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CLEARSIGHT
When she broke the news to Darkstalker, he responded pretty much exactly how she expected he would.
"Alright, let's kill her."
"Darkstalker, wait." Clearsight looked anxiously at the door to Darkstalker's room, then back to him. "Firstly," she said in a hushed voice, "don't say that kind of thing here in the palace. Don't you know how hard Keen Eye is breathing down your neck?"
Darkstalker pinned his ears. "Right, sorry." In a slightly louder voice, he said, "I wasn't being serious, Clearsight. You know I would never kill anyone."
Clearsight rolled her eyes. The damage might have already been done: she was getting visions of a rather irate Keen Eye knocking on their door in the near future. "Look," she said, keeping quiet. "I know what I said. But you need to realize how serious this is."
"Of course I realize," Darkstalker said, lowering his own voice now. "This is worse than I ever thought it would get. If we don't do anything—"
"—There are stakes involved with removing Queen Vigilance too," Clearsight said. "Vigilance's oldest daughter, Acuity, would take her place, and the first thing she would do as queen is find out who killed Vigilance and have them executed."
"Then we'll have you become queen instead of Acuity. You did in the last timeline, didn't you?"
"Last time, I was able to convince Acuity to give her crown to me," she said, now nearly whispering. "I won't be able to do that this time. I don't have the influence. Even if all of the queen's heirs died along with her, I'd have no claim to the throne."
Darkstalker huffed out a cloud of smoke through his nostrils. "Well, we can't just do nothing," he said.
"I know," Clearsight said. "I know what can happen if Queen Vigilance gets her way, but … I'm not sure, Darkstalker."
"Well, I am," he said, his eyes swimming with worry and anger.
"Darkstalker," Clearsight whispered.
"Look, it was bad enough to have my mother's life on the line. I don't know if I can live without her, Clearsight." He lifted a talon, brushing his claws beneath her cheek. "But I do know that I can't live without you. I can't allow her to put you in danger too."
Clearsight closed her eyes, leaning into Darkstalker's talon. She hated being scared. She hated when none of her options were good ones. She hated when her future sight just wasn't enough, because she simply didn't have enough power or control over her situation. And she hated that Darkstalker really might be right this time.
A loud knock came from the door, causing both of them to stiffen up.
"That's Keen Eye," Clearsight whispered.
"Should we let her in?" Darkstalker asked.
Keen Eye knocked again. "Clearsight! Open this door!"
"How does she know you're here? This is my room," Darkstalker whispered.
"We have to open up," Clearsight said, her heart pounding. "It'll be a lot worse for us if we don't."
Darkstalker hesitantly nodded, then gestured towards the door.
When Clearsight opened it up, Keen Eye stormed inside. "What happened?" she shouted, closing the door behind her. There were scrolls in her talon, which were half-crumpled by her grip.
"Wh-what do you mean?" Clearsight asked.
"I mean, what in the shining moons happened to have caused these to pop up?" She shook the scrolls in her talon. "This past hour, there have been no fewer than three distinct prophecies uttered by our seers, all of which forecast Queen Vigilance's mortal peril, all of which point to Darkstalker." She unrolled one of the scrolls. "This one is Allknowing's: 'Out from the shadows a dragon is coming, whose vengeance is flaring like fire. This dragon is breaking Your Majesty's trust, and the dynasty's future is dire.'" She unrolled a second scroll. "Here's another one by Eon: 'Beware the council, foe and friend. Beware: mistrust will soon ascend. Beware how ice and shadow blend: It spells a loyal, royal end.'" She glared up at Darkstalker. "I won't bother telling you the one I ended up receiving, but let's just say it doesn't make you look good."
"I don't care what the court poets have been saying; I am not planning on killing the queen!" Darkstalker insisted.
"You know, I might actually believe that," Keen Eye said. "But whatever the case, these prophecies have sent Queen Vigilance into a paranoid frenzy. Consider yourself lucky that I managed to talk her out of immediately sending an assassin after you. I asked her to let me get to the bottom of this first, and that's exactly what I intend to do. Now please, tell me: what happened? What's going to happen? Clearsight should know more about this than anyone else, and you two seem to be sharing information that I, frankly, should be knowing about too." She shot a glare at Clearsight with that last remark.
