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“I would burn the world to make it safe for the three of us. But we might not have to,” he whispered against her lips. He ran his mouth along hers. “When I tell you what I found, you’ll know fate is smiling upon us. The Guardians smile upon us. Just as they smiled upon Imryll when she fled her father’s evil hold.”
Ana pushed up to sit beside him. “Tell me.”
“Addy found a letter, written by Zofia,” he said. “It wasmeantto be found, though by you, not us. It was stuck in the middle of a book titledThe Witchwood Observatory: A Spectacular History.When she picked it up, I felt this tightness in my chest, and before I could take it from her, she’d found the letter wedged between the pages.” He reached into his pocket and handed it to her. “Want me to read it to you?”
Ana nodded, grateful not to have to move her eyes too much. “Please?”
Tyreste cleared his throat. He flashed her a quick smile from the side before beginning. “If you are reading this, it is because you sought the knowledge I hope to impart, the knowledge required to save your people—and theirs. And if you are who I believe you to be, I do not need to define who ‘they’ are, do I?” He glanced over. “You’re not going to believe what she says, Ana.”
Ana’s mouth lifted in a frown. She looked at Tyreste, but he was searching for his place.
“My grandmother Imryll is the daughter of...” Tyreste mouthed the word, and she loved him for remembering she couldn’t bear to speak or hear it. “You by now may understand he is no mere man at all, but a powerful Meduwyn, those terrible sorcerers from Beyond, a place they called the Sceptre of Ilynglass. Imryll was born in the White Kingdom, butherparents were part of those who arrived on a fateful passage. It saw thousands of Rhiagain dead in the sea and just as many from the Noble Houses. If you do not know the term Noble Houses, it was the moniker ascribed to highborns in their land. Dukes, duchesses... titles we do not know or use here. The man believed to be Imryll’s father was the Duke of Glaisgain, a vain, dangerous man who tried to sell Imryll to a king, but she instead fell for a knight. The rest of the tale is as shocking as it is sordid, and if you wish to learn more, there is a book in the vault calledThe Claw and the Crownedthat tells the whole story. What you need to know is...” Tyreste again redacted the name. “Wantedhis daughter and Drazhan together. He orchestrated a terrible genocide in the Cross, one that pushed the surviving heir, Drazhan, on the path that led him to Imryll. The sorcerer wanted Imryll to beget a dynasty in the Cross, so that through her and her descendants, he could control the Ravenwoods. But Imryll, terrified of being his pawn, came into her powers and discovered her gift of flight. She flew from Duncarrow and holed herself away in a place she felt safe, for many months. No one found her, not even her father, for she had found the secret to keeping him out of her mind.”
Ana’s mouth had dried out. She tried to wet it, to swallow, or to do anything, but she needed to hear the rest. She nodded for Tyreste to go on.
“The sorcerer made the mistake of telling my grandfather Drazhan, who had been searching for Imryll for many months, that she did not want to be found, and so she would not be. Drazhan learned the sorcerer could hurt no one sharing his blood. He could get into their minds, attempt manipulative tactics... but even then, only if they allowed him. The shared blood acts as a shield for both sides. It is why he cannot be killed by his kin, but neither can he kill them. He will not want you to know this, and of course, this is precisely why I am telling you.” Tyreste took a deep breath and switched to the next page. “But he can and will kill those you love. To hurt you. To control you. He took my dearest cousin, Paeris, from me, as he took my grandmother’s oldest friend, King Torian, from her. But Imryll, in her desperation and helplessness, discovered it was thisvery lovethat gave her power against him. When she was hiding, in a small cabin in the Easterlands, her fear and love created a ward that kept her and her unborn child safe from detection. Drazhan only found her because he was keen enough to read through the monster’s message, and he knew Imryll as well as he knew his own heart. He knew where she would go to keep herself and her child safe.” Tyreste glanced over to check on Ana, but she nodded for him to finish. “When I came to my grandmother and confessed that Paeris had been murdered, and by whom, she folded me into her secrets. Together, we placed a new ward over Witchwood Cross, barring the monster from ever crossing our gates. It worked. If it ever fails to work, I will come back and leave another letter with this one. But while I do not expect it to fail, not in my lifetime, I know the creature is patient. He has what we do not have: endless time. One day another ward will be needed, and so I leave you with the secret to creating one.”
