FOURTEEN
The next morning, at four-thirty on the dot, Finn opened his eyes, wide awake and as usual, rarin' to go. Beside him, Ariel stirred in her sleep. Her soft body snuggled bonelessly beside him, she tightened her arms across his belly without waking. She, on the other hand, would wake up later - slowly, surfacing as if doing a deep dive.
Finn was tempted to stay and make love to her again. He relished making love to her when she was soft and sleepy, their lovemaking languid and measured, with none of the heat and flash when they were wide awake and hot for each other. It took a ridiculously small amount of encouragement to get them both to boiling point.
Last night had been no exception.
Gritting his teeth, he resisted the temptation, great as it was. She'd gotten maybe two hours the night before, she needed a few more.
For Finn, this momentous salvage was a cog in a larger wheel of his business interests, not his entire world as it was for the Cutters. The fact that he smelled a con diminished his elation at finding his tablet. Ariel had found another, a fourth had been in the museum on Merrezo for years. It wasn't unique after all, worse, he suspected the Cutters had set up- Fuck. He didn't know what. But he’d sure as hell find out.
He slipped from their bed, then covered her with the sheet. Ariel was a delicious distraction, but he needed to grab whatever hours possible to work. He had something else going, that was even more momentous and potentially historical than the tablets.
The Mars launch was a mere five months away. No time at all, given the impact the momentous trip would have on interstellar travel. Leaving scientists on the surface of the planet for six months was as thrilling as it was groundbreaking. Those twelve men and women would eventually pave the way for more colonists to terraform Mars in the near future. There was already a waitlist of upwards of ten thousand families ready to go. Almost every aspect of the Blackstar Group was involved in some way on preparations for humans to inhabit the planet.
Finn's business interests wouldn’t stop because he was distracted and perpetually hot for Ariel. While dressing as quietly as he could, he was amused by something he’d be an idiot not to acknowledge. This morning was the first time in memory he’d awoken to the idea of not immediately starting work. It was the first time something-or someone-excited him more than rocket blasters.
Two hours later, he observed her in the cleaning room on the monitor in his office. He'd been watching it with one eye, knowing she wouldn't sleep in for too long. Wearing white shorts and a lime green tank top which bared the gentle swell of her breasts, and her muscled arms, she looked fresh and vibrantly alive. Her hair was pulled back in a braid which swung between her shoulder blades as she moved.
She looked so pretty his chest hurt.
As he worked, his eyes drifted from time to time to the monitor, watching her with Mike on Two, as they painstakingly cleaned the tablet. After another three hours Finn took a call from his attorney before leaving his office for the salon one deck down.
Having cleared two hours in his back-to-back schedule, he was eager to hear what Dr. Vadini, and he supposed, Núñez, had to say about the tablets. They were going to shit themselves when they learned there was a fourth.
Sunlight, flooded the large room, bouncing off the pale grays and whites of furniture and walls. Beyond the windows, a strong gale had the waves frothing and peaking. Typical Patagonian weather, and not good conditions to dive in.
Zane and Teal were helping themselves to the buffet set up in the salon in anticipation of their meeting. They turned in unison as he entered. “Nick and Bria are on their way,” Zane said by way of a greeting. “Water’s rough and they wanted to see if it calmed a bit before they came over.”
“They’ll have a long wait. Wind is going to be like this most of the day,” Finn told them.
"Blackstar's barely moving. Your gyro stabilizers are worth every penny you paid for them," Teal said, a note of admiration in her voice. "I'd like to take a look at them while I'm here. Since we'll be in this area for years, I plan on retrofitting Decrepit as soon as possible. Our stabilizers are crap. Don't help at all. Half our crew will be hanging over the side if we don't do something."
Absently she shoved up the unrolling cuff of what must be one of Zane's denim shirts. Her husband took her arm and effectively rolled it back while she poured a mug of steaming hot coffee with her free hand. “Bria’s pregnant, that's why the rough seas are bothering her.”
