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Wind presses against my skin and Boreas’s eyes narrow a fraction. “Don’t be ungrateful, Daughter.”
The word takes on a new meaning in the wake of their story. I’d assumed Daughter of the Tempest was an omen bestowed upon me by prophecy. But the way it leaves his mouth sounds less like a mantle and more like a claim.
Boreas steps closer. “Our power is connected. Whenever we felt you draw too deeply on the power we gave you, we warned you to pull back. And you did, every time but for the last.”
My heart stutters. The times I’d felt the power surge too strongly, the warnings that had come like whispers on the wind, urging me to stop. I’d thought perhaps it was my own instincts, my own restraint. But it was them.
Then there’s the image I conjured of my theïkós. The small channels I could picture each time—I’d felt they led somewhere. And now the understanding settles uneasily in my stomach. Mostly because I can’t quite grasp the significance of it.
“Tell us, have you heard how we came to this realm?”
Boreas’s questions cut through my thoughts and cast them back to the Oracle’s cavern, to the tapestry of four winged figures kneeling before a fifth and a sky stitched in fragments of gold and silver thread. The echo of her voice chases the images.
They came as fugitives. Outrunning someone who would not let them go.
“He is called the Keeper of the Winds.” Boreas nods, and I can only hope he doesn’t notice the shiver that runs through me at the way he’s so easily reading my mind. “The veil is a shield to keep him out of the Empyrieos. We have maintained it from the cardinal points of the realm since the God War. We never imagined that it would be possible for someone to summon us forth, but it has happened, and now the veil fractures.”
The wind stirs again, cold and biting. I swallow against it, desperately trying to drag in my next breath. “What will happen if it breaks?”
“He will come. And he will destroy anything that stands in his way.”
Chapter 57
Titaia
Even knowing months have passed since I fled the Vilean Court, I had not anticipated it to be so utterly changed. Physically, it’s the same, all white marble and gilded portraits, but there’s a discernible difference in the atmosphere. As if the floors and walls have been stained by so much blood and fear that it’s seeped into the cracks and remained there.
It could also be that my position—gagged and bound by chains to a seat atop the dais—is skewing my perception.
Beside me, Keres lounges on his throne like nothing in the world could touch him. But I know him well enough to understand that the smile spreading on his face is not encouragement, it’s rage. And it’s growing with every word that passes the lips of the advisors in the room.
“I suggest caution, my king,” one of them urges, his tone careful but tinged with unease. “An official declaration of war could be catastrophic. The kingdom—”
“Enough!” Keres stands, the movement fluid but charged with barely contained ferocity. The advisors freeze as he paces toward them, their parchment-laden hands trembling. “Do any of you presume to know better than me?”
They all remain silent.
“Out. All of you.”
The advisors scurry away, and I flinch as the heavy doors slam shut behind them. The sound reverberates through the throne room, and my heart seems to echo it, pounding harder against my ribs.
Keres turns slowly, until his gaze lands on me.
“Well,” he says as he takes a leisurely step toward my chair. “What do you think, Titaia?”
I stare blankly back at him.
He chuckles, then closes the distance and wrenches the gag down past my chin.
“I think,” I begin, pausing to clear my throat. My mouth is dry, the words heavy on my tongue. But I can’t stay silent, even if speaking kills me. “I think that war will only devastate the Empyrieos further. If that matters to you.”
“Devastate the Empyrieos?” he repeats. “How…noble of you. Tell me, cousin, when exactly did you start caring about futures you won’t live to see?”
His laugh is sharp and grating, and the chair creaks beneath me as I attempt to shift away, but the chains hold me firmly in place. I meet his eyes, letting my anger burn through the fear, matching his gaze with all the fire I can summon.
“You’re blinded by your grudge,” I push back. “All of this—whatever plots and schemes you’ve conjured up—it won’t end where you think it will.”
Like lightning, striking without warning, his hand shoots out and clamps around my throat. The chains dig into my arm as he jerks my body forward until his face is only inches from mine.
