The Boon of Alon

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

*** A/N: I'm back. Time isn't real. IDK y'all. My Tuesdays have unexpectedly gotten busy so I guess I'm updating Mon/Thurs now? We'll see. ***

Chama is back in time for dinner. She waves me over when I get my plate, so I send my friends on without me and go join her.

"Sit," she says, gesturing at the seat across the table from her. "We've got a lot to catch up on. Everyone's talking about you—you oiled Iamon?"

"That's the first thing you're asking me about?" I ask. "Tack didn't tell you about the attack?"

Her eyebrows shoot up. "No, I haven't seen them yet. I only just got back. What attack?"

I tell her, briefly, what happened—the rebels tried to kill me at the lake, Iamon showed up and saved my ass, and I confronted him and now he's talking to me.

"He wouldn't tell me anything else about the new prophecy," I tell her. "But he did explain how his prophecies actually work."

She holds up a hand. "Keep the details to yourself—if he wanted everyone to know, we would," she says. "Are you satisfied now?"

"Mostly. He can't really prove his intentions, but he told me about some past prophecies and I'm going to look them up in the archive later." And maybe a few mentioned in Alinora's journals, too.

I guess Chama's gotten used to my bullshit, because she just snorts faintly. "You picked a fight with a dragon and won. I guess I can't fault you for it if it worked."

"I think he was just impressed I understood everything he was saying about possibilities and outcomes." He did seem pleased about it when I got it, anyway. "I'll be able to keep talking to him, but I don't think he's going to tell me anything else about you-know-who—who was acting normal as ever while you were gone, by the way."

She sighs. "Except for his excursion right before you were attacked."

"Yeah, but unless you know for sure he was talking to the rebels, that doesn't prove anything. Even if he was, it could still be a coincidence."

She leans one elbow on the table next to her plate; neither of us have eaten much yet. "You don't think he's actually going to betray us, do you?"

"I think that 'betrayal' could mean a lot of things," I say carefully. "It doesn't have to ruin us, does it? It could be small." I take a deep breath. "I also think that, while he'll probably do something, the actual point of the prophecy could've been to get us on guard for something else."

She lifts an eyebrow. "Like what?"

I shrug. "I don't know. I do know that Iamon spoke Suthi's prophecy primarily to stop her from killing me."

"Hm." Chama picks at her dinner. "Which isn't in the wording of it at all, is it?"

"Nope." Nothing about it said it would be anything other than a regular tourney match—other than that I would win.

She squints upwards. "So prophecies can be about something else entirely, eh? Did your rebel prophecy have an ulterior motive, too?"

"To keep me from joining them, 'cause I would've died," I say sullenly. Even if I understand the logic behind it, it's still so stupid to me that them trying to kill me has actually kept me alive.

Chama snorts. "To think they could've killed you more easily by not even trying. Alright, I see your point. Don't suppose you know if Iamon took this into account, do you?"

"This?"

She gestures at me. "You, thinking about it. I'd say overthinking, but gods know we usually don't bother to think about prophecies at all."