Page 52 of Tell Them That I’m Coming

Goody.

I could pretend I didn’t understand. I could push forward, telling him we have to go, because rescuing Rafe is more important than anything—and it is. So I’ve been enjoying myself with Thane. That doesn’t erase the worries, the fears, and the nightmares… I’m still determined to do whatever it takes to save my best friend, but if this prophecy could risk my ability to pull that off…

No. I have to know.

I have to ask.

“What is the Prophecy of the Gilded Throne?”

For a moment, Thane is a beautiful statue. The sunlight brightens his coloring, a slight breeze ruffling his curls, sending the hem of his cloak swaying by his boots. I wait. I don’t know what I’ll do if he refuses to answer—or gives me one of his non-answers—but he must figure that it won’t be pleasant because he sighs.

“The exact wording is lost to much of Noctavara,” he begins. After getting a peek at the look on my face, he runs his fingers through his curls, leaving track marks in their wake as he amends what he was saying. “The only soul who knows the full prophecy is the queen, and it makes sense why she won’t share it. But over the centuries… enough of it has leaked that the lower fae whisper of it with reverence while the nobles do anything to quash rumors of it.”

“But you knew enough.”

He doesn’t pretend otherwise. “Yes.”

“Enough that, when you found me in the Shadowed Woods, you thought I might be part of it?”

Say no, say no…

“Yes.” He thins his lips. “I knew when I saw the butterflies.”

It always has to do with the godsdamn butterflies.

I swallow roughly, trying to hold onto my control. Losing you temper won’t help, Alana. Answers first, throw your boot at him later. “Tell me.”

“Alana—”

I keep my voice calm and steady. “Tell me, Thane. What does the prophecy say?”

“You should understand where Noctavara came from,” he tells me. “Not the stories the Court tells. The truth.”

I open my mouth, and he holds up his hands to stop me. “Please. The history first, then the prophecy. It’ll help you understand.”

It better.

I fold my arms over my chest. “Go ahead.”

“Queen Celeste wasn’t born here,” he begins. “Millennia ago, she was just another Seelie in Faerie. A high fae, to be sure, but one that was different from the others. In Faerie, the Seelie belong to the Summer Court, full of light and warmth. Then there’s the Winter Court, the Unseelie. Shadow magic belongs to the Unseelie, and Celeste… she was a member of the Seelie Court who was born with shadows.” He casts me a significant look. “She could wield them, mold them, and eventually she could use them to rip portals through the veil.”

Just like I can.

I’m colorless to begin with and still I pale. I told Thane… I explained how I got her, and how I planned on bringing Rafe home. He knows… “She’s like me.”

“In ways,” is his careful answer. “But her differences meant she didn’t belong in either court.” Just like how, as a halfling, I belong in both of my parents’ home world, I belong in none. “Once she found a realm she could tame, one that suited her, she fled Faerie.” He pauses. “She welcomed refugees from other realms. From Faerie, from other fae worlds that had split… from the mortal planes, too.”

The butterfly, I think. Somehow, the monarch butterfly came here the same way Rafe and I did… and who knows who else.

“But she made a fatal error when she fled Faerie,” Thane continues. “She abandoned her mate.”

That stops me cold.

“In Faerie,” Thane continues, voice steady but stripped of charm, “mates are rare. Sacred. When Celeste rejected hers because he hated her shadow magic, he appealed to Titania. And Oberon. The true kings and queen of Faerie. And they listened.” His expression shadows over. “It didn’t matter her reasons. They cursed her. They cursed us.”

Oh, Thane…

“Any fae who pledged loyalty to Celeste,” he says. “Any who followed her into Noctavara and swore themselves to the Gilded Court… they would never know a fated bond. Never feel it on their own.”