The Mirror of Fate Read Online Free Page B

. .” Her voice fell to a bare whisper. “What I wanted to tell you.”
    “So will you tell me now?”
    “No,” she declared, determined to stay on the subject. “Listen, now. Do you honestly think you have no more say in your future than the acorn that’s destined to become an oak tree? That couldn’t possibly become an ash or a maple, no matter how hard it tries?”
    Glumly, I scraped the muddy bank with the heel of my boot. “So it seems.”
    “But you have your own magic, too! What I said about the outer powers is true—but they couldn’t be used by us at all if we didn’t have our own powers, our own magic, within. And you, young hawk, have an amazing ability to tap into the greater magic. To receive it, concentrate it, and bend it to your will. I see it in you all the time, as clear as a face in a reflecting pool.”
    “Maybe the reflection you see is yours, not mine.”
    She shook her head, so vigorously that her auburn braid flew over her shoulder, brushing against my ear. “Without your inner magic, you couldn’t have healed the ballymag the way you did.”
    “But was I really using my own magic, and my own choices, to heal him? Or was I merely following my destiny, plodding through a scene in a story written by someone else, long ago?” My fingers drummed against the silver hilt of the weapon at my side. “Even this sword is part of my destiny. That’s what I was told, by the great spirit Dagda himself. He commanded me to keep it safe, for someday I will deliver it to a great, though tragic, king—a king so powerful that he will pull it free from a scabbard of stone.” I paused, trying to remember how Dagda had described him. A king whose reign shall thrive in the heart long after it has withered on the land.
    Hallia raised a skeptical eyebrow. “A destiny foretold be not a destiny lived.”
    “Is that one of your people’s old proverbs?”
    “ Mmm, not so old. It was my father who first said it. He thought a lot about such things.” She nudged me hard enough that my shoulder bumped a branch, knocking loose some leaves. “Like someone else.”
    I grinned, glancing at my staff leaning against a rounded stone at the stream’s edge. Water slapped the shaft, moistening the seven symbols engraved along its length, making them gleam darkly. “The more I think about things—destiny or anything else—the less I really know.”
    Suddenly Hallia laughed. “My father said the same thing! More times than I could count.”
    I gave her a nudge of my own. “What else did he have to say?”
    “About destiny?” She thought for a moment. “Not much, though he did say something puzzling.”
    “Which was?”
    “He said, if I remember rightly, that seeking your destiny is like looking into a mirror. You see an image, however blurred, in whatever light exists at the time. But if the light ever changes, so will the image itself. And if the light ever vanishes, the mirror will be empty. That is why, he concluded, the truest mirror is . . . how did he put it? Oh yes. The truest mirror is the one that needs no light at all.”
    Bewildered, I furrowed my brow. “No light at all? What did he mean by that?”
    “No one in my clan has ever made sense of it, though many have tried. Some of the elders, I’m told, have debated it endlessly, with no result. So it’s best not to spend too much time pondering. It could have been merely a jest, or a play on words. My father knew much, but he also loved to play tricks on people.”
    I nodded, still wondering about the curious pronouncement. It could well have been a jest. But what if it really held some meaning after all? Evidently the elders believed it did, or they wouldn’t have wasted so much time trying to understand it. Perhaps someone, someday, would succeed. Perhaps . . . even me. For a moment I savored that thought—a lovely one, indeed. I, Merlin, might be the one to shed light on the old mystery. And on many other mysteries as well.
    A sudden