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The boy’s eyes were glassy with tears, his voice quivered. “You’re . . . you’re right to be a little afraid. I think . . . your heir and the princess someday might get put in danger.”
Riot’s nose flared. “Tell me what you saw.”
“I don’t know.” The boy whimpered and started to curl into the side of the captain. “I saw tears and . . . and fire, and it was a sad song.”
“A song.” Riot gripped the boy’s slender arms. “You were singing?”
Tears fell onto the boy’s cheeks. “It just started not so many months ago.”
Riot looked to the captain. “A fated event happened not so many months ago.”
“A birth of an heir.” The captain arched a brow. “Why would a gift from an unknown bloodline suddenly take hold?”
“Reasons I don’t know, and that is what brings me alarm. Why wouldn’t I know?” Riot looked back to the boy, softer now. “Do you sing songs for anyone else?”
The boy shook his head. “Only once before. The rest have only been for your house, King.”
“What was the other song about?”
“My daj told me to hum when I fished, kept you awake, he’d say. Right before the start of the frosts, I was humming and fishing, then it felt like bleeding fire lit right here—” He struck his narrow chest. “And when I hummed, fish came. Like I called to them. Never happened. After that, I started to see things about the palace, about . . . the heir and queen and sometimes the princess and you.”
“All gods.” Riot gaped at his captain.
“As I told you, My King.” The captain gave a quick bow.
Riot dragged his fingers through his hair and gawked at the boy. “A fate singer. Another one? Strange to be almost restricted to songs of one house, though. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“I brought him to you since the boy said he sang a song about our princess that left him confused.”
“No, I didn’t.” The boy shook his head. “I don’t want to bother a king no more.”
“Listen well, Ari,” Wraith said. “You’ll find this part most interesting.”
I flexed my fingers and took a step closer to the scene.
The king grinned. “No bother, boy. You had a thought about my sister?”
The boy shook his head again, eyes clenched.
Riot crouched in front of the skinny child. “May I tell you a secret?”
“Me?” He wiped sweaty palms down his trousers. “Yeah, I s’pose.
“I’ve used my gift to seal the bonds between many lovers in our kingdom. Strong bonds, the ones that last into the Otherworld. Every fated love has a tale, you see. They call it a heart’s song, or in the old words, ahjärta.”
My mouth dropped. “We . . . we use that term in the North.”
“Yes. It is a valuable power for those who find that love,” said Wraith.
“I’ve never been without words, boy,” Riot admitted. “Until my own sister. I never found her song. Two people I care so much about, my sister and oldest friend, and I cannot think of a song for their happiness. Now, I’ve given my blessing for a match I am not certain is fated to be.” The king crouched in front of the boy again. “So, if you have something to tell me, it would ease a king’s heart.”
The captain pressed his palm on the boy’s back and nudged him forward.
With a slight tremble in his voice, the child lifted his gaze to the king’s and sang. A soft, melodic sound of a child’s voice.
She, the raven fair, grows cold till North winds rise.
He, the peasant king, wakes her from the endless night.