"You're welcome to check out any part of the ship. Talk to Dan Firth, my Chief Engineer, he'll be delighted to talk shop," Finn told her as he imagined Peri swollen with his child. His heart kicked in several extra beats. Other than the nebulous thought of, “one day” passing on his company, the idea of children had never really entered Finn’s mind. Now it was firmly embedded there like an earworm of a song.
He imagined a fearless toddler with Peri’s red hair roaming Blackstar, and his heart did a rapid dive of terror.
Dear God. He was afraid for the safety of a child he didn’t have. He headed to the buffet for his own cup of coffee, thinking a drink would serve him better after that foreign, earth-shattering revelation.
Holy shit, who would’da thunk it? Phineas Gallagher, confirmed bachelor with an iron will and a focused agenda, actually thinking of himself as a father. Yeah. He saw it, no problem at all. Which begged the question of what did Ariel think of kids? He’d have to ask. Sometime. Maybe right after he offered her a ring big enough to cover one finger up to the first knuckle.
Logan walked in alone.
“I thought you went to pick up Dani from the airport yesterday? Where is she?” Zane asked, carrying two plates and following his wife with their coffee mugs to the table near the buffet. The dining room one deck down would be crowded with crew and staff. This meeting required quiet and no distraction. Other than what now seemed to be his favorite personal distraction ever – Ariel. When she eventually arrived.
Logan joined Finn where he was pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Long flight. She wanted to sleep in.”
“She’s pregnant,” Teal announced, holding up her arm for her husband to roll up the other sleeve, and diving into her heaped plate of food like a starving lumberjack.
Logan narrowed his eyes. “Who- How do you know? We haven’t told anyone yet.”
“Everyone’s pregnant,” Teal said matter-of-factly around a mouthful of bacon as she tugged her arm free of her husband's ministrations.
Zane turned to his wife, his own food forgotten. “Specify everyone.”
Finn smothered a sympathetic grin. The woman was diabolical.
“Since when has Daniella slept in? Never as far as I know.”
“One person is not everyone, and?” Zane said dangerously, removing the loaded fork from his wife's hand and setting it on her plate.
Her brown eyes sparkled as she muttered, “And it’s a birthday surprise.”
“My damned birthday was five months ago!”
“Next birthday. By the time your next one rolls around, you’ll be changing diapers between dives. Patience is a vir- Hey!”
Zane scooped his laughing wife from her chair. She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head on his chest as he strode from the room. Finn heard their laughter as they went down the corridor.
“Hope there’s a free cabin somewhere close by,” Logan said dryly, taking his coffee to his usual corner of the sofa. He set his phone on the table, in the center of which were four easel-type stands lined up in readiness to display the tablets.
“Better be a quickie,” Finn told him. “The others are due any minute.”
"The others are here," Nick announced, entering hand-in-hand with his wife. They both looked windblown and pink-cheeked. "It's getting worse out there." Nick combed his fingers through his dark hair. "We almost decided not to come, but we didn't want to miss this historic moment."
Bria said something to him in rapid Italian and he responded in kind. She left his side and headed for the buffet, smoothing strands of wayward hair back into the sleek bun at her nape.
After a moment, Nick glanced around, appearing perfectly relaxed unless an observant man happened to notice how alert his eyes were as he watched the door. “Where’s Ariel?”
“For the last few hours working with my tech people cleaning your tablet . She barely slept last night, she was so excited." And because Finn had spoken briefly to both Nick and Logan the night before, to confirm removing the tablet was sanctioned, he now said, "It was generous of you to allow us to bring it to Blackstar’s team for processing."
“It was going to end up here anyway for Dr. Vadini to look at. Might as well speed up the process where we can.”
The grid where they'd found the tablet was Nick's pet project. The emeralds indicating the phantom presence of the chest that had once contained the tablet, and the tablet itself, had been ridiculously easy to find. Too easy.
