“If I die in here,” she whispered, “I’m haunting you for eternity.”
His mouth curved then shrugged, raising one hand as if questioning her and whispered back, “Hey, I followed you here. You just had to trust your instincts.” He gestured her forward with infuriating calm and then walked behind Ella into the cottage.
Inside, it smelled like flowers and honey, every surface holding something: jars with careful labels, dried bundles of leaves, a bowl of shells sorted by color, and stones with holes through their centers. There were teacups that didn’t match, andon the far wall, a string was hung with little squares of paper, each painted with a symbol in black ink. Ella didn’t recognize all of them, but she knew how it felt to stand near words that meant more than the ink they were made of.
Octavia poured tea the color of fresh dirt. “I’m sorry if the vision startled you,” she said, all contrition and dimples.
Ella went still.
She remembered where she’d heard “Octavia.”
That name had lived at the root of her choices for years. Octavia was the voice she’d heard in the dream that drove her from Orchid, the vision that told her to follow the prophecy’s pull north. To search for the relic.
“You’re the one,” Ella whispered. “The vision was yours.”
“When they come that strong, I tend to fall right out of myself. Full blackout. It’s very inconvenient. Once, I woke up spinning on a windmill. Another time in a fisherman’s net, quite frightening actually. It was rank with the scent of disappointing men. Oh and once, in a duchess’s wardrobe. We had a very honest talk about her taste in hats.”
A sound broke the air; Jakobav’s laugh sounded more like a bark. His hand went to his mouth at once, turning it into a cough as if the sound had betrayed him.
What a bizarre moment for him to develop a sense of humor.
She shot him a glare, then turned back to Octavia. “You projected it?” she said slowly. “Into my mind?”
Octavia’s curls bounced. “A courtesy when the thread insists. The future is a fickle animal, dearie. Sometimes it drags you by the hem until you agree to look.”
Jakobav settled by the window, not touching anything, and his eyes seemed to be counting exits out of habit. Octavia noticed and smiled.
He looked like a large, polite wolf trying to sit in a tea chair.
Suddenly, Octavia’s brightness shifted, and a sorrow passed over her features that made her look older by a century. She set the teapot down with care and took Ella’s hand, warmth moving up Ella’s arm with the contact as if someone had poured sunlight into her veins.
“Your mother,” Octavia said very softly. “Queen Serenya.”
The name struck like a blade. For an instant, Ella couldn’t breathe, her chest hollowing, the air shattering in her throat, and the world tilting as though the floor had given way beneath her. She’d been holding herself together with mission and duty, but that name unstitched her in a single stroke.
Jakobav was there before she could unravel into the depths of it, one hand firm at the small of her back and the other braced against her arm as if he would not let her fall even an inch. His touch steadied her, yet it was his presence at her side that pulled her back from the edge. He didn’t speak, but everything in him told her she wasn’t alone.
“She was light,” Octavia continued. “A brave light. She chose to spend it.”
Ella folded in on the ache, her vision blurring as grief consumed her. She’d known grief would come like this, sudden and crushing, but still worse was knowing she had not been there. She’d been running across strange soil, bleeding on borders, sleeping in borrowed bedrolls, chasing a path the fates had carved for her. That path might save more than her own kingdom, but at the cost of never saying goodbye.
Jakobav’s hand remained on her back, a wordless anchor holding her upright. Octavia clasped her free hand and hovered until her strength returned. The strangeness of their combined presence was not unwelcome, and when Ella’s eyes finally cleared, Octavia’s were kind and bright, shining with far less pity.
“The land loves you,” Octavia said, squeezing her fingers. “It called you home for a reason.”
A little current prickled Ella’s wrist where the Thread-burned crescent lay.
Octavia’s eyes went white like a storm erasing a horizon, the chimes at the door ringing despite the lack of wind.
Her voice, when it came, belonged to a mouth of ancient riddles.
“When ash is a crown and green is a throne, the daughter of embers will claim what is sown. A queen lays down, and the river runs wide. Blood writes a bridge where the realms used to divide.
Seek where the roots drink fire and the orchids wear night. The key that you chase is a mirror turned right. Not iron, not stone, not the bone of a king. The lock lives in flesh, and the door is a wing.
One path is storm, and one path is sky. One bears a taste that the earth will deny. Choose with your marrow when the Veil begins to thin. The oath that you keep is the war that you win.”
The words vibrated in the air, very calm and very terrible.
