The Beauty of Darkness - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,97

iron bridge with a single blast. That didn’t fit with the image of a crude, impoverished city. A lucky fluke, Hague had called it, the result of poor Vendan craftsmanship. Maybe. There were a dozen maybes, no single one was so compelling that it pointed to the impossible—that a poor barbarian kingdom had raised up an army powerful enough to quash all the others combined. I had already pushed the limits of logic with the assembly when I dispatched troops to border outposts.

I heard the door to my meeting chamber open and shut, and then the rattle of a tray being set on my desk. Sven always anticipated what I needed. I thought about all the grief I had caused him in our early years together. All the times I had kicked his shins and run and he had scooped me up and tossed me over his shoulder, throwing me in a trough of water. I am raising you up to be a king, not a fool, and kicking someone who can crush you in a single blink is the height of folly. I was dunked more than once. His patience was greater than mine.

I kept my eyes fixed on the city, the seven blue domes of the chanterie barely visible. Another thump. A stack of papers. Sven brought me an itinerary each evening for the next day.

“A full day tomorrow,” he said.

As they all were. This was not news. This was more like the bang of a gavel proclaiming another day set in stone.

He joined me at the rail looking out at the city. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Beautiful,” I answered.

“But?”

“No buts, Sven.” I didn’t want to go into it, the worry I couldn’t let go of, the vague something that didn’t feel right in my gut.

“I’m afraid you’ll need to squeeze in one more meeting tonight that’s not on the schedule.”

“Move it to tomorrow. It’s late—”

“Merrick has the information you wanted. He’ll be here within the hour.”

* * *

Before Merrick sat down, before he even entered my chambers, I knew what he would say, but I let it play out. It is true, Rafe. Every word is true. But I still held out hope for a fraud, an epic hoax penned by some sick mind in Morrighan. After pleasantries and a few explanations about his surprise at the age of the document, he pulled the worn leather sleeve from his satchel and returned it to me, then handed me another paper covered with his perfect scrolled lettering. An experienced scholar’s translation.

Merrick accepted a small glass of the spirits Sven offered to him and sat back. “May I ask where you acquired this?”

“It was stolen from a library in Morrighan. Is it genuine?”

He nodded. “It’s the oldest document I’ve ever translated. At least a couple of thousand years, or more. The word usage is similar to two dated documents in our archives—and the paper and ink are unquestionably from another era. It’s in remarkably good shape for its age.”

But did it say what Lia claimed it did?

I read his translation aloud. With each word and passage, I heard Lia’s voice instead of my own. I saw her worried eyes. I felt her hand squeezing mine, hopeful. I heard the murmurs of the clans in the square, listening to her. Word for word, it was the same as her translation. My mouth was suddenly dry when I got to the last verses, and I paused to drink some of the wine that Sven had poured me.

For the Dragon will conspire,

Wearing his many faces,

Deceiving the oppressed, gathering the wicked,

Wielding might like a god, unstoppable,

Unforgiving in his judgment,

Unyielding in his rule,

A stealer of dreams,

A slayer of hope.

Until the one comes who is mightier,

The one sprung from misery,

The one who was weak,

The one who was hunted,

The one marked with claw and vine,

The one named in secret,

The one called Jezelia.

“An unusual name,” Merrick said. “And if I recall correctly, it’s the princess’s name as well.”

I looked up from the page, wondering how he knew.

“The marriage documents,” he explained. “I saw them. You probably never even looked, did you?”

“No,” I said quietly. I had signed and ignored them, just as I had ignored her note to me. “But I’m told these are only the babblings of a madwoman?”

He pursed his lips as if thinking it over. “Could be. They’re certainly cryptic and odd. There’s no way to know for sure. But it’s curious that a madwoman could accurately describe such specific things thousands of years ago.