“Tiernan took me.” The out-loud realization brings Makai’s apology to light. “It wasn’t your fault.”
From the corner of my eye, I notice his expression darken. His jaw works. “If only it were that simple.”
“Isn’t it?” Makai doesn’t realize I lived in Em’s Scrib memory, seeing clearly what she saw from then until now. The night she received her mirrormark, Nathaniel had accused Tiernan of stealing from him. Only now do I connect the fact it was me he swiped.
Unless . . . what if Elizabeth’s claim is accurate? Could I have the facts out of order?
Makai heaves. “No.” He rakes five fingers through his shaggy, graying hair and adjusts Evan in his wrap. “My father was in shambles when we realized one of Ember’s sons had vanished. She was like a sister to him, and he couldn’t live with himself knowing he’d let her down.”
The phrase “one of Ember’s sons” does not elude me.
“My father remained with one boy while I went out in search of the other.”
Uneasiness punches my gut. Where’s he going with this?
Makai doesn’t say more for a while, as if he’s working out what words to use next. Intuition is a gift of mine. Whatever it is can’t be good. Otherwise he’d spit it out.
“It was Joshua Tiernan kidnapped. Not you.”
But Tiernan raised me.
“My brother was a vicious, malevolent, foul excuse for a human being.” Makai sighs. “But he was my younger brother, and so my heart grieved for him. He longed for a son, an heir, and my father and I? We were left with two.” His explanation is fluid as if practiced.
Remain calm. Do not allow anger to overtake you. It only feeds the Void’s hunger, and I need to make it starve.
“The eve before you were born,” Makai continues, “just after King Aidan and the queen arrived at my father’s home on Lisel Island, Aidan let us in on a long-kept secret. As his wife slept and the firelight faded, he shared a story he had never divulged before. Years prior to meeting his queen, the king took a drink from the Fountain of Time. One sip was all the Fountain offered. One sip to combine his deepest desire, to have children, with where he was needed most, past, present, or future.” The Commander turns his head, locking his gaze on mine. “He ended up in the future. Your future. Your brother’s future. He witnessed a crossing of paths, if you will.”
I swallow hard. I’m not an idiot. I know all too well what one moment in time can bring. Everything or nothing at all. “He saw David would become an Ever. He believed David was a better fit to be raised as king. Not me.”
Makai’s eyebrows arch. He nods. “Clearly even seeing the future cannot tell us everything, can it?”
“No.” My thoughts return to our goal once more. “It can’t.” Makai’s words only solidify the Fountain’s legend as truth. One sip per customer. Unless someone sacrifices their drink and offers it to you.
Someone like a hooded figure on the deck of my ship. I’ve yet to uncover the mystery of that day. Why offer something so precious to a stranger? The only answer I’ve been able to produce is it wasn’t a stranger at all. Who, then? And why?
The stories in my pack beg to be studied. Still, I’m no foreigner to them. The Traveler’s Way is one my mother read often. The singsong rhymes come back to me now, reminding me how precious even one drink from the Fountain’s water is.
“Don’t ye waste a sip, not a drop, not a drip . . .”
And . . .
“Ye’ll never lose yer way, if ye start from yesterday . . .”
And . . .
“Say good-bye ta sorrow, if ye just skip past ta marrow . . .”
Every story held a lesson, a message for the reader. The one in The Traveler’s Way was simple—treasure each moment. Don’t dwell on the future. Never regret the past. Learn from your mistakes and move forward, making better choices than you did the day before.
“When we discovered Tiernan, we offered him a trade.” Makai returns to his story and I return to the present. “You and a pouch full of currency in exchange for Joshua. We didn’t let on your brother would grow to be an Ever. If Tiernan knew, he’d have kept him and used his blood for profit, which would’ve been trouble for everyone. You both carried the Verity. It split between you when Aidan passed, but we never told anyone. It did, however, offer us some comfort in knowing you’d be protected. Tiernan was wary of our offer at first, and who wouldn’t be?” He almost sounds pleased with his brother for that. “But a few choice words convinced him.”
He moves to place his hand on my shoulder but stops just shy of the action, curling his fingers into his palm and lowering his arm. Evan fusses and his dad soothes him by whispering something inaudible into his ear. “You were such an easy kid, compliant, which is what Tiernan wanted.”
Compliant. Good word. Rage rises unbidden. For the love of Em, will it never cease? I push down the darkness again and again, deeper and lower. Makai couldn’t have known Tiernan would beat me.
Or maybe he did. Maybe he knew but refused to admit it to himself. The guilt would’ve been crippling, I imagine. If Tiernan wanted a son so badly, why mistreat him? Was it power, his Shadowalker side? Perhaps it was his desire to ingrain in me the same darkness.
Or perhaps he was just a sorry old drunk who had nothing better to do.
I’ll never know the true reason behind his madness. Does it matter?
After clearing his throat, Makai presses on. “Your brother, on the other hand? He cried night and day. He was stubborn, tenacious. You were also older, making you much more valuable to Tiernan. In the end he made the deal and, with a Kiss of Accord, we agreed never to bother each other again.” His voice carries no regret. Only resolve.
I flatten my lips. Anyone else might hate Makai and Nathaniel for what they did. But how can I resent them? Life with Tiernan was a nightmare, sure. But without him I wouldn’t have had my mother or Khloe. I peek back at her, still blabbering on to Josh, whose face burns redder every second. “It all worked out for the good,” I say. And I mean it.
Makai shudders a breath, then says beneath it, “I see now you would’ve made a better king. You’re so much like her. My father said as much after you went to visit him last Eleventh Month with Eliyana. He said it was hard not to stare at you for how similar you are. Not in appearance, perhaps, but in character.”
I don’t have to ask for elaboration to know he means my birth mother. I wish I felt more connected to her. I recall the photo we saw inside Nathaniel’s pocket watch. Ember Gabrielle Archer, the mysterious E.G.A. and author of the Mirror Theory. Hair like Dragon Fire and eyes like David’s. How different would my life have turned out if she and the king had raised me, raised us? Would my brother and I be close? Would I have learned how to wield a knife?
Would I have met Em?
Again, what does it matter? Living in what-ifs is pointless. Queen Ember may have been my mother, but nothing will ever change the fact she wasn’t my mom. The one who raised me and read to me and tended my wounds and rocked me to sleep. The one who hardly looked like me with skin two shades darker than Khloe’s and hair even darker. But her eyes, so green they rivaled the ocean, were mine. Or so I believed.