“You see?” Woudix says as the glowing lines appear. “She’s here. She’s always been here. Waiting for you to find her.”
One by one, he ignites the lines that run along each of my fingers. Thumb. Index. Middle. Ring. Little finger.
When I finally catch my breath, it’s to realize he’s placed a tiny brown seed in my palm.
A rice seed, gods knows where he got it.
He presses his thumb over the seed in my palm, securing it, before guiding my hand to the earth beneath us, where he plants my palm firmly against the soil.
I tug slightly, testing, but his grip is unyielding.
“What are you doing?” I breathe, not sure if I should be frightened.
“Not all knowledge comes from books.”
He finally removes his hand, and somehow, the world feels wrong without his touch—like I’m all on my own.
I shift, thighs keenly sore from hours of sitting cross-legged. I swallow and blurt out, “I don’t understand. This isn’t talking to animals. What am I supposed to do?”
“Sprout the rice the same as you did three thousand years ago.”
I nearly laugh with the impossibility of it, but Woudix’s stony expression makes the breath die on my lips.
I clear my throat. My eyes sink closed. The tiny, hard seed bites into my palm, dry and lifeless. The fey lines glow along my hand, urging to be set free.
I concentrate.
And…nothing stirs.
“I can’t,” I admit, shame pinching my throat.
“Solene didn’ttry,” Woudix murmurs. Not unkindly—simply a fact. “She listened. To the seed. To the soil. To the breath of the earth beneath her. Shemadeit respond.”
My fingers tremble. “I don’t know how to be her.”
“You don’t have to be her—that’s what you aren’t understanding. Three thousand years ago, one version of Solene walked through primitive villages and temples. Two thousand years ago, a different Solene woke. A thousand years later, yet another, different Solene emerged. And now? You are her, but you are alsoyou. Sabine Darrow.”
He taps the book in my lap and continues, “These history books record events, but not what it means to be fae. We’re more connected to our mortal selves than Vale and the others like to admit. Thus, we both are and are not the same in every Return. In each iteration, our physical bodies are different.Our temperaments, too. As are our relationships. Sometimes, you and Vale are siblings. Sometimes father and daughter. It changes, whether the ten fae gods are lovers, family, rivals, enemies. We call ourselves brothers and sisters, but that is a moniker only. You get to choose, do you feel that? Who you want to bethistime.”
I run a hand up my bare arm, over the icy-hot fey line hiding beneath my skin.
“You must remember who you are,” he continues. “Not with your mind, but with your body. It already knows what to do—you proved that on the night of the Gloaming, when you called the Ramvik River from its bed.”
He presses his hand against mine again, anchoring my palm—the seed trapped beneath—to the soil.
“Remember,” he urges.
I lick my lips, suddenly dry, bloodless. A cold burn tingles in my palm, and for a second, I’m frightened. I feel transported back to that awful day of the Gloaming, when I unleashed nature in all its ferocious chaos upon Drahallen Hall, destroying everything that threatened to keep Basten and me apart.
Woudix leans in, his voice so low it might as well be whispered in a dream. “Master this,” he murmurs, “and anything you desire is yours. The world.” His voice catches. “Maybe…the underworld, too.”
A shiver runs through me that isn’t altogether unpleasant. Something about this—being here with him, his hand over mine—feels deep and inevitable, like bedrock undisturbed by eons of tremors.
It sparks something.
A memory, maybe. Or a long-buried feeling.
“You and I,” I blurt out before I even realize what I’m saying. “Were we ever…” I stop short, suddenly doubting myself, feelinglike a fool for even thinking it. I blush and look away. “Never mind.”
