The prophecies of Isolde were full of stupid fucking riddles.
But my ancestors had decoded each line with great precision and lived by them for centuries to keep the Death Origin from rising. Until me.
My disobedience, my choice to marry Freya, to not wait to find the Last Daughter of Isleen—everything I’d done had set chaos in motion four hundred years ago. It had lost me the love of my life. I’d fought my father’s insistence on following the prophecies until her death.
Those stained pages had sealed my fate long before I’d been able to speak for myself—long before I’d met a Princess who had been my Source Match yet hadn’t been destined to be mine. Long before she had been taken from me.
Now we had a chance to stop the Death Origin once and for all. A new royal wife and I, a child of ours. Maybe none of my mistakes had to be in vain.
If it wasn’t already too late. It had taken so long to find her.
The cards had fallen so perfectly—a political marriage for her, one of dreadful fate for me. There would be no replacing Freya, and the Central Queen offered me the type of arrangement that wouldn’t sully what we’d shared.
I pulled open a desk drawer abruptly.
Grabbing ink and a piece of parchment, I thought for a moment. I then scribbled down a few faults of the Central Queen. This list would act as a reminder if I ever began to see her as anything more than what she was—a convenient means to an end.
I. Phynnic idealist
II. Stubborn as a bull
III. Has little control over her own power
Staring down at my rushed penmanship, I felt better already. There was no room in my life to enjoy the company of Sybilla Wymark, no matter what she was prophesied to be to me. I slipped the parchment back into the drawer.
I didn’t need a wife, didn’t need a partner. I just needed her to be willing to consider what the prophecy required of us, and that might be easier to justify through marriage.
Two rulers could have a child without romance. It happened all of the time.
I shouldn’t feel guilty.
Unable to look Freya’s bronze statue in the face, I stepped toward the door. There was a knock as I reached for the handle, and my brow furrowed.
“What?”
As soon as I turned the knob, Elsedora pushed the door to poke her head in. “Pleasant greeting.”
I practically snarled, “What are you doing up here?”
My mood didn’t deter her. She slinked inside. “Lower your hackles—there isn’t a place in this house where I haven’t been. But I haven’t taken anything from this room. It seemed wrong...”
Elsedora’s gaze caught on the bronze figure, tracing over Freya’s gentle, eternal form. My late wife was depicted reaching out to hold up a crescent moon. She wore a billowing gown reminiscent of the one she’d worn on our wedding night.
Her essence could never be fully captured. Nothing set in bronze nor painted ever matched my memory of her. Or maybe I simply misremembered her. That pissed me off the most—forgetting.
“She was beautiful, truly.”
My throat tightened at the simplicity of her adoration.
I sucked in a breath and nodded. “Truly.”
“And judging by the sour look on your face...I take it that you found the Last Daughter of Isleen, didn’t you?” El fidgeted and ran a finger over a candle’s flame, letting fire dance toward her and away.
“We aren’t discussing this. Not here.”
She sighed. “I saw those men that attacked her...they were haunted.Husks.I know there is only one type of power that can do that.The same one you’ve had me searching for.”
“It isn’t her,” I tried.
