The beds that lined the makeshift hospital had been pushed aside. Thom and Dramin were moved to a private room near Ilyan’s and tucked away to where they could be cared for better. Where he could keep an eye on them, I assumed.
Besides, this space was the only one big enough to hold everyone, to fit the large diamond-shaped platform that was required for council.
I stared at the platform as if it had somehow offended me, the sheets of burned, black wood something I had learned about from my father, from a ceremony I had seen enacted many times before. Or a twisted version of it, anyway. As my father had completed it, time and time again, declaring himself as king.
I am the king.
I had a feeling, however, that this time I was going to see the real ceremony performed by a council as it was originally devised and created all those years before even Ilyan was born.
I stood still where I had been placed near the platform, the small boy Joclyn had healed yesterday standing beside me with a combination of both fear and excitement on his face. He writhed his hands before him as he fidgeted, his subtle movements so small that, for a child, they should have been seen as common place. However, for a council, for this moment, as he was surrounded by the calm and powerful magical beings of the world, he stuck out like a sore thumb.
Not only because of his subtle movements. Not only because he was new magic.
But because he was a child.
A child.
A child with a mark on his cheek, the raised brand looking as though his grandmother had kissed him and left lipstick there. It was a unique gift. But, just like Joclyn who had hid her mark from me for her whole life, he didn’t see it as such.
I could tell by the way he kept rubbing his hand over it, covering it as though he was ashamed.
He stood beside me in the place reserved for chosen children. The line that I was sure at one point had been littered with those who bore the mark. Yet, now, there were only three.
Me with a hole in my back where my father had cut the precious mark out, the boy, and on the other side of him, a girl who I still desperately wanted to be my friend. Who now stood straight and tall in a yellow dress so old she looked like she had been pulled out of painting. A girl who, only months ago, would have cowered in nerves. Now, she only stood straight and tall with a confidence I hadn’t seen from her before.
She really had been born for this.
I never could have guessed, from the girl I knew all that time ago, that she had this in her. That she could find this.
I could tell by looking at her, so could everyone else.
They kept glancing toward her with a revered awe that she only seemed to absorb further. The hope and joy on their faces grew with each moment we stood in the silent space, the eager anticipation devouring the haggard, gaunt fear that had riddled them.
I was certain I looked the same.
I could feel the same emptiness linger through me as I stood amongst them, the awe from the Siln? blending with the uncertainty of the child that stood beside us.
It was good and bad, both sides of the battle they had fought for centuries, standing side by side. A fact that was probably made more obvious given my uncanny likeness to my father.
So, I let them look, their eyes darting between Joclyn and me as we all waited for things to begin.
You are my twin in more ways than looks, son.
I twitched a bit at the voice, shaking the bad thought away as the buzzing of conversation in the hall grew momentarily, the excitement increasing with each new voice.
These were all who remained of the last of the people my father had spent centuries hunting. No more than a month before, he had taken control of their last remaining sanctuary, sending them all scattering into the wind. Into the crevices and hiding places of the city that was now little more than a blood splattered maze of fear, until Ilyan had arrived to gather them all.
These were all who were left. No more than thirty of the tall and fair beings I had been raised to decipher as my enemy.
In many ways, I still saw them that way.
My father’s voice rose inside of me for a brief moment before I squashed it down, my eyes lingering over the small crowd until they came to rest on Risha, the woman who was as tall and fair as all the others. I didn’t see her as an enemy.
She stood with a few other near the platform, talking in low, excited whispers. She was as composed as she had been yesterday, her gestures short and sure as she spoke, and the gentle and powerful nature of her soul drew me in.