There was no way of knowing what was important without hearing it all, or as much as he could tell me, and I said so.
“Very well,” he breathed. “When men from the southern continent took to ships over two thousand years ago, they found the north lush and wild and devoid of men. The first men to settle did little more than build villages on the coast and from there . . .”
Three hours later what remained of the food had gone cold, and the ale had warmed to room temperature. I nodded. Most of what Custos had told me, I’d already known, and though there were interesting details he’d recently gleaned from the Vigil library, there was nothing that truly surprised me.
Worse, nothing he’d told me explained the central question. “Tell me about the gift of kings,” I said. “I don’t understand how it appeared here in the north.”
Custos nodded. “Ah, it’s more a question of the south’s history than ours. From the beginning, the gift of kings was a part of man’s heritage. When the north was discovered, six with the gift of kings left and divided the north between them. The only change in that history came after a particularly divisive political struggle in Caisel. The country decided to split. The kingdoms of the northern continent agreed that the new country, Elania, would have all the rights and privileges of the other kingdoms, except that its monarch would never hold the gift of kings. It’s been that way ever since.”
“How many still hold the gift of kings on the southern continent?” Gael asked.
“Twelve,” Custos said. “But the southern continent is quite monolithic. The twelve choose one of their nobles to act as emperor of the continent. They’ve escaped the king wars and the order wars, but their internal struggles have been no less violent.”
“I think the Fayit created a prison,” I said. “Suppose you’re one of the last of a dying race of almost incalculable wisdom and knowledge and your job is to guard a prison. Knowing that events often transpire in unexpected ways, you give the civilization that comes after you the means to summon you, despite the oaths you swore to stay hidden.”
Custos nodded, his eyes bright. “Yes. They could require the assembly of a circle of four pure temperaments, nine pure talents, or six pure gifts.” He shook his head. “But the Fayit must not have counted on the dilution of our race, Willet. The ability to summon them is gone.” He pointed to Bolt. “His physical gift is as pure as we know, but in the dim reaches of time, we still have no idea how often it’s been split and shared. And we have even less knowledge of what a pure talent or temperament would look like.”
I rubbed the top of his head and smiled. “I think your ability, old friend, gives us a clue in that regard.” I shook my head. My heart pounded against my chest, constrained by the confines of my ribs. “I don’t think the circle is lost to us. I think Ealdor’s visits to me—to us—indicates there is still a means of summoning them, regardless of our decline.”
“What happened just before the start of the Gift of Kings War?” I asked. I didn’t say anything about my guess as to why there were eighteen who held the gift of kings. I might have been wrong. For now, and hopefully forever, it was beside the point.
Gael was the first to answer. She knew my mind better than any other and was the first to see where my intuition and logic had taken me. “They tried to split the gift,” she breathed.
Bolt nodded. “It wouldn’t split. When they tried to force it, it went free.” A moment later he shook himself. “No. It’s interesting, but there’s not enough steel there to make a dagger much less a blade. Herregina has to go back to Cynestol.”
Custos added his objection to Bolt’s. “The kings’ gifts aren’t pure, Willet. Even with the dilution over time the gifts the kings and queens hold don’t match those of their strongest subjects in power.”
Mirren leaned forward. “Not alone, no, but every king or queen carries a portion of all six gifts. Yes?”
I nodded. “Every new king or queen is tested for the six gifts. It’s axiomatic that a king or queen carries a portion of all six. No exceptions. Now work it backward. The gift of kings has been with us since our earliest history. If they can’t be split, then it is almost a certainty they’ve never been split. Don’t you see? Every king or queen of the original kingdoms of the northern continent has a fraction of each of the six perfect gifts. If you bring them all together, you have a perfect circle.”
“You’ll never get the queen of Frayel and the king of Owmead to commit on that basis,” Bolt said. “Ulrezia’s temper runs as cold as Rymark’s does hot, but they share a deep skepticism of any idea that’s not their own. They won’t come, I’m sorry.”
I held up a hand. “Don’t be. You want to believe I’m right. If I can’t convince you, how can I convince anyone else?” I knew what I had to do, and I hated myself for it. I looked at Gael. “I am so tired of killing people.”
Her eyes widened. “Willet . . .”
I reached across the table to where she sat on my right and squeezed her arm, careful to avoid her bare skin. Work with the sword had strengthened her, bringing additional harmony to her willowy frame that I thought beautiful. I sighed, knowing I could put this off, but there was no point. There amidst the mutton and wine and figs, I closed my eyes and shifted in
