“Your fate is tied to the sword, but it is not thesameas the sword. Do you have—ah. May I look with your bracelet?”
Kyla’s eyebrows shot up, and she covered her bracelet with her hand. It was plain, beaded, and now that I thought about it, I’d never seen her not wear it. Even after shifting to wolf form and back.
She slipped it off and handed it over, expression somber. Selina took it from her, and we both watched as she entered her trance.
“You will trust someone who will betray their word,” Selina told Kyla. “But you will find allies in the places you would least expect. You must return the sword to its rightful owner.”
I frowned. “Finvarra isn’t its rightful owner.”
Selina was still talking. “The bargain has been struck, but you must return the sword to its true sheath, or the realms will burn.”
Well, that took a nasty turn.
“You will have a choice to make,” she continued. “Choose wrongly, and you will be chained to a throne. Choose correctly, and you will sit on one.”
Kyla swallowed. “How do I know what to choose and when?”
Selina smiled. “You must remember who you are.”
Selina’s eyes popped open, and she handed the bracelet back to Kyla, who scowled. “Chained to a throne?”
Selina nodded. “In wolf form.”
“Which throne?”
“The owner of the throne was hidden from me.”
I blew out a breath. “Well, there are really only three options. Four if you count the merfolk’s throne, but I’m assuming you didn’t see water in her future?”
Selina shook her head.
“Samael would never do anything like that if he took his throne back, but for now, we know it would either be Lucifer’s throne, Finvarra’s throne, or the seelie king’s throne.”
“But… what do you mean by sitting on one?”
“The visions are not always literal,” Selina smiled at her. “Sometimes, they must be interpreted in various ways, and sometimes the meaning won’t become clear until closer to the time.”
Relief coursed through me. “So being chained to a throne or sitting on a throne could mean figuratively. For example, she could be responsible for someone else sitting on the throne, or have enough political power that she’s influencing the person whoison the throne.”
Or, be kept in servitude to someone who was sitting on a throne. The thought made my gut clench.
Selina nodded. “Exactly. The visions can be interpreted in hundreds of ways.”
Kyla still looked perturbed, and Selina reached over and squeezed her hand. “Fretting over the future will only make you second-guess yourself when the time comes. If there’s one thing I can tell you, it’s that you must stay true to yourself.”
I swallowed. “If she needs to return the sword to its rightful owner, but she also has to fulfill her bargain with Finvarra, does that mean she needs to steal it twice?”
Selina sighed. “Yes. That part was clear. Finvarra may hold the sword for a short time, but if he keeps it for more than a few months, the worlds burn.”
“No pressure,” Kyla muttered.
I got to my feet and carried the dishes to the sink while they spoke in quiet voices. If I was still alive when Kyla went after the sword, I’d help her in any way I could. But that didn’t stop the guilt that twisted in my stomach. I should never have taken her with me to Finvarra.
“Hey,” Kyla elbowed me, and I jumped. I’d rinsed the dishes and now I was staring into the sink as if it held the answers to the universe.
“Sorry, daydreaming.”
“You were wallowing in guilt is what you were doing.” Kyla leaned back on the counter and turned to Selina. “I’m assuming that I was probably supposed to return the sword to its rightful owner regardless of my little bargain with Finvarra, right?”