Finn drank from his cup, then said, “I see your fine hand in yesterday’s discovery.
Nick raised a brow. “That a question?”
“That your answer?”
Nick shrugged. “Luck of the draw. I would probably have found it myself if I’d been in that spot at that time.”
“Uh-huh.” The middle Cutter brother’s response confirmed Finn’s suspicion that Nick had either discovered the tablet himself at an earlier time and left it in situ, or unearthed it somewhere else, then planted it for them to find. But how and when? He hadn't known they'd be there today.
Either way- no coincidence. But why? What was his end game?
Nick went to join his wife, and Finn sat down on the loveseat near Logan. Leaning back, Logan stretched out his long legs and drank his coffee.
“Buenos días,” Núñez said cheerfully as he strolled in, cutting off further exploration of the tablet's provenance.
The well-dressed Argentinian appeared to have walked straight out of a J. Crew catalogue. Wearing and open-collar royal blue polo, unstructured linen jacket, Chinos and trendy canvas deck shoes. He might have arrived “unexpectedly” yesterday, but apparently, he'd carried a change of clothes with him. Which meant he’d expected to be offered a berth last night.
Núñez glanced down the length of the room at the table where the food had been laid out. “Ah, breakfast, you are indeed a gracious host, Finn.”
“Did you discover anything new this morning?” Finn asked. He didn’t like the guy. It wasn’t – probably wasn’t, because he knew the Argentinian and Ariel had had a relationship. Although that certainly colored his view. Núñez was a little too slick, a little too unctuous. All in all, a man he didn’t trust – not with business and certainly not with Ariel.
“This morning. Yes. But we should wait for him." He scooped eggs onto a plate and lifted the lid of one of the servers. “Vadini is an old man and wanted to rest. I look forward to spending time with the tablets in private today.” Finding things to his liking, he filled his plate, then stood indecisively, clearly trying to decide if he should sit alone at the nearby table, or bring his food down the length of the room to eat off his lap. He chose the table.
"There'll be nothing private about the viewing," Finn told him shortly. "Look around. We have a full viewing audience." He glanced at his watch, still a few minutes before nine. His schedule demanded meetings start and end on time. But with the high winds, and the condition of the water, small craft would have a hard time crossing to Blackstar.
Zane and his pregnant wife were off somewhere celebrating. News junkie Jonah stood across the room reading the news on his phone. And his speckled darling would, no doubt arrive with the fourth tablet at any minute, or in the next hour. Or whenever she felt like the tablet was worthy of being viewed.
He took out his phone. He might as well drink his coffee and check his emails while he waited. Nothing was going to happen on time today.
He opened a report sent by his security people, labeled Doctor Thiago Núñez. Speed reading the lengthy document on the small screen revealed the Minister of Antiquities had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gambling debts, a mistress in Buenos Aires, and another, conveniently located in a condo near the airport in Rio Gallegos. Núñez was a frequent player at both the floating casinos in Buenos Aires where they held his notes. But horse racing seemed to be his thing. Wherever he bet he pretty much always lost his shirt. His salary as a government employee sure as shit couldn’t pay for his excessive lifestyle. He enjoyed bribes and kickbacks. None of which surprised Finn.
"Good morning, all," Ariel said cheerfully, as she entered the room, clutching the cloth-wrapped tablet to her chest. Finn turned off his phone as he rose to take it from her.
He kissed her nose over the bundled tablet now in his arms. "Good morning," he whispered. "You look delicious."
"Should've stuck around to find out," she murmured low enough for only him to hear as several pairs of booted feet echoed down the corridor.
“You were snoring,” he lied. “Didn’t want to wake you.”
"I was awake, didn't want to delay you going to work."
Finn pressed a kiss to her mouth.
Dr. Vadini entered the room, accompanied by three sharp-eyed T-FLAC operatives, each carrying a cloth-wrapped bundle. The next several minutes were spent with everyone getting settled.
