D. MacHale - The Soldiers of Halla

She took a deep breath and continued, “When I saw the state of this camp, I chose to stay and help. They are desperate, Pendragon. Their future is beyond grim. They have no hope. There is nothing more I can do for Solara except to offer kindness to the Batu here at Mooraj. It may not be much, but it is more than they have received in a good long while, and more than I have done as a Traveler, or a mother. I am done, Pendragon. However this final battle plays out with Saint Dane, I will learn of it here on Zadaa.”

Everything she said was true. More or less. Still, she was being pretty tough on herself and taking a lot of blame she didn’t deserve. I wasn’t sure I could make her realize that. She was too upset. Still, I had to try. Whether she wanted to be one or not, she was a Traveler. We needed her.

“Caring for the sick Batu is noble,” I said to her tentatively. “But you’re wrong about there being no hope. Anything you do here to make them comfortable is only a bandage. If you really want to help the Batu, then you have to stay with the Travelers and help us defeat Saint Dane.”

“I can’t,” she said sharply. “You don’t need me anyway. I’m an old woman. I can’t fight. I can’t inspire anyone. I can barely take care of myself. I don’t say that to make you feel sorry for me, Pendragon. It’s the truth.” “What about Nevva?” I asked.

“What about her?” she said quickly, as if I had slapped her.

I didn’t know where I was going with this, but I had to trust my gut. “If you believe she turned to Saint Dane because you abandoned her, maybe you should imabandon her.”

Elli looked at me as if I were nuts. Maybe I was. I was grasping. Up until then Elli hadn’t played much of a role in the war against Saint Dane. Her daughter, Nevva, was to be the Traveler from Quillan, but when she joined Saint Dane, Quillan no longer had a Traveler. So Elli stepped in and took her daughter’s place. But since the turning point for Quillan had already passed, there was nothing for her to do. As I thought back on those events, something hit me. I hadn’t thought much about it until then, because it really didn’t matter. But now that we were revisiting Elli’s past, things didn’t quite add up.

“There’s something I don’t understand,” I said. “Every Traveler from my generation was mentored by other Travelers who prepared them for the battle with Saint Dane. But your story is different. You had a whole life with your husband before you found out about being a Traveler.”

“Why is that hard to understand?” Elli asked. “We all had lives before discovering we were Travelers.”

“Not the Travelers from the previous generation,” I shot back. “You told me on Quillan that Uncle Press told you you were a Traveler, but that was after Nevva was already around. How could that be? If your mission was to prepare Nevva, why didn’t you know you were a Traveler before she showed up?”

Elli looked to the floor. I wasn’t sure if she didn’t know the answer, or was holding something back.

“I was adopted when I was a baby and never knew my natural parents,” she explained. “I knew nothing of my future as a Traveler until after my husband died, and I’d already had my daughter.”

“That’s exactly what I don’t get,” I said quickly. “Wait. You had a child? On Quillan you told me you adopted Nevva. You did adopt her, didn’t you?”

Elli looked pained. “No,” she admitted. “I don’t know why I told you that. Maybe it was to distance myself from the person she had become. I was so ashamed. But Nevva was not adopted. I gave birth to her.”

Whoa. What the heck did that mean? Nevva was a Traveler, but she was also the biological daughter of another Traveler. As far as I knew, none of the other Travelers had biological parents. Including me.

“Was your husband a Traveler?” I asked.

“No,” Elli said. “He was such a good man. I hope his spirit never discovers the truth about what Nevva has done.”

I paced. Thinking. I didn’t know what this meant. Maybe nothing. Uncle Press didn’t think so, or he would have told us about it. Maybe it didn’t matter. Still, there was a real, physical bond between Elli and her daughter that none of the other Travelers shared. Nevva was the physical offspring of a Traveler. She was the only Traveler who was actually born on her territory. The old-fashioned way. From what Uncle Press told us, the rest of us just sort of… showed up. All of us. From both generations.

Except for Nevva.

“You know what I think?” I finally said, still forming the thoughts. “I think you were always meant to be the Traveler from Quillan. But you fell in love and had a child before you found out your true destiny.”

“Maybe,” Elli said. “I suppose. Does it matter?”

“Well, for one it means that you didn’t just fill in for Nevva. It was supposed to be your job. Things just got sidetracked because of the death of your husband. What’s happening now might be the way things were meant to be for you.”

“Knowing that doesn’t change anything,” she argued. “I still am not up to the task.”

My thoughts were firing fast. Maybe I was spinning my wheels, but it was the first idea I’d had in a long time that felt as if it might have promise.

“You never got the chance to help Quillan,” I said. “What if that wasn’t what you were destined to do?”

“But you just said you thought I was always supposed to be the Traveler from Quillan.”

“Yeah, but what if your true mission hasn’t happened yet? What if you are exactly in the place you’re supposed to be, when you’re supposed to be here?”

Elli didn’t like the sound of that. She turned away and busied herself with tidying up the messy room. “1 can’t imagine what that mission might be.” I can.

She looked at me with a mixture of fear and curiosity. I paced again. Remembering. Putting myself back into the past. Re-creating moments from memory.

“It’s about Nevva,” I said, thinking out loud. “No question, she’s a traitor. She bought into Saint Dane’s vision of Halla and helped him at every turn.”

“If you are trying to make me feel better, young man, you are doing a horrible job.”

“There’s something more,” I said. “It happened more than once. In spite of all that Nevva has done, I’ve always had the feeling that somewhere deep inside, she has regrets.”

I had Elli’s attention.

“She believes in Saint Dane’s philosophy, no question. But there have been moments, fleeting moments, where I felt a trace of humanity trying to peek through. It was like she believed in the vision, but not the methods.”

I scoured my memory for those little moments that made me think there might be some truth to what I was saying.

“When she forced my friend Mark Dimond to give up his Traveler ring, Mark told me that she seemed upset. She got what she wanted, yet she was disappointed, as if she wanted Mark to hang on to the ring. And on Ibara, she truly seemed upset that I wanted to quit. It was like, like, she wanted me to be stronger and stand up to Saint Dane. Is that possible? Was she looking for another way?”

Elli shook her head. I was confusing her. Heck, I was confusing myself.

“In that final moment, when I was so driven by anger that I was willing to drop Alexander Naymeer from that helicopter, she tried to stop me. Saint Dane wanted me to kill him. It was the final event that completed the Convergence, but Nevva tried to get me to stop.”

I didn’t know where I was going with this, but I was getting excited.

Elli wasn’t.

“Perhaps you’re right, but it doesn’t mean anything. Nevva may have doubts, but that hasn’t stopped her from helping Saint Dane crush Halla.”