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I trust Caen as much as anyone, except perhaps my twin, and if we were anywhere else, I’d tell him everything. I’d tell him about that sunny day full of laughter around a shores of the royal lake.
* * *
I wasn’t the only child raised in the high queen’s court. She routinely fostered the sons and daughters of the great lords in order to shape their minds, weigh their value, control their education, and assess them as threats. When I was fifteen, there were five. My brother, who'd been sent here after his first flight in the court of wings, Rena, the beautiful heiress of the bright court, whose love we all sought, a mortal boy from Silver with the voice of an angel, and of course, her.
The child of gold was, strictly speaking, a human too, but unlike the singer, she didn't feel like one. There was something a little unhinged inMarun Farra, that made her feelalmost like one of us. All the queen had told us about her was that she was found in the untamed lands. We knew she wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t of some worth, though.
That day, my brother had been busy attempting to charm Rena by reading her fortune in some painted cards.
“You pulled the lover, death, and the tower. So, you’ll fall in love, die, and end up thrown out of the window by my mother?” he guessed, making us all laugh.
Rena rolled her eyes, but gave him a kiss all the same.
“You have neither gift nor knowledge in the art of card reading,” Marun laughed. “But at least you know how to entertain us.”
“Do better than me, then!” he challenged, tossing her the deck.
She leaned forward and proceeded to shuffle it with an ease that could only be attributed to practice. And then she gave us all our fates, making us pick those cards.
To the Silver boy whose name I can’t recall, she said he’d die at the height of his success, murdered by a jealous competitor. Rena, she warned not to let arrogance dictate her fate, as it had the potential to be her downfall—something that certainly proved true enough. And then, she ruined my brother’s life with truths wrapped in deceits, unknowingly waving a fate that could have destroyed him.
“Neither you or your brother will remain here in the Hollow for long,” she mused.
“Thank all the gods for that.” Calreth rolled his eyes. “It’s so very dull under the watch of all the guards all the time.”
“In your future, I see a relentless pursuit.”
He wasn’t to be cowed. “For frilly skirts, no doubt.”
“No.” Marun was firm. “There’s only one woman for you. Thrice born, then remade.”
“That’s not mysterious at all, Rune,” he’d snorted.
“Well, look if you don’t believe me.”
Then she reached for his face, and they remained locked just like that for long seconds, my brother’s eyes growing wide.
I came last, after Cal.
By then, I didn’t want to take the cards. Something about her voice, her eyes, too bright as she read them, and the way the air crackles, like her words were recorded by the gods themselves as she spoke them, scared me. But a scared fifteen-year-old rarely makes the wisest choices. Reluctant to let my peers see the cracks, I took the cards.
I let her read.
I didn’t know for sure that I was in the presence of the last great seer of our age.
“Let me concentrate. No, I don’t see much…” She frowned, shaking her head. “It’s clouded? Or maybe shielded. Perhaps tea leaves will work better.”
I reluctantly handed her my almost empty cup, and she stared for long second.
“What do you see?” Rena asked eagerly. “No big, ominous warning for Ry? I knew he was your favorite.”
“It’s not clouded. But I don’t understand. It’s impossible. Oh, Ry,” she’d whined, lifting bright golden eyes to mine.
Full of concern.
Pity.
“What?” I heard myself whisper.
