Light the Reign (The Forgotten: Book 3) (9 page)

“What do you mean?”

He took a deep breath, narrowing his eyes
slightly, obviously not happy at having to explain himself to an
outsider. “Many of those mages who had been,” he paused, pursing
his lips, “experimented on by the Dark King’s regime decided to
follow our founder here. Understandably, many were not comfortable
in the company of those who had not also been horribly deformed.
Though over the years we have been able to unravel these changes
from our blood, we cannot undo all the damage. Every one of us here
is still affected by his atrocities even today.”

Katya looked around, confused. No one she
could see looked horribly disfigured. In fact, they were all fairly
attractive, with their sun-kissed skin and dark features. “You all
look fine to me,” she stated, beginning to feel as though she was
just being given the run-around.

The Kanza leader smiled. “That is because of
the stone. If it was to be taken from its resting place, the
enchantments that our ancestors placed upon it would break, and we
would revert to our natural unnatural states.”

It took a moment for Katya to contemplate
that. But of course he meant that the stone was magically stopping
the spells, which had unfortunately become a ‘natural’ part of them
from the experiments, from showing.

“So you see, Katya, I cannot do this to my
people. It would ruin them. Though I sympathize with your plight
and may not have condoned our involvement had I known the true
purpose, my hands are tied.”

He didn’t particularly seem sorry to Katya.
“Do you not agree that sterilizing the Dark King’s descendants is
wrong?”

He did not answer right away. “It is not a
question of agreement, as I said, we are simply unable to help
you.”

“So you don’t disagree with Kali’s assertion
that the Dark King’s bloodline should be wiped out? And you don’t
care that it has been altered so that instead of sterilizing
people, it will spread the blood-magic affliction?”

The Kanza leader gave her a hard stare. “It
would seem to be a rather fitting end.”

“A rather fitting end?” Katya repeated
incredulously. “A rather fitting end to make innocent people turn
into raving blood-thirsty beasts?”

“It was their own fault that they were
playing around with blood-magic and spoiled the spell. It would
have been harmless.”

“Harmless? You call taking away their freedom
to have children harmless? Taking away MY choice to have kids or
not because my great-great-great-great,” she didn’t know how many
generations it really was so she just repeated this word until her
anger stopped her, “grandmother might have been
raped
by the
Dark King!?” She felt Hunter’s restraining hand on her arm and
realized that she had moved forward threateningly. Marak was
squeezing her arm so tightly she thought it might fall asleep for
lack of blood. She forced herself to calm down, taking deep
breaths.

The man frustratingly persisted. “It didn’t
hurt them directly, and the next generation would be free of the
Dark King.”

“We are already free of the Dark King,” Katya
said softly, closing her eyes and shaking her head. “You think that
reducing the population in the Lost Lands, as you call them, by
more than three-fourths would have made the world better? How about
now, when it’s that number who will most likely kill the rest
off?”

The man had no response, but his expression
did not change.

“Do you not have those with the mark still
being born within the tribes? These are only the ones with the Dark
King’s blood who also possess the right amount of talent, there are
bound to be more. So why is it that only the Lost Lands deserve
punishment?”

“We do not allow the marked to live among us
here either,” he growled. She had hit a nerve.

“No, you exile them,” Katya pushed, “your own
children.”

“Yes,” the Kanza leader’s voice grew
colder.

“Why?” Katya challenged.

“Because they are tainted by his evil. They
would grow into evil people.”

“Will they?” She rose one eye-brow at
him.

“If I may interrupt,” the Dena’ina leader put
in, “Another of our party has something she wishes to say.”

The Kanza leader rounded on him, no doubt
expecting another accusation. The Dena’ina leader simply waved
towards the rear of their group. The other man watched with a
mixture of curiosity and trepidation.

Katya stepped aside with the rest to allow
the strange cart which the Dena’ina had brought with them to come
forward between them. Her anger cooled as she watched the
proceedings with interest.

The cart pulled up directly in front of the
man, who looked as though he wanted to step back a pace, but he
held his ground. The curtains were pushed aside to reveal a young
woman. She paused a moment to blink in the sudden brightness, then
gracefully stepped out.

“Hello, Uncle,” she greeted the Kanza leader
with dignity.

He closed his eyes.

The woman didn’t move and no one said a
word.

Then suddenly another woman rushed forward,
exclaiming, “Petra! Is that you, my darling daughter? You’re
alive?” She showered the woman with kisses.

The leader finally had to open his eyes,
surveyed the scene with an icy stare.

Petra embraced her mother warmly, seeming to
hold no resentment at having been thrown out simply because of the
matter of a little mark. Then she stepped forward lightly, seeming
to float across the ground as she addressed the rest of the
crowd.

“I was thrown out when I was five years old
because a mark showed up on my neck. I wandered the landscape for
weeks before the Dena’ina found me and took me in. You were afraid
that I would grow into an evil person because of a silly marking
that meant I was far distantly related to someone evil. I wanted to
come stand before you today so that you may judge for yourselves
whether or not I am evil.”

The sun seemed to shine down at her in such a
way that it illuminated the air around her, making her look
majestic, and certainly not evil.

The Kanza leader scoffed. “Goodness is not
something that can be seen by you standing before us.”

“And yet you can see evil by a mark on my
neck?” the woman countered.

He did not answer.

“Don’t you also have children?” the Dena’ina
leader asked him, “Two sons, I believe?”

The Kanza leader’s teeth were clenched so
tightly that his temples were bulging. It appeared to take some
effort to loosen them in order to reply. “Yes.”

“And this young woman who was exiled because
she bears the mark is your niece, correct?”

He simply nodded.

“Then would it not stand to reason that her
parents each have at least a fifty percent chance of having the
Dark King’s blood? And most likely both did to some extent. Which
means that there is a chance that you bear the Dark King’s
blood.”

