Aron had grown used to the soft blue of her eyes, to the silver energy and strands of copper essence that seemed to highlight every perfect feature of her face and body.
She does care for you. More deeply than she understands.
He knew he was dreaming, so he didn’t bother to answer, to tell the Lady—for that was how he thought of this being now, as the Lady, the Mother of Mystery herself—that he would never do something so awful to Dari.
You know she is lonely. With a few moments of effort, you could comfort her—and bind her to you for all time.
Aron felt himself smiling at the thought of easing the pain in Dari’s heart, but he held his silence. He couldn’t even consider what it would be like to have Dari bound to him. That seemed impossible, and wrong, though also beautiful and desirable in its own way.
The Lady’s answering smile warmed him and chilled him at the same moment. No? Not yet? Then finally, finally allow me to give you this gift.
Aron tried to rouse himself, but waking deliberately from these dreams was never easy. He pinched himself, but felt nothing. He bit his own lip, but remained where he was, drifting in what felt like a soft blanket of nothingness, next to the Lady.
She stretched out a graceful hand, and a vista opened beneath him. He knew what he would see, knew he shouldn’t look, but he couldn’t help himself.
Below him, hundreds of soldiers wearing the sun blue and yellows of the Brailing Guard were gathered on an open field next to soldiers bearing banners with the steel and copper colors of Dyn Altar. They were facing soldiers bearing banners of Dyn Mab’s crimson and white.
Night after night, I offer you your due, for all you have suffered. The Lady gave him a loving glance. Will you still refuse my generosity?
Energy flowed through Aron, from his mind to his hands to his fingers, and he had a sense that if he stretched out his own arm like the Lady had done, some of the Brailing Guard would fall dead. Maybe the very guardsmen he wanted to find and hold accountable for the deaths of his family.
As if in response, a few of the guardsmen glowed more brightly than the rest.
If you practice, you could become proficient. First one, then several. We can’t begin to know your limits, or lack thereof. Try it now, with these, the ones you seek.
The faces of the guardsmen etched themselves into Aron’s mind. Beards and moles, scars and marks, the color and length of their hair, their height, even how they wore their uniforms or carried their weapons. He thought he might recognize them now, anywhere, anytime.
The skin on his fingers hummed and buzzed, then began to burn with the need to touch these men, to command each of their hearts to stop beating. He could do it. He knew he could, and no one but the Lady would ever know. She was the Goddess, and she was as much as telling him to do it.
The Lady waited, more patiently than she usually did. Her voice grew even lower and more inviting. Stone does not understand you, Aron. If you had killed the outlaws who tried to claim you, I would have come to your defense against these barbarians. Use of your graal to protect your life, and the life of someone else, would have been a blessing.
Aron stared at his fingers, which now glowed a brilliant sapphire. He felt a dizzying need, a flash of inner power and will, then a spark of guilt over never telling Stormbreaker about how he almost used his legacy to strike down Canus the Bandit’s men in Dyn Cobb.
The Lady stroked his shoulder with long, warm fingers. Go to High Master Falconer and petition him to return to Eidolon. I will bless his efforts, Aron. It will happen, if I command it.
Aron turned his hands palm upward, and the sapphire energy arced between his wrists and fingers.
So after all this time, he had a choice about his future, at least in his dreams.
Stone or Thorn.
Service to one guild master, or service to another.
If he had been given the choice the day he was Harvested, Aron had little doubt which path he would have chosen. He never would have known Dari, never come to understand a man as complex as Stormbreaker. There would have been no Raaf, no Zed, no Iko in his life. But also