“The Whisting is never wrong.”
“It’s wrong this time. I need to get rid of it, to give the Rings back to my father the king.”
Veteria frowns at me. “You come crawling to me for help, yet you question what I tell you?”
I bite back a retort. She’s right; she knows more about it than I do—than my father and his advisors, even. She’s the only person I’ve ever met who describes the ancient ways like this. But why did this befall me, when it has never happened to any of my royal ancestors? There must be another explanation.
“You are meant to fulfill a purpose, dear boy,” she says. Then, with a sigh, she continues:
“The Rings of Fate were crafted in secret by the Oracle of Alba to contain the power of the wind spirits, the Anemoi, to defeat Lord Boreas. Otherwise Albion would have fallen to the evils of the Unseen Death and the Kilandrar—both born of perverted magic at Boreas’ hand. But this dark magic is back. It is in the very air we breathe. Only the bearer of the Rings can defeat it.”
“All of Boreas’s knowledge of the Unseen Death was supposed to have been destroyed with him, along with the Kilandrar,” I say.
“If you actually believe that, I have a bridge to Penrith to sell you,” she says, alluding to the broken bridge between Penrith and Alarice that was destroyed in the third epoch. She cackles.
“The Kilandrar are real? Not some child’s tale?” Aren asks, clearly just as rattled as I am.
“As real as the very clothes on your back.” The old woman pauses. “I’m sorry. I wish I could be of more help to you,” Veteria says.
It sounds so final—a dismissal. I have to keep trying to convince her to help me.
“If the Usurper has supposedly reanimated the Kilandrar and is amassing an army of foul creatures, like you’re suggesting, and my father marches into battle without the Rings of Fate, he and the army won’t survive. Loegria will fall. And if Loegria falls, so will Alarice. I’m alone in this, and I can’t save both kingdoms by myself.”
She resumes her seat at the fire again. “But he does have the Rings of Fate. You.” She points a withered finger in my direction as her gaze roams sightlessly around the room. The look on Aren’s face is one I cannot totally discern, but I think she may be concerned. It warms me slightly to think that she may care about me in the slightest.
I try one final plea. “Please. As you can see, I can’t control it. I’ve got to get them out of me.” Desperation spills out of me like the magic I can’t control. “Is there nothing your magic can do to save my people?”
“What about King Osian?” Aren pipes up. Her look is innocent enough, but Veteria is clearly shaken by the question.
“Don’t you speak his name in my home!” she roars. It’s almost unbelievable that such a small woman could make such a large, imposing sound. “He is a traitor to the cause. He is no gentleman. He styles himself a king, the Great Waste his dominion, but he is mad and ruthless. Donotseek him out.”
Aren wrings the corner of her cape uneasily.
“But I’ve heard travelers whispering about Osian’s powerful dark magic. Maybe he could help,” Aren adds, trying to defend her suggestion. She really does see and hear everything in that pub.
I have heard the same tales, and to be honest, Osian was on my list if Veteria failed me.
“You are no match for him, young man,” Veteria warns me. “You must not seek his counsel.”
“But I have no choice if you don’t help me.”
I can’t imagine going back to court and telling my father, his generals, his councilors, and everyone who matters that I failed. My mother already thinks I’m a disgrace, a pitiful excuse for a prince. She more than anyone believes in the mask I wear to keep everyone away and safe from the danger I carry within. My facade as a hapless, immature charmer is an illusion almost as great as the magic trapped in my body.
I can’t go running empty-handed back to my father. I can’t tell him that multiple kingdoms are in peril because his stupid, selfish son failed at his one assigned task. No, this is my problem to solve. I will do it, or I will die trying and let my friends cut the Rings from my corpse as my last sacrifice for my people.
“I must find this King Osian, and perhaps…” My mind gallops with a half-formed plan, and my breath quickens with desperation. “Osian rules over the Great Waste, does he not?”
“In the city of Engel is what the rumors say,” Aren chimes in. Veteria shoots her a look that would kill one of fainter heart—but not Aren.
I’ve come all this way only to learn I must journey halfway across the world again. So, I need cover. People will wonder what business the Crown Prince of Loegria has in the Great Waste. Word would surely get back to the Usurper.
I came to Evandale pretending to seek a bride in order to seek a mage. Perhaps the solution is simply another charade.
“The Wedding March,” I murmur, proud of my own quick thinking. Once I choose a bride, we will have to travel through Alarice and Loegria to seek the blessing of the ancient Oracle of Alba for the union, as royal tradition demands. Alba is close to the fallen kingdom of Estyrion, and once I’m there, I can slip across the border into the Great Waste.
I turn back to the sorceress. “You are certain this King Osian is alive?”
“No good can come of this, dear prince. Go home, find another way to defeat the Usurper, and set yourself free.”
