might for you. Most Sacred, Little Prince, are not born in the shadow of someone else. Perhaps...like Marin...your magic isdifferent, too.”
Different.
It was all Kinlear hadeverbeen.
He chewed on that thought for a moment, considering.
Because what if Magus was right?
What if...
“Magus?” he asked. “What if shehadkilled her monster? What if she faced it...and won?”
Would she still be alive today?
Wouldhe?
Because now he couldn’t help but wonder ifthatwas what it would take to save himself. What if his illness was only a side-effect of not having conquered the monster in his mind? Maybe he’d picked it up, long ago, in the dark place. That spear that struck him. That moment ofchoosingthat he hadn’t been able to take.
Maybe...
All he had to do was fight back, as Arawn had told him ages ago.
