Only the Destined

He rode out on the path in the direction of the next village, trying to think as he went, and ignoring the steady rain that started to fall around him.

He loved his brother, but he also wished that Royce hadn’t felt the need to leave to find his father. Objectively, Raymond could understand how much finding the old king would help their cause, but it was Royce people would follow, Royce they needed to see in order to rise up. Without him there, Raymond wasn’t sure if he would be able to pull together any kind of army for his brother.

That meant that when King Carris struck back, it would just be Earl Undine’s forces against the full might of the royal army. Raymond didn’t know how big that army would be, but since it would be composed of forces from every lord in the land… they would have no chance.

If only there were some way that Royce could be here, Raymond had no doubt he would be able to raise the army they needed. As it was, though, he found himself hoping that Lofen and Garet would have better luck.

“We can’t leave it to luck though,” Raymond said to himself. “Not when there are so many people who will die.”

He’d seen firsthand what the nobles could do to those who crossed them. There were the gibbets, the tortures on the healing stone, and worse. At the very least, every village that stood would find itself ravaged, which only gave those that remained more reasons not to join in the revolt.

Raymond sighed. There was no way to square the circle: they needed Royce, but they couldn’t have him while he went to find his father. Unless…

“No, that couldn’t work,” Raymond said to himself.

Except that maybe it could. It wasn’t as though anyone here actually knew what Royce looked like. They might have heard of him, might even have heard a general description, but everyone knew how stories exaggerated.

“This is a stupid idea,” Raymond said.

The trouble was that it was the only idea he could think of right then. Yes, it would be dangerous, because Royce was a hunted man. Yes, it would store up trouble for later: people would feel betrayed when they found out, some might even desert. More wouldn’t though. More would feel too connected to the cause once they were a part of the army, or would be too busy fighting to think about it.

“They might not even see Royce close up,” Raymond mused.

He realized that he had made a decision without exactly making it, and continued on his route toward another village. He chose one a couple of villages over, because he didn’t want stories spreading from Byesby and spoiling what he was about to do. This village was larger, with an inn and a great barn that served as a general store. It was large enough that the sight of one man riding into the village didn’t bring people out of their houses with the sheer strangeness of it all. It meant that Raymond had to sit on horseback in the village square, calling out again and again until people came out to him.

“Everyone, listen. Listen to me! I have news!”

He waited until people gathered around before he started to speak.

“War is coming!” he said. “You’ve heard the stories: that the son of the true king has come back, and overthrown a duke who ravaged his own people! Well, it’s true, and I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that this is just another squabble between nobles that you have no part of, but I’m here to tell you that you do have a part in it. That this is something different.”

“Oh, and why’s that?” a man demanded from the back of the growing crowd. Raymond had the feeling of things building up in the same way they had before.

“Because this is a chance to actually change things. Because this is not a squabble among nobles, but a chance to make a world that isn’t about a few nobles holding us all down. Because this is one fight where the people involved actually care about people like you, people like all of us.”

“Is that so?” the man asked. “Well then, stranger, who are you, that you know so much about it all?”

Raymond took a breath, knowing this was the moment when he had to either do it or not do it, and once it was done, it couldn’t be undone.

“Come on,” the man demanded. “Who are you, to say that some far off noble actually cares about any of the likes of us?”

“It’s simple,” Raymond said, and this time, his voice did boom out over the village for everyone to hear. “My name is Royce, and I am the son of King Philip, the true and rightful king of this land!”

CHAPTER FIVE

Royce was padding through a forest, the trees blending into one another until it became impossible to know the path. He was lost, and somehow he knew that this was a place where to be lost was to die.

He continued onward, not knowing what else to do. Around him now, the trees closed in, and their branches whipped around in an unseen wind, buffeting Royce and lashing him. Their branches tore at his skin, and now there were brambles to go with the branches, ripping into him and holding him back. It took everything he had to keep going.

