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My pulse pounded in my skull. To see it all again, I had an inkling of what Junie meant.
“Saga,” I said softly. “I fear I was wrong about the impact of the curse.” My gaze found Junie. She gave a subtle nod as if agreeing. “I’m not certain the bloodline faded completely. I think it might’ve lived on through descendants.” I opened an arm in the direction to where Calista left. “She has power to twist fate with her stories and warnings. She’s also been a piece of our game from the start.”
“You don’t think . . .” Elise’s voice trailed off.
“This battle lord promised he would not rest until any trace of House Ode was destroyed,” Junius said. “What if there is still a trace?”
I looked to Stefan. “Your bloodline, has it always had seidr?”
The man smirked, and as was his way, reached into his canvas jacket for an herb roll. “Always, Golden King.”
“It makes sense,” I said. “Her power has grown, but I’ve been told she’s felt things about this battle, this place, before Saga even arrived. Calista’s blood hails from these isles; our odd little storyteller is the descendent of House Ode.”
Chapter36
The Raven Queen
I took a deep breath,then tossed the flap of the tent aside. It wasn’t grand, a simple bed for two, small wooden crates of bland oatcakes and dried fish, Valen’s axes and Elise’s sword were stacked against the tent post, and a clay bowl for washing faces and hands. There, Calista scrubbed her fingernails, her back to me.
Alone now. Stefan had gone to speak with her first, but emerged not long ago to sit in on the plotting and schemes to take back Eryka and hopefully separate Davorin’s head from his body. We did not have long to make the trade, and Calista would be part of the plan.
The conjecture to Calista’s bloodline held me hostage. I offered to speak with her first. Confident and cunning when we’d first met, now Calista seemed buried in unspoken thoughts and worries. The sort of mind games that ended up getting folk killed.
“Calista,” I said. “Mind if I join you?”
One shoulder shrug was her reply.
“You’ve been uneasy since stepping foot on the isles.” I sat on the edge of the low bed. “Tell me why. No lies, no half-truths.”
“I never lie.”
“But you don’t talk much about what goes on in your head either.”
Calista shook water off her fingers. She glared at me, folding her arms over her body. “Chatting about thoughts that mean nothing does nothing, Raven Queen.”
“Maybe your thoughts don’t mean nothing.”
“Why don’t we talk about your thoughts and what you’re trying to get at. I’d rather just get to it.”
“As you say.” I crossed the space between us. “I don’t want to waste time, I want to figure out any secrets, any clues my brother left behind. What I’m thinking right now is you . . . are mine.”
Calista’s eyes shadowed. “I belong to no one.”
“I think you do.” I softened my tone. “In the right way. I think Ari is right, and we share blood. I’ve only learned along with the rest of you that my brother had an heir, a bloodline he concealed with his curse. Even from me. What that tells me is Riot’s line continues to have a role in this fight, and he did not want Davorin to know it.
“There was something in Ari’s memory that bothered you, and I think it was the same thing. I think you know you have more purpose than simply writing curses and prophecies whenever we come to call.”
“I should leave,” Calista said softly. “I’ve done what you asked me to do.”
“But you are still here. Why stay for this fight when you have aided the others before yet you never walked onto their final battlefields?”
Calista took hold of her knife from her belt and tapped the blade side to side, a little habit I took as her way to wade through a tangle of thoughts or to hide disquiet.
I kept my mouth closed as she tapped, as she paced. After a drawn pause, the click of her knife ceased. “Because I think you’re right. There is something here that calls to me. Now you have a true thought from my head. Satisfied?”
My heart squeezed. It meant something to know a touch of House Ode still lived. “You’re angry about it? If it’s true, Calista, then we’re part of your family. To us it means we stand with you and protect you. Always.”
“You can’t protect me.” Fear lived in her eyes, sharp and potent. A glass window to the turmoil she hid within. Calista dug into the pouch she kept tied to her thigh and removed a stack of folded parchment. She thrust them into my hands and took a step back. “Storytellers are not known to live long.”
