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With care not to touch it, Gwyn leveraged the linen with Asger’s heartstone to Kage, then joined her family. Kage took hold of my hand and together we placed the linen-wrapped stone in a wooden bowl, padded in silk. One of the iron stokers was handed to the prince, and Kage eased the bowl into the flame.
“Skål och vinir,” he whispered a traditional familial farewell to the flame, and took a step back.
I slipped my fingers with his. We did not speak, we didn’t move. All that was heard were the gentle songs of love for a soul gone, but not forgotten.
Later, the lot of us—Hugo included—hung our legs over the watchtower wall, looking to the aligned moons.
“Hail to Nóttbrull.” Kage scoffed with a touch of bitterness and tipped a drinking horn back to his lips.
A time of festivities, of celebration, of welcoming Frostfell, ought to have been had tonight. Instead, families were entombing heartstones, many were still wounded and suffering in the hall with healers, and we still did not know where theskallkrönorwere hidden.
“I think he will return as a stallion,” Cy said, words a little slurred from his fifth horn of honey ale.
Kage blew out his lips. “He would not be a stallion. He will be a hound, always on watch, always on guard.”
Gwyn snorted. “I think he will be more subtle than that.”
“I agree,” I said, looking to the velvet night. “I think he will make himself known when we least expect it. He’ll make an entrance simply to agitate Cy.”
Cy chuckled and held out his horn toward me. “Now, that I could see.”
“How is it knowing you are a wedded man, Cy?” Gwyn asked.
Cy draped his arm around Hugo’s shoulders. “Ask me when this wretched day is over, for my heart is both shattered and whole again, my sweet.”
I let my head fall to Kage’s shoulder. “I’m worried for Gaina.”
Kage glanced at his hands. “Because you now recall the truth that was kept from us?”
My pulse quickened, but I nodded. Gaina would not simply disappear, and since the degeneration faded and more truths burned in my mind, I needed to find her more than ever.
Wind beat against our backs. Shadows of approaching mages spilled over us.
“I do not think you need to look far, Sweet Iron.”
“By the goddess,” Cy let out a rough curse and rose to his feet.
Gaina, dressed in a black satin gown of mourning, stepped forward, a long wooden box in her hands. It was not the sight of her that startled us, it was the two mages at her back.
Queen Torie stepped around Gaina, one long, pale braid draped over her shoulder. She was all bones and pale skin, too thin, but the eyes that had been sleeping when last I saw her, now they were wide, bright, and alive.
She first looked to Kage, whose eyes had not blinked once. She cupped his cheek. “Well done, my son.”
Then she looked to me. “Adi.”
I choked on a cough that was half cry half laugh. Only Torie and my mother had shortened my name in such a way. The queen pressed a kiss to the center of my forehead.
“You’re awake.”
“We woke upon his death. You must forgive us, to rouse from such a sleep takes a bit of time.” Torie’s blue eyes welled in glassy tears. “Had I been here . . .”
“You cannot place blame on your shoulders. There is one at fault.” A man gripped her arm. His beard was trimmed and peppered in silver, but his violet eyes were still as kind as I remembered.
He gave me a gentle smile, but went to Kage.
“Father?”
“By the goddess, I’ve missed you.” King Markus embraced Kage against his unnaturally thin chest. I stepped beside Gaina, tears dripping down my cheeks when Kage encircled his father.
