Prophecy's Daughter Page 26
“My brave sir, I can’t speak for your appetite, but I am famished,” she said, getting to her feet and moving toward the hooks that held her pans.
“If you start cooking, I’m not going to complain,” Arn said.
He rose to his feet, wobbled, and then steadied. He lifted an arm and sniffed, wrinkling his nose. “But first, I’m going to drag myself down to the stream and wash up. There is no way breakfast is going to smell palatable if it has to compete with this odor.”
Carol suddenly realized that she also had not bathed in recent memory. “Gods. I probably smell as bad as you do.”
By the time they consumed the meal, Arn had recovered from the psychic battles of the previous day. Carol studied him closely.
“So, do I pass the test?” Arn asked, leaning back from his now-empty plate.
“I don’t know. You had me so scared.”
“Well, you can put your worries to rest. Aside from a nasty hangover, I don’t seem to be any the worse for it.”
“Do you remember anything?”
“Not really. I remember trying to open my mind, using one of your exercises, and then a sense of drifting. After that I woke up with a mountainous headache.”
Carol bit her lip.
“Why? Did I miss something?”
“You very nearly got yourself possessed and practically scared me to death in the process.”
“It probably wasn’t the most brilliant idea I’ve ever come up with, but since we are both still here, it wasn’t terrible.”
“Never do it again.”
Arn paused, his face growing more serious. “I’ve been feeling a growing worry since I awakened. We need to get back to the vale as soon as spring thaw allows us out of here.”
A lump formed in her throat. After having shared his dreams, she echoed his worry. Her eyes wandered across their hollow, across the tree-lined meadows, streams, and steaming hot springs, until her gaze settled on the ledge where they had made their home. Her brown eyes misted, but she returned her gaze to Arn’s. “I feel it, too.”
“I need to say something that you’re not going to like,” said Arn, “but it needs to be said.”
She held her breath.
“I know how much you love your people,” said Arn. “And they have always loved you. They don’t anymore.”
Carol felt as if he had kicked her in the stomach. She did not know what she had expected him to say, but this was not it.
Arn paused, then rose to his feet to gaze out in the direction of Areana’s Vale. “They fear you. Worse than that, they have lost respect for you. By the time I arrived, those damned fool priests had convinced everyone that you had lost your mind. Even you feared so. And they were in the process of turning you into a drugged shell of yourself.”
With a shock, Carol realized that he was right. Her assumptions about the spell book’s organization had set her on the treacherous path that its author had set for her. The good people of Areana’s Vale had been right to fear her. She had become obsessed, so sure of her mental prowess that she had refused to accept defeat, even when she needed to stop.
Arn turned back toward Carol, his eyes looking through her, as if seeing something far away. “I believe with all my being that you are destined to be a great leader, but a leader’s job is not to be his or her people’s friend. It’s not even important to be liked. A leader may be feared, but she absolutely must command respect.
“For that reason, we cannot return as if nothing’s happened. If you were just to go back to the vale and attempt to return to life as you knew it, there would be mobs of people ready to take action against you. Some would try to hurt you, and others would seek to undermine you at every turn.”
The burning in Carol’s lungs reminded her that she had not been breathing. Arn’s words pulled forth a vision of the choices that lay before her, none of them pleasant. “What would you ask of me?”
“The choice is yours, but I believe that you need to reestablish your old authority and to go beyond that. You will have to make it clear that you are firmly in command of your powers and that those powers have grown beyond the people’s wildest imaginings. You will also need to demonstrate that you are in no mood to tolerate opposition.
“Stage a grand entrance that will drop them to their knees in terror. You left there a crazed and broken princess. You must return, dark and terrible in your power, a wielder to be feared and respected. You will wring that respect from them in one fell stroke.”
Carol stumbled to her feet, as if the effort of rising could throw off the bands that constricted her chest. Tears flooded her eyes as she motioned for Arn to stay back. She needed to get away from him, away from the terrible images his words brought flooding through her mind. She broke into a run out across the meadow, leaving him standing in place staring after her. Branches clutched at her as she disappeared into the woods on the far side and plunged down a slight incline toward the small pool hidden in the mists. She sank to her knees beside a moss-covered boulder and placed her face in her hands, sobs racking her body.
Thoughts of her childhood and young adult life among these people whom she loved chased one another through her brain. She knew them by name, hundreds and hundreds of families that she had taken the time to get to know. She had taught some of their children to read, had helped make sure the poor were fed and received medical attention above their station when required. She loved them, and they had loved her back. She could not bring herself to accept all of that was just gone.
Yet she heard her father’s voice whispering at the back of her mind, telling her that leadership wasn’t supposed to be easy. It was a responsibility, a skill that, if practiced correctly, ensured the well-being of those being led. Even though her sadness remained, Carol made the hard decision that her ambition dictated.
The two ate in silence that evening, brooding. After the meal, Carol informed Arn of her decision. At the first sign of spring, they would leave Misty Hollow and make their way back to the vale. As Arn moved to her side and put his arm around her shoulders, she stared off into the fading twilight.
If her people required darkness to save them, by all the gods, she would bring it.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to express my deepest thanks to my lovely wife, Carol, without whose support and loving encouragement this project would never have happened.
I also want to thank Alan and John Ty Werner for the many long evenings spent in my company, brainstorming the history of this world, its many characters, and the story yet to be told.
Many thanks to my wonderful editor, Clarence Haynes, for once again helping me to refine my story.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard Phillips was born in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1956. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1979 and qualified as an Army Ranger, going on to serve as an officer in the US Army. He earned a master’s degree in physics from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1989, completing his thesis work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. After working as a research associate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, he returned to the army to complete his tour of duty.
Today, he lives with his wife, Carol, in Phoenix, where he writes science-fiction thrillers and fantasy—including The Rho Agenda series (The Second Ship, Immune, and Wormhole), The Rho Agenda Inception series (Once Dead, Dead Wrong, and Dead Shift), and The Rho Agenda Assimilation series (The Kasari Nexus, The Altreian Enigma, and The Meridian Ascent). He is also the author of Mark of Fire, the first book in the epic Endarian Prophecy fantasy novels.
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