Morgan Rice - Night of the Bold

“Can you save my father?”

Lorna looked over to see Aidan, red-eyed, cheeks wet with tears, staring up at her with hope and desperation. She took a deep breath.

“I do not know,” she answered simply.

Lorna lay one palm on Duncan’s forehead, and the other on his wound. She began to hum an ancient hymn, and slowly, the crowd fell silent. Aidan’s weeping stopped. She felt a tremendous heat course through her palms, confronting his sickness. She closed her eyes and summoned all the power she had, trying to read his destiny, to understand what had happened, what his fate held in store.

Slowly, it all came to her. Duncan had been meant to die here today. That was his destiny. Here, in this place, on this battlefield, after his great victory in the canyon. She saw all the battles he had ever fought; saw his rise to warrior, to commander; saw his final and greatest battle here at the Canyon. He was not meant to survive the flooding. He was meant to die in its wake. He had taken the revolution as far as he was meant to take it.

She sensed his daughter, Kyra, flying through the air, on her way here, meant to take over his command. Duncan was meant to die at this moment.

Yet, as she knelt over him, Lorna summoned the power of the universe and begged it to change his fate, to change his destiny. After all, Duncan had been the one and only true friend to her father, King Tarnis, even when all others had turned his back on him. Duncan was the one her father had urged to come save her. For the sake of her father, she owed it to him. And she also, deep down, sensed that there might be within Duncan, still one epic battle left to be fought.

Lorna wrestled with fate, feeling the struggle exhaust her. She felt an battle epic of spirits raging within her, as she wrestled with powers she was not supposed to wrestle with. Dangerous powers. Powers that could kill her. Fate, after all, was not a thing to be taken lightly.

As she struggled, Lorna felt Duncan’s life hanging in the balance. Finally, she collapsed in exhaustion, breathing hard, and as she did, an answer came to her: it was both victory and failure. Duncan’s life would be extended – but only for a short while. He would be allowed one last battle, allowed to see his daughter’s face again, his real daughter, allowed to die in her arms. That, at least, was something.

Lorna shook, feeling sick, overwhelmed by the powers she had fought with. Her palms burned, and finally there came a flash, a feeling unlike any she’d ever felt, and she was thrown back by the power of it. She landed on her back a few feet away.

Merk quickly pulled her up, and she knelt there, weak, in a cold sweat.

A few yards away, Duncan lay unmoving, and Lorna felt overpowered by the magic of what she had summoned.

“My lady, what has happened?” Anvin demanded.

She struggled to clear her mind, to find her words.

In the silence, Aidan stepped forward and desperately confronted her.

“Will my father live?” he pleaded. “Please, tell me.”

Lorna, passing out from exhaustion, summoned the energy to nod back weakly right before she did.

“He will live, boy,” she said. “But not for long.”

Aidan was ashamed, yet try as he did, he could not help himself from crying. He had retreated to the far ends of the camp, to a cave on the outskirts of the field, hoping to be alone, not wishing for the other men to see his tears. Only White sat at his feet, whining beside him. He wished he could stop his tears but he could not, overwhelmed with grief over his father’s injury.

He will live, but not for long.

Lorna’s words echoed in his head, and Aidan wished he could erase those words. He would give anything for his father to be able to live forever.

Head in his hands, Aidan sobbed quietly. He replayed in his head the moment when Ra, disguised as his sister, had stabbed his father. Aidan had been galloping down the hill, had thrown a dagger, and had prevented Ra from stabbing him a second time. Yet, still, it had been but a moment too late. Why couldn’t he have arrived a few minutes earlier?

Aidan blamed himself. If only he’d ridden faster, perhaps his father would not lay dying right now. Aidan felt that he was just reaching the age where he and his father could understand one another, as father to son, and as man to man. And yet just as he was beginning to know him, his father had been snatched away from him.

It was unfair. Aidan was too young; his father was too young; it was not supposed to be this way. His father was supposed to rise, to free Escalon, to become its new King, and Aidan was supposed to be there, by his side. Aidan had already seen it all happening in his head, had seen them moving back to the capital, had seen his father’s coronation, his new legion. Who would be the King now? Who would be the new commander now? Who would lead the Escalon forces now? What would life in Escalon look like without his father?

Aidan felt completely lost without his father, adrift, especially in the wake of the loss of his brothers. Kyra was the only family he had left now.

“Your father still lives, boy,” came a voice.

Aidan looked over, and was ashamed to see Motley and Cassandra enter the cave, a few feet away. They had clearly sought him out wishing to console him, yet seeing them only deepened his shame and guilt.

Aidan blinked back with bloodstained eyes.

“Did you not hear Lorna’s words?” Aidan snapped, harsher than he wished to be. “He lives but for a short while.”

Motley stepped closer.

“Yet he lives now ,” Motley insisted, one of the few moments Aidan had ever seen him serious. “And now is all we have. We live in dangerous times. You might die on this day, and I might as well. Your father is lucky to at least have another chance.”

“And that is because of you,” Cassandra chimed in, stepping close and holding his wrist. “You threw the dagger. You saved him. You and that dog of yours.”

At his feet, White whined, licking Cassandra’s hand.

“You should be very proud,” she concluded.

Aidan shook his head glumly.

“I was too late,” he replied.

Aidan did not want them to see him like this. He was a warrior now, after all, and this was not how warriors should behave. He wished he could be stronger.

His father was his rock, the one person he looked up to, whom he admired most in the world. Even more, his father was the strongest man he knew, stronger than all these great warriors. If he could die, then any of them could. Including Aidan. And that struck Aidan to the core. It changed the way he looked at the world. It even changed the way he viewed life: fleeting, cruel, tragic, without warning – and supremely unfair.

Justice, Aidan felt, had not been served. Why should an evil creature like Ra be able to even touch a fine man like his father?

“It’s not fair ,” Aidan said, overwhelmed with grief.

Motley sighed, coming over and sitting with his great bulk on the rock beside him.

“True, young Aidan,” Motley replied. “You finally get to see a glimpse of what life is about. Life is unfair. No one – none of us – is born with an assurance of a fair life. You will find that many more things in your life will happen which are unfair. The question isn’t whether these things will happen to you, because they will. The question, rather, is: how will you will react to the injustices in your life? Will you cave in and let them consume you? Will you become bitter, cynical, self-pitying? Or will you remain strong? Will you fight back at the injustices, the unfairness of life?”

Motley sighed.

“Life’s unfairness must be fought back against, daily, just like any foe. And most of that fighting must happen internally. You must never fold. And you must search for fairness even in the face of great unfairness. That is what makes a warrior.”