will be happy to tell you the rest over time. But as I said, I am only asking. I understand that you owe me nothing, and I won’t force anything on you.”
As he waited for my answer, I fought to keep my expression neutral. I had no idea what he wanted me to know, nor was I so sure I wanted to know it. But what could I say?
“OK,” I agreed, my voice a little thinner than I would have liked.
Seeming pleased that I was willing to listen, his stance relaxed slightly as he walked slowly back toward the window. “I don’t know if you are aware of it, but this past year was my two hundredth on this earth. A great deal has happened to me and to the Holder race in general in the last two centuries, but today I will give you only the information that is applicable to the story at hand.”
He paused behind his desk, staring down at the floor, as if he were not sure where to start. After a long moment, he looked up – though not at me – and began. “When I was a boy, I attended school here at St Brigid’s. Back in that time, it was a boy’s boarding school, one of the finest anywhere in the world, in fact. I began my schooling here at age seven, and when I was sixteen my Awakening occurred. With no other Holders in my acquaintance at the time, I had no idea what was happening to me. Why I could suddenly hear everything that everyone around me was thinking. I began avoiding people, hiding. For a while I believed I was possessed. Nearly two years after my Awakening was when Darragh found me. He took me in, explained what had happened to me, what I was. He had a Sciath forged for me,” he said. He held up his right hand, with the large ruby ring and said, “and even introduced me to other Holders, Taron being one of the first. I stayed with Darragh for many years, quickly becoming his second. Of course, he was very careful that I never found out who I truly was, and that it wasn’t mere chance that he found me and took me under his wing. I never realized that he’d been looking for me – looking for the only one who could give him what he truly wanted.”
“You mean the prophecies and all that? He never told you?”
“No. I only knew that he had something called the Black Iris, that it was somehow the key to ultimate power, and that Darragh had not yet discovered how to use it – that last bit being, of course, a lie. He knew how to use it; he simply didn’t have the means, which is why he needed me. I had no idea what he was planning to do with it. I didn’t know about all the horrible things he was doing, not only to the humans he despised so much, but to other Holders as well. He wanted me kept in the dark until he was certain that I was irrevocably behind him. When he discovered I wasn’t nor would I ever be, I was forced to escape.”
“How did he find out?”
“I refused to create Drones for him. The man that assisted Taron during your capture was a Drone.”
“Yeah, I heard Taron say that, what does it mean?”
“A Drone is a human who has had their entire memory erased. Every thought, every sight, every feeling – gone. All they are capable of is existing and following orders. Mindless slaves.” The censure in his voice was hard to miss. “When he tasked me with their creation, I refused, finally seeing Darragh for the monster that he was. A few days later I made my escape.”
“But how? And if Darragh only wanted you so that you could give him someone who could use the Iris, why didn’t he just make you have kids right away? And if he had the Iris back then why do we have it now?”
He smiled at my curiosity, shaking his head. “Those are all stories for another time. For now, suffice it to say I got away, but still had no knowledge of any of the prophecies regarding myself.”
“When did you find out?”
He stiffened slightly at my question, and I got an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Not until it was too late,” he said, with an echo of hopelessness