Marine stared out the window. She wondered what Reaver and Sparrow were doing.
She's probably hating it. Oh Sparrow, was it worth the pride? Marine thought to herself.
Bill was at the pub. The kids were asleep in their beds. Marine was in the tower. She saw the place where Lucien had shot Sparrow and Rose. It was a stone platform. With a start she recognised the Heroes' Guild seal carved into it.
"I see. This was a place where bloodlines were checked and double-checked. "If I stand on it, what will happen?" she wondered. She took slow, tentative steps towards the platform. Then she stopped. "But what if it backfires?" she asked. She shrugged. "Can't hurt to try."
She stepped onto the platform. Instantly, the thing lit up with a blue glow.
"I've got Hero blood in me!" she gasped. "I have to find Theresa."
She ran down the steps to the carriage house and hopped onto a carriage heading to Westcliff. Within hours she was on a boat to the Spire.
She walked into the glowing light.
"Theresa," she said.
"Marine," Theresa acknowledged her.
"Theresa, I have Hero blood," Marine ventured.
"Ah." Theresa's breath caught in her throat.
"So, I have found another descendant of my brother's," she said calmly.
"Your brother?" "The Hero of Oakvale. Jack of Blades attacked Oakvale and took my eyes out. My brother helped rebuild Oakvale, and after that he became the greatest Hero ever at the time." Theresa said tonelessly.
"And then Reaver destroyed it all…" Marine said quietly. "Yes. But if he had not, Sparrow would not have made up her mind to launch a full-scale attack on the place and start rebuilding it."
"But she hasn't."
"It's forming in her mind."
"That must feel good."
"Very. She's starting by finding Reaver another way for his immortality. I believe there was a pirate captain aged seventy who drank some kind of potion that Leo Head made, and it made him young again. I have the blueprints for the potion. I'll give them to Sparrow when she's ready."
"Is it helpful, seeing all possible futures?"
"Oh yes. And knowing that a certain nudge can help them come true feels good too."
"Some people thought that you were evil."
"Have you ever read The Immortalists?"
"Yes."
"I am an immortal, descended from the first Archon. People like me are drawn to objects of great power, like the Tattered Spire. Either for evil purposes or good, what they choose affects all. I chose to aid a girl in her revenge against a man whose mind had been turning against him," Theresa explained. Marine nodded.
"When she bought me from the trader, I was younger than the age that she had been when Rose died," she said quietly.
"Sparrow saw you and in that instant she saw all your possible futures. She wanted you to live a strong life of friendship, not waste it away as whatever you might have been. She wanted you to have the life she had wanted. Do you know, she would have followed Rose anywhere?"
"Really?"
"Anywhere. She would have denied magic for her sister, despite her own strong belief in it. She would have given up her food for her sister. She would have followed Rose to Oakfield and back. Or perhaps they might have ended up in Bloodstone, under Reaver's eyes, had Rose accepted Arfur's proposal. That would have been some turn of events. Also, did you know that until she found you she rarely spoke? Occasional grunts here and there, yes, but never stringent sentences. She found a friend in you, Marine."
Marine smiled. "No wonder I could equal Sparrow at whatever she did."
"I always wondered why you could survive the leaps she could. I should have realised you had Hero blood," Theresa berated herself.
"How do I unlock my Will powers?" asked Marine excitedly.
"Go to the Chamber of Fate," Theresa replied.
Marine threw her arms around her Ancestress and ran to the boat.
In a few hours I'll be shooting away at Hollow Men with some lightning, she thought excitedly.