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Riot smiled. “You were supposed to stay . . . out and keep watch.”
“Lemme help.” The boy took hold of one of Saga’s wrists.
Wraith walked beside me, somber and silent as we watched a world crumble, unable to stop what had long ago been done. The despondent look in his eyes was enough to silence my tongue and refocus all my efforts on catching any clue from the past that might help the present.
Outside, the hot tang of smoke filled the air. Bloody skies from fires below cast ghostly shadows over the hills. Battle drums thundered nearby, shouts of warriors, cries of the dying, all of it surrounded the quiet on the hill with violence.
Riot released Saga’s wrists. He stumbled as he lowered to his knees and gently brushed his sister’s hair from her face. The king pressed a kiss to her forehead, then whispered, “Be happy, Skugga.”
My throat caught on my next breath. A sting of emotion burned behind my eyes as a king became a brother first. He hummed, low and breathless, and watched as the land cradled its princess. Boughs from trees bent and twisted. Shrubs split like gaping mouths. Soft, silky grass cocooned her body. Saga was pulled away, hidden away in the isles.
“Where . . . where’d she go?” The ward placed his hand on Riot’s shoulder.
“Away from his sight,” Riot said. “When she wakes, she will believe our battles ended quite differently. Everyone will. Behind that stone, boy, bring me what you find.”
The boy obeyed, tears on his face, and brought back two wooden boxes. The king opened one.
“Wraith,” I whispered. “Those are our rings.”
Riot tucked a piece of parchment—the letter he’d left for Saga—into one box. “Make certain she finds them. Sing her song, and see to it he—” Riot held up one box. “Is made worthy of this.”
Tears dripped onto the ward’s cheeks. He swiped them away, a flush to his features, and took the boxes. “She won’t fear no man again.”
The ward tucked the boxes in a pig skin pouch on his belt, then wrapped an arm around the king’s waist despite being two heads shorter, and managed to help Riot stagger beyond some trees.
“Damm the hells,” I muttered when a clearing opened.
Blood stained the dark blades of grass, a reek of piss and death tainted the air. Warriors stood on the edges of the trees, battle worn and broken. Some bled from gaping wounds in their chests, their ribs, or bellies. One man swayed on his feet, an empty socket where he’d recently lost an eye.
On the brink of death, yet at the sight of their king, the warriors did their best to straighten.
Captain Annon was on his knees and clutched a sobbing child against his chest. A cinch pulled at my heart. On the ground beside the captain, the queen was on her back, an arrow through her throat. Dead.
The wound no longer bled; I guessed she’d been gone for a time.
“The princess?” Captain Annon pressed, his voice a rock salt rasp.
Riot gave him a quick nod. “Hidden.”
“I don’t understand why they must be separated.”
“This is the way to the final tale, a final song,” Riot said. “A way for our line to live on.”
“Is it living though?”
“It is their only chance to claim the new story. Together they will attract too much power. Parted, lost, it will be weakened, but they will find their way back. They’ll gain strength, and be ready to face him in the end. I failed Nel, I won’t fail them.” The king looked to the boy but said nothing.
“The king could not find a song for his bloodline to live on,” Wraith said. “Every path led to destruction for House Ode, but he knew another voice could sing an alternate path designed for his house.”
“The ward?” I studied the shivering boy. His hair was tousled in dirt and smoke, and blood stained his teeth as though he’d been struck in the mouth, hard.
“When there seems to be no way out, it is in those moments we must dig inside and find the courage to choose for ourselves how we take the next step. The king made a choice, Ari. He cast a grand curse to give his power away, to give room for the voices of others to rise and finish the fight his magic could not defeat. A choice that was disgraced by the Norns.”
Riot dug into a satchel near Annon. The captain closed his eyes but said nothing to discourage his king as he removed the unique fury sword crafted by my mother.
He placed it on the ground and uttered soft, careful words. “A gift lies in wait, for this, a king of fate. On night of red, take up your claim, and rest this darkness by your blade.”
My mother’s sword was swallowed into the soil much like Saga. Blooms and ferns sprouted over the top; a sword hidden away. A destiny devoured in a past forgotten. Warm drops of rain fell, as though the isles mourned what would happen next.