One skill that Clearsight had never managed to pick up when she was queen was how to lie effectively. If she wanted to keep secrets, she kept her mouth shut. Her mind couldn't think fast enough to come up with convincing lies on the spot. Just last winter, Darkstalker had brought her into a store for dragons aged seven and up. Clearsight was only five at the time, but she could have passed as a short seven-year-old. She managed to say 'seven' when the store owner had asked her how old she was, but when he had asked her the year in which she hatched, she blanked, thought for a second, then apologized for her dishonesty and left.
So she wasn't going to be able to lie to Keen Eye, and she knew it'd be a bad idea to even try. But perhaps she could get away with only sharing the truths she was willing to share.
"Queen Vigilance gave me new orders earlier tonight," she said. "I am to lead an army into battle against the IceWing fortress in Shooting Star Valley."
Keen Eye blinked, and the ridges of her eyes made a subtle upward shift. She went from looking deeply irritated to deeply confused. "That sounds like an utterly terrible idea."
"That's not all," Clearsight said. "Foeslayer has another mission ahead of her. And if I fulfill the queen's orders, I won't be around to help her prepare."
Keen Eye closed her eyes, wincing. "That makes more sense," she said quietly. Opening her eyes with a sigh, she looked at Clearsight. "I assume you two have figured out that the queen has ulterior motives for assigning Foeslayer on these directives?"
Darkstalker tilted his head. "Wait, you knew?"
"I've been piecing things together these past several weeks, thanks in part to your suggestion, Darkstalker," she said. "I do not approve of how Vigilance is treating a fellow council member, but it's usually easier to work around these obstacles than oppose them directly."
"She's trying to kill my mother," Darkstalker said. "And you're just trying to 'work around' it?"
"Queen Vigilance is more or less trying to make Foeslayer as useful to the kingdom as possible," Keen Eye explained. "She's choosing Foeslayer's directives so that if she succeeds, she's doing tremendous good for the Night Kingdom. It would be much more convenient for Queen Vigilance if Foeslayer got killed, but I don't think she actually cares. I, on the other talon, would like to keep her alive."
"It's going to be more difficult to do that if I'm not around," Clearsight said.
"So your plan is to do what, ignore her orders? To kill her before she kills you for disobedience?"
"For the last time, we are not trying to kill the queen," Darkstalker said.
"Well just in case you're lying, let me remind you why it would be an absolutely terrible idea to try doing it. You're an animus. If you killed the queen, then even if you eliminated every trace of evidence of your involvement, the entire kingdom would be reminded of what happened to Queen Lagoon and declare you a murderer. And given the relationship you have with Clearsight, she might get implicated as well. If you care anything about yourself and Clearsight, you'll stay far away from any plots to murder the queen, and you'll definitely not be stupid enough to orchestrate such a plot yourself."
Clearsight tried to validate what Keen Eye was saying by checking the future, but the threads were hard to read. She still saw a number of futures where the queen was dead. In some of them, Keen Eye was perfectly accurate and Darkstalker was dead too. In others, Keen Eye was spectacularly wrong and Darkstalker, somehow or other, got away with it.
As for whether or not she would be implicated along with Darkstalker, she simply had no way of telling. It was suddenly impossible to find a thread where Darkstalker was willing to actually work with Clearsight. Thanks to Keen Eye's warning, if Darkstalker did kill the queen, he would make sure Clearsight had absolutely no part in it.
"Well, since you and I supposedly have the same interest in keeping my mother alive," said Darkstalker, breaking Clearsight's focus, "what do you suggest we do? Clearsight still has yet to find a future where everyone lives."
"Maybe we haven't tried hard enough to make one," Keen Eye said. "Foeslayer is still here. Clearsight is still here. I think we can work something out. Clearsight, can you figure out what Foeslayer's next mission is going to be?"
