A kingdom half-remembered, half-erased, lingering like a hazy dream.
Unable to endure a place where once the ranges had rung with her voice, Rune then took Alora’s body and left with his court. They had eventually settled in the south of the Everfrost, where he let his rage and grief eclipse all else.
Regardless, he had never cared for humans.
His Harbingers didn’t expect him to care now.
Rune’s eyes narrowed. “Speak.”
Deimos bent his head, a Shade coiling up his shoulder like a speck of dust to whisper into his ear. “It is the same as before, sire. We know little of its makings. Or of the hand that cast it.”
Rune drummed his claws against the table in an agitated rhythm. “Suspects?”
“Perhaps the Thornbearer or the Argyle Queen,” Calla suggested.
Too obvious. Both already held seats of power, so what would they gain? The curse had swallowed the Midlands as well.
“King Thalion and his kin,” Hadeon rumbled. “We returned in the year of the War of Serpents. Calveron laid siege precisely when King Laurent was weakest. One might think they cast the curse to break his defenses.”
Logical, but Rune knew pride and power.
This curse was too powerful to come from fae.
“It was not his doing.” Rune leaned back in his chair, chin resting on a fist as he studied the shadow-image of ships on the table. “This magic is older. Stronger.”
And familiar…
Though he could not yet place it. Intriguing, for he had sensed the same thread of magic when Alora drew her blood.
“Could Arthal be involved?” Deimos wondered aloud.
“I recall no dealings between King Laurent and the fae across the sea,” Rune said, jaw tight. He knew every secret in the dark, but it rankled that this one eluded him. “The curse itself does not concern me, but the one behind it.”
Silence filled the chamber, his Harbingers falling still as they took in his meaning.
They had been sent back exactly six months until the Blood Moon arrived.
And he spent nearly half the time bound in this wretched cave.
“The Fates are playing their games again,” Rune murmured.
They dangled Alora in front of him like a prize and if he was not careful, she would slip from his grasp again.
“Do you think they have something to do with it?” Calla asked, sitting upright.
If anything, Rune suspected the Heavens interference. His brothers had all returned to the Heavens, and he now sensed they watched from whatever heights they deem divine, waiting for him to fail again.
“Time, it seems, is not constant,” Rune said tightly. “Already the patterns are changing. Our first meeting should have been in her chambers, yet she came to me here. Who knows what else has changed… or what rules bind us now.”
“Alora came to you on her own?” Calla said with a tilt of her head, red eyes glinting.
“Lured.” His voice dropped into a purr of amusement. “She freed me in exchange for her kingdom’s salvation.”
Calla smirked. “And in return…?”
His slow smile was all the confirmation she needed.
“Sire…” Hadeon cleared his throat, straightened in his seat. “While we have managed to keep order, I fear the Seven Courts grow restless.”
