Oathen (58 page)

You, My Soul, Are My Eternity.
Yours, Arisson

Tears rose in her eyes, and she set the torc
back down. Her fingers tore at the thick envelope. Meena’s
familiar, exotic scrawl met her eyes, and she sank to the floor to
read it by the light of the fallen torch.

Autumn 1062, by the Vinten
calendar

Sanych,

If you are reading this, then I have
succeeded, and the
Dire Tome
is destroyed. I hope I am dead
as well. I’m putting pen to paper now, before you arrive, because
what I plan to say is something you will not wish to hear at our
“first” meeting, and if my plan fully succeeds, I will not be
around to explain it afterward.

There is so much you must learn, but I dare
not pour it all in your ear at the beginning, or you might run
screaming. So in order to eventually convince you to help me
destroy the
Dire Tome
, I will pretend to know nothing about
your Magister or his proposed quest when you find me. Yet this is
far from my first offense against you and yours.

Your place in my plan to destroy the
Dire Tome
was no accident. Neither was your birth, nor your
magic. I controlled them all. It was the only way to accomplish the
task before me. Those such as I do not deserve to live
forever.

Your grandfather Jelm possessed the magic
of light, the gift that will wake the dragon who can destroy
the
Dire Tome
. But he would not consider returning to
Shanal, his homeland. I aided him in settling in Salience, and saw
that his children, and eventually his grandchildren, were tested by
one of the Silver Hand for the gift of light magic. Only one
possessed it.

You.

But you also possessed an enormous
natural capacity for memorization and recall. I had another Silver
Hand hide your memories from you for your own protection. Now, you
are free to return to rediscover the life I stole from
you.

A Dzur i’Oth deserter named
Ahni—yes, your Ahni—told me in Salience of the cult’s plan to curse
Prince Addan in order to draw me and my key to them. It was the
opportunity I needed. I took you and Ahni to the Temple of
Knowledge. Ahni stayed close by to watch over and protect
you.

When the cult arranged for the Magister to
receive the “priest’s journal”, directing him to seek the
Dire
Tome
, I sent word to Ahni to suggest the Shanallar as the target
of your Archivist quest. She has recently informed me that you’ve
agreed.

I hope that we got on all right,
and that I didn’t treat you too poorly. I hope I didn’t force you,
at the end, to help me. Because I will if I have to. All I have to
offer you, Sanych, is the illusion of choice. Now that you know who
I am—and these myriad books and scrolls will certainly fill in any
gaps—I hope that you don’t hate me. I have that much humanity left.
But if you do, I understand, and hold no blame against you. I’ve
done what I must: what no one but I could accomplish.

I wish you well, Sanych elTiera.
You have my everlasting gratitude, and my blessing.

Welcome to a world where the
Dire Tome
does not exist.

Meena

Sanych held the letter in trembling fingers.
She was so stunned that she didn’t sense Geret’s approach until his
arms slipped around her waist from behind. They read the letter
together a few more times.

“Meena’s game was bigger than even the cult’s
game. Was she even human anymore?” Geret asked,
scowling.

“She was human enough. She held regret, even
as she used us.”

“She was losing that ability to care for
others, though,” Geret said. “I understand now why she wanted to
die. While she still could see what she was becoming.”

“Sosta knew about my grandfather,” Sanych
blurted in realization.

“What?”

“She told us about Jelm, right after our
Oathbinding. Remember? She said the last light-magic Scion had left
Shanal before she was born. And Jelm was with Meena in Salience.
And that means…”