The Kanza leader looked revolted, but could
not deny the possibility.

“How would you feel if your sons were taken
from you? If you had been stripped of your ability to have
them?”

“I wasn’t, they are already in
existence.”

The Dena’ina leader nodded calmly, “Then how
would you like to see them slowly change into blood-thirsty raving
mad monsters? We did not keep records that would tell us who might
be affected, who might also bear the blood of the Dark King aside
from those obviously bearing the mark. If we allow this curse to
spread farther, it will reach us. Even those who don’t turn are
likely to be killed by others that have. Are you willing to bet
your life on it? Your sons’ lives? Those of any of your
people?”

The crowd that had gathered around them
murmured to one another now, looking around as if trying to
determine by sight who might have his bloodline.

“The Dark King was compelled by the evil
within him to spread his seed, and he did it well. There are few in
this world who can claim not even a distant relation. Do you truly
believe that every single one of them that can’t deserves to suffer
for his crimes?”

“They were meddling with blood-magic,” the
Kanza sputtered, trying to regain his platform.

“A very small group of people who the leaders
were trying to oust and eliminate. Our ancestors lived in the same
country as the Dark King, were they also responsible for his
actions? Should we then punish ourselves as their descendants?”

The Kanza leader grumbled. “You know not what
you ask.”

“On the contrary,” the other man disagreed,
“I know exactly what we ask of you. Is there not a way we can
convince you to give us the stone?”

The Dena’ina leader and the Kanza leader
exchanged a glance. “We cannot simply give up the stone,” he said
finally, “But there might be a way.”

“What is it?” Petra, the exiled woman, spoke
up.

Katya couldn’t determine the emotion behind
the Kanza leader’s expression as he looked at Petra, it might have
been contempt or affection. Or both.

He turned his stare back to Katya. “There is
rumored to be a plant that will erase the modifications. A man long
ago stumbled upon it and found that all the changes made by the
Dark King’s magic had been erased when he ate it. Unfortunately,
none were ever able to find this particular plant again and though
the man claimed to have found a field of it, he got himself killed
before locating it for the rest of us.”

“How did he die?” Katya asked, wondering if
it was the price of stripping the people of their afflictions.

“He was always putting himself into danger,
not staying within the village like he ought to have done. One day
it caught up with him,” he shrugged. “The most we know is that he
was wandering to the north when he came across it. Many have tried
to find it since, but none have succeeded. If you bring us back a
plant to prove you have found the field, and can provide us with a
map to the place, we will give you the stone.”

“And Petra?” Katya asked, wondering what the
girl’s intentions were. Katya couldn’t imagine embracing those who
had thrown you out, but then again, she had felt nothing but love
and pity for Gareth when she had found out about her tarnished
past. Petra’s mother had been happy to see her, but Katya didn’t
get the feeling that she would be welcomed back quite so easily by
the rest even if she were to want to stay.

“I’ll go with you,” she stated firmly,
pulling herself away from her fawning mother. “You’ll need someone
to test it on,” she looked around the crowd, “and I don’t imagine
there are many volunteers.”

Katya watched as head after head ducked away
from her searching stare, each looking resolutely at the ground.
Despite the reaction that their party had received from the people,
she was surprised that not even one of them would be curious enough
of the plant’s existence to put aside their differences and travel
with them.

“Excellent,” the Dena’ina leader clapped his
hands together in finality. “Might we impose on your hospitality
for the night to learn what we can of this field and rest up for a
fresh start to our quest in the morning?”

The Kanza leader did not look happy with this
arrangement, but broached no argument, saying simply, “Of
course.”

Besides showing them a tent to place their
things and sending a few sleeping bags, the Kanza’s hospitality
extended no further. They wisely decided not to venture out into
the village, instead spending a quiet evening in their small
tent.

After setting up two of the sleeping rolls
next to one another with Hunter, she touched his arm gently to
indicate she would be back, and went over to sit with Petra who was
staring out the open flap of the tent towards the village.

“Must be strange to be here,” she
sympathized. “I know it’s nothing compared to what you are going
through since you obviously remember it, but I recently found out
that I was once part of the Myaamia and thrown out because of my
mark too.”

Petra looked at her and gave her a small
smile. “I know, and thank you. I’m fine. It’s just weird is all.
And seeing my mother…” she trailed off.

They sat in silence for a while. Then Katya
asked, “How did you know that no one else would volunteer to go
with us if you haven’t been here in so long?”

The girl laughed. “Very few of the Kanza
would willingly leave the village for much of anything, especially
not with outsiders.”

“Why is that?”

“You haven’t guessed? As the leader said, the
stone negates the horrors that were done to our people at the hands
of the Dark King and his cronies. Once we leave its immediate area,
they become apparent once more.”

Katya mulled this over. “Is that also why you
traveled in secret, and not out in the open with us?” she asked, a
bit queasy to her stomach. She hated to think that someone would
hide themselves thinking that they were not worth the same as other
because of something that had unwillingly be done to them.

The woman seemed to read her mind. “I’m not
ashamed of who I am. My husband back home, Nathan, helped me to
accept how I look with no reservations, but others do not always
understand. The Dena’ina leader tried to convince me to reveal
myself earlier, but I thought it would be easier this way. The
others traveling with us know me, but the Myaamia are not known for
their understanding.”

“Well, I hope you don’t plan on going back in
that box to travel when we go looking for the pool,” Katya told
her, “Now that I know there’s a person in there, I wouldn’t be able
to deal with that.”

The girl laughed. “If you wish, but you’ve
been warned. I do not look nearly as…” she paused, looking for the
appropriate word, “human as I do now.”

“You will ride out with us,” Katya said
firmly.

“As you wish.” The girl wore an odd
smile.