"I already have," she said. "It'll be some sort of sabotage mission. A few days prior to the battle, she'll infiltrate the Shooting Star Valley fortress and destroy as much of their supplies as she can."
Keen Eye folded her brow, thinking. "Yeah, without you around, that's basically a suicide mission."
"And I still have my own suicide mission to worry about," Clearsight grumbled.
"We'll have to discuss this more in the next council meeting," Keen Eye said. "Clearsight, when are you going to get more information about the attack Vigilance wants you to execute?"
"Tomorrow," she said. "I'll be meeting with her in the war room."
"Good. Take very thorough notes. Whether you want to or not, I think you're going to have to fight this battle. But given that it's you we're dealing with here, I think you'll be okay."
Clearsight really didn't want to hear those words. She'd managed to go through all of those risks in the previous timelines, mostly because it wasn't her life on the line. If things went too far astray, she always had the chance to reset everything.
But not this time. This time, if things went too far astray, that would be it. She wouldn't be able to use the watch if she was a corpse on the battlefield.
"Darkstalker," Keen Eye said, "if the queen changes her mind about whether or not you're a threat to her, there will be no trial. Don't expect to be captured and arrested, or thrown in a dungeon. Expect to be assassinated. She doesn't intend to give you any time to use your magic to prepare something against her."
"Understood," Darkstalker said.
"And don't kill the queen," Keen Eye reiterated. "Animus or not, I'll make sure you don't get away with it if you do."
"I won't," he insisted. "But for what it's worth, you don't exactly seem to be a big fan of hers. Why would you care if I did kill her?"
Keen Eye gave him a suspicious leer.
"Which I won't do!" Darkstalker repeated. "Shining moons, and dragons call me a drama queen."
"I care about the stability of our kingdom," Keen Eye said. "The more stable it is, the more capable all of us are of making it a better place. If you kill Queen Vigilance, everything falls into chaos, which makes my job a lot harder. Queen Vigilance might be rash, but right now, working around that rashness is a better option than burning it all to the ground."
"And what should I do if she decides to have me killed?"
"I will let you know if it comes to that. You'll have to leave the palace. You'll probably have to fake your own death, or make a new identity with that magic of yours. It won't involve you killing the queen."
Darkstalker simply rolled his eyes.
"I need to get back to the queen before her other seers talk her into doing something stupid," Keen Eye said, starting towards the door. "Well, stupider. We'll talk about this more tomorrow, Clearsight."
Keen Eye left, shutting the door behind her.
"My opinion on her is starting to solidify, I think," Darkstalker said to Clearsight.
Clearsight sighed, and rubbed her temples. "Well, whether you like her or not, she's important. And not someone you want to be your enemy." She rose to her feet. "I need to study the futures. We can talk more later."
"Are you actually going to do this battle?" Darkstalker asked.
"I don't know. I don't want to, but refusing an order from the queen has never really been an option in the past."
The fear and sadness in Darkstalker's eyes was hard to witness. She wanted to assure him that she would be fine, that she wasn't going to be stupid enough to get herself killed in battle. But there were gaps in the timelines ahead of her that forbade her from saying that with complete honesty.
She said it anyway. "I'll be okay, Darkstalker. If I kept Foeslayer alive for this long, then I can keep myself alive too."
After a brief nuzzle with Darkstalker, Clearsight left the room and made her way to the library to study.
When she took the time to zero in on the details of the futures she saw, there were a couple of things she spotted that proved hopeful. It seemed clear that she was going to have a large army at her command — perhaps an irresponsibly large army. Hundreds upon hundreds of NightWings would be following her, more than half of the entire body of soldiers.
And she was starting to see the end of the battle in more and more of the futures that she studied, though the outcome varied significantly with every thread. In some, she actually led the troops to a decisive victory. In others, she led the troops right into a trap that got almost all of them killed.
In about half of the futures where she saw battle, she got hurt. In about a third of those futures, she got permanently maimed. In one future, half of the army deserted before battle. In another future, she led the troops so effectively that they begged her to continue leading them for the remainder of the war. In yet another future, the soldiers mutinied and installed their own commander.