Tyreste wiped his eyes and kissed Ana’s forehead. He folded the letter and put it back in his vest. “Do you want to know what the secret is?”
Ana looked up and nodded. “A spell? Magic we haven’t seen yet?”
His eyes were ringed with red as he watched her. “No, Ana. It’s love. The fear of losing what makes your heart beat. Imryll was so terrified for her unborn child, she turned her fear into protection. When Zofia went to her grandmother, pregnant from an affair with a boy she’d loved from childhood, Imryll bade her to channel her terror into power, and she did. Imryll used the monster’sown magic against himto keep him away.”
Ana bowed her head with a deflated scoff. “But I have been afraid every single day since Magda showed up in our lives. I have loved to the depths of my soul. If that were all it took, I would have driven the evil from this land a decade ago.”
“Anastazja,” Tyreste said slowly. “There is a different kind of love for those you hold as equals than there is for those whose entire existence depends on your ability to provide safety.”
Ana brought a shaky hand to her belly. She was almost scared to touch it, to acknowledge the life growing within, the life she already knew she would die to keep safe. When Mortain discovered it, he would rage at the wrinkle in his plan. There was no telling what he would do to return her to the path he’d set her on.
“I do love them. I don’t even know them, our baby, but I love them so much,” Ana said. Her face crumpled in sadness, and Tyreste tugged her close. “I understand Imryll now. I only thought I understood fear before.”
“I know,” Tyreste agreed. He nestled his face in her hair. “I know what you mean.”
“We don’t have much time.” Ana wiped her eyes and sat up. “I think my... my biggest failure of the past years has been believing I could do any of this on my own. That I was ever going to solve this without letting others in.”
“You’re talking to the king of Never Admitting Weakness,” Tyreste said in a hushed tone. “The past isn’t our concern, Ana. No one has the power to change it, not even the monster deciding fates. There’s a fallacy in thinking a trail of sadness behind us means we can only pave the road with more of the same. We know we need each other, and we know we need help. So let’s embrace those things and finish this.”
“Your family stays out of it,” Ana said hotly. “And I mean it. I want them safe. If this doesn’t have to be their battle, we don’t make it their battle.”
“Well,” Tyr said, hands tented under his chin. “I won’t argue that. But if we don’t invite Addy in, she’ll invite herself, and then we lose the power to protect her.”
Ana sighed. “You’re right. Okay. We need to return to Fanghelm, share Zofia’s letter, and let those who would stand with us stand with us. Let them decide whether the risk is worth taking. Everyone gets a choice. No one is required to stay or to help.”
Tyr stretched to his feet and reached a hand down. His mouth was drawn in a solemn line, but the warmth in his eyes betrayed the hope his findings had given them both. “Let’s grab Addy and go.”
Chapter27
Blood of the Meduwyn
If someone had told Arkhady Wynter he’d been sleeping for years, he would have believed it. No command his mind gave had put his limbs into motion, even with hours and hours of Lenik coaching him through what the vodzhae persisted in calling, with careful hand pats every time he said it, “your terrible ordeal.”
Arkhady had asked after Stepan and had been given news so soul-crushing, he might have returned to wherever he’d been for the past while, if a sharp, dark memory hadn’t reminded him he already knew his son, his baby, had perished in the Vuk od Varem. Five years it had been. Five years and Arkhady could still feel his son’s presence like he’d only left yesterday.
The rest was a mess of twisted, rotted vines, flashes of thorns and honey, and so much bewilderment. He ordered Lenik to bring Niko and Ana to his chambers, but Niko had been “ordered away” by the stewardess, and Ana’s whereabouts were unknown.
His entire family, gone.
And the stewardess...
