“Then, how can you know that he is a seer?” Elea demanded, her voice high and hysterical. “And that you should give Aine’s stone to him? The most powerful relic in the kingdom?”
Gerard flinched at her words as if they had cut him as sharply as a dagger.
Did Elea not want him to be a part of the prophecy?
Did she despise him that much?
Aris pointed at Gerard with one finger. “Because his great-grandmother gave me the stone and told me that one day her descendant would come back for it when I was caught in a net of my own making. She said that he would possess a golden trigon and I would know that he was the rightful owner of Aine’s seer stone.”
“But Gerard is a man,” Elea nearly spat.
Gerard felt his color rise.
The older woman smiled widely and cackled. “Are you barely realizing this now, Elea? Perhaps your journey has been harder on you than I knew.”
Elea’s pale, bruised skin flushed a brilliant red. “Of course I know that he is a man. It’s rather obvious with all those muscles.”
She gestured at his broad physique.
Gerard felt his lips twitch, but he refused to smile. At her.
“Then, what is your problem?” Aris asked.
Elea put her hands into her violet hair and shook her head. “The oath was broken by the three daughters of Queen Eleanora. I thought . . . I thought that it would be three women who fulfilled the oath: you, Nora, and me.”
The older woman placed her thin arm around her granddaughter’s shoulder.
“If I could, I would enter Aine’s burial cairn and take my place in the Holy Trigon,” she whispered loud enough for him to hear. “But I cannot.”
“Why not?!” Elea practically shrieked. “It should be our family. It is our right. Our royal responsibility.”
“I am not a seer,” Aris said. “I never was.”
Elea’s jaw dropped and Gerard felt his eyes widen. Not a seer? But she had predicted battles and wars for over forty years, with no mistakes. How could one possibly guess correctly that many times?
If he was surprised, Elea appeared to be shocked. Her head fell back and she hit the side of the boat with a thud.
“That’s why you always smelled rotten, like a liar,” Elea said, her dark, swollen eyes wide open.
The older woman laughed again. “And what does a liar smell like?”
“A sweet apple at first, but then it turns rancid.”
Aris cackled. The sound echoed on the waves. “I am surprised that you spent so much time with me growing up. I would not have wished to be around someone who smelled like rotten apples either.”
“How? How have you pretended to be a seer for so many years?” Gerard asked, gripping the stone in a fist. “You’ve fooled not only Urka but Kaul, Sania, Breton, and all the countries on the continent.”
Aris reached into her pocket again and pulled out a small, soaked leather book, not more than four inches by six inches. The wet pages were yellowed and tattered on the edges. It looked as if it had seen much use.
“On my twenty-first birthday, the day of my adulthood, a caravan of travelers came through our village. I paid three apples to have my fortune told. The chief herself took me into her wagon and asked to see my hand. She ran her callused fingers over my palm and said that she’d been looking for me her entire life. That I was destined for greatness.”
A shadow came over her wrinkled face.
Gerard felt his blood rise. He’d wanted to be destined for greatness too. For his life and birth to have meaning.
Aris was no longer smiling. “Being young and naïve, I believed her. The travelers’ chief then told me that I would marry the King of Urka. But this I could not believe. Even though I knew I was beautiful, I was a serf. I told her the best I could hope for was to marry a man with his own free holding. Even then, the man would have had to purchase my freedom from the laird.
“The chief tightened her hold on my hand. She peered into my eyes with an intensity that scared me into silence. She told me that if I did everything she said, not only would I become a queen but that my daughter would fulfill the ancient prophecy of Aine. That she would be born with violet hair and hold the celestial powers of Queen Eleanora I. She handed me this stone and said that it had once belonged to Aine herself. That with this stone, I could convince the king, when he came to visit the laird in the next month, that I was a seer. I was to tell him about an attack from Kaul in great detail. Then she handed me this little book and said that it had several prophecies that I could use to prove my claim as seer.”