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My husband kept a possessive palm on my thigh but never looked away from Thane across the blaze.
He also didn’t wipe the dried blood off his lip.
“Well.” Thane folded his arms over his chest. “What do you know that we do not?”
Roark looked at the Stav Guard. They must swear it on their fealty bones to never speak of what they’ll hear.
The Stav understood Roark well enough to look surprised.
Thane leaned over his knees and tossed a twig into the fire. “They answer to me only. If I hear they have spoken of our conversations to anyone, I’ll let you eat their soul.”
Roark scowled. I don’t eat souls. Everyone says that.
“It’s more fearsome.” Thane waved a hand, dismissing the thought. “Now that we’ve all agreed to the soul feast, go on. We’re listening.”
There was little else to do but start at the beginning. Most of the conversation belonged to Thane and Roark, but I would interject with my own thoughts, my own experiences.
We explained it all, from the Unfettered seer’s prophecy, to the peace meet where the kingdoms agreed to find the melder babe, to the betrayal of King Damir and King Hundur and the disappearance of House Bien.
The raids and the truth behind them left Yrsa wringing her skirt and Kyrre whimpering, as though he sensed Roark’s pain when he described Nivek’s death to Thane.
The pup’s big head settled on Roark’s leg, merely there and steady.
Thane hung his chin when Roark explained the purpose behind his soul rend at the hands of his mother. But a white rage flashed in his slate eyes when it was time to confess the truth of Stonegate.
Thane dragged his hands down his face. “No. It isn’t possible. Fadey is…Baldur? Lyra, he’s been everywhere in the palace. He won’t leave my mother’s side. Even tried to push mine and Yrsa’s wedding forward when King Hundur threatened to return to Myrda, insisting it was too dangerous in Jorvandal. Baldur was livid when we refused.”
“You’re not wed?” Emi’s head snapped up.
Yrsa looked away, but Thane offered Emi a sympathetic smile. “Not yet, Nightlark.”
“Wed?” Gunter sniffed the air and pointed to Emi, then across the flames. “But you—oof.”
He shot Emi a glare when she kicked his shin.
“Thane, I know it seems outlandish, and I am sorry for the pain it causes you,” I said. “But Fadey never left Stonegate. He and the queen have been planning this for seasons.”
The prince hesitated. “The Wanderer. They want the bones of the Wanderer, and you believe…all of us have something to do with it?”
Firstborns are mentioned in the prophecy, Roark explained. We believe my brother might have hid his shard in the Unfettered lands for protection.
“I don’t have a bone of the Wanderer.” Thane chuckled. “If I did, I assure you, I would boast about it often.”
“Nor do I,” said Yrsa. “I’ve never heard of such…” The princess paused. “Well, that isn’t true. My mother would tell me a tale when I was a young girl about the Wanderer’s daughter. She built a glittering land for herself after her father’s destruction, and one day a granddaughter, born many seasons after the daughter’s death, took up her blade and destroyed the darkness the greed of the Wanderer had left behind.
“The granddaughter restored the peace and beauty of the god-queen.” Yrsa flushed when she took note of everyone watching her. “It might be nothing. My mother is not bold in front of my father, but she always told me I could be the girl from the tale. A warrior queen who defeated darkness.”
Your mother would know of the seer’s warning. Roark’s eyes narrowed. For all we know, she was preparing you.
“An eerie thought.” Yrsa chuckled nervously and looked at Thane.
The prince gave her hand a squeeze, then looked to Roark again. “The only coincidence that could be related is that I know Fadey encouraged our union. My mother always said the melder thought it would be wise to keep the firstborns of allied kingdoms together.”
“You never told me that,” Yrsa said.
“Our fathers had the final word, but mine practically drank whatever Fadey said.”
“And my father drank whatever came from yours.”
