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Mira tightened her hold. Ari gave me a despondent sort of look for a few breaths, then hardened his expression.

I winced as Mira screamed when Ari, patience lost, peeled her away from my body. “Daj, no,no!”

Tears blurred my eyes. I reached for her hands and pressed kisses to her knuckles. “I love you. We’ll see you soon. I-I love you.”

My own sobs took hold. I failed wondrously at trying to calm my own child.

“Daj, don’t leave me.Please, don’t leave me.” She reached for Ari now that Lord Magus and Lord Gorm had come to collect the princess with both Serpent warriors and blood fae watchers.

Ari kneeled, brushed her dark, messy hair out of her face, and kissed her forehead. His voice cracked when he spoke. “I love you. You brighten my heart, so I need you safe, and you will be safe in the burrows. No one can reach you there, not the man in the shadows, no one. We will see you soon. Be brave and we’ll go visit the vales, just you and I, very soon.”

He kissed her head once more, then forced himself to turn away. Mira’s cries were closed off from us when the doors to the great hall slammed. Ari’s hands shaped into fists at his sides. Silence suffocated us.

The flames came from the North. No mistake, his heart was broken in more than one way. True, he was no longer the ambassador for Etta, hadn’t been for turns, but his people were the ones to light the flame. His family was under attack. An attack that could only be from the man who’d nearly killed his wife. Who wanted the power we shared between us.

A man he blamed himself for not killing over ten turns ago.

I jumped in surprise when his fist slammed, knuckles-first, onto the long table, crashing goblets and silver plates together. I went to him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, biting back tears when he sank against me. His safe, strong embrace trembled around my waist, tight enough I thought he might snap a rib.

“There were no sightings,” he said, close to gasping. “We searched along the coast. Every court has seen nothing, then he is suddenly simply here. He slipped past me like a damn ghost.”

“It wasn’t real. You heard Magus.” I closed my eyes, stroking the back of Ari’s neck. “If Davorin shows himself in true form, then he will not live long.”

Ari dropped his forehead to my shoulder. “I cannot lose you, I cannot lose Mira. He wants you, and he will try to take her.”

“And he will die trying.” I trapped his face in my hands. “What have we always said, Ari? We knew this would come. We knew it. But we face it together, and his life is ours whenever he shows.”

Ari’s eyes were wet. His jaw pulsed in tension. “He won’t touch you again. I swore to you, he will never touch you again.”

He kissed me furiously. Ari’s hold was crushing and beautiful, like he was trying to squeeze me into his ribcage to keep me shielded through whatever was coming our way. Tongues and teeth, he kissed me for the thousands of moments we might face in blood and blade and battle.

“I love you,” he said between kisses. “You’re my sweetest menace.”

“You are my beautiful bastard.”

I kissed him until the door reopened to the hall and Gorm interjected himself without a second thought. “The princess is well-guarded and goes to the burrows until we know more.”

I wiped my eyes and hugged Ari’s waist. “Thank you, Gorm. Any word from Cuyler?”

Gorm did not show emotion well, but there was a flicker of worry in his eyes at the mention of his son. “No, but they will see the warning. It cannot be missed, I made certain it was strategically placed. If Cuyler fights as he was taught, no harm will befall the fate princess.”

Ari lifted my knuckles to his mouth, holding it there longer than normal, his eyes saying a dozen unspoken words. The true fear we had to admit—Davorin might have sights for me, our daughter might be at grave risk since he would want to torment us in the deepest ways, but I was not all he wanted.

He wanted the entire House Ode in his grasp, or bloodied and dead.

He wanted Calista.

Chapter5

The Storyteller

Raven Row—Western Kingdom

I was not myself,but I hid it well. My body woke this morning a traitor. My bleeding spine felt ancient and weary. Like I’d find more joy remaining in bed instead of facing one more damn day where words never came. Where the heat in my heart from seidr was ashen and dry as a scorched field.

Today, though, I was not alone in my disquiet.

The dock swayed with the ebb and flow of the tide. I’d learned long ago to breathe through my mouth this close to the dirty water of the shores of Raven Row. I folded my Sun Prince’s letter for the tenth time, trying to see between every line, deconstructing every word.