His eyes burned. His insides were raw, washed with the acid of reality.
This wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t a mistake. This was real, and he wanted out.
Out. Out. Out.
“I can’t do this, Dad,” Sean whispered.
“You can.” Kywyn’s embrace tightened. “But you have to choose it.”
“This isn’t a choice.” Sean pushed out of his arms. “This was dictated before my birth. Mom—she tried to save me from this.”
Kywyn clasped his hands. “Your mother could not outrun fate.”
Sean’s throat wanted to close. She’d tried to save him, and she’d died for it. No matter how he looked at it, her death was his fault.
His father’s calm voice cut through his guilt. “This is a prediction, Sean, but the choices you make are still yours. Even those who see the future can’t pretend to understand it.”
Sean’s heart rate had calmed, but the edgy need to move hadn’t receded. He continued to pace through the room. “My life doesn’t belong to me. My whole existence is a gamble. One narrow path to liberty, she said, and I’m supposed to find it? The road between war and starvation?”
After a small pause, Kywyn stepped closer, setting a calming hand on his shoulder. “Only you can choose what you view your life through. Do you choose the window, the prism, or the mirror? One shows you the whole world as it is. One distorts that world and smears it into individual parts, maybe a little easier to understand. The last only looks backward and ignores everything on the other side.”
A bitter chuckle rose in Sean’s throat. “Are you saying I’m the mirror?”
The trace of a smile lit Kywyn’s eyes. “Take some time to process, Sean.”
Process. Was there any processing this?
The people of this realm looked at him with undisguised adoration. They thought him a messiah, the descendant of a saint. They saw something in him that didn’t exist, and he’d never live up to the idol in their heads.
This was an impossible task that had been set on his shoulders.
“Is there anything I can do?” Sean asked, his voice rougher than it had been.
“Train. Become the best you can be. You’re going to need these people on your side, Sean, and you’re going to need David, too. I don’t know what that Sending means, but I know a war is coming. The Followers are quiet, but they’ve been waiting same as us. David is their hope just as you are ours.”
Too much.
It was all too much.
“I—I need to get out of here.”
Kywyn let him go. Sean swiped up the book and burst through the door. When he spilled into the hallway, he stopped short at David leaning on the opposite wall, still pale but standing. Sort of.
David’s blasé expression belied the fatigue that ran rampant inside. He asked what happened with a raise of his eyebrows.
“It was nothing,” Sean said.
“Didn’t feel like nothing.” It appeared to take him a great deal of effort, but David pushed off the wall. “Autumn nearly strangled me when I ran up here.”
“Why—”
“Here’s a fun new fact: When you have a panic attack, I can feel it.”
Sean’s shoulders dipped. “That’s—annoying.”
They fell into step together, but David’s were slow.
“Are you okay?” Sean asked.
