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Slowly, she shook her head. “You think too highly of me if you believe that.” The child beside her let out a faint whimpering sound in its sleep. Gently she reached out a hand to touch the baby’s cheek. “When springtime blooms, the babe is blessed,” she whispered, quoting again. “Will you be blessed, little one?”
She raised her eyes to mine. “Medra. Her name is Medra.”
“Medra,” I repeated.
“You need not ever fear for your child.” Draven’s voice was rough. “No harm will come to her.”
Orcades looked up at the man who supported her, as if seeing him for the first time. Her eyes widened, then she glanced back at me. “A Siabra. Your mate?”
“My mate,” I said with pride.
She sighed a little. “There is no helping it, I suppose. I thank you,” she said to Draven. “She will have need of protectors.”
Orcades eyes were moving around the room. As she caught sight of the grail on the floor behind me, lying in a pool of Kaye’s blood, she gasped.
“You know what this means.” Moving a hand to her mouth she coughed again. There was more blood this time.
I nodded. I hadn’t wished to think about it. But there was no denying the implications.
There was only one way my brother could have gotten his hands on the grail.
“The death of kings,” Orcades breathed. “Will she deliver it?”
“She won’t have to,” I said darkly. “Medra won’t have to kill our father, Orcades. Because I swear to you I will do it myself.”
None of this was accidental. Gorlois and the Valtain had been involved in Pendrath’s affairs all along.
“The evils of the world at the feet of one man.” Orcades eyes were filled with an unnatural brightness that somehow I knew could not last long. “Even in this, he has thwarted me.” There was sorrow in her words. She was fading now. “You must go home, Sister. You must destroy them all.”
“The three objects of power.”
“Yes. But you must be very careful.” She paused, gasping for breath. “He wants you back. He always has.”
“What will happen if I do destroy them?”
“I do not know. You may find yourself. Or lose everything.”
Something evil had begun here today. A darkness was rising. Something deep inside me told me it had happened once before. And that the world could not endure it if this evil rose again.
“There was another inscription,” Orcades said suddenly. “Written upon the pedestal. I scratched it off.”
Anticipation coiled in my chest. “What did it say?”
Orcades smiled, her lovely lips rimmed heartbreakingly with blood. “Whosoever pulls the sword from this stone shall be the rightful ruler of all Aercanum.”
I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. The inscription was too momentous to believe.
“Who wrote it?” I demanded. “Who put the sword there in the first place? And why? Tell me that much.”
But Orcades was looking down at her sleeping daughter. The brightness in her eyes was dimming like a candle. Already she slumped against Draven. He held her propped up with the utmost tenderness.
My mate had, I realized, been very silent through all of this. Now I saw the grief that constricted his face. He was reliving the worst moment of his life.
But this time, the baby would live. We had that much comfort.
“Who meets their death devoid of love shall surely face their end,” Orcades murmured as she brushed her hand over the sleeping baby’s cheek. “But one who gives their soul away, eternity extends.”
“Orcades...” My voice caught.
