Only the Destined

To Royce’s surprise, Neave threw herself flat, grabbing him and pulling him close to the raft. He saw Mark rush forward too, and they were just in time, hauling the knight bleeding from the water before great jaws came up in the spot where he had been. Royce stepped over, striking with the crystal sword again, and again blood flowed.

It wasn’t enough; the sea-wyrm was simply too big to kill with a few strokes of even a sword like this. It plunged beneath the waves, and now Royce could see it backing away, its coils forming arches as it swam from wave to wave.

“It’s running,” Bolis said, clutching at the wounds across his chest.

Royce shook his head. “It won’t give in that easily.”

“But it’s backing off,” the knight insisted. “We fought it, and wounded it, and now it’s going away in search of easier prey.”

Royce shook his head. “There’s no other prey to take, and we haven’t hurt it that much. It’s not running; it’s building its strength back up.”

Sure enough, Royce saw it turn, the coils heading back toward them now from a distance.

“Row!” Royce said. “Our only chance is to row!”

Sheathing the crystal sword, he grabbed an oar and started to paddle for the shore of the first island, not caring now if it took them into the riptide or not. Around him, the others seemed to get the message about what was happening, and paddled for their lives, regardless of how injured they were.

Royce felt the moment when the current caught their raft, dragging it in toward the shore. Behind them, the head of the sea-wyrm broke the surface and the thing’s maw opened wide, ready to swallow them.

He looked down through Ember’s eyes, spotting an outcrop of rocks ahead, obvious from above but hidden by the waves from the raft. Royce pointed.

“Right!”

Everyone dug in with their oars, sending the raft to the right even as the current continued to pull it forward. They skirted the rocks, avoiding them barely, and Royce glanced back to see the sea-wyrm caught on them, writhing to get free before turning and heading back into the depths.

By then, Royce was already looking out for more rocks. They were too close the island now to hope to go anywhere else, and the current dragged them forward inexorably. The only chance was to dodge the rocks as best they could.

“Left!” Royce called out.

They dug in their oars and managed to avoid another set of rocks, but now there was a reef ahead, and Royce couldn’t see any way around it.

“Hold on!” he yelled to the others, and saw them grab hold of the raft just as it hit the rocks beneath the surface. Royce found himself thrown forward, and for the second time that day he was in the water, struggling to swim.

Mark had been right when it came to the armor—it was impossible that anyone should be able to swim in it, and yet it was no worse than swimming in ordinary clothes might have been. He kicked out for the surface, and broke through while the current continued to carry him forward.

The sea spat them out onto the land with bruising force, sand coming up to meet Royce as a wave carried him up onto the beach. It left him there, groaning in pain, and around him, he could see the others lying on the sand, Bolis and Matilde bleeding, Neave and Mark looking bruised, and even Gwylim looking battered by the experience, in spite of the speed Royce had seen him heal.

“We’re alive,” Mark said, and Royce could hear the shock in his friend’s voice. He shared some of it, along with the elation behind it at the thought that his friends were safe.

No, not safe.

They were alive, that was true, but looking out on the water, Royce could see that their raft had already broken apart into fragments, carried away on the waves. They had no way of getting back now, or even of crossing over onto another of the islands.

They’d made it to one of the Seven Isles, but now, it seemed that they were stuck.

CHAPTER SIX

Dust wandered down in the direction of the docks, signs filling the world around him. In the flight of birds, he saw that this was the route he had to take. In the bubbling of a stream, he saw that he would have to pass over the sea.

Then there were the images of Royce that stayed in front of him whenever he closed his eyes.

They had been there ever since he had inhaled so much of the priests’ smoke, seeing future after future. He had seen what would happen if nothing altered, had seen the violence and the pain and the death.

“And I chose,” Dust said to himself. The oddness of that took a moment to sink in. He was Angarthim, one of those who walked the world, setting the futures as the priests saw that they were supposed to run, giving those who needed to die over to the darkness that lay beyond life. Angarthim did not choose, did not seek to change fate.

“The priests did it first,” Dust whispered. He looked up to try to find confirmation that he was doing the right things, and found it in the way clouds shifted, forming patterns that seemed to mirror the designs of the sacred books.

The priests had tried to change things, had tried to alter things to avoid their own destruction in what was going to come. Things were no longer running on the course that the fates had set, and now someone had to choose, choose for everyone. That someone was Dust.

“I will stop this,” he said. “The devastation to come will be avoided. I will make the world better.”

Of course, to do that, he had to stop Royce. Dust had seen the futures, possibility after possibility lining up before him. He had seen a slender few where things turned out well, but the truth was that in too many, Royce’s actions brought about war and worse than war: they unleashed destruction on the land that had to be prevented.

Angarthim were not heroes; if anything, those who knew what they were seemed to think of them as monsters and murderers, not understanding that they were merely the well-trained hands of fate.

“I still listen to fate,” Dust said. It was just that now, instead of a single line given to him by the priests, all of the future was spread out in front of him to choose from. All of those possibilities seemed to point to the docks.

He walked down into the harbor town, and people stared, as people always stared. Children pointed, and some shrank back. A few men touched hands to weapons, and there was a time when Dust would have struck them down for doing it. The signs for death would have stood above them, and then…

“They didn’t stand above Royce,” Dust whispered to himself, trying to make sense of it all. They had been there together in a forest, him and the boy whose actions would simultaneously overthrow the old order and bring about destruction. They had been there, and nothing had told him to strike, to act.

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