But she still couldn't tell which decisions led to which futures. There were simply too many to make between now and the eve of the battle.
Nothing enlightening emerged from the follow-up meeting Clearsight had with Vigilance and her generals, but Clearsight still did as Keen Eye had requested and took extensive notes. The battle was going to take place in two weeks, and Clearsight was going to leave the palace to join the army in five days.
The fortress was not so much a castle or a wooden fort as much as it was a cave in the cliffside of the Shooting Star Valley. A heavy wooden gate blocked the entrance, which would need to be breached before the fortress could be taken. To do this, they would use a new stone throwing device that the inventors called an "onager." It used durable rope and reinforced wooden beams to create a throwing arm that withstood extreme tension. When the arm was loaded with a heavy rock, the contraption could throw it with the strength of a hundred dragons. A few well-aimed throws would break down the door and force the IceWings to fight.
Once the door was breached, the NightWings would then have to break through the IceWing forces at the entrance. Because of the narrow passage here, the NightWings would not be able to use their numerical superiority to their advantage. In one-on-one combat, IceWings generally had the advantage over NightWings, so NightWings were expected to face heavy losses during this stage of the attack. But once it was completed, if they made it into the heart of the fortification, they wouldn't be far from victory.
According to cave maps of the Shooting Star Valley, the cave opened up to a huge cavity in the mountain, large enough for dragons to fly in. This part of the cave would be incredibly dark, even with torches alight at the surface, and NightWings would be almost impossible to see, especially for IceWings. The NightWings would pour in, slaughter the remaining IceWings until they surrendered, and conquer the last IceWing fortification south of the mountains.
The plan was solid, all things considered, but it required a lot of things to go right. The onager would need to work properly without breaking, which wasn't a guarantee. The IceWings would need to put up inadequate resistance when they breached the gate, which didn't seem particularly likely without more careful planning. And the IceWings needed to mostly be caught off-guard for the attack to be a success. But the futures were already suggesting that they were underestimating the total size of the IceWing levy that would be waiting for them in Shooting Star Valley.
Vigilance let Clearsight leave the fine-tuning of the battle plan to her and her council, but the date, time, and primary method of assault were now set in stone.
General Blackhorn was at the war meeting with Clearsight, and he helped her relay all of the information to the rest of the council members when they met later that day. Evenfall, Charcoal, and Foeslayer were all hearing this for the first time. None of them looked very happy.
"This is a crisis, I hope you all know that," Keen Eye said calmly. "We're all going to need to tread very carefully moving forward."
"Of course," Foeslayer said, nodding.
"I … I know it's a little bit legally questionable to ask this," Evenfall said, fidgeting with her talons, "but should we … obey this order?"
"Unfortunately, the consequences of disobeying an order are no less dire for Clearsight than they have been for Foeslayer," Keen Eye said. "If she refuses, Queen Vigilance will find out, and Clearsight's life will be on the line. We cannot let Clearsight die."
"I mean … I know I'm not a field logistics expert, but Clearsight's chances don't seem very high in the battlefield either." Evenfall looked timidly at Clearsight and said, "No offense, Clearsight."
"Do you have any fighting experience of any kind?" Blackhorn asked. "At all? Even if it's one-on-one fighting, or a tussle you had at school, it might help."
Clearsight remembered the fight she'd had with Darkstalker in the previous timeline before using her watch. "A little, I guess," she said.
Blackhorn leaned forward a little. "And?"
Oh, that was a mistake. Why couldn't she just say no? Flustered, she tried to come up with an appropriate way to frame what had happened. "Well, uh, Darkstalker and I, um … One night, he — we had—"
"—No, no, no, no! That doesn't count!" Blackhorn said, raising his talons in a gesture for her to stop. "Any actual fighting experience?"
The embarrassed look on everyone's faces, especially Foeslayer's, desperately made Clearsight want to clarify what she had meant. But she counted her blessings and held her tongue. "Not really," she said quietly.
