ZYGRADON by Michelle L. Levigne

"Percus, you can lead
the way this time."
    The white-haired, gray-eyed boy jumped when she said his name, but he
grinned and bowed with a flourish of his cape, and stepped into the darkness. Starting in
the summer, Percus would be old enough to stay all spring and summer on the island.
Mrillis envied him a little. Not enough to want to leave his home in the Stronghold for
moons at a time, but enough to look forward to the time he would be old
enough.
    Mrillis walked beside Le'esha, watching her, fearing some sign that she had
come along with the boys to protect them. But the Queen of Snows chatted with the
boys around her on the short walk and seemed unconcerned. Mrillis wished his imbrose was strong enough, sensitive enough, that he could feel if she tested
the protective magic of the tunnel. He didn't have that strength of sensitivity yet, so all
he could do was watch, and hope that if the Nameless One attacked them, he would be
able to help Le'esha defend them.

Chapter Seven
    The walk went twice as swiftly as usual, and Mrillis wondered if perhaps the
magic had been augmented to compress time and distance even more. He checked the
angle of the sun when they emerged from the cave on the shore facing Wynystrys. As far
as he could tell, it was the same hour of the day they always emerged when the boys
returned for their studies. He laughed at himself when he realized he was
disappointed.
    Just as Le'esha had said, the moment the ferry reached Wynystrys, the boys had
to dash to put away their belongings in their dormitory huts and hurry to their lessons.
Mrillis looked back once and nearly ran into another boy when he thought he saw
Graddon's bald head glinting in the sunshine, just before the seer stepped into Breylon's
stone house.
    What would bring the recluse all the way from Whispering Vale in the south of
Lygroes?
    Mrillis shivered in anticipation, and knew that Le'esha had come for a meeting
with the seer and High Scholar Breylon. That was the sensible answer. If only there was a
tunnel with a bubble in the rock where he could listen in to this meeting.
    * * * *
    Both Graddon and Breylon were silent after Le'esha had told them of Mrillis'
nightmare and his sudden burst of imbrose that let him touch her mind. She
showed them the images she had taken from Mrillis' memory.
    "The Child of Blood, you think?" Graddon murmured in his rumbling, rocky
voice.
    "Son of the Nameless One, he would have to be," Breylon said, nodding. "If he
grows up. If his father doesn't succeed in killing Mrillis."
    "That is a far distant future," Le'esha said, shaking her head. "We have all seen
many prophecies proven...not false, but vague and misinterpreted. Mirroring is prevalent
in our prophecies of late. Something that we thought fulfilled long ago is fulfilled for a
second time, in a new and strange way. We are fallible mortals, my friends. If we can
intervene, this nameless boy can be turned from the destiny his father has bred him
for."
    "Intervene." Graddon nodded. "I have had a vision. Three drops of blood. A
boy and his two sisters. Two different fulfillments. Definitely a mirrored prophecy. If the
Nameless One has fathered a son and two daughters, then we must act before the vision
becomes set in stone."
    "I agree." Breylon rested his chin in his hands, his elbows planted on his
worktable. "There have been more attacks on boys heading home from Wynystrys. We
must end this threat now . It is time to go to Flintan and beard the enemy in his
den."
    "And rescue the boy," Le'esha said. "If we rescue our enemy's boy, we rescue our
boy."
    "Children," Graddon said. "Three drops of blood, shed by one father. They shall
shake the foundations of the World far more than the most deadly starshower has ever
done."
    * * * *
    Ceera waited with news, the next time Mrillis went home to the Stronghold.
Afron Warhawk had come to the Stronghold to meet with the Queen of Snows.
Graddon of Whispering Vale and High Scholar Breylon of Wynystrys had been