“All that wyvern blood floating around,” he explains, “interferes rather inconveniently with cherished ideas of racial purity. Which, in and of itself, is probably the greatest myth of all time.” His eyes gleam with mischief. “Gardnerians are touchy about racial lines not being clearly drawn. The Elves are even touchier. It’s easier to cast the Icarals as evil and shun them at birth than it is to admit that every race is a mix.”
I grasp at my mug, thoughts swirling as he stirs some honey into his tea and glances sidelong at me, giving his words ample time to sink in.
He sits back, a question in his eyes. “Shall we continue?”
I nod.
“Where were we, then?” His brow knits tight as he focuses into the middle distance.
“It was a time of peace.”
“Ah, yes,” he says, taking another sip and eyeing me poignantly. “So...enter Carnissa Gardner onto our historical stage.”
“My grandmother.”
“Yes, your grandmother. She was the long-awaited one. The powerful Great Mage of Prophecy, born with magic more powerful than Styvius’s. At a time when Mages saw their borders shrinking as the Kelts reclaimed lost land, purging that land of any Mages they could find.”
“You mean murdering them,” I flatly state.
He gives me a sober look. “Yes, Elloren. Rounding them up and murdering them.”
I sit back, cross my arms and wait for him to continue.
“Your grandmother, Carnissa, set out not only to avenge the Mages, but also to finish what Styvius had started. As she honed her power, the Mages secretly built a dragon army to rival the Urisk and Keltish forces—the Gardnerians were aided in this by the despised Urisk underclass, the Uuril.”
“The light-colored Urisk?” I question. “Like some of the kitchen workers? They have pinkish hair.”
“They would be part of the Uuril underclass,” Professor Kristian affirms.
I think of little Fern and her bubbles, troubled by her low-class status.
“Carnissa invaded Keltania and quickly annexed it,” Professor Kristian continues. “Then she aligned herself with the Alfsigr Elves, shipped the remaining Fae—as well as anyone with even a drop of Fae blood—to the Pyrran Isles and took over the Fae Islands. Like Styvius, she didn’t plan on stopping there. By that point she had turned into a cruel, religious zealot who wanted to wipe out every race in the Western Realm, save the Gardnerian Mages.”
This isn’t how I know this story. “She was protecting my people,” I protest. “The Kelts wanted their land back so they could enslave my people again.”
“It may have started out that way,” he counters, “but it certainly didn’t end that way. Your people wanted revenge. And they needed more farmland. They didn’t want just some of the land, they wanted all of it.” He pauses, perhaps seeing how much this is upsetting me.
He’s wrong. He has to be. My grandmother wasn’t some bloodthirsty, land-grabbing monster. She was a great warrior. She saved and protected us all.
“Elloren,” he says, his expression conflicted. “Your grandmother wanted to kill everyone who wasn’t Gardnerian.”
“Because they wanted to attack us,” I say, my voice tight and strained. My parents fought with her. They died fighting for her. Fighting for all of my people. They were heroes.
Professor Kristian tightens his lips as if holding back a counter-argument. After a short pause he speaks again. “An Icaral rose up during your grandmother’s push east. He killed her and died doing it. The Icaral was a Keltic healer who gave his life to save Keltania, a society that still harbored lingering prejudice against his kind.” He sets down his tea. “So, here we are.”
Here we are. A Kelt and a Gardnerian, calmly discussing the whole thing. Calm enough on the surface at least. My mind is a tumult of warring emotions.
“Your people and the Alfsigr Elves are currently the major powers in the region,” he continues. “With only a few very fragile checks on their power. There’s the Vu Trin guard at the Western and Eastern passes, positioned to keep Gardnerian and Alfsigr power confined to the Western Realm. There’s also the loose threat that war could force an alliance between the Lupines and the Amaz. And both groups are formidable opponents on their own.”
“And there’s the Resistance,” I add.
He narrows his eyes at me. “Yes, there’s a scattered Resistance movement. The Resistance being the only group willing to defy the Gardnerians and Alfsigr Elves at the moment.”
I hold his level stare. “You think opposition will grow?”
He tilts his head in consideration. “Perhaps. Especially with Priest Marcus Vogel poised to take control of the Gardnerian Mage Council.”
A thread of fear tightens in my gut at the mention of Vogel.
“I’ve met him,” I tell Professor Kristian.
He eyes me appraisingly. “And did you like him?”
I remember the dark tree, the feel of the black void. “He scared me,” I admit.
“He should,” Professor Kristian warns. “And you should start paying attention to what your own Mage Council is doing.” He rubs at his temple, then looks back at me. “Vogel’s a Level Five Mage, but he lacks the power of Styvius and Carnissa.”
“So he’s no Great Mage.”
Professor Kristian shakes his head. “No. But something is working in his favor—another Prophecy, echoed by the seers of several races, making everyone fearful and reactionary. It speaks of the imminent arrival of another Black Witch, the greatest Gardnerian Mage yet. It also speaks of the rising of another Icaral—a male—who will challenge her. According to this Prophecy, this new Black Witch will need to kill the Icaral, or an age of darkness will descend on Gardneria.
“Of course, the enemies of Gardneria see darkness for Gardneria as a good thing, so there are already assassins roaming the lands, desperate to locate the Black Witch of Prophecy. And, of course, the Gardnerians are desperate to locate both the Black Witch and the Icaral who is supposed to rise up and challenge Her. There have been some rumors that an Icaral baby boy was recently born to a Gardnerian girl, and that both the baby and the mother are on the run from the Gardnerian Mage Council.”
Sage’s baby. The Icaral of Prophecy—an unbroken Icaral who could come into his full powers. An Icaral who might keep his wings and possess unspeakable magic. And a new Black Witch—Fallon Bane.
For a moment we’re both silent as I digest all this new information.
“So...the next Black Witch,” I venture. “What if it’s true? What if she comes?”
He grows quiet, his eyes grave with foreboding. “The Gardnerians have built the most powerful army they have ever had, with more dragons at their command than ever before. If another Black Witch rises, it is likely that the Gardnerians will succeed in taking over every land that exists on our maps, crushing the Resistance and making everyone who is not a Mage into a slave, with the exception, perhaps, of the Lupines.” He leans toward me, his voice low. “Is that what you want, Elloren Gardner?”
I think of Fern and her bubbles. I swallow hard, feeling off-kilter and troubled. “I’m a Level One Mage,” I say, struggling to keep my tone light. “It hardly matters what I want.”
“Perhaps, but I’m still curious.”
“I don’t know,” I say, my worldview like shifting sand unsteady beneath my feet. “Lukas Grey told me that you have to dominate or be dominated. That all of history is like this.”
He considers this, nodding with a look of sad resignation. “Much of history is like that,” he agrees. “But perhaps there is another way.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, Elloren Gardner. I don’t know,” he says sadly, shaking his head. “But for me, life would not be worth living without at least having faith in that one thing—that there is another way, a path of justice, if you will. And that there is at least a very small sliver of hope that this path will one day be discovered.”
“So you think there’s hope for something better than all of this fighting? Some other future that’s possible?”
“A future of fairness? A future of justice? A future where resources are shared by all peoples instead of fought over? Yes, I think it’s possible, but I think it will all come down to the choices of individuals.”
“Even powerless individuals?”
“I like to think so, yes.”