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“Yes. And if I tell you some unseen force pulled me toward the bed, right to where the stone was hidden, you will think I was losing my mind.”
“No, I won’t. The Oracle’s been playing us for a century; she’s always one step ahead of us because she has the advantage of experience. Given how old she is, she’s capable of anything, so no, I won’t think you’re mad.”
“I heard a voice, telling me where to go, tocome find it.” She shivered. “Torin’s voice, though I don’t know how that could be. She led me to the dragons, and one of the dragon’s eyes had a fingerprint in the middle. I pressed my thumb over the mark and a compartment opened.” Her voice was so quiet by the end I strained to catch the words.
“Have you noticed anything…odd since you found this?”
“Besides being caught in the middle of a war and staging a prison break from my father’s dungeons, then almost killing him?” Her eyes lifted to mine and, for the briefest second, twinkled slightly. “No, nothing odd at all.”
“That’s a no, then?” I tried to match her attempt at humor but failed to dislodge the dread weighing me down.
“That’s a no. At least, I don’t think so. I really thought that was…just a stone.”
I lifted my brow. “Locked in a secret compartment that Torin’s scent led you straight to before a little voice—Torin’s voice—told you tocome find it?”
I shook my head. “Really, Anaria?”
“Okay, so I thought how I found it was strange and unusual, but in the end Ihopedit was…just a stone.” She shrugged. “It’s not like the thing was glowing or anything. I could have picked something like that up off any street in any realm.”
I peered at the keystone. She was right about that. The color was a faded white, the surface smooth as glass, with the vaguest pattern inside, almost like snowflakes trapped in ice.
“Keystones have a myriad of uses. Too many for me to guess what this one might be for. But they are rare and prized by the strongest, most powerful Fae, handed down from generation to generation.” I held her gaze. “Sometimes, from king to king.”
“I can’t do this anymore, Raz.” Her whisper was broken and hoarse. I ached at the rawness there, because this was the truth. “It’s like…there’s never an end to this. One thing just leads to another, and then another, and then…”
Fear flickered in her beautiful eyes, her quick, panicked breaths picking up, and the anger burning in my belly ignited. How much more was Anaria expected to endure? How much more would she have to bear before this was over, if we even survived?
She wasn’t meant for killing and war.
She wasn’t meant to be anywhere near this.
“Why give me something so important, then not tell me what it’s for?” she demanded, her voice cracking at the end. “That seems senseless, even for Torin.”
“Agreed, but when has any of this made sense?”
“True enough.”
I weighed everything I knew about the world against what I knew of this female in front of me.
Her strength and will, her sheer defiance in the face of everything this world threw at her. The gods had chosen her…and so had I.
I would protect her and I trusted her.
Her magic was the most powerful I’d ever seen, and yet, she wielded it with fairness and mercy. More than either of the kings had ever shown their peoples. More than any other Fae would.
Who was I to take the stone away?
I cradled her hands, pressing the keystone into her palm. I swore she shuddered in relief when her fingers closed around it. I pulled her against me. “If the stone was meant to be yours, then it’s yours. Guard it, Anaria. Guard it well. Keystones are many things, but their power is legendary. People…kings…even gods would kill for what’s in your hand.”
I would have stayed like that for the rest of time, our hearts beating together, but outside the tent a great shout went up, the sound one of terror, not of a battle won.
Adele jolted upright, her pale eyes wide.
“Stay with your mother. I’ll find out what’s happened.” I kissed the top of her head, drinking in her delicate scent, the only thing that seemed to smell of home these days, and ducked outside, straight into chaos.
* * *
I shovedthrough the rest of the Solarys soldiers, many of them injured, all of them streaming away from the battlefield and into the emptiness beyond that stretched all the way to the eastern wall toward the gate that led into Solarys.
