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Every touch brought a tremble to the earth, as if the bedrock shifted and cracked.
As he went, the king repeated through gritted teeth the same words, over and over. “No past, no name, no true life. Live and live again, until the death at crimson night.”
“What is this?” I stumbled into Wraith, unable to keep my balance.
“The king is stripping his voice and severing his ability to twist fate with a forbidden tale. He gave his voice to another with the power to create a different path. Lives were erased, kingdoms were broken.”
Skeins of molten light shredded through the trees, the mountains, and vales. My pulse thudded in my skull as I witnessed the divide of Night Folk, of Alver, of the united lands by one twist of fate with enough power to shatter worlds, alter every path, every destiny.
The king was weak and barely able to stand when it ended. With a rough gasp he looked to his captain, to the boy beside him, then at last to the silent child. “You don’t have long before you never were. Live and live again. Find those who have been lost. When the curse of a raven lifts, know that you are near the end.”
Shadows spun around us once again, but not before Riot took up his sword. The king backed away, he roared a battle cry, and with his warriors, abandoned the captain, his heir, and his ward, and raced into a fight unseen.
Trees thickened around us as the captain and the ward came into sight again. They ran through the trees with the child and the secrets Riot left for his sister to find. Death and fire rose to the stars at their backs.
The boy broke the trees first, and immediately wheeled on the captain, “Hide little rose.”
Annon skidded, cursed under his breath, but obeyed the order of the boy, and concealed the sleeping young one beneath a hedge in the trees.
Time came to an abrupt halt. Twenty paces beyond the forest line, Davorin, blade at his side, hatred written in every line of his face, waited. Blood soaked his brows, his lips, his tunic, though I doubted much was his own.
“What has he done?” Davorin’s breaths were rough and jolted with each sharp intake.
“The king sang his last song,” Annon shouted. “You are to be nothing.”
“I am everything!” A wildness raged through Davorin, but he studied his palm.
“He’s fading,” I muttered. Unnecessary. No mistake, Wraith knew every outcome of this twisted tale, but my tongue could only be still for so long.
“They all are,” Wraith whispered.
True enough. A youthfulness filled the captain’s face that hadn’t been there before. Some strange transformation was taking hold.
“I am due what is rightfully mine, and I will come for it,” Davorin promised.
The boy, a trembling thing with nothing but two boxes of rings in his pouch, stepped forward. He stood between the battle lord and the captain. “It’s not yours. Not no more. The golden king’ll take from you first; we’ll make certain he does.”
Davorin’s eyes turned pitch as night. Wicked. Glossy with venom.
With a slow, rage-filled motion, he unsheathed a second blade. “This is your doing, so here is what I vow to you, boy: this golden king you’ve twisted into the fates, I’ll find him. When I do, I’ll ruin him until he has no heart to give. Until he serves me.”
Davorin winced; his body was losing depth, as though bit by bit he was becoming more mist than man. “When I have my army again, I will take back the power of these lands, and any fae with seidr like you will have their skulls shelved above my throne!”
The boy didn’t have a chance to dodge before Davorin swung the smaller of the two blades. Before the battle lord faded into his haunting darkness. Before he began infecting the lands with his hatred and war.
The blade sliced through the boy’s brow, across one eye, one freckled cheek, down to the hinge of his jaw. Blood fountained over his face as he fell. Captain Annon shouted his name. Davorin hissed one final vow to claim his throne before he faded into the smoke and ash.
I studied the fallen heart singer. A boy’s face mangled by the deep gash.
In the back of my throat tension throttled my words; I lifted my gaze to the masked phantom guide.
Wraith glanced away quickly. His silence didn’t last before his entire form shifted, and he let out a soft, “Not possible.” He looked over his shoulder, a wash of concern on his face. “Something isn’t right.”
Panic coiled hard and sharp in my chest. Thoughts flew to Saga. Wraith had some strange message from the damn Norns, some connection to fate, or he would not be here. He controlled this wretched dream walk, and if something had gone wrong, all I could think was Saga was in danger, or . . . I was dead.
The forest faded along with the fallen boy and captain. Wraith seemed to fall into the reaching darkness, eyes wild. He reached for me. “No!”
I had no time to question him before the ground rotted out from beneath my feet. Wraith disappeared. I landed on damp, loamy soil. The taste of mold and refuse on my tongue. With a groan, I worked my way to my hands and knees, an unsettling ache in my side.
