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“That remains to be seen.”
She sighed at him and stared off into the distance. Rune strolled into his adjoining room, giving Sadi time to navigate the minx’s mind. He stripped off his rags, selecting another suit from his closet. After dressing, he returned to the minx.
Long moments passed before Sadi finally said, “I can’t get past her shields.”
Unfortunate. “Can you look into her? Tell me what she is.”
Sadi narrowed her eyes at his words.
“You witnessed her wings and claws. Those are not characteristics of any living race.”
Sadi stilled, her consciousness drifted to a place only Familiar could access. Those of her kind, who worshiped fate, could touch the life threads of every living being.
She explained it to him once when she’d first come to court. She would spend hours with him in Saith’s study. While he actively refined his terrifying powers, perfecting them, she sat in a chair staring off into the distance.
When he’d asked her what she did while he honed his craft, she replied that she did the same. Each life’s thread was constructed of hundreds of lives. The individual’s thread remained at the heart of the cord, but every life they encountered entwined and spun with theirs, creating the tightly woven braided cord.
A Familiar needed to master pulling these strands apart without breaking them. Snapping the fragile filaments ended lives, cutting them short. Altering fate.
After they mastered handling the threads, Familiar could witness the individual’s life. Watching it play before their eyes, spying on a person’s deeds and actions.
Rune scrutinized the two women identical to each other and loosened his hold on the Ra’Voshnik a fraction.Why do you prefer one and not the other? They are practically twins.
If you can’t recognize the difference, you’re a bigger fool than I take you for.
Rune drove the Ra’Voshnik down, silencing it.
Sadi stood suddenly, drawing Rune from his inward thoughts. Worry flickered through her gaze as she began pacing the room. “You’re bound to her.”
“Your father said as much,” Rune stated dryly.
Sadi stole glances at the sleeping woman. “I’ve never seen a thread like hers. She’s lived for the past eight hundred years.”
“The minx is immortal then?”
“She lives, ages, and dies a mortal life. Over and over. This is the ninth life she’s lived back-to-back. Before then, her line was dormant. Your fate tie is its only company. You’ve been tied to her your entire life.”
Rune glanced at the bed. She would age and fade in less than a century. The thought of her inevitable absence from his life left him with a gnawing hollow feeling. Rune pressed his fingers over his sternum as though the pressure could subdue the ache. “If she has been fated to me my entire life, why do I only feel her now?”
Sadi shook her head. “I don’t know.”
The minx stretched her arms over her head in her sleep, and the Ra’Voshnik fought him viciously.Lay beside her. She will curl to us and sleep in our arms,it purred.
With a growl he dragged his gaze from his captive. Nothing about her made sense.
Rune glared at the sleeping minx, subduing the Ra’Voshnik. This wasn’t fate. He was the Shadow Prince. Immortal. He wore a shard of Darkness. Fate would not be so cruel, slighting him with a mortal that would age and die. A death that would seep into him through their fated bond.
“The fated tie is a spell which likely runs my entire life because it needs to tie to me. That is why I have not felt it before. Her lives are iterations of a spell being perfected.” One he would break, freeing himself of her sway over him.
Sadi hugged her arms close to herself. “What if my father is right, and she is yours?”
Her words didn’t surprise him. Familiar worshiped fate. Honoring it first, above all others. Including their lives. Rune was no Familiar.
She is not mine.
Chapter eleven
WarmthandcomfortsurroundedFaye as she happily cocooned in blankets nestled in the softest bed she’d ever felt. She pulled the blankets tighter around her, tucking her arms under her chin.
