The Boon of Alon

CHAPTER SIX

Fortunately, the afternoon brings a break for digestion before physical training. I have an hour to head back into the archive and search. I don't have great hopes for finding out how dragons know the future, or if they really do—and I don't know how'd I'd hunt down the answer—but I think I can at least find the prophecy that got the rebellion after me.

And after this morning's class, I have a better idea of how to look. Prophecy seems like the kind of thing that'll have its own section, even if it's not a particularly big one. And there's a register near the entrance that lists sections and subsections and where to find them.

A few minutes of flipping through the pages, and I'm off into the stacks, heading for a single shelf deep into the archive. Rather like the treaties, I'm expecting a collection of documents. Suthi's prophecy was spoken at the Royal Tournament, not here; I'd think the rider would have had to scribble it down on whatever was available and bring it back, if it was recorded at all.

Instead, I find a collection of neat leatherbound volumes, numbered, like an encyclopedia. I pull one off the shelf and find pages and pages of handwritten text from many different hands, each entry preceded only by a date. Were they copied down from the scrap papers I'd imagined? Remembered, or repeated upon return? Or were they made up beforehand and simply spoken whenever seemed most dramatic?

I replace the volume and pull down the newest one instead. Suthi's prophecy was spoken five years ago—if it's in here, then any of those options are possible. If it's not, then prophecy happens when it happens even if no one's there to write it down, or they don't record ones that aren't spoken here... or that prophecy in particular was faked on the spot.

The oldest date in this volume is just over forty years ago, so I start at the newest—only two weeks ago—and start flipping backwards through the pages. Most prophecies are only a sentence or two long; in some places there are three to a single page, so it goes quickly. And it looks like they average out to about one prophecy a month, so I guess it's not that absurd that I've gone and tripped into two at once. There are so many. I slow when I get to the right year; I'm looking for something in the late autumn—there.

"The champion of the Royal Tournament of Pangessa, Suthi of Northstrand, will henceforth never be defeated in the arena except by her true love." That's it. It's only slightly more specific than what I heard on the circuit; it doesn't really help me to know she's from Northstrand, which is so rural that even the minor tourney circuit doesn't bother going there. But the prophecy is in here, and that limits the possibilities.

The rebel's prophecy—that was seven years ago, more or less. Maybe more—I don't know how long it took them to find me, or how they did. But, if it's anywhere, it's here in my hands. I doubt even a dragon was making predictions about me before I was born. I flip back to about seven years ago and start skimming.

I don't pay much attention to the text except to confirm it's not about me, but I quickly note some patterns. Most prophecies name a particular person, but some are more generic—one says only, "A woman in blue will return to Stillwater in Malamin." What's even the point of that? Why would that matter? Some have marks next to them, more often as I go back in time, and I wonder if that means they came true. Suthi's didn't have one, but I did run away, not that there's much room left for her true love to be anyone else. Maybe no one's gotten around to marking it.

My name jumps out at me as I skim and I stop. The prophecies here are from ten years ago—I was still on the farm, or had just left. I read it three times to make sure I have it right.

"Della of Tempecall will end the rebellion against the monarch of Pangessa."

Gods. I'd gathered that I was supposed to stop them somehow, but I didn't think it was permanent. Like I was just going to hinder them somehow. No wonder they're after me.