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She licked her lips and held his gaze, unwavering. “I mean, I met you before those cells in Ravenspire, Lump. I saw you as a small boy, a little heartbroken that you had a new tiny brother.” She chuckled and cast a look toward Valen Ferus. She drifted to the Shadow King and Queen. “I mean, I was there when a queen’s ring was lost to her enemies.”
The Shadow Queen’s mouth parted, but whether it was stun, or confusion, she didn’t speak.
“And you.” Calista looked to Ari. “I was there when a boy needed rescuing after slaughter, so he could free the heart of a beloved aunt who had been lost to me. So he could rise to his destiny as the fated Golden King.”
Perhaps, for the first time in our acquaintance, Ari Sekundär did not speak.
“That is what I mean, Lump. I’ve always been there.” Calista looked to Elise Ferus. “That is what I meant, Kind Heart, when we met in that tomb, and I spoke of storytellers before me.”
“Cal,” Elise said, a catch to her voice. “You told me those storytellers were killed.”
With a jerky sort of nod, Calista forced a quivering smile. “And they were.”
“Bleeding gods.” Sol’s eyes went wide. “Live and live again. That was the curse your father cast. You cannot die.”
“I assure you, I can,” she said, rubbing a hand over her slender throat. “I have. A few times, as it turns out.”
“And you didn’t know?” Saga rose from the table like Sol, but approached Calista, taking her hands in hers. “You didn’t remember?”
“Not until the final moments.” She flicked her gaze back to me and took my hand. “That is when I would find those whispers in the dark. When the song of fate would take over and finish the tale.”
“You both have been dying over and over.”
I clenched my eyes. The blood, the pain, the fear, watching it over and over again was a plague in my mind I feared I would never escape. No matter how much I touched her, kissed her, held her, it would always be there.
Calista’s voice shook. “Silas did not fade. As a cruel gift of the Norns for what my father had done, he was left to finish the tales, and wait for it to begin again. He was left to . . . guide me back. Annon was cursed to walk with me. Makes a bit of sense now, doesn’t it, how he told me we’d said goodbye before.”
“Cal.” Saga stole her from my grip. I wasn’t particularly pleased, but stepped back to let her embrace Calista. “I don’t understand the purpose of it?”
“Same purpose as your curse, so that ugly sod out there couldn’t find me. Hard to track the bloodline of House Ode if it does not have a true existence.”
“Bleeding hells.” Sol sat back in his seat again. “You were Greta. Is that what you mean?”
Valen scrubbed his face. “You were the enchantress.”
Calista looked away as if ashamed. “We had to do things, you understand, don’t you? We had to cast the words of your heart song. None of them were simple or kind or easy. Fate was punishing us for manipulating the whole bleeding world. To find our way back, we would have to fight. Your curse wasn’t only to keep you alive and safe from that wretched Ice King; I knew it was the way for you to find my Kind Heart.”
“Calista, if you think we are angry, you’re wrong.” Valen took hold of his wife’s hand and kissed two missing fingertips. “I would not change the path that has brought us here. It is pain-ridden, filled with loss, but our lands did grow stronger. We are stronger. None of us would give up our families for a bit of comfort, right?”
“Some of us would not be here,” said the son of the Night Folk princess—Gunnar, if I recalled it correctly. He took his star seer’s hand tightly.
“Speak for yourself. I could’ve done without the separation from Tor,” Sol said, but there was a lightness in his tone as he returned to his chair and placed a hand on his consort’s leg. “I’m simply saying, the curse of madness was quite disconcerting, little bird.”
Calista let out a wet chuckle. “Apologies, Lump. You always were the clever prince.”
“Debatable,” Valen muttered.
“Had to be something with your mind to satisfy that old Ice King.”
“So you were there,” the Shadow Queen said, holding up the silvery glass ring. “Those legends of the first and second families of memory workers. You were there.”
“They were losing,” Calista said. “The first family. I said the words, Silas sang the song, and it set the ring on a bloody path back to the proper heir. Without the song, the ring might’ve been lost. Perhaps, never restored, and the hatred from our wretched battle lord would’ve consumed a fated gift of devotion. I am sorry your folk were killed, your majs and your dajs, in order to reach the end.”
At that, Calista cast a hesitant look toward Ari who had hardly budged.
“I wish I could’ve stopped what happened, Ari,” she admitted. “That sod is cruel, and I think he sensed your importance; he knew the importance your maj and daj played in the court of House Ode. He took his revenge on them.”
The smith’s daughter. The cartographer. I was there that day when House Sekundär found its song. I hated showing the truth to him, yet was glad Ari got to see his folk again.
