Naomi stopped walking at the end of the long hallway. “It got me thinking. No one knows how to read the gods’ language. But Wild and Sea always talked aboutreadingit—like, actuallyreadingit. So that got me thinking, did they meanliterally?”
“Did you ask Dublin?”
Naomi waved her hand dismissively. “He and the kids are in the city for the summer. And his father didn’t raise him to respect the old ways, so he never made the trip down here to see it himself. He didn’t even know the secret kingdom existed until we met….”
Naomi trailed off. For a moment, her madness ebbed and softened with the memory of a better time. The few months all four of them had been together before she lost Sea and Wild.
“Maybe I could ask my guys,” Sadie offered. “I know the Shadow King definitely has?—”
“We don’t have to ask any of your males.” The softness cleared from Naomi’s face.
Then she spread her hands toward a large room with walls of emerald and a high ceiling. “Look! Justlook!”
It was obvious Naomi had completely lost the plot, but Sadie played along, doing as asked for her best friend’s sake.
But then she froze, her eyes flaring wide. “Is that the prophecy?”
Naomi nodded. “The very same prophecy the Sanctuary Kingdom hybrids have been maintaining for millennia—not centuries, but millennia.”
“But…”
Sadie continued to gape at the words chiseled into the emerald wall. Not because of their grandiosity. The way her kings talked about it, she’d expected the ancient prophecy to be nothing less than this cinematic.
What shocked her was… “I can read it!” She’d always thought it would be in some ancient form of Irish Gaelic, which she still couldn’t read, despite over a decade of study. But…
“It’s in English!”
Naomi’s smile was almost feral. “It’s in English!” she confirmed. “Can you imagine this prophecy being here this whole time? Of the Irish language rising and giving way to English and these words suddenly making sense? No wonder Sea and Wild believed in it so fervently.”
Sadie nodded. She’d never quite understood how her Shadow King came to follow it to the letter. But it being chiseled in English thousands of years ago would explain why even Declan—her no-nonsense and decidedly unmystical husband—had committed to the idea of Sadie being their prophesied queen.
“But here’s the part I wanted you to look at!” Naomi moved Sadie a little farther right and pointed to a section just above their heads. “See, it says that the Irish Wolf Queen will have pale brown skin and spots upon her face the same as the Wolf Queen of the Gods.”
Sadie frowned. “The Wolf Queen of the Gods? But how? Was there another biracial person here when the bear and wolf packs were established back in the Bronze Age?”
Naomi squeezed her shoulder. “That’s what I thought at first. But then that wouldn’t make any sense because this prophecy makes it sound like this wolf queen belonged to the gods—or maybe the other way around. Honestly, the ‘of the’ as possessive does my head in. But the entire last prophecy is about returning her to the gods to repair the broken circle… around twenty rotations after the wolf and bear queens’ arrival. I’m pretty sure rotations are their way of saying years.”
Sadie shook her head. She could barely keep up. “Hold on, there’s another prophecy?”
Naomi took her hands. “Sades. There’s one more Final Prophecy. And I’m not going to lie, what the gods are telling us to do is truly nuts. But not as nuts asthat.”
Naomi pointed to the wall opposite from where the hallway had spit them out.
And Sadie’s mouth once again dropped open.
She couldn’t believe she’d missed this when she first walked in. She’d been too staggered that the prophecy was in English to register it.
But now she turned fully to face the larger-than-life portrait etched into the emerald wall.
And her eyes widened farther when she saw that the portrait was of someone who looked vaguely familiar. Heart-shaped face,chiseled dot freckles sprinkled across her nose. Intelligent eyes, coily hair, and a knowing smile.
“Is that… is that Leora?”
“I don’t think so.” Naomi came to stand beside Sadie. “The cheekbones and jawline don’t match up, but look at those freckles and that nose and the eyes. I knew right away she had to be related to us.”
Sadie furrowed her brow. “Do you think your daughter?—”
“No, it’s not her.”
