“It’s all right.”
“He’s Garrett. Was Garrett. I don’t know when. Was it now or before or not yet? I don’t know. But he was Garrett, a shapeshifter. Younger than me. They’d beaten him and burned him and cut him and … and raped him. They’d cut off his hair, and the woman’s. They had her blindfolded and gagged, and both of them had their hands bound behind their backs. They had to walk barefoot down the street while people shouted at them, and one threw a rock that hit the boy’s head. They had—the boy and the woman—a mark here.” She touched her forehead. “Burned into them. A pentagram.”
“The Purity Warriors brand those like us they capture.”
“The slaves, too. But here.” She tapped the back of her left wrist. “They burn a symbol there. A circle with a cross in it. The boy, Garrett, could see, so I could sort of see, they walked toward this platform, with two nooses.”
“Scaffold.”
“Okay, a scaffold. And this I heard from his mind, clear. He would change, become the cougar that lived in him. He would fight before they killed him. Then, an arrow came out of the dark and killed the man who forced him to walk. Then another, and another, as the boy changed, and the cougar ran through the people who were screaming and running. But I saw a boy, another boy. Older though, older than Garrett, than me, go to the woman and take off her gag and blindfold, and pick her up when she fainted. I saw that, too. And I think he was maybe the younger brother or the son of the man from the first dream because I don’t know when that happened, either. And I only saw him then for a minute, with the woman who fainted, because I was with the boy, the cougar, and he was racing toward this place where they kept the others locked up.”
She took a breath, she took some tea, and found some of the twisting in her belly eased away.
“He’d never killed before, Mallick, not as boy or cougar, I knew that, felt that. But he wanted to now. But the man guarding the jail was on the ground. Bleeding and dazed, but not dead. I felt life still. There was a girl, really pretty, and she wasn’t afraid of the cougar. It gets all mixed up. I think there were others helping inside the jail, and the boy changed back so the girl helped him get away to where other people were waiting. A man and an old man, and a dog. An old dog. I heard the man say his name was Eddie and the dog was Joe. I know those names, Mallick. I know them.”
“Yes.”
She shivered a little at having Mallick acknowledge what she knew.
“The girl went back, and others came. The slaves and the captured. Another truck with more. Explosions back in the—the development? It was like a raid, but to save people, to free people and help them. Then the girl came back, riding on a motorcycle with the boy who’d helped the woman. Duncan and Tonia. I know those names, too.”
“Yes.”
“They all drove away, and when the boy, when Garrett asked Eddie where they were going—because I heard that clear, too—he said New Hope. I know that place. My father died there. My birth father, when the Purity Warriors came to kill. To kill me especially.”
The words tumbled out now, fast, fast, to lift the weight inside her.
“My mother ran from there to save me, to save the people who lived there. Her friends. Eddie was her friend. He had a dog named Joe. Duncan and Tonia—Antonia—were twins, just babies when she lived there. Their mother was my mother’s friend. They—Eddie and Duncan and Tonia and the old man, all the others, they risked their lives to save Garrett, the woman, the other people. It was too … tactical,” she decided, “to be the first time, the first rescue. I don’t like raid. Rescue’s better. Duncan and Antonia aren’t much older than me, and they’re already fighting. Garrett’s younger than me, but he was ready to fight.”
“Do you question why you’ve been shielded?”
She hadn’t realized, not fully, that this was the weight, so much heavier than the rest.
“If I’m The One, why aren’t I fighting? Why aren’t I helping people?”
“You will. Your mother and your life father provided your foundation not only with what they both taught you, but by giving you vision. A family, community, loyalty, and love. A war such as this can’t be only blade and lightning. You must believe, into your bone, the cause you hold is worth dying for. Killing for. And what you have yet to acquire, to know, to hold, even to believe is vast, girl. Vast. Some are warriors, some are leaders, some are symbols. You will be all. But your time is not yet come.”
“Is that why the sword stays up there, and that cabinet is locked?”
“You’ll hold the sword soon enough. Why haven’t you tried to open the cabinet?”
“How do you know I haven’t?”
He smiled. “I’m not without vision, girl.”
“Fine. Because that would be rude and disrespectful.”
“And you wouldn’t have that understanding and sensibility if you’d been denied the years with your family. They serve you, and will serve you.”
Maybe that was true, she thought. But … “Do you know the place in the first dream?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
“There are six more. If destroying the first killed almost everybody, what happens if the others are destroyed?” She had so many questions.
“The first wasn’t broken quickly or easily. It took a great concentration of dark power, and a lack of the light. Beliefs can fade, and when faith pales, so does power. Fears of the dark? They’re intrinsic, and so dark can build. And as it became easier to dismiss the light, it dimmed and the protection around the shield weakened. Just enough. It may have taken this horror to wake the light, to bring it beaming, but it is woken.”
“That doesn’t answer the question,” she complained.
“The shields are now more carefully guarded.”
“But?”
He sighed. A relentless mind, he thought, and had to respect it. “One by one, shield by shield? More would die, infected by a madness, crops would fail until they burned in the field, withered on the vine, rotted in the earth. So famine follows. And a plague runs through the animals. Fish and fowl, mammal. Only what slithers and crawls remains. And the rivers and streams, the lakes and oceans bloated with blood and death and rot become tainted even as they rise up in a flood to spread their poison.”
Already pale, she lost more color as he spoke. But the question deserved a full and true answer.
“And a great heat bakes the earth, burns the trees with lightning striking down forests. The world is fire and smoke. Then the dark descends, and the slaughter of all who remain begins. The ground will shake and split, and what rules the dark rules all.”
“Why? Why?” she demanded. “There’d be nothing left to rule.”
“That is the purpose. All that is light extinguished, all that is good silenced, and all that is hope murdered.”
“That’s just stupid.”
“Then those of us who fight that purpose must be smart.”
She fought to steady herself, to understand. To … not be ignorant.
“So when the shield broke and the Doom killed billions, some people who thought they were just regular people found their magicks. So people would believe again?”
“Faith is a sword and a shield, as long as one bolsters it with courage and brains and muscle. Some who found their magicks turned to the dark, some went mad from it. And some, like your birth father, learned to lead. Like your mother, learned to embrace and build and protect. Some, like those in your vision, learned—magickal and not—how to come together, how to fight, how to work together to help others. A foundation again, for you, The One, to build on.”
She could only sigh. “I can’t even get my stupid brothers to do what I tell them half the time. More than half. How am I supposed to lead everybody?”
“How did you build the hive? With knowledge and skill learned. How did you call the bees? With faith and light and power innate.”