“What does that mean? Keeper born.”
He appeared distinctly uncomfortable now. Darting a glance at Nerys, who nodded, Rowan spoke, though reluctantly.
“I was never meant to say this. Keepers are sworn to silence, to pass their charge in whispers from one generation to the next. My grandfather warned me… our role was to watch, to wait, and never reveal. To do otherwise was to risk unbalancing the very order we swore to guard. But silence has brought us here. To a Gate that will not open, and a world unraveling.”
As the surprise of his earlier revelation wore off, his words made sense. There had been something about him… Kael agreed, knowing the man better than I.
Rowan’s voice had softened but did not falter. “My bloodline is that missing hand. If I remain silent, Elydor remains broken. So I break my vow, not for myself, but for all of us.”
I had many questions, and likely always would. A man who kept such a secret would not reveal himself completely. But one was more important than the others.
“How do you know it will work?”
Rowan went silent suddenly, as if he didn’t hear the question.
“He has visions.” Nerys spoke for him. “As he’s doing now. They are more clear than most seers’, due to his bloodline and role as the Keeper of Memories for the humans, but still always not fully formed. As he told the others?—”
“Apologies,” Rowan said. “I have the ability to block out such visions but do not dare now. Not with so much at stake.”
“Anything important?” Nerys asked.
Rowan’s gaze clouded, distant. “I see a crown resting in the dust. A hand sets it down, not in defeat, but in peace. And another takes it up. The Gate is not the only thing that opens when balance is restored.”
Silence fell.
He blinked hard, as if pulling himself back. “Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything.”
Everyone had stopped eating. Stopped drinking. We hardly even moved, the gravity of his words, and implications for them, understood.
“Terran’s new reign?” Galfrid asked.
Kael responded. “The hand set it down in peace, not defeat.”
In other words, not our father.
“As I told the others,” Rowan picked up where Nerys had left off, “I knew the Gate would reopen.”
He’d seen it. “Since?” I asked, unable to keep the accusation from my voice.
“For some time. I’ve been trained, as are all of Harrow’s bloodline, as Keepers. Interfering with future events is strictly forbidden. Even so, if I knew how it was done, how the Gate would reopen?—”
He looked at Nerys. Clearly, this was something Rowan had been struggling with. Lyra’s look of warning to me was not needed.
I silently vowed to remember Rowan was friend, not a foe.
“Thankfully, it is a decision I never had to make. The details on its reopening continued to allude me. But when Mev and Lyra whispered to us that they’d uncovered what they believed was the key, the necessity of a human artifact.” He shivered. “It would be difficult to explain, but Iknewat that moment. The human artifact was needed, and that ‘artifact’ was me. Perhaps it was the reason I was sent to Thalassaria in the first place.”
“Not to meet Nerys and fall in love,” Issa teased.
“That too.” He smiled at his partner, the Thalassari queen.
“When do we attempt it?” I asked. As monumental as it would be, getting Lyra alone was just as important to me. We had much to discuss.
I had a question to ask of her.
“Now.”
For a moment, I thought the response had come from King Galfrid. It was so forcefully and deeply spoken. But in fact, it had come from Mev.
