“I do not know,” Cyara admitted, shaking her head.
“There is a whorl at the top of your tower. I think it might represent your Nimue,” Diana said. She had progressed to the next stone. Slowly considering, slowly tracing.
The one she stood before now was the same one that Lyrena had remarked upon earlier, noting the Tower of Myda. The angle was sharp, but Cyara could make out the dark hordes of the mangled succubus all around the tower.
Cyara pushed to her feet, frowning. The standing stones told the story, but it did not give them any answers. Battling fae kingdoms. A Joining. Fighting the succubus. The tower. Then the prophecy.
“There is more.”
Percival had come to see.
Cyara tried to ask him what he meant, but he was already kneeling down in the space she had vacated. Weeds covered the bottom foot of the stone. But Percival brushed them aside.
More carvings.
“There isn’t any more to the prophecy,” Lyrena said sharply.
Cyara sank down beside Percival. “Yes, there is.”
She traced her fingers over the two figures, their arms interconnected. A whorl spreading out around them. Below it, an identical whorl—but without the figures.
And then…
“No,” Cyara whispered. “Ancestors, please. No.”
102
ARRAN
The attack ended as abruptly as it had started. The succubus were gone—dead by our amorite blades, or returned to their realm by Veyka. I could hardly begin to think about what that meant for the future struggle against the succubus. If she’d encountered any succubus there… what form they took without human or fae vessels.
I held my mother’s hand as she sipped fortified wine and tried to regain herself. I’d tried to get her to go to her rooms, but she’d insisted she was the Lady of Eilean Gayl. She would stay to see her people tended, even if she could not do it herself.
The healers worked quickly and efficiently. My father was fine, the wound on his side already knitted back together. But Isolde was the true godsend. No longer a novelty—not with that mystical, pure white healing power that poured from her hands.
Less than a dozen terrestrials had died
It was a small relief, at least. The succubus were a formidable foe, but we were hard to kill.
Osheen moved through the crowded hall. Servants had begun to bring food out again. Chairs were set upright. In the far corner, someone strummed a fiddle.
Against all odds, the feast was resuming.
What better way to defy death than by celebrating the rebirth of the world around us?
Osheen looked me up and down. When he was satisfied I was uninjured, his eyes went to my mother, resting against the stone wall behind me. “Go to Veyka. I will see her safely to her rooms.”
To my surprise, my mother nodded her acquiesce.
There were few I would have trusted.
I nodded my thanks and retraced the path he had taken as he guided my mother and father out of the great hall.
Veyka was at the middle of it all. Isolde lingered at her side, eyes lined with exhaustion but bright. Veyka had stayed at her side as she moved from terrestrial to terrestrial, healing each with no regard to kingdom or power. As had Veyka.
She’d earned their respect. And now, the terrestrials showed it. They moved to talk to her. A handsome male bowed, inviting her to dance. Veyka shook her head; she could deduce where that would lead.
The low growl that reverberated between us probably helped.
