Free The Gift of Battle by Morgan Rice Page A

before him,
to think an independent thought for herself.
    Gwen forced
herself to clear her mind, to focus on the business at hand.
    “Your King needs
you,” she said. “The Ridge needs you.”
    He laughed.
    “ My King?” he echoed with disdain.
    Gwen forced
herself to press on.
    “He believes you
know how to save the Ridge. He believes you are holding a secret from him, one
that could save this place and all of these people.”
    “I am,” he
replied flatly.
    Gwen was taken
aback at his immediate, frank reply, and hardly knew what to say. She had expected
him to deny it.
    “You are ?”
she asked, flabbergasted.
    He smiled but
said nothing.
    “But why?” she
asked. “Why won’t you share this secret?”
    “And why should
I do that?” he asked
    “ Why? ”
she asked, stumped. “Of course, to save this kingdom, to save his people.”
    “And why would I
want to do that?” he pressed.
    Gwen narrowed
her eyes, confused; she had no idea how to respond. Finally, he sighed.
    “Your problem,”
he said, “is that you believe everyone is meant to be saved. But that is where
you are wrong. You look at time in the lens of mere decades; I view it in terms
of centuries. You look at people as indispensable; I view them as mere cogs in
the great wheel of destiny and time.”
    He took a step
closer, his eyes searing.
    “Some people,
Gwendolyn, are meant to die. Some people need to die.”
    “ Need to
die?” she asked, horrified.
    “Some must die
to set others free,” he said. “Some must fall so that others may rise. What
makes one person more important than another? One place more important than
another?”
    She pondered his
words, increasingly confused.
    “Without
destruction, without waste, growth could not follow. Without the empty sands of
the desert, there can be no foundation on which to build the great cities. What
matters more: the destruction, or the growth to follow? Don’t you understand?
What is destruction but a foundation?”
    Gwen, confused,
tried to understand, but his words only deepened her confusion.
    “Then are you
going to stand by and let the Ridge and its people die?” she asked. “Why? How
would that benefit you?”
    He laughed.
    “Why should
everything always be for a benefit?” he asked. “I won’t save them because they
are not meant to be saved,” he said emphatically. “This place, this
Ridge, it is not meant to survive. It is meant to be destroyed. This King is
meant to be destroyed. All these people are meant to be destroyed. And it is
not for me to stand in the way of destiny. I have been granted the gift to see
the future—but that is a gift I shall not abuse. I shall not change what I see.
Who am I to stand in the way of destiny?”
    Gwendolyn could
not help but think of Thorgrin, of Guwayne.
    Eldof smiled
wide.
    “Ah yes,” he
said, looking right at her. “Your husband. Your son.”
    Gwen looked
back, shocked, wondering how he’d read her mind.
    “You want to
help them so badly,” he added, then shook his head. “But sometimes you cannot
change destiny.”
    She reddened and
shook off his words, determined.
    “I will change destiny,” she said emphatically. “Whatever it takes. Even if I have to
give up my very own soul.”
    Eldof looked at
her long and hard, studying her.
    “Yes,” he said.
“You will, won’t you? I can see that strength in you. A warrior’s spirit.”
    He examined her,
and for the first time she saw a bit of certainty in his expression.
    “I did not
expect to find this within you,” he continued, his voice humbled. “There are a
select few, like yourself, who do have the power to change destiny. But the
price you will pay is very great.”
    He sighed, as if
shaking off a vision.
    “In any case,”
he continued, “you will not change destiny here—not in the Ridge. Death is
coming here. What they need is not a rescue—but an exodus. They need a new
leader, to lead them across the Great Waste. I think you already know that you
are