“It will help nothing.”
“Not your present, which you were too unwilling to accept, but yourfutureis yet undecided. The game has only begun, druid. All you must determine now is which piece are you.”
Chapter seventeen
The Bride
Many stories belonged to that world, but perhaps none told more than hers. Skyre had heard it a thousand times since boyhood, and each telling seemed to change.
The story began a thousand years before, in the Ere of Fog and Mist. In the dim of the elder world, there lived a humble witch. Some say she was born of moonlight. Others, that she was simply a girl with strange, silver eyes. She spoke of a light no man had seen, and the villagers feared her name.
Nythis.
She said things came to her in the night—radiant visions of a glorious king. But none knew such peculiar words and so, they hid her away.
“He will come, he will come,” she said in her sleep, and in waking she minded the sky.
“A raving lunatic,” said many a man. Quiet others pondered her words. Cursed, they called her, but they gave her power a name—Dream.
No one had ever dreamed before, and none could make sense of her ramblings. That was, until that Sólarch when true summer was made.
The legend said that the witch walked out to the hilltop over the fields. She raised her hands to the cold grey dawn and stood—a pale ghost before a sea of wheat. That morning the King of kings strode across the heavens. His fire made the sky a molten river, like a crucible spilled between the clouds. The Cullain gazed upon the vibrant sun, burning amber for the first time in their lives. The grey mist and fog dispersed and warmth brushed at their skin.
A blessing, they said, was the advent of God, and the woman who had dreamt him.
This was the day she had prophesied, and none could refute her power, nor the favor she’d been shown. And thus she was ascended, chosen as his eyes.
They called the seer “Oracle.” They called her Mistress Moon. And she followed in the shadow of his light.
For the only one to see Æon’Righ was forever the sun god’s bride.
***
“Reckless.”
The Sun Matron’s pacing footsteps were a distant echo to the Vaich’s hollow thoughts.
Skyre slumped in his chair, one shoulder pulled heavily to the side. His eyes dug into the floor, seeing nothing but her shadow passing monotonously through the pool of sunlight that gathered in the dust. She continued to pace. He continued adrift, absently spinning the golden ring around his knuckle. Once. Twice. His thumb brushed the amber stone.
We will wed.
“You should have spoken with me!” she burst. “You should have consulted—”
“I did as you wished.”
“Not like this,” Medhin growled. “The announcement should have been primed. There is a process to these things! The Vaich’s engagement is no trivial affair.”
His fingers curled into a fist. “What difference does it make? The people know the druid is to become Consort. Now they are too busy speaking of weddings to question matters of prophecy. Exactly as you wanted.”
Medhin stopped her pacing. “The difference is in this dance, you mustalwayslead the steps. Twenty years, have I taught you nothing?”
His lips pressed.
“No.” She scoffed. “Nothing is settled. Now that the people are expecting a marriage, they will require its truth.”
Othrik, who had been standing silently aside the hearth, stepped forwards, hand tight on his codex. “The question of His Majesty’s virility will need to be addressed.”
Skyre’s chest tightened. “I am plenty virile.”
