“You’re wanted. Look at this.”
Rakel put down her bags from the market and drew out a piece of paper from her robe. On the rough fibrous paper was a drawing of Emere’s face, printed to fill almost half the page. Wanted for murder and arson, with a reward of three thousand denarii. An added note that he was very dangerous and should not be approached. Emere squinted blithely at the portrait.
“They must be getting desperate.”
He flipped the paper and saw the faces of Septima, the stout man, and Devadas printed side by side. The same charges: a thousand denarii a head.
“Who are those other two?” Rakel asked, perching her head on his shoulder.
“Our patient’s friends.”
Rakel said that Septima had gotten through the worst of it, but she still had not woken up yet.
“They must be alive then?” Rakel asked.
“Perhaps.”
Such posters were used to disseminate the appearances of the wanted criminals being pursued, but Emere knew that they also functioned to make the wanted anxious. Once they saw the posters, they would begin to think that they could be recognized at any time, and that would eventually lead them to do something foolish and get caught.
But it felt safe here. As long as the only person who knew he was here was Rakel…
He laid the poster on the table and placed a bowl of noodles Rakel had bought on it. Steam rose from it as he lifted the lid. He mixed it with his fork. The warm noodles tasted of salt, honey, exotic fruits and spices, and olive oil. It must have been delicious, but his mind was elsewhere.
Rakel sat across from him and ate from her own bowl. She chatted about her trip to the market, but the thought of his dream from the night before, the encounter with the Circuit of Destiny, dominated Emere’s attention.
“Are you there, Emere?”
At Rakel’s words, Emere shuddered back to reality. “Hm?”
“You’ve been nodding and agreeing with just about everything, no matter what I said. Where were you?”
“Sorry. So many things going on.” He glanced at the wanted poster, and rolled some noodles onto his fork. Rakel did not press the matter, letting him slip back into his thoughts.
The devastation of Arland and Kamori in his dream was the same as what he had seen of Mersia in his youthful days. The devastation wrought by the Star of Mersia. Why had the Circuit of Destiny shown him this vision?
Was he to stop this catastrophe from happening again? It could be, like the burning slums Cain showed him, a warning of things to come. The thought made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. The Circuit had said to Emere that he was deserving of making the decision for countless people.
That he could become king.
Before he knew it, he was standing up and Rakel was looking up at him, halfway into her noodles.
But then he came back down to what was real. He had been the councillor of a powerless province, but now he wasn’t even that. While he was on the run as a wanted criminal, Ludvik and the Office of Truth, with the help of secret support from key members of the Senate, were successfully carrying out a detailed plan to take control of the government. Emere was hiding, trapped. The one thing he believed in—Loran’s vision—had turned out to be a lie.
What had he done to get to where he was now? Emere traced it all back to the moment in the sacred grove, where he saw a Tree Lord for the first time, the rustling of their leaves telling him of destinies. He’d been chasing his own destiny all his life. He could have stopped at any time in the last twenty years. But he was too wise too late, wasn’t he? He met Rakel’s eyes, and realized again the kind of life he could have had.
The situation made him scoff, and it came out as almost a laugh. Rakel looked more puzzled at him than ever. But then his laugh turned into a sob. Rakel swallowed her food and said something,but it was inaudible as his tears, incomprehensible even to himself, began to flow.
Before he realized it, Rakel was by his side, one arm around his shoulders. As Emere’s sobbing subsided, she asked softly, “Are you all right, Emere?”
He barely managed to nod.
“Emere, if you are still the man you were ten years ago, you will be all right. You may feel lost, but you will find the way.” Rakel held his face with both hands and looked straight into Emere’s eyes. “I know I said we hadn’t accomplished anything in our ten years together, and that may be true. But during those years, you always knew what to do and where to go. I only had to follow you. And after all that’s happened, we are here, together, aren’t we?” She paused to hug him tight. Emere hugged her back, his tears staining her shoulder.
After a moment, Rakel gently pushed him away and said, “I’m going to finish my food and pray. Do you want to pray with me?”
His throat was too constricted to reply, so he just nodded again. He did not believe in her Nameless God, but he knew she found praying to be a comfort, and he would take what he could get. Rakel went back to her seat to finish her meal. The shame of having wept like a child made him avert his eyes. When Rakel was done, she brought a large washing bowl and a towel over to him.
“Wash your face first. Careful, the water is hot.”
