He lifted a shoulder. “Once we were,” he said, “but we’ve grown quite different in all these years, wouldn’t you agree?” His hand slid around her waist and drew her near, even though this also pressed her knives closer to his throat. “Except in the most important respects.”
“Tell me about the prophecy,” she said.
“What prophecy?”
She pressed her pinky finger, the fairy knife, into his skin, small but sharp and precise. A drop of blood rolled down his neck, black in the darkness of the woods. “The unification of Alfheim under one rule.”
“Oh,thatprophecy,” he said.
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You don’t want to join with a Radiant. You want to join with the Crown. So you can rule all of Alfheim.”
“That would be rather . . . ambitious, wouldn’t it?”
“And you’re very ambitious, aren’t you?” she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “And the birth of the child. What does that have to do with it?”
His hand slipped along the curve of her hip, catching in her waistband. His tone cooled. “What child?”
“The oracles were wiped out because they prophesied the birth of a child who would be some kind of threat to the Throne.”
“Who told you that?”
She dragged the knife along his throat, a shallow wound, avoiding the major veins, leaving a thin trail of blood.
“Now who’s the one using torture to get what she wants?” he said without flinching.
“I should be killing you right now.”
“And yet, you’re not.”
“The prophecy.”
“It’s old,” he said with sigh. “Very, very old.”
“The Third King,” she said, remembering what Python had told her.
Endreas’s eyes poured over her, dragging her down. His grip tightened on her hips. His fingers skimmed under the hem of her shirt, pressing into her flesh, flooding her with that swept-up, wave-swallowed breathlessness. She shoved back, unsheathing all of her knives. Her heart was both the hammer and the nail, pounding and battered, wanting to be near him, hurting because she wasn’t.
“Tell me,” she said, attempting to keep her breath even and steady.
“It’s not important.” He took a handkerchief from his vest and pressed it to the cut on his neck, wincing ever so slightly. “There are more prophecies that never manifest than grains of sand on the Wending Coast.”
But she refused to feel guilty. “Isn’t it important? Isn’t it why the Third King exterminated the oracles?”
Endreas’s brow fell, his dark eyes turning darker. “He killed the oracles because they refused to cease hunting the dragons. They ate the hearts of the dragons to prolong their own lives and sold the rest to the other small folk who used the pieces in their potions. Dragons were hunted nearly to extinction. We passed laws to protect them. The oracles knew the price for poaching, but they did it anyway. That is why they were arrested and punished, and many of them were executed for that crime, yes. But most were not killed. They died off, as they should have died, when they no longer had the hearts of dragons to keep them alive.”
Damn him. She shouldn’t have allowed him to talk so much. She should’ve known he would have an answer. Yet, when he continued, she didn’t stop him.
“But yes, they had prophecies, many, as I said. That’s how they justified their actions. They had been so busy hunting and murdering dragons they’d forgotten to procreate and then grew so unnaturally old they were no longer able to do so. But they thought since they could see the many futures they had more of a right to exist than the dragons. The Throne disagreed. So it was not surprising, when the oracles were being punished for their crimes, that they suddenly had new visions concerning the time of unification. They had always said a certain child would be born who would signal the beginning of that time. But in their new visions, they claimed that if said child survived to pick up a sword, then that child would assure war and great bloodshed and that, ultimately, the Throne would bow before the Crown. But not all of the oracles saw the same future.”
“Because it changes.”
“That’s right,” he said. “Would you like to hear the other prophecy, about how the unification will occur?”
“Let me guess,” she said. “An Elf Prince and a Pixie Rae are joined?”
“Not just any Rae,” he said. “The Radiant of the Eastern Cliffs. Together, they will bring about a new age... one of peace.”
“Is that what you really want, Endreas? Peace?”
