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A smile tugged on my face, even through the harsh ache of the bites from the weavers. A moment of clarity brought his face into focus—a boy who tried not to smile too often, but when he laughed, his features brightened like the sun.
“Silas,” I whispered. My body felt heavy.
Anguished despair cut through my heart. It didn’t feel as though it was my own.
“Will you finish the tale for a bright king, Silas?”
He’ll find her, his voice was soft, burdened.
“Good. Sing me back to you.”
What will you be called?
Each tale, each life, took a different name, a different storyteller. I didn’t hesitate, as though the name burned the tip of my tongue, begging to get out. “Calista.”
His voice was thick with emotion when he spoke again.Then it is the beginning of the end. Find me, Little Rose. Find me again.
I smiled as the heat of the poison flooded my lungs. My head drooped to the side, and a final word whispered off my tongue. “Always.”
When my eyes opened once more, swift moments reeled through my head. A small girl playing dice games in Raven Row, her brother haggling with merchants for sly deals, laughter at a game hall.
I was small, barely a girl older than seven turns. I’d been tasting what I thought was my first taste of mead ale when the door burst in and rough traders shouted and shoved, and eventually snatched me off the bench.
I struggled but didn’t cry for my brother. When I caught his gaze across the hall, he smiled. Some twisted side of me smiled back, mouthing the word:Finally.
The cold bars of a cell sent a shudder down my spine. I squinted against the dark. It reeked of unwashed skin and piss. In the cell across from me, a lump of a man shivered in the cold.
“Hey,” I said. “You know, you look like a lump. Mind if I call you Lumpy since you won’t tell me your name?”
He tugged the blanket over his shoulders, turning his back to me. “Irritating little bird.”
I grinned again.A voice small as the song of a bird. I promised you.
One turn of the head and it all shifted. I was looking through new bars, no longer at my Lumpy, but at my Kind Heart.
“Girl!” Her voice was harsh and desperate. “Tell me what you know. You wrote him into the curse.”
“I told you I didn’t,” I snapped. “I’m the fifth storyteller.” Thefinalstoryteller. Every tale came from a different song, a different purpose, and different path. Deep inside I knew it, but how would I explain it to my Kind Heart when I wasn’t positive I understood it all myself? “And the first four—dead.”
I pressed my head against the bars of the cell, ensuring Elise was listening. “This could start something. It could change the world.”
The Kind Heart and Cursed King would restore the first fated crown. From there, we’d finally find the end.
* * *
The Black Tomb faded. On my hands and knees, I gasped as my head spiraled through everything I’d witnessed. Blood raged in my head, my chest; it pulsed through every heartbeat like a stampede through my veins.
“I can’t.” His deep, rough voice broke the silence.
Once more I was in the muddy streets of Raven Row. The night was bloody red, and in the distance, guards traipsed along the glimmering shield against the sea.
Damp mists surrounded me, and it seemed the people, the Rave, even the blood fae, had left me to be alone with him. A few steps to my side, Silas leaned against a broken cask. He combed his fingers through his hair, shoulders shuddering.
“Silas.”
He shook his head.
I crept over to his side, placing my hands on the tops of his knees. My body wouldn’t stop trembling, but I tugged against one of his arms. “Silas, look at me.”