Vadini's attention was riveted to the coffee table, as Finn set the recently discovered fourth tablet on its stand.
"Santa madre di Dio," he said breathlessly. "You found another?"
"We wanted to surprise you. Finn and I found it in the wreckage of El Crucifijo late yesterday," Ariel told him, a crease between her tawny brows as she watched the T-FLAC operatives place the other three tables on the waiting easels.
"Were you able to decipher the text?" Logan asked the curator, leaning forward, elbows on his knees.
"We now know considerably more than we knew before," Vadini informed them, gaze still riveted to the gleaming tablets lined up on the coffee table. "This morning, Dr. Núñez and I spoke to two of my colleagues who have had great interest in Merrezo' s tablet for many years. Dr. Hervé, professor at the University of Chicago, who's field of expertise is not limited to Egyptology, but ancient languages, texts, and religious writings. And Dr. Petra Schröder at the Smithsonian." He smiled at Finn. "Thank you for the use of your audiovisual equipment. It was almost as if the four of us were in the same room. Shall I – we start?" he asked eagerly.
"It's seven minutes after nine, we don't have to wait for everyone before we hear what Dr. Vadini has to say, do we?" Ariel asked as Finn returned to his seat and patted the cushion beside him knowing she wanted to pace. There was enough nervous energy and excitement in the air without her walking around the room. She sat but perched on the edge of her seat as if ready to jump up at any time.
"We're here." Zane and Teal strolled in, hand-in-hand, hair and clothing a little rumpled, faces flushed. Although on Teal this rumpled look was pretty much her natural state. Finn smiled. The love they had for each other glowed around them, and they clearly didn't give a damn who saw it.
"Present." Jonah glanced up from his phone as he brought up the rear. "Just an FYI on wife count," he grinned. "Callie Skyped before I left Scorpion to come over here. I've learned when dealing with a runaway bride to agree to absolutely everything, no matter how outrageous. I don't want her to get cold feet again. She wants to get married on Cutter Cay? Done. What Callie wants, Callie gets. All I want is Callie."
"Wise man," Logan told his brother.
"And I'll remind you all that the wedding is in three weeks," Jonah told them, running a nervous hand around the back of his neck." I don't give a damn if you have to pause the salvage of- fuck- an alien spaceship- you will be there, no matter what."
"I'll make my plane available for the trip," Finn offered. His phone sounded a low, discreet beep. "My staff has accommodations available for all of you," he informed them after a glance at his phone. "These winds aren't going to die down until this evening, and while our ships have stabilizers and are large enough not to be impacted, crossing between them in a small craft with these high seas is unnecessary and dangerous."
Jonah's gaze slid to the fourth tablet. “Holy shit. One was profound enough- But four?" Jonah smiled at them. "Good for you."
"Good for all of us," Ariel told him. "Dr. Vadini – what do we know?"
Peri's first thought that morning when she'd opened her eyes, was that she could no longer live this lie. She'd carried it for so long, and it was a burden she desperately wanted to be rid of. Before Finn, the prospect of that task had been quick, if painful. Now she had a lot more to lose.
Her tumbling thoughts; the impending loss of Finn, the anticipation of the Cutters’ response to her revelations, and the excitement of the tablets reveal, churned in her stomach. Those four tablets were going to be the best part of her day, probably the best part of her freaking year. She didn't want to ruin it by doing her big reveal and then being absent for the results. She’d wait...
She let her gaze sweep the room: Logan, stern and the patriarch of the group, Nick, impossible to read, Zane the charming jokester, Jonah the news junkie- Her throat closed. Damn it, she liked them.
Just a few more hours of inclusion, a few more hours of being welcome among them.
A gust buffeting the window made Bria jump. "It's so weird to see blue skies when we're in the middle of a wind storm. One expects to see low, dark ominous clouds and torrential rain in weather like this."
