“Raefiya, you need rest. You’ve been at this for days, and those boys, our boys, need you. Killian turned one yesterday. Pax turns twenty-one in a few short weeks, his first birthday not in chains, and heavens help us when Seth comes of legal drinking age in MeadMoon, I’ve already asked the bottlers to design Chaos proof locks. But on the bright side, he and Pax haven’t tried to tear each other apart for a whole two days. If this keeps up, Killian and Roarke might actually get their own rooms before we reach one-thousand-and-five-hundred years old and stop sleeping in ours. Have you any idea what I would do to you if we had a room to ourselves? Those are all wins, love. Don’t search past them for losses,” Vidarr whispers. “Look on the bright side with me, love.”
“We’ve been lucky,” I agree, swallowing back the lump in my throat and forcing a yawn right after to hide it. “You’re right. We’ve found all four of them, but we have to find one more.” Two, I silently correct myself. Because the untold lines in that prophecy and the destruction left from the last time I made the wrong choice mean I can’t delude myself into thinking this will be easy. There may be no way to tell which of these newborns is the light and which is the dark, and I can’t risk only putting one of them into stasis. I am quite certain that the universe will put them in my path the same way she put Lisa in my path all those years ago.
I’d spare a thought to consider how interwoven all of our fates are, but I’m so tired the walls are blurring.
“Easy, love,” he says, steadying me once more.
“I will rest... after we send a letter to Eydis. Fetch Ravaryn to deliver it, he’s our most trusted EquineSaber and will get there the fastest. And we need to stop Tamma before she sends her letter to Lisa.”
“Love, you’re making no sense. Tamma and her father had a massive fight about her betrothal months ago, and she hasn’t been permitted to leave her rooms since. You know I don’t go into their wing, but the servants are saying Lucif has his personal Sabers stationed at her doors. She won’t be sending any letters tonight.”
“We must stop that hawk from leaving. We need to follow it. We need to find Haryk.”
“The prophecy involved the OriginSeed?” I nod, and he continues. “Love, no hawk has arrived, and no hawk will be leaving.” He settles a quizzical eye on me with a little tilt to his head that looks more like a confused palace dog than a grown Saber.
“Okay,” I sigh, relaxing into his grip.
“Come to bed. We can discuss it in the morning, with Muinthel.”
Muinthel. The smartest thing I ever did was appoint that woman as my advisor. She’ll be able to come up with a plan.
I live by the grace of Muinthel’s plans and Vidarr’s understanding.
The man’s features are sharp like Killian’s will be, his eyes bright like Seth’s, but he understood my soul so much that he never even asked to father his own. I can’t risk burdening him before he’s seen what he has to see, can’t risk disrupting this delicate line of hope from his heart to mine.
His expression softens, reaching to wrap strong arms around me.
“Elorsins stand strong,” he says softly. “Elorsins stand together – always. Whatever you saw, we will face it as a team.”
“What if we’re not always together?”
“We’ll stick together, my love. And we’ll teach the boys to stick together.”
“I have displayed nothing but weakness, the opposite to the kind of strength this kingdom needs. Vid, so many mistakes, so many regrets.”
“From where I stand, all I can see is strength. Besides, all the things you wish you could change happened before you met me, before you became an Elorsin, so they technically don’t count.”
I was born a Te’Ra and hadn’t yet married or become an Elorsin when Lucif came into my care. Lucif and his children will always be Te’Ras. Tamma, now a grown woman with a kind heart, and Lithael, who is a dark shadow of his father.
“And,” Vidarr adds, his tone a little lighter, “haven’t you realized yet? Your mother put all of this in motion with the worst possible prophecy she could gift. We are trying to change the past by pulling strings on the future, and it’s a messy business. We agreed our ProphecySeeds are a curse; this ends with us.”
“The last two,” I echo.
Vidarr leans back and tries to hold my gaze, but I roll my eyes to the right and avoid his slightly dismayed look. “What have you seen?” he asks.
I sigh and step backward out of his arms. “So much death.” The words make a whisper seem loud.
Too loud. The world too much. The truth too heavy.
“Everybody dies?” he asks, and there is no mistaking the skepticism in his voice.
“Well, no, not everyone, but lots of people.”
“Tomorrow?”
“No, not for a few hundred years.” At least, because Killian is a grown man and I witnessed Seth rest his hand in Pax’s, the two meeting each other’s gaze and holding tight as they passed. I didn’t wait long enough to see the silver balls of energy eventually leave their bodies.
“Then come with me. I can guarantee that by morning there will be new versions of reality to muddy the waters, so there is really no point killing yourself with sleep deprivation in the meantime.” As he talks, he guides me gently away from the balcony, away from the moon.
I let him because he’s right, but the fullest moon will rise again thirteen times a year. By the time these boys need to meet these two women, the light and the dark, I will have the lines to guide them – the words to steer them true. I’ll work it out.
I have to – or, despite my husband’s optimism, everyone will die, and it will start with those I love.
Maybe not in the first wave. Maybe not in the ripples, or the echo, or the silence that will come after that. But when all of that is done, the Saber race and every known Seed will be wiped into extinction.
It’s a mammoth job. Finding these girls. Putting them into stasis. Ensuring they come out at the right time, and that the right one crosses paths with my boys, then giving them all the help I possibly can.
And somehow managing to choose to let my husband die.
The pieces of my heart are already torn, held by tattered threads that simply aren’t going to last. My time has an expiration date, and a sense within me deeper than my Seed whispers that that end won’t be long after Vidarr’s.
Then my boys will be on their own.
Aeons help them.
Aeons save them.
One
13th day of SnowMoon
Two days after their Release Seals dissolved
One day after saying goodbye to the woman he refuses to love.
Just a few hours after leaving the company of Tanilya Defnasenda.
Night. Wintry, dark, peaceful, and harmonious night. The road is empty, and both Roarke and I agree the dangers along it are few, so I’ve been letting my mind wander.
No, that’s a lie. I haven’t been letting it. This memory doesn’t stop to ask permission. It just keeps playing and playing, every chance it gets.
“My love, remember when you promised you would keep your promises?” I whispered to Shadow standing before me. My brothers were waiting nearby, inside the hollow Roarke formed within densely packed vines. Waiting to say goodbye.