When ruin is coming, we choose not to see it. We shift our focus, blurring the facts, the evidence before us. And we ready our masks of surprise, along with those of suffering and self-pity, and keep our fingers nimble for that oh-so-predictable cascade of innocence, that victim’s charade.
Before reaching for the sword. Because someone’s to blame. Someone is always to blame.
Koğuşta sidik yarışı başlamıştı, sabahtan akşama kadar sözde kahramanlık hikayelerini anlatan dallamalar yüzünden canımdan bezmek üzereydim. Cascade'ın kurşuna dizildiği haberini aldıktan sonra, hepsi sözleşmiş gibi yiğitlikten dem vurmaya başlamıştı. Meğer aramızda ne kahramanlar varmış da haberimiz yokmuş! Cascade'a son saatlerinde bok gibi davrandıkları için bahane arıyorlardı şimdi. Masallar uyduruyor, çocuğa laf çakıyorlardı. Adını bile anmıyorlardı ama farkındaydım, canları çok sıkılmıştı bu işe. Bir duysanız, doğuştan savaşçı adamlar sanırdınız. Giboune diye bir lojistikçi vardı mesela, her öğlen hastanenin üstünden uçaklar geçerken altına sıçardı. Götünde minicik bir yara vardı, anlata anlata bitiremezdi onu. Öğrendik ki en az üç mitralyöz buna ateş açmıştı da götü öyle yaralanmıştı. Yersen. Bir diğeri, bütün gün fıstülünü düşünen çıbanlı Faslı Abloucoum, ömründe tek bir gerçek mermi görmemiş olmasına rağmen, lafına inanırsanız, Fas'tayken bir yerli kampına tek başına saldırmış, yeri göğü inleten çığlığı ve elindeki meşalesiyle bütün yerlileri donuna sıçırtmıştı. Cascade yüzünden hepsi böyle zırvalamaya başlamıştı. Bence içten içe hepsi bayağı bir bunalımdaydı. Yazgının sillesinden korunmak için böyle palavralar kuşanıyorlardı.
📚🔔 Tatil zili çaldı!
Bir yıl boyunca verilen emeklerin ardından şimdi dinlenme, keşfetme ve yeni maceralara atılma zamanı. 🌞
Bu yaz bol kahkahalı, bol anılı ve elbette bol kitaplı geçsin. Tüm öğrencilere keyifli tatiller diliyoruz! 💙📖
The Prophecy
Raphael pulls a torch off one of the stone walls and leads me to a
large painting. I frown at the image—another one of Mordred
Kingslayer, wearing his spiked crown over dark curls and a long
black cape. In this image, he’s beheading a blonde woman who kneels at his
feet. It’s about ten feet tall and gilt framed.
“Is it true that he had diametric magic, and that’s why he murdered
everyone?” I ask.
He sighs. “Maybe, but I don’t think that’s why the massacre happened.
It’s the prophecy. The one about the House of Morgan.”
A chill skitters up my spine. “Auberon is descended from Queen
Morgan. And the Dream Stalker, too.”
“And that’s why they need to die. They were born with the same
violence running through their veins. The moment they get the chance,
they’ll break in here and slaughter everyone.”
He reaches for a book on the shelf to the left of the portrait. As he pulls
it out, the portrait pops open like a door, creaking. He turns back to me with
an arched eyebrow. “You’re not going to tell your friends about this
passageway, are you?”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
Holding the torch, he leads me into a dark corridor. Light and shadow
dance over the stone walls, and the narrow hall stretches on.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask.
“To the Tower of Nimuë.”
I breathe in sharply. Tana had mentioned her name. The Lady of the
Lake, like me, apparently. Tana had seen me in her tower. “Where is it?”
“It stands in the lake, with a bridge leading out to it. Nimuë was a
powerful water Fey, back in the days of primal magic. As Lady of the Lake,
she was an envoy between the Fey and humans. From her tower, Nimuë
gave Arthur his sword, forged from Avalon Steel. And she gave Merlin and
Arthur their torcs, too, from the same sacred metal.”
“So, her tower was a meeting point at one time?”
At least one had ended
Orrec bares his teeth. “You don’t know anything about my country.”
“I know the Scarlet Guard began in your house, not mine,” Maven spits back. With his free hand he gestures, telling his Sentinels to back down. Foolish, posturing boy. I hope it gets him killed. “Don’t act like you’re doing me a favor. You need this as much as we do.”
“Then I want your word, Maven Calore.”
“You have it—”
“Your word and your hand. The strongest bond you can make.”
Oh.
My eyes fly from Maven, locked in a grip with the king of the Lakelands, to Evangeline. She sits still, as if frozen, her gaze on the marble floor and nowhere else. I expect her to stand up and scream, to turn this place into a wreck of shrapnel. But she doesn’t move. Even Ptolemus, her lapdog of a brother, stays firmly in his seat. And their father in his Samos blacks broods as always. No change in him that I can see. No indication that Evangeline is about to lose the position she fought so hard to obtain.
Across the pavilion, the Lakelander princess seems hewn from stone. She doesn’t even blink. She knew this was coming.
Once, when Maven’s father told him he was to marry me, he choked in surprise. He put on a good show, blustering and arguing. He pretended not to know what that proposal was about, what it meant. Like me, he has worn a thousand masks and played a million different parts. Today he performs as king, and kings are never surprised, never caught off guard. If he is shocked, he doesn’t show it. I hear nothing but steel in his voice.
“It would be an honor to call you father,” he says.
Finally, Orrec lets go of Maven’s hand. “And an honor to call you son.”
Both could not be more false.
To my right, someone’s chair scrapes against marble. Followed quickly by two more. In a flurry of metal and black,
Koridorun sonunda bekleyen bir inzibat daha vardı.
Cascade'ı son görüşümüz bu oldu, onda da göremedik gerçi. Koğuş hala çok karanlıktı.
Dört gün sonra, bağlı bulunduğu 4 1 8 . Piyade Alayı'nın on dört gün konakladığı Peronne şehri yakınlarında kurşuna dizildi.