Finn's gray eyes, a little too penetrating, softened on her face briefly. He linked his warm fingers with hers. "Go ahead Doctor, we're all agog." There was an oddly challenging tone to his voice but his expression was impassive.
A glance outside showed the waves slapping against the hull, sending up fans of windswept spray. The flags on deck snapped and twisted around the poles in the high winds.
Externally, Peri reflected the excited stillness of the room. Internally, she felt the same savage winds seen beyond the windows. "High winds are common, and expected, at this time of the year," she told the princess. "You might've noticed the wind is always blowing. I've been in Patagonia when we've had winds of upwards of seventy miles an hour. It's about fifty right now."
Bria took a sip of tea. "Then I'm very pleased to be safely indoors."
"If I may--?" Dr. Vadini was almost quivering with excitement, and it was contagious. Peri's hand tightened in Finn's. After they'd made love last night, and he lay beside her, having fallen asleep mid-breath it seemed, she'd lain wide awake for hours.
Her eventual exhausted sleep was torn by dreams where she was once again alone. Alone onboard Sea Witch, and alone in her glass house on the bluff. She loved her house, but it didn't feel like home. There was no denying that she'd spent a hell of a lot of lonely nights there. She better get back to being used to it.
She'd been startled awake when, in the realism of a dream, she'd felt the sting of spray as the waves crashed around her, as she desperately searched the darkening sky for the light of a buoy to guide her home.
On waking, the Finn-less space beside her had reminded her of the inevitable and brought fresh pain to the fissures already starting to tear into her heart.
No more procrastination. She'd let everyone have their moments, and then she'd dive right in. Only adrenaline and steely determination, would see her through the next few hours.
"If I may have assistance to rearrange the tablets— Thank you, you are most kind," Dr. Vadini addressed two of the operatives who immediately stepped forward. "Lay them flat, if you please- This one and this one at the top, then this tablet here," he pointed. "And that one here beside it. A little closer together – about two centimeters apart. Yes, precisamente, just so. Grazie mille."
By the time the tablets were arranged precisely to his instructions, everyone was on their feet and gathered around the coffee table to get a better look.
The tablets formed a four-foot by four-foot square. The bumpy gold sheathing them gleamed dully in the sunlight flooding the room. One tablet had a chipped corner, and each had several greenish-white spots where sea creatures had once clung. But that didn't diminish their beauty or their historical importance.
"What are we looking at?" Zane tilted his head this way and that.
"First, the form of the tablets. Then see that the edges here and also here-between the tablets – and also this detail match as if cut from the same piece of stone, just like a jigsaw puzzle." Vadini indicated the space between the top two stones, then the same gap between the bottom two.
"But the edges don't match across the middle like a jigsaw puzzle pieces would, do they?" Teal pointed out, biting her thumbnail. "So how is this relevant?"
"I will explain. The tablets are chiseled by the same hand. See the upward stroke here and again here, the slope of this form, here, here and here? The cadence of the words, and syntax, probably dictated by someone else."
"This is written phonetically in the ancient Abipón language, extinct hundreds of years ago, as everyone knows. No one speaks it any more of course, but I and my colleagues have accumulated some knowledge over the years."
Peri looked from the curator to Theo beside him as if glued to the Italian's hip. Theo raised a brow, a move Peri knew he only did when he felt smug and knew something you didn’t. His mouth curved into a subtle smile he tried to hide by rubbing his index finger over her bottom lip. Her direct gaze drilled into him and when the look in his eyes changed, going from lazy and smug to dark and intense, a small shock went through her. He was hiding something.
She frowned. “Theo, you're an ancient cultural expert. Did you study this tribe?”
“There is very little to study as the people have been extinct for hundreds of years, their language with them. Senor Vadini is correct, no one speaks it, and his two experts were of some help--but. . .” He paused for dramatic effect. She wanted to dash across the room to pull the words out of him but settled for glaring at him instead. “Like the good doctor, I have studied the culture. As he says, few written words survived the centuries. Most of what I know was passed verbally through third, fourth or fifth generation,” he finished.
