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Dakkar paced around Granite House anxiously. Addison had already come and gone three times that day, checking up on him and asking if he needed anything. Each time he refused anything. What he really needed was a bottle of alcohol and sleep, but he wouldn’t tell her that. He knew what was happening that day, knew he had to be sober. As the day went on, he became too restless to sleep, anyways.
Today was the day Sia had prophesied about years before. Before he spent decades without his sister. Before he knew for certain his loves were gone. Before he lost all hope. It was the day that just might change everything for them. If everything went well, they would have the upper hand in a war that had gone on for far too long.
“Dakkar.”
He heard Addison’s voice, calling to him from the bottom of the stairs leading to Granite House. He turned, wondering if the moment had arrived.
“Yes?”
“Stop pacing so loudly! I can hear your feet from down here.”
Dakkar replied with a drawn out sigh, filled with exhaustion and annoyance. He shuffled over to a chair by the firepit in the center of the room and sat down. He heard the sound of footsteps going up the stairs and into the room, coming to a stop beside him. Without a glance at the figure behind him, Dakkar said, “I already told you, I’m fine, Addison.”
Her response was merely a laugh, followed by, “Yes, your angry pacing conveyed exactly that.”
Dakkar grumbled, ready to retort back, but was interrupted by a bark from Top, who ran through only to disappear to one of the house’s other rooms. Dakkar chuckled lightly, before taking a deep breath.
“I’m sorry. My emotions have been affecting me today.”
Addison smiled and sat next to him. “It’s alright. These last few months have been stressful for all of us.”
More like decades.
“I’m sure you’re also nervous about talking to Rose. I definitely am! But it’s probably different for you, since… you know.” Addison trailed off, which Dakkar was thankful for.
In the past forty-five years, the two of them had had many conversations about their fear and grief. Addison had become Dakkar’s closest confidant, second only to Ahlaam. Still, the younger girl had a habit of speaking before she thought, likely amplified by a thousand due to the nerves of the day. Dakkar did not need yet another reminder of everything he had lost, especially when he was about to be face to face with one of them.
“Well. I should go.” Addison muttered, standing up. “I’ll be upstairs, but I’ll come back when she’s here.”
“Could you wait a bit?” Dakkar asked. “I want to have some time alone with her.”
Addison softened. “Of course.” She left the room, a smile still on her face.
Sighing heavily, Dakkar forced his shoulders to relax. He still had some time, so he tried to keep himself occupied but his mind kept drifting back to them. Cyrus and Mary Katharine. His long lost loves. The only people he bared his entire being to, let all his walls fall down with. They had known everything about him, and he knew everything about them. They were his everything. And then they were gone and he couldn’t say goodbye.
Even when he had the chance to say goodbye to Rose and Samuel – their children, Cyrus’ and Mary Katharine’s and Dakkar’s – he didn’t. He couldn’t say goodbye to his kids. He left them to think their parents had died at sea, that he didn’t exist. If his loves ever came back, or the kids got their memories back, he wouldn’t be surprised if they hated him. He certainly did.
A sharp jolt in his stomach pulled him from his spiral. He swallowed dryly. That jolt told him when someone was moved onto the island, past the wards. Rose was here.
The next few minutes felt like an eternity. Dakkar tried to calm his rapidly beating heart as he set up the scanner. Once it was done, he stared into the fire, his mind blank.
“Are you Dakkar?”
He turned to see a young woman staring at him. Her hair was the same dark brown shade as both her parents, her skin tone favoring a lighter shade like her father’s. Her eyes were the perfect mix of her parents’, not a startling blue or a comforting hazel, but something in between. Even if he hadn’t known she was coming, there would never be any doubt in his mind. Rose Stratford looked just as she had the last time he saw her, fifty-one years ago. Only six years had passed for her, but she had no recollection of Dakkar.
Realizing he had been silent for too long, he answered her question.
“I’m nobody.”
The word did not hurt as much as it used to, his father now years removed from sight (but never that far from mind). He glanced at her again, this time focusing on what she was holding.
“Give me the orrery.”
“Here.” Rose handed it to him, nervous energy coursing through her.
Dakkar frowned. “The firestone’s burned out.”
It saddened him to think of that day so many years ago, when his mother died. Dakkar looked down and spotted the scanner by his feet, remembering what protocol dictated he do next.
“Hold still.”
He waved the scanner over Rose’s body, looking for any sign of Kal’s possession.
“What are you doing?”
“Scanning you.”
“Excuse me?”
Dakkar’s frustration got the best of him. “How am I supposed to get a good reading if you can’t–”
Rose cut him off and went off on him, putting him into a stupor by how much she reminded him of Mary Katharine. Still, he had to finish questioning her.
“When did Great Astronomical Discoveries first appear in print?”
“Huh?”
“Great Astronomical Discoveries. When?”
“August 25th, 1835.”
Dakkar turned off the scanner and sighed. He was relieved to be done with protocol, and relieved that it was truly Rose Stratford standing in front of him.
“I’m Dakkar.”
Dakkar waited a moment to see if the words sparked something in Rose, if they’d pull a long-forgotten memory from the trenches of her mind. But Ahlaam’s illusion held, and she said nothing.
He wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.
“Forgive the third degree, Rose. I had to make sure it was you.”
Rose shakes her head. “Forget it. This wasn’t even the most dangerous situation I’d been in today. This hour, even.” Rose pauses, and Dakkar wonders just how much this poor girl has gone through, and if he could have saved her from any of it.
“Are you a Traveler, too?” Rose asks him, unaware of the weight of her question.
Could he consider himself a Traveler, even a failed one, if he never finished the training? Margaret would tell him yes, but Dakkar wasn’t so sure. Being a Searcher was much more familiar to him anyway, much happier to remember. Then again, there were times when he was stuck on Lincoln Island that he felt like he was still little Prince Dakkar, so naive and innocent and unknowing of the world beyond his home.
Finally, he decides on saying, “I used to be. Maybe I am once more. Above all other things, however, I’m a Searcher.”
“A Searcher?”
Addison, choosing that moment to emerge from upstairs, explains, “He’s an explorer, same as me.”
As Addison introduces herself to Rose, Dakkar can’t help but think about how surreal it is that he’s here on Lincoln Island with Rose. No Margaret, no Samuel, no Cyrus, no Mary Katharine. Rose couldn’t be farther from her home in New York, lost and without memories she doesn’t even know she has lost. Dakkar feels farther than ever from being King Itzal’s son, prince of the Blazing World.
The pieces are finally being put into place for everyone to return home. Rose Stratford, the little girl he once knew, is the key to all of that. Now she’s here on Lincoln Island, so maybe one day Dakkar will be with his family again.