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The three of them sat in silence, Lex’s words still ringing in their ears. There was no denying that what he’d said was woven from truth. Nedarya had been through more than any person could ever be expected to bear. If what Lord d'Ronja had said was true, her entire life had been nothing but torture. Back in Windshear Pass Dusk watched the animals that had been experimented on quickly kill their operators in a frenzy, but once it was done they didn’t stop. They immediately turned to anything else that was alive, ready to destroy out of sheer instinct for survival. After so much pain they no longer had the ability to think rationally. Their only urge left was to kill. He’d seen the same beast inside Nedarya set free and he knew that’s what she would do. But how she would accomplish such a feat remained a mystery. And even if he did manage to get in her way, could he bring himself to stop someone who deserved the vengeance she was looking for? Had he not been searching for the same thing against Tiernan all this time, and against the nobles as well? Only a moment ago he’d felt the rush of justification as he slammed Lord d'Ronja against the wall, the years of fury lurching forward. Was a world full of slavery, torture, and indecency really worth trying to save anyway?
“I’m afraid that’s all the information about the princess I have,” Lord d'Ronja sighed. “I knew more about her father, but with him gone, it’s of little consequence.”
“You really asked him not to choose me at the ceremony?” Lex asked, lifting himself a little further. There was a tone of disbelief still in his voice.
“Of course. I didn’t care if you married the princess or not. And I definitely didn’t want you anywhere near Nedarya. I just wanted you to be safe and happy.”
Lex was silent for a long moment. “The day King Cecil chose Jesper Malkekna over me was the day you practically disowned me.” Dusk could see the past welling up in Lex’s eyes, the rage and pain plain to see. “You told me I was a disappointment and no longer your son. I spent the rest of my life sneaking around, trying to be myself in the spare few moments I could find in my daily routine. Mother was almost no help since she was so scared of your wrath. You didn’t even acknowledge me until a year ago when you found a bride who was willing to take me without my permission. You told me it was my duty to the family, just like the king told Nedarya.” He looked up at his father. “I still hate you for it.”
Dusk watched as all the life left in Lord d'Ronja seemed to melt away. Suddenly he looked hollow and old, no longer a man but a husk of a person barely left alive.
“I don’t blame you,” he said simply. “I can’t ask you to forgive that. How could you?”
Lex was quiet, staring at the defeated man standing in front of him. Even wounded and lying in bed, Lex looked a hundred times stronger than he did. Again Dusk felt a strange surge of satisfaction seeing the Lord d'Ronja brought down from his high station. And then again, an equal part of him felt guilty watching a man be blamed for things he didn’t do of his own free will. It felt like blaming someone for being sick, which didn’t make any sense.
“Dusk and I are together,” Lex said suddenly, keeping his eyes locked on his father.
Lord d'Ronja lifted his head, gazing between the two of them. “I already knew,” he replied. “The way he stands to protect you is the way your mother was with me once. If that’s the case, I hope you realize how lucky you are to have him.”
Lex continued to stare, his face not giving away any of his emotions. Dusk remembered the many conversations they’d had about his father not accepting him for preferring the company of men. Lex never wanted to come out and say it directly, but it didn’t take long for Dusk to catch on. He found himself equally surprised at Lord d'Ronja’s reaction, expecting exactly the opposite. It was so genuine.
“You really don’t remember any of it, do you?” Lex asked quietly.
Lord d'Ronja just shook his head slowly, tears welling up in his eyes.
***
Dusk sat at the top of the mountain with a piece of leather in one hand and a stone in the other. In the piece of leather he gripped a razor sharp piece of broken obsidian. Piece by piece he chipped the glass away with the thin stone, creating a rough arrowhead shape that was so thin you could cut yourself just by looking at it. Around his neck hung a leather cord with a makeshift holder for the crystal eye.
It had been almost a month since he’d learned about Nedarya’s past from Lex’s father. Since then he’d been avoiding his thoughts as much as possible. Each time he let them take over, he wound up with a thousand more questions and not a single answer. Instead he decided to do what he could in the valley to help with growing food and caring for the animals. He spent the afternoons fishing, sometimes with Lex if he was feeling up to it. Lately he’d been sitting atop the mountain as the sun began to set, chipping away at the obsidian and whittling arrow shafts for his bow. He’d used the last of them in the fight against the Circle and the resident bowyer had been killed in the attack. He was thankful for the work though, it gave him something else to focus on instead of what they should do next, which seemed like an impossible decision to make.
“Back again I see,” a deep feminine voice said from behind him.
“You never know when you’re going to need more arrows,” Dusk replied, not looking up at Lyra. “I figured I should get ahead while I can.”
The large red dragon form came up beside him and laid on the stone, curling her claws up underneath her like a cat. She stared off into the west at the setting sun, her body rising and falling with her breath. Her wing had mostly healed and she was able to fly for short periods again. The wound on her leg was taking longer to heal, but the magic from the blast had faded after a few days. With the help of Selussa and the lilies atop the mountain, it had stitched itself back together for the most part, but hadn’t regained full function just yet. Lyra was recovering quickly, although the illusion of safety she provided had been shattered. Anthurium Mountain was no longer a safe haven for anyone, especially Dusk and his friends. With the other half of the heart still encased in obsidian on the plateau, it was only a matter of time before they were under siege again. Every day the tension grew, wondering when the next strike was coming.
