Page 101 of Unraveling Fate

“That wasn’t your choice to make.”

“No, you’re right, Caddie. I’m so sorry.” Drostan’s eyes flicked to his sons. “But there’s something else we need to tell you and Reyna, about Canon.” His voice broke and he tried again. “About what happened tonight.”

“What?” Cadenza braced. What else could there be?

Taran rose from the couch and took her hand. “Cadenza, I’m so sorry. Canon did go to distract Thomas, like you said, but no, he didn’t come back here. And he won’t.”

Cadenza’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

Reyne gasped as she understood. “The cave?”

“Aye.” Drostan drew a chess piece out of his pocket and stared at it. “Thomas is in charge of finding the next Crown, but he doesn’tchoosethe Crown. The cave chooses. Or rather, the cave presents the candidate with a choice. If he or she chooses incorrectly…” He laid the chess piece on its side on the coffee table.

“They don’t come back,” finished Cyrus. “The cave claims them as part of it.”

Ruairi’s voice rumbled through the room. “He’s gone.”

Reyna grabbed her middle like she’d been punched and laid her head on her knees.

Cadenza shook her head like she could make it untrue. Her lungs couldn’t get enough air. “What choice did he have to make?”

No one answered.

She looked at the fabric in her hand again. Did any of themhavechoices to make? Vasilios was convinced there were too many. Taran thought he had none. As Taran had pointed out,the choices she thought she’d made had led her here, to these people. But nothing she’d chosen since then had borne fruit. Was that because those actions weren’t in the Fates’ plan for her?

Her face flushed hot and cold. Sweat pricked her armpits, her scalp.

If you want something, you have to make it happen.But if the Fates really were running everything, was she capable of making anything happen?

Her heartbeat whooshed in her ears, jagged and discordant. Her body sucked in air too rapidly, hyperventilating like a cornered animal. She had to escape, had to run—had to find her stolen choices.

Her pulse pounded—stuck, stuck, stuck—and she fled out the front door.

Taran followed.The tents and booths set up in the field for tomorrow’s Highland Games made a maze of the back acreage—he’d forgotten about that; it seemed utterly incongruous that the games were still happening—but he didn’t need to see her to find her. Even in this human form he could track her by scent. He sampled the air, searching for caramel.

There. In the athletics field.

He sprinted and came to a stop just behind her. He didn’t speak. He knew now she could hear him. Despite the gravity of the evening, that fact coursed through him, bright as moonlight.

She turned, eyes red from crying. “Make it rain.”

“What?”

She pointed at the clear sky. “Make it rain. You can make it rain. The forecast says it’ll be clear. It’s not in theplanto rain.Make it rain. Change the plan.” She gripped his t-shirt, tears still falling. “Make an earthquake. Right here. Rip up the ground where it wasn’t pre-destined to be ripped up.”

“Oh, my love.” He understood.

And he made it rain.

In seconds they were soaked. Taran lifted her off the ground, holding her tight against him, his face buried in her neck. He built tension in his foot and brought it down once. The ground burst, a small crater appearing where there had been none.

She tangled her fingers in his hair, lifting his face to hers. “See? You just changed that. You affected it. It can’t all be decided, can it?” she asked, her voice shrinking.

“Mo chridhe, my heart.” He thought of Canon, changed forever into part of the cave. Was that his destiny? Why purposefully make someone a life that ended in such a fate? Or had Canon’s intended fate led elsewhere, and his ending in the cave was the consequence for straying from the foreordained path?

He shook his head. “I don’t know… I don’t know.”

Twenty-Five