He will rise and Death will reign…
War will be fought with shadows and light…
We stepped around the crypt as I allowed the enchantress to quietly take in all the ramblings etched around us. It was a long while before she said anything. I was tempted to peek into her thoughts. I withheld that urge.
The star-child will die…
It will not end with her...
Our eyes met across the crypt, and I offered the enchantress a sympathetic smile.
“My father has been wrong before.”
I moved toward the tomb where his ashes lay within, and my hand trailed over the cold stone.
“He had journals upon journals of prophecies. He predicted that I would have an heir by now, which I do not. There are so many paths thatcouldhave been.”
Asterie paused on a section of the wall. “This part—TheWastelands will be known to you.It’s an odd way to write that they have opened. Fenris confirmed that he saw a tear in the wards—saw defectors leaving with Lynx. Firose is building an army.”
That I hadn’t known.
My guests had already dropped useful news on my doorstep. I tapped my fingertips against the cold stone lid of my father’s tomb.What prophecies did you miss?I wished I could tear my father from his restful place and shake him from death to ask him more.
I asked Asterie instead, “Do you know what Firose wants with you?”
Asterie leaned against a pillar, getting dust on the hip of her gown.
“I believe she can claim me, my servitude to her—my mother made a bargain with her over some stolen plums from the Lamoreaux Estate.”
I stilled. “Plums?” I couldn’t hide the surprise in my voice, and the enchantress straightened.
“Yes,” Asterie said uneasily.
Plums, plums, plums.
During my father’s final days, he kept yelling about fucking fruit of all things. The nursemaids had found it humorous.
“On my father’s deathbed, he kept yelling at his nurses, ‘She didn’t own the plums.’”
Asterie’s brow furrowed, and I let my mind reach out into hers.
“Firose didn’t own the orchard. Fen’s family did. He still owns that orchard…”
Then I reached further in to watch the interaction between Asterie’s mother and the North Enchantress all those years ago.“My mother’s blood oath.”
“I swear to forfeit my firstborn child and her power to the owner of the orchard I have stolen from.”
Asterie had reached the same train of thought just as I had. We were both holding our breath.
“I think.” Asterie struggled. “I think Fenris is the one who can claim me. If he is the last living Lamoreaux—isn’t that how an estate would be passed?”
“Peace Prevail. He can claim me. Sources. We are bound already but he can take it all. All my power, all of his own back.”
I nodded. “That is how estate law works, yes.”
The enchantress bent at the waist as though someone had dealt her a blow to the stomach. I shut down my senses because her horror was nauseating.
“Are you going to be sick?”
