Page 135 of Harbinger

The oscen circles down and lands on the fountain, clicking its beak a few times.

I shake my head. “Why didn’t I know about this?”

“If the crown suspects you’re a scion, they execute you.”

That’s why Bishop is always hiding behind his gloves and uniform. “The crown knows?”

He tips his head, his mouth a flat line. “And the patron of every order. Vespers. The knights charged with hunting down rumored scions …”

Literally everyone but me.

“But if there are still immortals,” I say slowly as if I can find the answer before I finish the question, “why did the cycle finally stop?”

“No one knows. The last cycle was five hundred years ago.” His eyes flick to the trench I’ve dug. “Before the Last War, when enough scions existed, a cycle started. There was a sign—an omen, and then the fury began.”

A harbinger. The word clangs in my chest like a prison door slamming shut. That’s why Bishop brought me here. Because if I am the harbinger …

“What’s the fury?” I blurt out the question.

“The impulse to be the final scion and claim the throne. No matter the cost. Even war.”

I gulp. “The final scion? But that would mean …”

Bishop and Hadrian would be turned against each other.

He nods like he knows I’m finally catching up.

“If the cycle begins,” I ask in a quiet voice, “will you fight him?”

Hadrian closes his eyes and releases a heavy sigh. “I believe we can resist. Most don’t.”

Noble.

And so beautifully naive.

“But you’re still looking for a way to stop the cycle from coming.”

When he opens his eyes, something hollow stares back at me. “I have to believe I can.”

“And if someone attacks you?” I ask. If the cycle begins, if I’m the harbinger …

“I’ll defend myself. Try to reason with them first.”

Reasoning and swords are rarely compatible in my limited experience trying to combine the two. But I think it answers another question. “Is that what happened when you met Bishop?”

Hadrian’s mouth turns up at the corners, as if he’s recalling some memory, but he shakes his head. “That is his story to tell.”

The weight of our conversation presses down on me, the world once again descending on my shoulders. This is why Hadrian sits in the library, treating books like his friends. Why Bishop got me out of Wintour before those assassins could touch me. Why he brought me to the one place that they never can. Because I might not be the harbinger yet. He said it in the council chamber. What if my death is the real harbinger?

A cold weight settles in my gut. Is that the reason Bishop is so protective of me?

Hadrian tugs down his sleeve, and my eyes catch on the hint of a vestige peeking out. What kind of power runs in that thin vein of magic? What magic is worth taking another person’s heart to claim it for yourself?

“Do you think I’m the harbinger? Will I really bring war?” I bite my lip, already afraid of his answer.

Hadrian bends down and scoops a bulb from the basket between our feet. “Some things must come to light in their own time.” He kneels in the wet grass and places it into the trench, covering it with soil before firming the earth with his palms. “There’s a season for all things.”

My throat knots. “So, we’re just supposed to wait?”