“Have you decided what you’d like to do next?” Lyra asked, glancing in his direction.
Dusk sighed. “I don’t even know where to start. There’s so many options.”
“Not the way I see it,” Lyra replied, turning back towards the sun. “The choice you had before the attack is the same as the one you have now. Will you leave the eye here with me or continue forward with it in your possession?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“And that’s where you’re wrong, little one.” Lyra reached out and drew a line in the stone with her claw. “This is what you think your future looks like. One way and already set in stone with no way to change it.” She drew a fork in the line which branched off and forked several more times until the drawing looked more like a tree bursting into bloom across the dark surface. “And this is what the future actually holds. It’s ever-changing, fickle, and full of opportunity. Even when the gods still held sway over this world, they didn’t have enough power to stop people completely, only to influence them. But now you have every choice available to you and complete freedom to choose whichever feels the most appropriate without outside forces intervening.”
“But what if I do the wrong thing? What if because of me, someone else gets hurt?” Dusk asked, looking down at the mess of lines. “How do I know which is right and which is wrong?”
“There’s no such thing.”
“What?” Dusk looked up at her, dropping his arrowhead and furrowing his brows. “How can that possibly be true?”
“Often the hardest truths to accept turn out to be the most poignant in the end.”
“So Tiernan ordering his men to kill all your people wasn’t wrong? Resurrecting Nedarya and torturing her into insanity wasn’t wrong? And then Nedarya nearly killing us all wasn’t wrong?”
“It wasn’t to them,” Lyra replied simply.
“I don’t understand.”
“The world isn’t as black and white as any of us like to believe,” Lyra began, folding her claws under her once more. “What Tiernan did was wrong to us, but right to him. If he hadn’t done those things he never would have made it as far as he did. For his goals, the decisions he made were the right ones. The same goes for Nedarya.”
“But they hurt people...”
“Have you not hurt people? Killed monsters along your journey? I heard you slit a bandit’s throat while he bathed. Was that wrong?”
“I was defending myself.”
“You were doing what was right to you at the time, just like Tiernan and Nedarya did for themselves. Each of us has a different way of viewing the world. Right and wrong are subjective. Just because one person likes fish and the other does not, doesn’t make one of them wrong. It just means their experience is different.” She shook her head. “Of course it’s never that simple, but that’s the basic idea. And yes, I think it was wrong that Tiernan had my people killed and I want to do whatever I can to stop a similar thing from happening again, but I would never require you to feel the same way. To me, forcing my will upon you is wrong. So therefore I won’t do it. Instead I give you the choice to make your own path.” She sighed, gazing at him with her violet eyes. “Our past experiences shaped who we are and brought us to this present moment. But what we choose next determines who we will become and that is always your decision.”
“I’m not sure I really understand.”
“What is right in your heart, Dusk? Will you leave the eye with me and hope for a better champion to come along or will you take up the mantle yourself and hope to succeed?”
“I... I don’t want anyone else I care about to get hurt.” Dusk picked up the arrowhead once more, cradling it in the leather and chipping a piece away. “But I’m worried I’ll lose what little I have if I try to protect the entire world.” He looked up at Lyra. “I’m just one person, you know? What can I do that will make any difference?”
“I don’t know,” Lyra said truthfully. “We won’t know unless you try, if that is your choice. The most heartbreaking thing about choices is that we will never know what would have happened if we made the other decision instead. Futures are woven and destroyed in a single moment. The bridge of possibility burns and turns to ash the moment you step across it.”
“That seems so... final, and paralyzing.”
“It is both. And yet the choice to do nothing out of fear, is also a choice, thus another bridge is burned.”
“I need more time to think,” Dusk sighed, turning back to his arrowhead. “Nothing is ever easy, it seems. I spent all those years in the mines thinking about how hard it was, but I never knew that being out in the world would be so exhausting. Nothing ever stops moving out here. There’s always another problem, someone trying to kill us, or the beginnings of some new disaster. I just... I want the time to think it over.”
“I’m sorry Dusk,” Lyra said, pushing herself to her feet, a deep growl echoing from her throat. “But the time for thinking is over.”
Dusk followed her gaze to the northeastern horizon where a dark cloud was forming. Realizing it was smoke he pushed himself to his feet, tossing the leather and glass to the ground. He walked to the edge of the plateau and gazed across the bay to the town of Birchwood. The forest on the north side of the town was ablaze, the column of black smoke rising high as the mountain before being carried away by the ocean winds. The town looked relatively untouched, but something had to be wrong. He thought maybe a fire could have broken out, but then he saw several new ships that were now stationed in the harbor. They were a conglomeration of Inahandrian and Ditanian ships, easily over a dozen anchored off shore. It looked like there was trouble in paradise.
“What’s going on?” Dusk asked, his voice quiet.
“I’m not sure,” Lyra replied. “But I’m going to find out.”
She spread out her wings, stretching them a few times in preparation to fly.
“Wait,” Dusk found himself saying. “I... I’ll go with you.”
She turned back and gazed deep into his eyes.
“A choice has been made.”