Page 4 of The Half King
“Your Grace,” Cerise said. “Are you all right? Do you want me to fetch a healer?”
The Reverend Mother peered back at her in an odd way, moving her gaze over Cerise’s features deliberately, like an artist trying to memorize a vanishing subject.
“Your Grace?” Cerise repeated.
“Come,” the Reverend Mother commanded, waving Cerise toward the exit. The Reverend Mother stood from her chair and told the others, “Please stay here and enjoy your refreshments. Cerise and I will return momentarily.”
Her parents traded a look of confusion but said nothing.
After Cerise followed the Reverend Mother out of the garden room and into the adjoining atrium, she lowered her voice and asked again, “Your Grace? Are you well?”
“Oh, do be quiet,” she dismissed. “I need to think.”
Cerise pressed her lips together. She should have fetched a healer without asking for permission. If she summoned one now, she would be guilty of disobedience and thus barred from the supper hall.
“Listen to me,” the Reverend Mother said. “I have an opportunity for you.”
At that, Cerise inclined her head. She had only received orders until now, never opportunities.
“You may remain here with me at the temple,” the Reverend Mother said. “But I do not believe this is your place. Today I learned that my oldest and most trusted servant has died. I believe your purpose is to replace her as the temple emissary to His Majesty Kian Hannibal Mortara.”
“The Half King?” Cerise blurted. At once, her cheeks heated. She shouldn’t have called him by such a vulgar nickname. “I mean,theking?”
“Is there another?” quipped the Reverend Mother.
No, there wasn’t. That was why the Allied Realm sat on the brink of war. The king was the last surviving member of the royal line, and all priests were bound in service to him. But he was a firstborn noble and carried his bloodline’s curse. Every night at sunset, he turned to shadow. Every dawn made him whole again. Eventually he would lose his daylight hours as well, until he vanished forever, like all of the Mortara firstborns who had come before him. When that happened, the Allied Realm would be without a ruler for the first time in recorded history.
“But why me?” Cerise asked. “I don’t understand.” She flinched as she said it, waiting for the inevitable rebuke.
But it didn’t come. For the first time in nineteen years, the Reverend Mother looked torn, as though she were fighting an invisible battle inside her mind. Her indecisiveness scared Cerise more than the woman’s temper ever had.
Finally, the Reverend Mother admitted in a quiet voice, “I have Seen more than the death of the king’s emissary. I have foreseen a possible end to the curses.”
Cerise gasped. “That’s a miracle, Your Grace!”
“No, it is not,” the Reverend Mother snapped. She glanced around as if to ensure no one was listening. “Not yet. That’s why we must be discreet. The path for this outcome is narrow—more narrow than a strand of hair. To break the curses, the goddess must be appeased through tests and trials and sacrifices.”
“As above, so below,” Cerise repeated. “The flame you seek to dampen will consume you. Is that what you meant by the flame? Is it one of the trials?”
“I do not know.” The Reverend Mother exhaled heavily through her nose. “I could not See any of it clearly. The details of this future are clouded because its path is entwined with yours.”
Cerise felt her eyes go wide. “Mine?”
“Yes. And now more than ever, you confound me.”
“But…” Cerise shook her head. None of this made sense. Had she somehow muddied the Reverend Mother’s revelation? Even if shewasa complete failure as an oracle, surely she didn’t have the power to affect holy visions.
Did she?
“Have I done something wrong?” she asked.
The Reverend Mother arched an eyebrow. “You tell me, Cerise. Have you?”
“No, Your Grace,” she promised, though that wasn’tentirelytrue.
“Then you have nothing to worry about,” the Reverend Mother said. “The goddess has allowed me to See precisely one clear vision of you.”
Cerise perked up.