"Were you able to read them, too?" she asked on a rush of excited breath.
"I was able to contribute more words at our video conference call earlier," Theo said a little pompously, his eyes, not on Peri, but on Dr. Vadini beside him.
"This is good." Vadini smiled as he drew on a pair of white cotton gloves. "With those new words revealed to us- a few words here, a few words there, I believe between us we can accurately translate the words of Blackstar. I have spent a lifetime researching this ancient language. I have studied la tavoletta d'oro Merrezo my entire life, as did my father, and his father before him," he said with pride.
"While there is no written word of the language, just a handful of words and symbols passed down through the generations, interpretation has taken time and infinite patience. Even should I understand what they once meant, some of the words here are not legible at all, having been worn away. But with the brilliant brains of Dr's Hervé and Schröder. . .and Dr. Núñez of course, I believe we have the-" He glanced at Bria. "La essenza?"
"Just having the gist of them sounds fabulous," Bria encouraged him with a smile. "Please, tell us more."
Peri liked Bria's palpable excitement and the way her dark eyes danced with anticipation. In another life, in another dimension, she and Bria might've been friends.
"This is the order I believe, that the tablets should be read." Vadini waved a hand over the gold square. "From left to right across the top, then the same for the two on the bottom."
"Or perhaps there's no order at all?" Finn's hand rested on the small of Peri's back. She felt each individual finger as if it were attached to a specific nerve in her body. All of them erotic. More than sexual, she felt an intimate connection to him in a way she'd never imagined she'd feel for anyone. An integral part of her that was going to be severed without anesthetic.
I can't do this. Can't feel this way. In her head, a metronome ticked off the few remaining hours before all this heat, warmth and acceptance were blown to hell.
Peri broke away from Finn to get – something - anything from the buffet table across the room. She mourned the loss of his touch and called herself a fool for allowing herself to care so much when she of all people knew what the end result would be. It was inevitable.
After grabbing a bottle of water, she returned to stand between Teal and Nick. Finn gave her an inquiring look from his position on the other side of the table, a look she pretended not to see. She rubbed the icy bottle across the deep ache in her chest.
Did people die of a broken heart?
Of course not.
But considering how hot things smoldered between them, there could always be a first time.
"A simple explanation is the decorative border around two sides of each tablet, which, when matched together, form a perfect square."
"Do the things actually tell us anything?" Logan asked, sounding as skeptical as Finn.
"Sí. The first," Vadini pointed to the tablet top, left. "is the one discovered by you, Mr. Gallagher." He then glanced at Theo. "Please, feel free to step in to assist."
Theo was clearly delighted to be asked. He put on his serious face and leaned over to point at the second tablet, the one that had been in the museum in Merrezo. "This word is chosen."
"We're currently attempting to read tablet number one, Dr. Núñez. Let us keep our thoughts in order. We will get to the others in due course." Dr. Vadini told him. "Now that we have four tablets it's slightly easier to decrypt the text because we have now identified enough of the lost language to be able to interpret many words on la tavoletta d'oro Merrezo."
Sucking in a breath, Bria frowned and said something sharply in Italian.
The curator immediately looked contrite. "This information was not withheld from you, Principessa. I needed the words from the other tablets and the assistance of my esteemed colleagues. And they in turn needed to set their gaze upon the tablets to confirm what I hoped I knew. I have studied what we now have at length, and I will give you my educated opinion of what they say. The first states: 'Apocalypse preordained written in five parts-'"
"Apocalypse?" Logan's tone dripped sarcasm. "Come on."
Peri knew when the apocalypse was happening. In about an hour. And oh, hell, Finn was casually strolling behind the others to reach her side. She couldn't handle his touch, or the smell of his skin, or the sound of his voice so near her when she was already on edge.
