Promising Light (14 page)

Mort nodded. “Aye, we could help
each other.”

They lapsed into political talk
about the different families. Grace listened as she ate quietly.
The Cosa family, the Zinnas, the Thierans, and Borens, they all
seemed to have certain powers and be in danger from the Protectors
and their zeal for the orthodox. She thought of her father. Was he
truly one of them? Had he known any Avialies? Perhaps even killed
them?

After breakfast, Lisbeth asked
Grace and a girl with jet black hair to follow her. She led them
deep into the hill. They passed a balcony that opened to the
garden, corridors that faded into nothing, a room full of musical
instruments, and door after door.

“How do you know where you’re
going?” Grace asked. “I’d be lost ten times over.”

“I grew up here,” Lisbeth said. “I
know all about this place.”

They walked down a stone staircase,
Lisbeth’s lantern the only light revealing the cracked stone.
Through a wooden door, they came to a large circular room with
tables covered with candles. Some were lit, others had burned down.
Lisbeth set her lantern down and lit a few candles. “This is where
the Avialies from Shyra have come for ten years to remember the
children we lost. Each time a woman has lost a child, she’s come
here and made a candle.”

Grace looked around the room,
frowning. At least fifty candles were lit, maybe a hundred. She
wondered how many Avialies there were as she ran her fingers
through the dust on one of the tables.

“Most of them are from the first
few years,” Lisbeth said, “before we realized the true extent of
the curse. The last year or so, the candles are only from accidents
from birth control not working.”

Grace had heard of different plants
preventing pregnancy, seen it sold by the merchants, seen her
mother drink their concoctions occasionally.

“I shouldn’t call them accidents,”
Lisbeth said quietly.

“You lost so many,” Grace said,
watching the flames flicker.

Lisbeth touched her arm. “You know
how we need you.”

Grace didn’t reply. She glanced
toward the black-haired girl, who watched their conversation with
keen eyes. Why had Lisbeth brought her?

Lisbeth stepped away, pacing around
the room. “If Dar… if it doesn’t work with him, who would you
prefer?”

Grace stared at her.
“What?”

“I will do anything for this
family,” Lisbeth said, turning toward Grace. The firelight
flickered on her face, casting extreme shadows. “And if Dar won’t
have you, you’ll have to choose someone else.”

Shaking her head, Grace said, “I
can’t believe you.”

Lisbeth glared at her. “We’ll
decide once Dar turns you down.” She motioned to the girl, whose
freckles crinkled as she smiled at Grace. “This is Angela. She’s a
Cosa.”

Grace gave Angela a small smile;
she had no idea what kind of significance a Cosa had. She just
wanted to leave, especially after Lisbeth’s frightening
words.

“They reveal things and they hide
things,” Lisbeth said. “Cosa enchantments kept our camp in Nyad
hidden, and only a Cosa could reveal it until the magic wore off.
But Angela’s also Zinna, so she has mental magic as
well.”

“Mental magic?” Grace
repeated.

“Yes, so Angela can show you what
I saw when I had my vision.”

Grace’s eyes widened.
“What?”

“I had my vision three years ago,
or prophecy, whichever you want to call it. Angela will reveal it
to you.” Lisbeth held a wrinkled hand out for Angela. Angela took
her hand, and they both extended their free hands for
Grace.

Grace hesitated, swallowing. “She’s
going to show me what you saw? How can she do that?”

“It’s her magic,” Lisbeth said.
“Please, take our hands.”

Grace took a deep breath. If they
wanted to hurt her, they would have already. She took Lisbeth’s
frail hand in one of her hands and Angela’s small one in her
other.

“Close your eyes,” Angela said
quietly.

Grace did so.

“It will be confusing,” Lisbeth’s
voice said. “But you’ll see the images I did.”

Against the redness of her eyelids,
Grace suddenly saw a flash of images. She saw a patch of skin with
her birthmark on it. A dark-haired man changing into a lion. A
group of riders on a snowy mountain path. A waterfall falling into
a lake surrounded by lush green plants.

Then two hands clasped together,
feminine hands, and Grace thought one might be hers, but the image
changed before she could be sure. Next, Grace felt as if she were
in someone else’s body, looking down at a pair of dirty boots,
walking out of the cave into what seemed to be a rainforest of some
kind with a lake stretching out in front of her. The next few
images went so fast they almost blurred together: a couple in a
passionate embrace, a swollen belly, a flash of blond hair, a
crown, a bloody body.

Last, an Avialie woman giving
birth. It took Grace a moment, but she realized it was Amina. Then
the baby was in Amina’s arms, Vin smiling over her.

The image faded, and Grace came
back to herself in the cellar of the Belisha manor. She opened her
eyes. “I want to see it again,” she said.

Angela glanced at Lisbeth, who
nodded.

Again, the onslaught of images, and
Grace tried to catch everything. She couldn’t tell where the
birthmark was, but she felt sure one of the hands belonged to her.
Then she was looking down at someone’s feet, walking with purpose,
and Grace could almost feel the humidity in the air. But suddenly
she was watching Vin and Amina as they smiled over a
newborn.

Grace dropped the hands of Angela
and Lisbeth and took a few steps away. She looked down at her
hands, trying to conjure the image of the hands again. Was it her
own hands?

“So, you see why I feel the way I
do,” Lisbeth said. “You only saw what I saw, but when this happened
to me, I felt with certainty that these things would
happen.”

“Have you told Amina and
Vin?”

Lisbeth shook her head. “I’ve
thought about it, but Amina’s… well, I felt it’d be better if I
didn’t.” She touched Grace’s shoulder. “But these things will
happen if you help us.”

