Page 78 of A Reign of Embers

A shout I can’t make out carries from the bank, where Ithink my guards are jogging alongside me. I smile in an attempt to show I’m perfectly all right.

This supplication isn’t going to get me anywhere if my protectors jump in to “save” me before I’ve reached whatever revelation the godlen would lead me to.

With another spurt of water across my face, I close my eyes. The floating sensation consumes me even more fully when my surroundings have given over to darkness.

I drift to one side and then the other. My foot grazes the bank before I whirl away again. The cold seeps right through to my bones.

Sunlight wavers across my eyelids. I open them again to stare up at the vast blue of the sky.

As I gaze toward the heavens, the imagery shifts before my eyes. The smattering of white clouds seem tinged with green. The endless blue streams around and between the tufts, like rivulets between patches of grass…

My breath catches. At the rush of understanding, my body tenses, and I go partly under.

The water sweeps over my head, tossing my hair free from its pins and across my face. Letting it wander wherever it most naturally goes.

Like it should always be.

The recognition of that fact grips me. I tilt my legs down and plant them on the ground. The current gushes around my shoulders, but everything inside me has gone perfectly still.

Yes. I should have seen it without her even showing me. It was just—I encountered the problem so many months ago and haven’t returned since—the logistics of making the change…

No matter how complex it is, I have to make it happen. I knew even when I first saw the way Prospira’s generosity hadbeen warped that the situation was wrong, and now I have the power to set it right.

I push to the bank, absorbed in the resolve that’s come over me. My guards cluster along the edge, Marc and Kassun bending down with arms extended to help me up.

As I reach for them, the wind whips faster across my face, flicking up a few stray hairs along my forehead despite their dampness. An inexplicable tug forms in my throat.

“Wait,” I murmur, and turn back toward the center of the river.

The water flows around me—on and on, all across the realms. The wind buffets my skin again, forcing my eyes closed. Streaks of light stream across my eyelids.

A river mouth splitting into five. Separate currents racing away… and rippling back again?

I shake my head, blinking, but the second vision doesn’t become any clearer in my head. Was that overture from Prospira at all? The hint of a divine presence that brought it didn’t feel like her expansive warmth but something brisker.

Nothing further comes to me. I take Marc’s and Kassun’s hands and scramble out of the water with a heft of their arms.

As soon as I’m out in the open air, the chill hits me sharper than before. At my shiver, Marc lets out a sound of distress and wrenches off his jacket.

By the time he’s wrapped the garment around my shoulders, one of my other guards has hustled over with a blanket she must have grabbed from the carriage. I tuck the folds of fabric close around me and run my fingers over my wild hair.

So much for imperial decorum.

“Did you see anything?” Marc asks, to chiding looks from his fellow guards who must feel he’s overstepping with the question.

I answer anyway. “A lot. I’m certain of one thing… I need to speak to the cleric.”

The other woman among today’s guards tsks her tongue. “Let me…”

She retrieves a few pins from one pocket and hastily arranges my hair away from my face in the simplest of styles. At the lift of my eyebrows, she offers a wry smile. “It never hurts to have a few extras around. They can serve all sorts of purposes.”

I can only imagine what sorts of uses a soldier would normally put them to.

A laugh tumbles out of me. “I’m glad for that.”

We tramp back to the temple. The cleric and a few of his devouts have come out to watch my progress—and perhaps to wonder at my apparent madness.

As we reach them, I lift my head high and gather myself. So much of this plan might depend on how many allies I can prepare in advance.

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