Page 68 of Tide of Waves and Secrets

A reason for me to work it out myself.

That was the least difficult of her riddles. The Keepers valued discernment.

The same reason your grandfather did not tell you of me.

He knew a Keeper, a vaelith, resided in Thalassaria, but said nothing of her. He wanted me to find her myself. In doing so, I was fulfilling a prophecy. Not as The Keeper, but a Keeper. Sharpening my mind, my skills. Would he have told me if he knew I would become his successor? Likely. But the chances of it, with so many others in our network…

I digressed.

He knew. And she knew the code, which means she was a Keeper despite the fact that no human survived as long as she had. That made little sense, but was nonetheless true. And it was also true that I had heard a voice, and that vision was different than the others. Could more than one unique ability manifest in me? It seemed to be so.

“You are a Keeper,” I said. “So half-human, and yet are more than demi-immortal. Which is only one of the puzzles before me, since I also seem to be developing more than one unique ability as my grandfather neither heard voices nor received memories of the past.”

“Both of your presumptions are correct. What did you see?” she asked again.

“A young girl,” I said. “You?”

She waited for me to continue.

“Sitting on the ground, reading. A man, human I believe, picked her up. Picked you up.” It was Seren in my vision. A human father and a Thalassari mother. “And your mother was there too.”

“My mother was a Thalassari scholar. She spent her days in here, the Deep Archives holding her life’s work. She’d been, as so many before her, drawn to human ingenuity. Of course, she never imagined meeting one, as the Gate had not yet been opened. When it did, many years later, and my father, a human explorer, found his way to Thalassaria, they were drawn to each other, partnering a short time after he arrived. The scene you witnessed was one of many from my childhood, here among these archives.”

“A Thalassari and a human. Back then, it must have been?—”

“Quite scandalous, to be certain. But since my mother spent much of her time here, believing the Deep Archives held answers about her and my father’s place in both worlds, it did not bother her. I was born of their union, and from the start, could sense the Archives’ magic in a way no one else could, even my mother.”

“Your father was a Harrow,” I said, knowing he had to be for Seren to be a Keeper. She watched me, as if expecting more. What more could there be? Unless… “Impossible.”

“I really must insist you stop using that word.”

“Richard Harrow lived in Aetheria for much of his life, before Estmere existed.”

“Not Richard,” she said of the first human to enter the Gate. The first Keeper. “His son, of which he had three.”

“One of which became the second Keeper. The others founded Estmere.”

“My uncles did indeed, with the help of King Galfrid, of course.”

My uncles.

“Your father was Caius Harrow.”

She smiled.

“The history books say little of the second Keeper.”

“For good reason. He lived here, and as you can see, we are quite secluded.”

“But The Keeper… lives in Estmere. Among his, or her, people.”

“Not always.”

Heart racing, I waited for her to continue.

“The original role of The Keeper, known then as the First Harrow and the Second Harrow, and so on, was to keep the knowledge of the Gate, of The Crooked Key. And later, of the visions that were unique to one in each generation. But what are visions if humans are not fully accepted as Elydorians? That was my uncle’s role, and the role of each of the Keepers that succeeded him.”

My mind raced. “The voice I heard, was that yours?”

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