The Third Kingdom

“Not exactly.” Samantha squinted in thought, looking for the words. “The gifted have always been the ones people of Stroyza turned to. I don’t know that you would say they rule, exactly. We’re a small place, not an empire, and it never much seemed that we needed someone to rule. Maybe to settle arguments, occasionally, but not really to rule.

“It’s always been more like the people here respect the gifted and seek their advice, much like people respect elders and seek advice from them, but don’t necessarily want to be ruled by them. When something needed deciding, people would often come to one of the gifted—my parents or aunts and uncles—seeking advice, and on occasion, a decision.”

“You mean like when we were first brought here, they sent for you because they respect your ability, but they wouldn’t expect you to think you could rule them.”

Samantha smiled at the analogy. “I guess that’s a good way to put it. So in this matter that seemed to somehow involve magic, the gifted decided among themselves that Aunt Martha and her husband, since he was gifted too, would go look into what was happening in Kharga Trace, what this Hedge Maid really was, and what she might be up to back in that swamp.

“Last fall, when the water level was at its lowest, Aunt Martha and her husband set out for the Trace to look into it.”

“And they never came back,” Richard guessed when she brooded silence for a moment.

Samantha confirmed his suspicion with a shake of her head. “Our people searched, but my aunt and uncle were never found. The wilderness of the Dark Lands is vast so they couldn’t search everywhere, of course. More than that, though, people were afraid to go too far into the uncharted depths of the dark swamp of Kharga Trace.

“Then, this past spring, someone found their remains when the overflow of spring waters washed them out of the swamp.”

Richard knew that there couldn’t have been much left of the bodies. He tried to ask a gruesome question as gently as possible.

“After all that time, being out in the swamp and all, how could you be sure it was them?”

Samantha lifted a hand in a forlorn gesture. “My mother identified their bones. She said that the bones carried the telltale trace of the Grace—of the gift—and she recognized it as that of her sister.”

Samantha stared at her hands nested in her lap. “She also said that she could read in the bones that they had died a violent death. She said they had been murdered.”

Richard wondered if it was true that a gifted person could actually tell such things from bones, or if it had been grief speaking, trying to find blame. He didn’t know enough about the gift to know the answer to that question.

He did know, though, that the Dark Lands were a dangerous place, and Kharga Trace certainly more so. He had been warned about going into the Dark Lands by soldiers who grew up in that mysterious part of D’Hara. Given everything he knew, not only of the warnings he had heard, but his own experience, it was not at all unreasonable to believe that Samantha’s aunt and uncle had been murdered.

“Not long after,” Samantha said, “my other gifted aunt, Aunt Millicent, and her husband Gyles, were taken away by soldiers from the abbey.”

Richard frowned in surprise. “The abbey?”

“Yes, it’s a distant place off somewhere near the city of Saavedra. It’s run by Abbot Dreier. It’s a place that has something to do with collecting prophecy for Hannis Arc, who rules Fajin Province from his citadel in Saavedra.”

“What do you know about this place, this abbey?”

“Not much at all, really, other than that they collect prophecy, like I told you. I’m not sure anyone knows much about it. No one likes to talk about the abbey, or the citadel.”

Richard knew Abbot Ludwig Dreier, but he didn’t say so. Ludwig Dreier had stirred up trouble about prophecy at the People’s Palace. He had, in fact, turned a number of lands away from their alliance with the D’Haran Empire in favor of throwing their lot in with Hannis Arc, who promised to share prophecy with them, and reveal its secrets.

“Any idea why they would pick out your aunt and uncle to go to the abbey?” he asked.

Samantha idly rubbed the edge of the chair. “I don’t know, for sure. But Uncle Gyles was the one I told you about who claimed to have a bit of the gift for prophecy. Maybe that had something to do with it. Maybe they wanted him to speak of what prophecy says about our future.

“All I know for sure is that soldiers showed up and said that Aunt Millicent and Uncle Gyles had to go with them. The soldiers said that because they were gifted, they had been chosen to go to the abbey to help with prophecy. They said that it was for the good of the people of Fajin Province, that prophecy belonged to all the people.”

“And they never returned after helping with prophecy?”

By the way Samantha looked down as she shook her head, Richard got the point that no one ever returned from the abbey. He wondered why.

“That left my mother as the only gifted person left in Stroyza.”