"Rebecca Neason - 13th Scroll 02 - The Truest Power" - читать интересную книгу автора (Neason Rebecca)

Eiddig, Talog, and the others. They put their lives in jeopardy for your safety. Will you tell
them by your actions that all their efforts, all the sacrifices of those who died in the battle
with Aurya’s and Giraldus’s soldiers—defending you—was for nothing? Surely you’re not
that much of a coward.”
“I am a coward,” Selia said sharply. “I’m afraid to leave here, to go to Ballinrigh, to see
all those people who might be suffering just as you said. And I’m afraid to be Queen.
What if I’m no good at it, and the people suffer more because of me?”
There, Lysandra thought as she watched the cloud of self-deception lift from Selia’s
aura. Now the real reason is out, and we can deal with it.
“Selia,” she said aloud, “sit down and listen to me.”
Reluctantly, the younger woman again came to the table. Once she was seated,
Lysandra took her hands, again remembering how often her mother had sat in such a way
with her. The circle now completed as she gave the comfort she had once received.
“Fear of the unknown does not make you a coward— unless you let it keep you from
moving forward. And fear of failure can be what spurs us to our greatest efforts. But both
are a choice, made every day. You’re not a child to think Me is all one way, always only
good or bad. Every day and many times within each day, we are faced with the choice to
go one way or the other, to add success to success or failure to failure—or to turn our
failure into success.”
“But—” Selia began.
Lysandra shook her head to stop her from continuing. “You have a great gift within
you,” she said, “a Divinely ordered gift. You are the Font of Wisdom. You know it, as do I,
Renan, the Cryf—even Aurya and Giraldus. To leave that gift languishing here in
obscurity would be more than a shame... and that, too, you know. It would be living a lie,
and that is the ultimate failure.”
Slowly, through the link of their touch, Lysandra now reached her mind for Selia’s.
Their minds united, as they had before, as they ever would. Truth met Wisdom in that
place beyond words. Despite what Selia had said earlier, she was not a coward—nor could
she turn away from prophecy delivered on the wings of Truth.
Lysandra’s Sight suddenly gazed into the future that might yet be, and at the fork in
the road upon which their destination relied. Through that gaze of prophetic Sight,
Lysandra showed it all to Selia: if they stayed here, as she said she wanted, death
awaited. Not for them—not yet—but for countless others. Soldiers dying in battle; famines
torn apart by war, children trampled beneath heedless, galloping hooves; mothers and
sisters raped, fathers killed; all of Aghamore’s Provinces turned into one, blood-soaked
killing field...
This was civil war. But its aftermath was no less terrible. It mattered not who won the
war; even with Giraldus and Aurya gone, this kingdom would become a place of Darkness.
The scars upon the landscape would be as nothing compared to the wounds on the hearts
and lives of the people—and they would not heal for many generations.
And there was the other road, the one that led them now to Ballinrigh. It, too, was
filled with danger—to them and to this kingdom—but the distant end was far different.
Lysandra could not see its end clearly; the road twisted and turned, branched and
rejoined the main path again with the many choices that might still be made along the
way.
But by the single act of acceptance—of herself, her fate and purpose—by acting in faith
and going to Ballinrigh now, the Darkness that could destroy the kingdom would be
averted and Truth would have the chance to take its rightful place.
It was Selia who broke the contact with Lysandra’s mind. She withdrew her hands
from Lysandra’s grasp and stood, going over to the nearby window that looked out on the