Finnikin of the Rock

'In other kingdoms they worship more than one god or goddess with few issues about which divine being has superiority,' Finnikin said.

'It is wrong,' Lady Celie blurted out, her face flushed. It was the first time she had spoken that evening. Perhaps the first time she had ever raised her voice in the company of adults.

'What is, my sweet?' her father asked.

'That we persist in speaking about the goddess as if she were two. The fault lies with the men of the ancients.'

'And not the women? Must men be blamed for all, my sweet?' her father asked gently. 'Celie has a great love of history,' he added with pride. 'She has taken to recording the stories of our village.'

'The men are to blame,' Lady Celie continued, her voice wavering, 'because they wrote the books. They were frightened by the power of our goddess complete.' There was an awkward silence.

'So they split her in two,' Evanjalin spoke up, placing a hand on Lady Celie's shoulder. 'The goddess Lagrami and the goddess Sagrami: light and dark. But all that did was cause division and a belief that one people was better than the other.'

'Those who worshipped Sagrami practiced dark magic,' Lord August's sister argued. 'They were instrumental in our exile.'

'Yet it is the work of those inside the cloisters of Sagrami and Lagrami that will ensure us entry back into our kingdom,' Evanjalin said.

'Evanjalin can walk through the sleep of our people trapped inside Lumatere,' Lady Celie said boldly.

At his daughter's comment, Lord August looked at Evanjalin for the first time since she had spoken to him about the Charynites. He could not forget her voice as she stood beside Finnikin that day. He had described to his wife with wonder the power he felt in the two young people. The voice of Lumatere had come from the sun and the moon, he said. Abie called him a dreamer. 'See them together and you will feel a force that will take your breath away,' he had responded.

'When we return, I would love nothing more than to be part of the cloister,' the duke's niece said. She was a pretty girl, more confident than her cousin Celie.

'The cloister of Lagrami?' Lady Abian asked. 'Why? All they teach you to be is a rich man's dutiful wife and a blind worshipper of half a goddess.'

'Oh, the idea of a dutiful wife,' Lord August said with a sigh. 'Why did no one point me in the direction of the cloister?'

Lady Abian raised her eyebrow. 'You were lucky I was not taught by the priestess of Lagrami to bore you to tears, Augie, or by the priestess of Sagrami to poison my husband with the proper herbs. Instead, I prayed to the goddess complete to send me a man who would accept me whole and not as two halves, as men have treated our goddess for the past thousand years.'

'I was a novice of Lagrami,' Lord August's sister sniffed. 'Do I bore people to tears?'

'Of course not, my dear,' her husband responded, patting her hand. 'Nor are you a dutiful wife.'

The others laughed.

'You are harsh on the cloisters of both sides, Abie,' Trevanion said solemnly. 'Lady Beatriss was a novice of Lagrami, and she had much strength to offer.'

'That I know, Trevanion,' she said gently. 'But the cloister of Lagrami is there for the daughters of those with wealth, like our Celie and Beatriss the Beloved. But what of the daughters of our dear friends here?'

'Privilege does not necessarily lead to freedom for our noble young women,' Sir Topher said. 'The princesses were always going to be sacrificed for the kingdom. The older girls had already been promised to foreign princes and dukes. Sooner or later, Isaboe would have been sacrificed in the same manner.'

'Sacrificed?' Finnikin asked.

'Of course,' one of the women said. 'To be taken away from your family, your homeland. To be a foreigner for the rest of your life, with no true right over your children. Did it not happen to the dead king's aunt? Given to a lesser prince in Charyn, whose seed produced the monster who rules our kingdom?'

'Regardless, we must concern ourselves with what takes place inside Lumatere now. If the novices have united, as we believe they have, then those of Sagrami will teach us to be healers. Physicians,' Evanjalin said. 'And those of Lagrami will teach us the ways of the ancients and the beauty of goodwill. Perhaps because of the most dire of situations, daughters of peasants are secure in one of the old cloisters in Lumatere as we speak.'

'When will we return to Lumatere?' one of her younger boys asked. 'When Balthazar is found?'

Sir Topher nodded, but Finnikin recognized the look of uncertainty that always crossed his mentor's face whenever the heir's name was mentioned.

'How do we know that for sure?' the boy piped up.

'Because Seranonna decreed it,' Lord August said.

'I fort she damned the kingdom,' Froi said.

The others looked at him, uncomfortable.

'We do not consider the kingdom damned,' Lord August said politely. 'We prefer not to use that word.'

'What would you call it, Lord August?' Finnikin asked. 'A little magic? A slight curse? A bit of bad luck?'

'Finn,' his father warned in a low tone.

'For the sake of the children—' Lord August's brother-in-law began.

'Only a chosen few have been privileged enough to have a childhood,' Finnikin interrupted. 'There have been few children since the days of the unspeakable. Were you ever a child, Evanjalin? Or Froi? Or half the orphans of Lumatere? Or even me? Was I ever a child, Sir Topher?'

'I applaud any of you who have been able to preserve innocence for your children,' Evanjalin said, turning to the younger ones. 'But our kingdom was cursed. Damned. Taken away from us, because good people stood by while evil took place. Let that be our lesson.'

'Has it been revealed?' Lady Abian asked. 'What was said that day? When Seranonna ... cursed us?'

Sir Topher nodded. 'It was difficult to decipher, for we heard the words spoken only once, in an ancient language, and there are many interpretations of each word. At every camp, we searched for those who had been in the square the day of Seranonna's death and we gathered more words, poring over the books of the ancients, until four years ago Finnikin made sense of it.'

Everyone's attention was directed at Finnikin. Opposite him, he watched Evanjalin take a breath, as if in anticipation.

'Finn?' his father urged.

Finnikin's eyes met the priest-king's.' 'Dark will lead the light and our resurdus will rise. And he will hold two hands of the one he pledged to save. And then the gate will fall, but his pain shall never cease. His seed will issue kings, but he will never reign.''

'Balthazar,' Lord August confirmed.

' 'Our resurdus, ' Finnikin said, nodding. 'King.'

'I think the exact words were 'her resurdus will rise,'' Sir Topher said.

The priest-king nodded. ''Her' being our kingdom of Lumatere.'

'I don't understand the two hands,' Perri said.

'And you believe Balthazar can ... survive such an entrance of damnation? 'Pain shall never cease'?' Lady Abian said. 'And 'he will never reign'?'

'Regardless of whether he lives or dies,' the priest-king said, 'the main gate of the kingdom will open.'

There was silence until Lord August stood. 'Then we must make a decree. Here. This night. In the presence of the priest-king and Trevanion, Captain of the King's Guard, and myself, Lord August, Duke of Sayles.' He turned to the king's First Man. 'That Sir Kristopher of the Flatlands, as regent of our dead king, is to rule if our beloved heir does not survive.'

He took in the faces of all present. 'We enter Lumatere with a king,' he continued forcefully. 'We will never allow the leaders of other kingdoms to crown a king for Lumatere again.'

Finnikin felt the weight of his father's stare. He shifted his gaze to Sir Topher, and saw that the king's First Man was looking at him with the same intensity. He was a son blessed by two fathers, one a warrior, the other a leader.

'We enter Lumatere with a king,' Trevanion acknowledged.

'Sir Topher?' the priest-king said.