“You’re a Scion. A descendant of the
Shanallar.”

~~~

Sanych drew her fingers through Geret’s hair
on the sunlit bench. “Me, a Scion. It still feels strange. To me,
Meena is the woman who risked all to save the world, and gave her
life for everyone else in the end. The woman who gave me life and
purpose, and then a wide open future to make my own way. I can’t
hate her for using me. Despite how guilty she felt about that, it
was the only way she knew, and the only way she could succeed. I’m
proud to be her scion.”

“I know I’m excited to be part of your wide
open future.” Geret sat up and turned to her, straddling the stone
bench. The pink-tinged shade of the monandia flowers danced across
them both. Cupping her face in his hands, he kissed her long and
well, a warm melding of souls. “As a first step, how about we make
our own way toward the palace for dinner?”

Sanych agreed. They rose and walked through
the sun-splashed, fragrant Temple gardens, their fingers
intertwining, their shadows merging into one.

“Do you miss it yet?” Geret asked.

“Miss what?”

“Your magic.” They both smiled; they’d had
this exchange every week since sailing from Shanal.

Sanych paused on the walk. As she turned to
face him, sunlight outlined the bronze Shanallese dragons on her
torc. A wicked grin creased the corners of her eyes.

“What magic?”

This morning

The archery instructor dressed quickly; class
was due to start in half an hour, and she still needed to eat
breakfast in the commons. Sleeping in was not the best way to make
a first impression on the new batch of students at the Shanal
Academy Martial. She belted on a green leather overshirt, bearing
the queen’s coat of arms, and strapped a sleek leather bracer onto
her left arm.

Just before she stepped from her modest home
at the edge of the academy campus, she caught sight of herself in
her small wall mirror, squinted, and looked more closely. A curious
hand made its way to her hair, where she touched several bright
silver strands that quickly lost themselves in her dark
braid.

Rather than pluck them out, the woman took a
moment to gaze at them as if they were the most wonderful thing she
had ever seen. A memory arose in her mind.

She had awakened, shivering, and found herself
flat on her back within a gemstone circle embedded in the black
stone floor. Green torches flickered over her skin, and she
realized her clothes had gone missing. She sat up with a cry,
looking for an assailant, but found none. The room was empty. When
her echoes died, the silence was thick, ancient.

She’d been lying on a sharp piece of stone,
gouged out of the wall by a shard of Ahm’s exploded metal cube, no
doubt. She rubbed at the sore spot and stood up. Her teeth
chattered, likely because her hair had gone missing as well. She
ran a cold hand across her bare scalp.

“Now what?” she muttered, having become more
used to waking in unfamiliar situations than she liked.

She fetched one of the green torches from its
sconce and padded out of the ritual chamber. On the stairs at the
end of the hallway, she found a pair of dead cultists. They were
already stiff. She struggled to remove a black robe from one of
them, then wrapped it around herself, shuddering as warmth seeped
into her pebbled flesh.

That spot on her back twinged again, and she
frowned, rubbing at it a bit longer inside her stolen robe. The
wound stung, and her fingers came away sticky with fresh blood. She
stared at them.

And stared some more.

And then she began to laugh.

“Clever dragon,” she murmured, smiling at her
morning reflection. “I asked for death, and you gave me mortality.
I’ll treasure your gift—” she ran her fingers along the silver
strands once more, “—until my dying day.”

She gave the mirror one more brilliant smile,
then slipped out into the autumn morning.

About the Author

Jasmine Giacomo lives in
Washington State with her husband and two children. She has lived
on the West Coast of the United States all her life. She graduated
last millennium with a B.A. in English Literature from a college
built atop a volcano, and has since held such fascinating jobs as
hay baler, fluff supervisor, and office float.

Naturally, the skills they provided, along
with earning a black belt in jujitsu and giving birth to over
twenty pounds’ worth of babies, have prepared her for the serious
world of fantasy novel-writing, in which there is no funny business
whatsoever.

Her current writing projects include
Elements of Allegiance
, the first book in the YA fantasy
series Seals of the Duelists, and
First to Find
, the first
murder mystery novel in the Margarita Williams Geocaching series.
Visit her Facebook Pages for updates and more information:
http://www.facebook.com/AuthorJasmineGiacomo
and
http://www.facebook.com/MargaritaWilliamsGeocachingMysteries