“It will hurt her!” Aradella cried, but then she remembered Valona’s lizard.
Kaley opened her arms and the fierce little creature leaped into them. They snuggled and caressed, both of them looking like they were crying.
“Your stepmother is strange,” Aradella said.
“Said the princess to the fox,” Mekos replied.
“I bet Kaley already has a story about us.”
“I hope it has a happy ending.” He’d meant it as a joke, but it was too real for them to laugh. “Let’s go down and talk to my grandpapá. He’ll know what to do now.”
“I’m afraid of what they’ll say,” she said honestly.
He reached back and took her hand. “It will be all right. The worst is over now. We’ve escaped. We’re free. There is nothing but good in front of us.”
“I doubt that my aunt agrees with that,” Aradella mumbled as the dragon headed toward land.
Everyone was waiting for them in the big, open courtyard, the ruins of the house curving around it. Aradella could seefresh signs of restoration and she wondered if that was what the swansmen were doing there.
Roal, who she hadn’t seen since the swan show when she was young, was talking to Vian. Aradella was curious about her. She was Tanek’s mother, but she was also an Empyrean. Those people were spoken of often, but rarely seen. There were rumors of what they looked like. The talk ranged from their being giants to having snakelike tails and two heads. The more beer that was drunk, the wilder were the descriptions.
But Vian looked like the women on Pithan, tall, handsome, slim.
Still holding the tabor, Kaley and her grandparents were standing in front of the silent flying machine. Kaley’s parents were absent and she hadn’t seen them at the wedding. But then, they hadn’t seen each other in many years.Is it waterfall time for them?Aradella wondered as she smiled in happy memory.
Far from the others, Tanek and Mekos were in deep discussion about something.Are they discussing what Mekos and I tried to do at the wedding? What we failed at?Aradella asked herself.Will I be forced to marry Nessa?Or can we find a place to hide—and for how long?She knew the four islands that were under the control of the Empyreans, but the planet of Bellis had more islands, large and small. Were they also controlled by the Empyreans? Would she and Mekos be sent away to one of them? To forever live in exile?
As though he knew what she was thinking, Mekos gave her a smile of reassurance. Then Perus lowered his big head and nudged her. She put her arms around his head and her face against his cheek. “I know I’ve caused problems. But what was I to do? Marry Nessa? If I had, would everyone have been pleased? Except for Mekos and me, that is.”
Perus nuzzled against her as she watched Roal go to Tanek and say something. Tanek nodded, then Mekos returned to Aradella.
“We’re meeting in the egret room. My grandmamá wants to talk to the four of us.”
She knew he was excluding Frank and Rita. “Is this going to be good or bad?”
“I have no idea. I don’t know what she’s like, but I hope she’s going to thank us.”
Aradella liked his positive attitude and hoped he was right.
They held hands as they walked through a hallway that was half destroyed. “Kaley wants to put this place back together,” Mekos said in an attempt at small talk.
“It would be a big job,” she murmured.
They stopped in a room that still had most of the ceiling. Through the missing part they could see a roofless, second-story room above. The walls were tiled with pictures of egrets. Their long legs and plumed heads were striking. Four chairs had been set in a row, and standing in front of them was Vian, with Roal a few steps behind her.
Aradella couldn’t help being awestruck. Vian was one of the Seven, the rulers, the lawmakers. She was higher than all the kings and queens of the islands. And she was number one in the Order of Sight.
The only person who didn’t look as though she was attending a funeral was Kaley.
“Your father is gorgeous,” they heard her say to Tanek. “Think you’ll grow up to look like him?”
That Tanek made no response to her joke took away her smile.
They sat down on the chairs, the two women in the center, with father and son on the ends.
Vian began to speak. “I can foresee the future. That this ability was detected early is why I look as I do and not as—” When no one seemed to understand what she was saying, she waved her hand in dismissal. “When I was young, I foresaw that evil people would overtake the islands. Male and female would be separated and they’d come to hate each other. It was a truly horrible sight. As I got older, I asked myself, ‘Can this future be changed?’ And if so, how could it be done? Gradually, Idiscovered that I could apply ‘What if?’ to my visions. If a person was given choices, how would that change the outcome? After much work and trying many, many different pathways, I foresaw that the badcouldbe changed.”
She took a breath. “But, to my horror, I saw that to reach the good, it would take thirty-five years and great sacrifices would have to be made. Most shocking was that the biggest sacrifice would have to be made byme.” She paused, seeming to look back in memory. “I foresaw that if I were impregnated by a ship’s officer, a man I’d never even seen, we would produce two descendants who could change the future.” She looked at Mekos, her eyes showing her sorrow at having missed sharing his life. “I also saw that it was imperative thatInotbe part of the lives of these children. If they had contact with the world I occupied, none of the good would happen. And if I removed myself from that world, it would not happen.”