Blackhorn let out a small sigh. "I feared as much," he said, leaning back in his seat cushion. "You're not hopeless, but this is difficult."
"I'm not particularly worried about Clearsight," Keen Eye said. "She's a seer: she can take care of herself. I doubt she's stupid enough to be somewhere that would get her killed. The issue isn't Clearsight. It's Foeslayer, just as it has always been."
Foeslayer tilted her head at Keen Eye. "What?"
"You're going to be receiving new orders from the queen soon enough," Keen Eye said. "And guess who's not going to be around to help you prepare this time?"
Foeslayer darted her eyes at Clearsight. "Oh."
"Foeslayer, I was going to wait before telling you this for your own protection," Keen Eye continued, "but I think it's dire that you understand the context of what's happening. Queen Vigilance has been … trying to get rid of you. All of these little operations and directives that she's been sending you on have been in the secret hope that you would get killed. Queen Vigilance wants peace, but Queen Diamond won't be willing to negotiate it until you're dead."
Clearsight frowned. Keen Eye had been a little bit more generous regarding the Queen's intentions when she had explained them to Darkstalker, but perhaps that was for the best.
"Are … are you sure?" Foeslayer asked.
"I wouldn't tell you this if I wasn't. My spies managed to intercept a letter from Queen Diamond confirming that she and Vigilance are working together to get rid of you."
"Well," Foeslayer said, swallowing nervously, "okay then."
"Fortunately for us, you and Clearsight are still here. I was hoping we could figure something out, like we've always done."
"You're going to be doing a sabotage operation before the attack on the fortress," Clearsight said to Foeslayer. "In order to survive it, your platoon will have to sneak into the fortress, destroy their supplies, and sneak out, all without being seen."
"Well, I have to give props to the queen's creativity," Charcoal said. "There are only so many different ways to put a dragon in extreme danger without outright trying to kill them, but she seems to be finding them all."
"Isn't the fortress sealed from the inside?" asked Evenfall. "The only way in or out is through the gate. How is Foeslayer supposed to get through?"
"Well, the walls in the cave are climbable," Clearsight said. "It'd be difficult, but Foeslayer and her team could sneak in from above when it's dark out and the IceWings can't see her. What I'm still not sure about is how she's supposed to get out after doing the sabotage. The IceWings won't let the gate back open once they realize someone's inside. But I don't see how Foeslayer and her team can get in, destroy their resources, and get out before any of the IceWings realize something happened."
"That sounds at least doable," Foeslayer said. "If we can find ways of destroying their supplies discreetly, they may not realize that they've been compromised until someone tries using them. That could give us enough time to get out."
"That might be true in any other fortification, but not this one," Clearsight said. "Their supplies are carefully guarded and constantly used. And the gate only opens a couple times each night. You just don't have any opportunities to escape."
"Maybe she can make them," Keen Eye suggested. "Foeslayer's team can distract or kill some of the guards. They can open the gate from the inside by finding the hatch."
Clearsight shook her head. "They might be able to distract the guards, but the gate requires two dragons to open, and there are gatekeepers on duty at all times."
"I could just wait and hide," Foeslayer suggested. "I still have the ring that turns me invisible, so if I can't get out, then I'll just stay in."
That was an idea that Clearsight hadn't yet considered. She strained her brain to see what the outcome would be. "You might survive," she said. "But you would have to be prepared to wait several days for your chance to escape. And anyone else you bring along with you will get captured, and probably tortured and killed."
"Alright, then we'll make it a solo mission," said Keen Eye. "Foeslayer may not be able to do as much by herself, but what matters more is her survival."
Clearsight frowned. "Well … I suppose if the queen allows it. And if Foeslayer is willing to do it."
"If it gives you any chance at winning the battle, I'd gladly do it," Foeslayer said.
"What do your futures say about the battle?" Blackhorn asked. "I know we've been assuming that it won't go well, but is it actually that bleak?"
"It's hard to say," Clearsight said. "In some futures we win, but it's hard to see how I'm supposed to get to them."