Vadini shrugged off Logan's incredulity. "'One reaches landfall, three lie beneath the waves. The last remains in death's grip.'"
"Wait. What?" Nick said sharply. "You're saying there are five tablets in all?"
The Curator nodded without removing his gaze from the tablets. "The numbers I know. See right here?" He pointed. "Five tablets."
This was so cool. Peri hung on every word. Live in the moment. Remember every little detail. Stop projecting what's going to happen later.
"One did reach us in Merrezo, and the other three were found under the sea! This is all true," Bria's voice rose with enthusiasm.
"Two stars converge," the curator read. "One red, one black."
"Which stars are black and red?" Nick looked around her to Finn.
"Red dwarfs are by far the most common type of star in the Milky Way." As he talked, Finn rested his hand on her upper back.
Same nerves, same damn reaction. Maybe if she didn't move she wouldn't feel. . .
"They're small, relatively cool stars on the main sequence, of either K or M spectral type. Low luminosity, so not easily observed. A black star is a gravitational object composed of matter. It's a theoretical alternative to a black hole. Neither of which sounds as if it has anything to do with an apocalypse. Unless we're talking that the ever-decreasing rate of collapse of a black star, leading to an infinite collapse of time, or asymptotically approaching a radius less than zero." He raised his eyebrow. "Is this where you think I'm the Blackstar reference? Because, just a reminder, your prophet's name was purportedly Blackstar, and he's probably referring to himself here."
"No, signore," Vadini stiffened further. "I believe the last line on tablet one is the reference to you: Salvation delivered in Blackstar's powerful hand."
Theo, who was practically leaning over the table, squinted at the words as he tried to read ahead.
Clearly not taking this seriously enough to argue, Finn's smile was a little shark-like. "I wonder if I'll be the one causing the apocalypse or the one destined to save the world?"
"It says, 'Salvation delivered in Blackstar's powerful hand.'" Peri repeated, loving the entire drama-filled concept of stars, an apocalypse, dark holes and Finn. "You're just going to have to save the world, like it or not."
He shot her a warning glance. "Don't encourage this b.s."
"It's not clear what: One reaches landfall, three lie beneath the waves, one is gripped by death,' means," Jonah said. "But are we going to have to find the fifth tablet in some graveyard somewhere?"
"I'm not digging in any graveyard, I'll tell you that right now!" Teal shuddered. "I'm sure Argentina has hundreds- thousands of graveyards. We wouldn't even know where to start."
"What's the powerful hand, then?" Logan asked. "Poseidon?"
Jonah rubbed the back of his neck. "The storm that knocked the ships off course and sank them? That seems like a mighty hand of fate to me."
"Makes more sense than Poseidon," Zane agreed. "But I suspect the waiting hand hasn't happened yet."
"I don't know." Teal pointed to the flapping flags and wild surf beyond the windows.
"Remember, these were the supposed words of a child." Finn took the bottle of water from Peri and drank. "Five hundred years ago. This sounds like a story the kid's mother made up to keep him out of the surf, for God's sake."
"No signore," Vadini assured him, his lined face set. "This was Blackstar's prophecy. I have no doubt."
Theo gave Finn the stink-eye, then shared it around the room as if daring anyone else to doubt Blackstar's prophecy. "I, too believe this to be Blackstar's prophecy."
Peri was surprised. Theo was such a down to earth, not a woo woo, kind of guy. "You do, Theo?" she asked, plucking her almost drained water bottle from Finn. When she drank she imagined she tasted him and held the bottle to her lips for a moment longer.
"Believe Blackstar's prophecy?" Theo's eyes went dark and serious. "Of course. Ask any sheepherder in Patagonia the story of the seer, and they will tell you of his remarkable prophecies. He was legend long after he died. Every one of his predictions came to pass. This is not a fabrication. Blackstar's prophecy is very very real."