Meerdra continued carving. “What she needed to know. As I may offer you, if we agree.”
“You demand a price for your information,” I said.
“As you demanded a price of her,” she pointed out.
I tried hard not to scowl. “What do you want?”
She motioned to the empty chair across from hers. “Sit.”
I did as she asked, impatient.
She leaned closer until the scent of sage enveloped me. “A promise,” she said softly. “When the time comes, protect the Marble Throne. Heliconia must never touch it. Not even if it costs you your own.”
The Marble Throne. The Calidium throne, far in the south. But it was long-abandoned. Empty now. As it had been for centuries since the war.
“Why the Marble Throne?” I asked.
“It is the heart of Vorinthia,” she murmured. “And the only throne that remembers the balance.”
I had no idea what that meant. And what she was asking—to protect another throne above my own. It was the opposite reason I’d come in the first place.
“Give me your hand.”
I hesitated then offered it. The oracle took it and spread my palm open, shoving up my sleeve to reveal my wrist. Shepressed her thumb to my vein, and I felt the faint hum of old power beneath her skin. “You seek to be a better man than your father,” she said. “So be one. Do not seek to rule. Seek to restore. Only then can you keep my promise and fulfill the one to your people.”
I swallowed hard. “All right. I will protect the Marble Throne from Heliconia even over my own if it comes to it.”
Meerdra nodded gravely, and magic slammed into me. I tried to pull my arm away, but she held it fast, her grip impossibly strong. Pain lanced my arm, burrowing into my bones. I gritted my teeth, holding myself to the chair despite the urge to kick and scream.
As quickly as it had come, the pain vanished, and Meerdra released me. I yanked my arm back and noted a small rune inked into my skin.
“The bargain is sealed,” she said and sat back.
My heart pounded, but I forced my breaths even. “And the answers I seek?”
She picked up the stone and the small blade beside it and went back to carving. “When the moon split an age ago, even the gods knew the balance of their own power had shifted irrevocably. They fought and negotiated for their grip on this realm, but they each knew there would be no going back. They must make room for one another in order for each to enjoy the flow of life and magic in these lands. And so the thrones were fashioned. Each one a living conduit to what the gods had imbued to sustain us. Together, they kept Menryth breathing. But power is greedy. The more your ancestors took, the more the thrones gave. Until their magic belonged not to the gods but to kings.”
Magic. There was living magic in the throne itself?
“And Heliconia?” I asked. “Why does she want access to my throne? What will she gain from it?”
Meerdra’s eyes darkened. “What she alwayswanted—more. The Ice Throne bends to her will now. But she’s drinking from a well that cannot refill itself. The frost you see crawling down your borders is her hunger, not her strength. She wants to drink from Autumn’s throne. To drain it. To take it into herself.”
“Is that what she wanted from the Summer Court? To drain the Whitestone thrones? Take their magic for herself?”
“The power in those thrones…two rather than one. It would have made her unstoppable. Instead, Tyrion and Celeste made sure the thrones were able to strike back at her. It’s why her curse failed.”
I rubbed a hand over my jaw, the weight of it all pressing like stone. “Then maybe I can use mine. If it’s a conduit, I can draw from it, replenish what we’ve lost. Fight her.”
“You can use it to replenish your land, or you can use it to fight off Heliconia. You cannot do both. Your father knew that. He chose the land. He chose his own ego so that others would think him great. So that others would fight for him. He was a coward.”
“If I use it to fight her, will it be enough?”
“I cannot say.” She stopped carving, her gaze faraway. “Taking from the thrones would require a sacrifice. There will always be consequences when you steal from the gods.”
I laughed once, hollow. “We’re already living the consequences. I have dying crops, razed villages, and a withered kingdom. The only thing left is for Heliconia to storm my gates and take the throne by force.”
“It is never the only thing.”