"Having led armies before myself, I'd guess that the main decider will be how you handle your role as commander," he instructed. "If you inspire your troops to fight valiantly under your lead, they'll give you a victory. But they won't offer their bravery and confidence to someone who isn't themselves brave and confident, and you aren't always either of those things."
"Well, if anybody has reason to be confident, it'd be Clearsight," Foeslayer said. "She knows how things can turn out. And the closer we get to the battle, the more she'll know about how to win."
"The problem is balancing it with the risk involved," Blackhorn said. "I'm quite confident that there's no way for us to win this without Clearsight putting her life on the line. She's going to need to be there on the front lines, actually leading the troops, if she wants any chance at victory. If she doesn't do that, then the soldiers won't have any guidance in the midst of battle, and they'll lose."
"Clearsight's safety is more important than winning the battle," Keen Eye said. "We can't have her risking her life for this."
"We can't dismiss the idea outright," Blackhorn argued. "Hundreds of NightWings can die if we don't try to win this."
"And thousands of NightWings will die if Clearsight is killed. I've seen visions of what the Night Kingdom is like without her, and it's not pretty. We can survive losing this battle, but we cannot survive losing Clearsight."
Blackhorn frowned. "Why don't we ask Clearsight what she thinks?"
Silence filled the room, and everyone's eyes fell on Clearsight. She shrank a little in her seat, not immediately sure what her answer should be.
Blackhorn was definitely right about one thing: if she ordered the soldiers to fight without her, they would lose. Clearsight realized that pattern clear as day now that it was pointed out to her. The only way for them to win was for her to be there with them.
It felt like the right thing to do was to fight. She hated the idea of going through with a plan that sent hundreds of NightWings to their doom.
But Blackhorn was also right about another thing: Clearsight was not always brave or confident. And she was feeling neither of those things right now.
"I don't want to be a coward," Clearsight said, "but I'm not ready to fight. I don't know what the future holds if I'm not in it, but I do know that I don't want to die."
Blackhorn nodded. "I understand," he said. "In that case, I'll spend the day making some battle plans that focus on minimizing damages. If we know we're going to lose, we may as well lose as painlessly as possible."
"That would be great," Keen Eye said. "And don't feel like a coward, Clearsight. Nobody with your level of experience should be expected to be in the front lines of battle."
Despite Keen Eye's assurance, Clearsight left the meeting feeling horribly at odds with herself. She knew that it would be stupid to put herself in serious danger, to risk dying for the sake of winning a battle that they really didn't need to win. But still, she saw the futures where they won. She knew that they were there, waiting for her. How was she supposed to throw them away because she was afraid of doing something dangerous?
It had taken some time to admit it, but Clearsight really had enjoyed being queen. She liked to think that she was pretty good at it. But if she was going to take her first real opportunity in this timeline at being a leader and throw it away because of her cowardice, maybe she wasn't as good as she thought she was.
It brought her some comfort knowing she still had another two weeks to make up her mind. But she wasn't sure if those two weeks were going to be agonizingly long, or if they'd be over before she knew it.
A/N: Hi everyone! Hope you've been well.
I think I'm starting to accept the fact that this story is starting to become more difficult to write than it used to. This isn't for personal reasons or anything: I think it's just something that naturally happens as stories mature. There's more for me to keep track of, and more care that needs to be put in the directions I choose to go, and the pacing I choose to set.
I hope to get one more chapter published before November 1st, but given that that's less than two weeks away and I've failed to maintain the biweekly schedule that I wanted to maintain, I don't trust myself to make any promises that I can keep. In the event that I don't upload the next chapter by November 1st, I'm afraid you're probably going to have to wait until at least December 1st before you see it. I intend on doing NaNoWriMo this year, and my focus will be on building a larger backlog of chapters for this story so that I can update the story a bit more routinely during the following months. If any of you are fellow authors and plan on doing NaNoWriMo as well, I encourage you to add me as a buddy on the website. My username is "Arbitrary Renaissance."
Cheers, and I'll see you all in the next update!