Why keep going, though? He didn’t know where he was, so why press forward like this, through the darkness and the uncertainty of the forest? His energy was fading, so why not sit down on the stump of a tree, waiting until he got his breath back, and—

“To stop is to die, my son.” The voice came through the trees, and even though he had only heard it in dreams, Royce instantly recognized it as that of his father. He turned toward the sound, starting forward.

“Father, where are you?” he called out, pushing in the direction the voice seemed to have come from.

The way was, if anything, even harder here. There were fallen trees to contend with, and Royce found it harder to leap over them each time. There were rocks protruding from the forest floor, and now it seemed that Royce had to climb as much as run just to get around them. The route ahead was still indistinguishable from the rest of the forest, and Royce could feel the despair of not knowing pressing down on him.

That was when he saw the white hart standing there, the deer waiting and looking at him expectantly. With the same strange certainty that he had felt before, Royce knew that this animal was there to show him the way. He turned to follow, running in its wake.

The white hart was fast, and Royce had to put everything he had into keeping up. It felt as though his lungs were exploding with the effort, and his limbs were on fire. Even so, he kept running, through the whipping branches of the trees and on into a space where the deer vanished, replaced by an armored figure rimmed in white light.

“Father,” Royce said, gasping the word. He felt as though he had no more breath, no more time.

His father nodded and smiled, then, inexplicably, pointed upward. “You need to go now, Royce. Kick, kick toward the light.”

Looking up, Royce saw a light above him, and as he tried to do as his father said, the light grew closer and closer…

***

Royce came to with a spluttering breath that seemed to involve as much water as air. He spat out sea water and started to sit up, but careful hands held him in place. Royce fought against them for a moment before he realized that it was Mark there, his hands pushing the water out of Royce’s stomach.

“Careful,” his friend said. “You’ll tip the raft.”

The “raft” in question was no more than a section of the ship’s mast that had broken off in the chaos, and then tangled with enough other driftwood to form a kind of temporary floating platform, buoyed up and down by the waves.

Bolis, Neave, and Matilde knelt on the makeshift craft, with Gwylim a little way away toward the edge and Ember flying overhead. Matilde had a gash on her side that might have come from a knife or a piece of wood, but either way blood was leaking into the water while Neave fussed over her and cut lengths of sail cloth into bandages. Sir Bolis was hastily trying to lash a metal fitting to a length of wood, forming a crude harpoon. Of his own armor and weapons, there was no sign.

Royce looked down quickly, and saw that the crystal sword was still by his side, while he still wore the armor that he had taken from Earl Undine’s tower.

“I don’t know how you managed to swim in that,” Mark said, “but you did. You popped up like a cork and I pulled you out.”

“Thank you,” Royce said, offering his hand to his friend.

Mark clasped it firmly. “After all the times you’ve saved me, you don’t need to thank me. I’m just glad you survived.”

“For now,” Bolis said from the prow of their makeshift raft. “We’re still in danger.”

Royce looked around, trying to make sense of things beyond the raft. He could see that they’d been washed further out to sea, so that the Seven Isles were a speck in the distance once again. The sea was roiling too, as if a storm might follow. Their raft was creaking under the strain of it all.

“Forget a spear,” Royce said. “We need to focus on tying the raft together.”

“You didn’t see the creature devouring people,” Bolis said. “It must have killed every sailor who was caught in the main wreck. That sea-wyrm is nothing I want to face unarmed.”

“And do you want to face it in the water when the raft falls apart or sinks?” Royce countered. He’d seen the creature Bolis was worried about, and he knew how big a threat it would be, but right then, the sea could kill them just as certainly.

There were ropes attached to the masts, and Royce pointed to one of them. “Everyone try to grab pieces of rope that aren’t already tangling things and use them to tie the raft together. That’s the priority, then paddle so that we can get to land, then weapons.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Bolis said, but he did it anyway. So did Neave and Mark. When Matilde went to help, she slumped back, grimacing in pain.