* * *

Back in the main area of the manor,
Lisbeth took Grace to the second floor. Lisbeth stopped in front of
a tapestry of two women who looked identical with long white-blonde
hair. They were surrounded by both dark-skinned people who were
alive and bodies that littered the ground of an otherwise beautiful
landscape. Grace wrinkled her nose. “What is this?”

“It’s Kallis and Tamare,” Lisbeth
said. “They saved the Avialies from a Thieran curse hundreds of
years ago.” She touched the women’s clasped hands. “They were
marked. As you are.”

She walked down the corridor and
stopped at a library. She ushered Grace in and motioned to the bell
next to the door. “If you’d like something, just ring this bell.
The elders are going to have a meeting.”

“Can I come to it?” Grace
asked.

Lisbeth shook her head. “We’ll call
if you need anything.”

“But I don’t want to—”

“We’ll be talking about alliance
with the other magical families. Nothing you can help with. Thank
you, though.” Lisbeth smiled tightly and closed the door, leaving
Grace alone.

Grace looked around the room with a
sigh; the walls had shelves built into them, crammed full of books.
A tall, arching window looked out over the garden. From the second
floor, Grace could see the path weaving in and out of the
bushes.

She collapsed in the chair, putting
her hands to her forehead. She pulled the chair over to the window
and searched through history books, trying to find the history of
the Avialies. She pieced together legends and myths. The legend was
that the six magical families were created by the divine thousands
of years ago to keep order and peace in the world, but persecution
had driven them into hiding. They influenced history and helped
non-magical folk in extreme cases, but generally, they stayed
quiet, living life by themselves. She read through fantastical
stories, unable to tell which were only bedtime stories and which
could have actually happened.

One book talked about Avialie
prophecy. Apparently those gifted usually has visions of images
that seemed disconnected but actually were full of meaning. She
found some parchment and ink and wrote down everything she’d seen
in Lisbeth’s vision. The birthmark was hers; she knew that. The man
changing into a lion had to be an Avialie. She tried to remember
his face or the faces of the riders. But their hoods were up,
shielded from the snow of the mountain pass. Then suddenly the
waterfall, in some kind of jungle. Such a drastic change in
location. Yet walking out of the cave seemed to be the same place
as the waterfall, so maybe the clasped hands also took place there.
The books read that most prophecy images were
chronological.

She blushed as she remembered the
image of the couple: the two were naked in a canopy bed, both of
them dark-haired. She didn’t spend much time writing about that
one. A flash of blonde hair—hers? A crown—William’s or his
father’s? The bloody body gave her chills, but she couldn’t
remember any details—male or female, where they were. She needed to
see the vision again. In the meantime, she wrote every detail
down.

A couple hours had passed when
Grace saw a man on a horse riding on the path to the house. She put
her book down and stood up. He paused at the gates, but when he
came through, Grace recognized Dar. She held back a grin as she ran
to the library door.

It took her a moment to find the
steps, but she raced down them and found the opening hall in
moments. Myra was opening the door, and Dar came in just as Grace
came in from the corridor. He looked at her and relief spread
across his face. She had to fight not to throw herself into his
arms.

He approached her instead, and he
put his hands on her face. “It’s good to see you.”

Grace smiled at him. “It’s good to
see you, too.”

He hugged her then and whispered in
her ear, “I’m going to get you out of here.”

As he pulled away, she had a sudden
fear that it might not be him. What if someone was only taking his
form? She gazed at his face intently, as though she might see
something to assure her he was real. “Wait,” she said, taking his
wrist before he stepped away. “Tell me something only Dar would
know… tell me… what was I hiding during the masquerade
ball?”

Dar gave her a sad smile. “A piece
of chocolate.”

Grace nodded, but then she
remembered that someone had seen them at the masquerade ball. She
searched her mind for another question, but then Jeshro came into
the room. “Dar,” he said, opening his arms.

Dar and Jeshro embraced.

“We’ve taken care of her for you,”
Jeshro said, motioning to Grace.

“I think we need to talk,” Dar
said.

“Of course. The other elders are
here, and we need to sort this out. Myra, could you take Lady Grace
back to the library?”

“No. I want her to come with
us.”

Jeshro frowned, but nodded. Dar
turned toward Grace, reaching his hand out. She took it,
half-grateful, half-reluctant. Was he being tender because he was
someone else trying to convince her he was Dar or because he really
wanted her to come?

They followed Jeshro down a floor,
hand in hand. Lisbeth and the other elders were waiting in a study
with a fireplace, a full bookshelf, and a few couches. “Sir Dar,”
Mort said, standing up. The firelight shone off his bald
head.

Dar let go of Grace’s hand to greet
everyone. She stood by the door, watching everyone make polite
conversation as though her kidnapping wasn’t the reason they were
all here. Jeshro sat behind one of the large desks. “Is the prince
waiting in the forest?”

The conversation
stilled.

Dar nodded. “Yes, he is. I told him
I’d have Lady Grace out by nightfall.”

That reassured Grace that it was
truly Dar and not an impostor. She breathed in relief, grateful to
have him here with her, fighting for her. She sat down in an
armchair beside the fireplace as the elders protested.

“
You can’t just
take her!” Harver said.

“There are not enough of us to
defeat the Protectors in another battle,” Dar said. “We lost nine
people last time, and you were foolish enough to kidnap her at the
height of the prince’s affection for her.”

Nilee cast a glare at Lisbeth. “We
didn’t know about her courtship to the prince.”

“It was not publicly declared, and
his carriages are magically fortified to keep us out,” Dar said.
“But you should have been more careful.”

“But why did you tell him you’d
bring her to him?” Jeshro stood. “Don’t you realize she could save
this whole family?”

Dar moved to stand next to Grace.
“Of course,” he said. Grace looked at him in surprise. “I was with
her for six months, and her father never noticed. I could do it
again while she’s courting the prince.”