Kheda heard her slip in the loose sand as she climbed the long bank, muttering some incomprehensible oath as the stubborn midar plants scratched at her feet. Out across the water, he watched the rain clouds approaching.
The stars turn and bring rainy and dry seasons one after another. Every year the new-year stars return to realign themselves with the heavenly compass. Even the furthest jewels of the heavens eventually return to the same points, even if it takes an old man’s lifespan to see it. Everything is the same and yet everything is different. Everything is affected by what has gone before. Some sages say everything happens in the same instant, outside of time as we know it.
How could I have expected this to be an end of it all? There are no ends, any more than there are beginnings. Everything depends on everything else. These calamities depend on far more than I can see or hope to understand. What do I know of dragons or magic or these hidden wizards of Velindre’s? What do I want to know of such things?
So what are you going to do? Are you going to sit on your hands and lament your misfortune like some beggar or slave refusing to acknowledge the part he has played in his own fate? Or are you going to lose yourself in mystic contemplation of the infinite like some soothsayer starving himself to death for fear of making a wrong choice?
No man can halt the wheeling skies any more than he can stop the passing of the days and his life with them. All he can do is watch for the omens to guide him to better choices. Let’s see what lore Velindre brings back to show us some path to keep ourselves safe from these wild mages and their dragons. If she manages to make good on such a promise, won’t that be an omen, in itself?
He turned away from the uncommunicative sea and looked at the distant tower of silence.
In the meantime, I have offered up another innocent hostage to the future by getting a child on Itrac. I owe her the best future I can contrive, as my wife, as recompense for all she has suffered in the past, even if that was none of my doing. If I can do this, if I can see Chazen’s people set fair, perhaps that will balance the account against my involvement with magic.
If I can put an end to this magical danger once and for all, even if it means working with Velindre, perhaps that will outweigh the compromises I have made. Perhaps I can earn myself a better future. Perhaps I can earn the right to make choices for myself alone. Perhaps Risala will be able to wait for me.