I raised a hand at the crowd.
They roared in response.
I raised my other hand.
They got even louder.
I did a little shimmy.
The cheers got quieter at that.
Rude.
I
could do this.
I could do this.
Eventually they fell silent again, all eyes on me.
I swallowed thickly, wishing I could lift my robes to get a good breeze blowing on my nether region, but figured that probably wasn’t polite, especially since I was pretty much free-balling it underneath.
“Um. Hi,” I said.
Good start.
“Speak louder!” someone shouted. “I can’t hear you, and I want to dissect your every word for truthfulness and validity!”
Great. No pressure. How did the King and Justin do this? How did Morgan when he—
Morgan. It always came back to him, didn’t it?
He was where it started. And he was where it’d ended. The last these people had seen of me had been the day Morgan of Shadows had been laid to rest.
Always him.
I said, “I was just a boy. From the slums. I woke up every day knowing I was loved. Knowing I had a roof over my head, even if it leaked sometimes. That I had two people who loved me more than anything in the world. And it was good. It was good, because I was taught to be thankful for what I had.
“But some days were hard. Some days we went to bed hungry, and I could hear my mom crying through the wall and my dad telling her that it’d be okay, that as long as we were together, we’d figure it out. Those were the days when I’d lay in my bed and look up through the little window in my room. If I craned my neck just right, I could see the sky and the stars, and I… wished sometimes. They weren’t anything special, just the wishes of a kid who wanted his mom to be happy and his dad to be healthy. I wished to be someone great one day. But not just for myself. I didn’t want it for myself. I wanted it for them. Because I—”
I shook my head. “I don’t know if wishes work. I don’t know if the gods hear them. Consider them. Discard them or make them so. If it’s a frivolous thing or if it’s something we all must do. But I did it anyway, because I was a child who believed the world was a bright and wonderful place. And whether it was my wishes, or whether it was the gods themselves, he came for me. He told me that I was meant for something greater, something more, and that I—I don’t. I don’t know that it mattered. What he kept from me. What he knew even before I was born. You’ve heard of the… prophecy. Much has probably been made of it. It’s been twisted into something unrecognizable by people who wanted nothing more than to bring me to my knees.”
Lady Tina looked down at the table. Vadoma stared straight at me.
“I don’t… like. The word. Destiny. Because it means I don’t have a choice. That my decisions don’t matter. That everything I’ve done in my life has been preordained by higher powers, moving me like a chess piece across a board. That who I am, what I’ve become, was set in stone long before I was even a conscious thought.
“Stone, though. It crumbles. A friend taught me that. And Morgan was doing what he thought was right—and maybe it was. Or maybe it wasn’t, but it doesn’t matter in the end. I was angry with him. For a long time. For what I thought was a betrayal. But it’s different now. Because regardless of his actions, regardless of what he kept from me, I know one thing to be true with all of my heart: Morgan of Shadows loved me. He loved me and wanted nothing more than to keep me safe. Much like he loved all of you. Much like he loved Verania.”
I sniffled as I wiped my eyes. “He’s gone now. And not because of the actions of anyone here. Not because of anything you did, or I did, or—just.”
Lady Tina’s shoulders were shaking.
“But because of his brother.”
The crowd sighed.
“Because of Randall’s cornerstone.”