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I closed my eyes, waiting. I could see the desire of my heart—Sol, Tor, Alek, living long lives for a thousand turns—but the burn never came to my blood.

A distant melody hummed through my heart, a sound like satin. But it was like reaching through a block of thick ice; I couldn’t break through to claim it.

Take my song. It was always yours. Time runs short.

My heart went still in my chest. I tracked the trees again. “Daj?”

My father’s power was my inheritance to use until I was ready . . . for my own voice to take hold. It was what Stefan—Annon—had said in the final moments, when he’d told me I was ready to find my own strength.

Whatever power I had was failing me, and I needed my father’s seidr. Anything that was left in this soil, I needed it now.

I blew out a long breath and wrote a single word:safe.

My shoulders slumped. The fire in my blood when words of seidr flowed was empty, and all I could conjure was my own silent plea to the Norns that all my royals would be safe. I did not want to speak to any more burial rocks.

With care, I folded the parchment up and returned the quill and small ink vial to my pockets.

I sighed and leaned against one side of Stefan’s marker. “I wish I could ask you what it’s like in the hall of the gods. Did my daj meet you like he promised?”

He’d assured us all as he died, to greet his king in the great hall was his only desire. To fall for House Ode.

“Could’ve given up a few more secrets,” I said, voice rough. “If you care to know.”

The plot of land was silent. It was always silent.

“Stef,” I whispered. “Something is changing here, inside me. I’m . . . fading. It’s like I’m pulled somewhere else day after day.” I tilted my head to the red moon. “Death at crimson night. Here you thought you were the only one who’d get the honor of dying some fated death.”

I stepped back from the burial mound. “Truth is, Stef, I think it’s come again. But this time, it’s come for me.”

Chapter7

The Storyteller

I leftthe burial ground more despondent than before. Words wouldn’t come, and I didn’t understand why. There was a heaviness in the air. A sense that the time for quiet unknowns was at an end.

That damn battle lord sod, he’d been gone all this time and was still breaking me to pieces bit by bit. My seidr had left me. I hadn’t wanted it to begin with, and now it had the gall to dry up.

I needed to protect my royals. I needed to see to it Sol remained happy and alive before it was too late.

From the pocket of my trousers, I slowly withdrew the folded parchment I always kept with me. Hot, scorching pain split through my chest whenever I read the words of the missive. A missive that had been mysteriously placed upon my pillow the night the blood moon returned. Ten turns after the battle lord disappeared.

It had appeared the same as those dark roses I’d always found outside my door, or on my pillow.

I used one knuckle to swipe away another tear, reading the final line of his note haunted me:

Now is the time to restore that bond, lost so many turns ago. You are ready as he said you would be.

A lost bond. For a time, I’d fought mightily to convince myself the bond spoken of by my father, by Annon, by everyone, spoke of me and Saga. Aunt and niece restored as the last surviving members of House Ode.

In truth, I hadn’t believed that for turns.

There was a truth I didn’t want to face, one I buried beneath fear, heavy enough it might snap my spine if I let it—I wasn’t alone here.

I simply hadn’t determined if my ghostly spectral was friend or foe. All I knew was it wanted me. A bond, a feeling somewhere deep inside, wanted me to find secrets in the darkness that had become my existence.

“Will it help him?” I asked the wind. “Will it help Sol if I give in to the shadows?”

The wind didn’t answer.