185 Let Thy Love Turn A Cruel Man Into A Sain (2/2)

Lu'um's older sister, Yalya, chuckled and whispered, ”You've not the spine to utter such thing before her, dear cousin. A mouse cannot challenge a hawk in an open field. We are unfit to challenge her.”

Itotia snorted in disdain and said, ”You were raised into the mindset of mice, cousin. Our family does not produce mice. She is but an old hag from a bygone era. The day you realize this she will have lost her grip on you.”

That very fear is why you were not chosen, my dear cousin. A coward is unfit to stand beside my brother. But you already know that... don't you? Poor Yalya, firstborn and yet not the one who inherited the role of Daughter of the Moon. Pitiful Yalya, forever jealous of her younger sister...

This was not to say that Itotia completely approved of Lu'um. In an ideal world, she would have had no one other than herself beside her older brother. It wasn't anything personal; she just thought herself superior both of them.

Even so, the rites of succession were absolute. The dye had been cast. No one could defy what had been written in stone.

The feeling of unease was beginning to grow. She could not change the script.

Lu'um had heard enough and said, ”We cannot afford any infighting, both of you know this. Let her do as she pleases — nothing good will come of challenging her. Mind you, she still controls a third of our fleets as commander of the Old Guard. Patience, sisters, will be our saving grace.”

She was not going to let her mother have her way forever. Her frustration with her mother had already reached a boiling point long, long ago. There would be no reconciliation between them.

They were of different mindsets and were incompatible with one another. Lu'um was no mouse; she was an eagle ready to strike. And she had sharpened her talons for long enough...

”I will not have a failure dictate to me how to handle affairs she was never chosen for,” snarled Lu'um. ”I am not, nor will I ever be, a proxy for her deluded fantasies. She'll get what's coming to her... in due time.”

A declaration dripping with poison.

The words that came out of her mouth could not be changed. Railroaded on a set path. Her heart began to beat faster upon the realization of that cold fact.

Each of them ambitious, cunning, and hopelessly cold-hearted in their own ways.

The mouse,the eagle, and the owl would one day give the old hawk what she deserved. This pact between the three of them was their source of friendship. A miserable thing — to see familial ties strengthed through resentment of one's own blood.

”You still have not told us what the old crone told you. What wisdom does she have to offer on this problem of ours? Does she know a method to reserve the process?” whispered Itotia via mental thought.

The question frightened Lu'um. It was about to happen and there was nothing she could do.

What she had asked about was not something even she dared speak out loud. Mentioning the old crone even in passing was a taboo in Citlai, even for someone such as herself. Her name had been expunged from everything that possessed a record, be it man or machine not part of the royal family.

She felt that the gears had turned as predicted.

The heretical crone still eked out a living in the Shadowlands by herself. She was someone who had dipped her hands in the black for the sake of the greater good, fully aware that it'd cost her everything.

The foreknowledge passed onto her only reinforced the all too oppressive sensation of a force greater than all of them.

She was the only other person whom the Ancient Mulians had successfully obtained Outer Sight, if only for a brief period of time. Her insight into Reed's affliction was crucial to his recovery, thus Lu'um had set out into the Shadowlands for her guidance.

But...

There is nothing you can do, little girl. It is already too late. Too late. When the words leave your mouth, he will awaken and bring with him a deviation in His plan.

Such is the price He will pay for meddling with a thing outside his domain of control.

Though blind and deaf to everything around her, the old crone had gained insight into workings not accessible to beings from a limited perspective.

”What will he become? Will he still be himself? Please! How do we save him?!”

The crone laughed at the terror in Lu'um's voice and said...

I don't know.

”I don't know.”

And then, as foretold by a deafblind specter of a forgotten person in the middle of a dead planet.

He awoke.