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“And my daj?” she pressed. “These are written lessons you had with him, when he taught you of your power, right? I . . . I recognize his writing.”

The skull-ache deepened. My voice was too rough. “The king did not need to burden his household with an orphan. But he did. When his trusted men told him my gift was dangerous, too odd, he stood for me. He prepared me for what was to come.”

Calista’s eyes glistened. I had little experience around others, let alone experience in reading expressions, but if I had to guess, I’d say she wanted to know more about what was to come. She wanted to know, but held her tongue.

To know would mean stepping forward into something from which she’d fled all this time. A path of fate, one where the ending was unknown.

Calista paused at a scroll with a drawing of what appeared to be a horse. The legs were thin lines and it’s nose was too large for its head. I kept my hand over my face, watching.

She studied the horrid drawing for a pause, then whispered, “I remember this. Gammal had only died. He was my favorite horse.”

“He was a stupid creature.”

“Only because he . . . he always bit your shoulder.” She faced my dark corner, pink lips parted. “He always bit your shoulder. Right? That’s true?”

“I have the damn scar to prove it.”

Calista dragged her bottom lip between her teeth, but when she blinked, a tear dropped onto her cheek. “Why have you been hidden from me? Why did you become my Whisper instead of . . . my Silas?”

My Silas.

Tension gripped the back of my throat. A familiar, creeping panic built. It spread like a poisonous bloom through my chest, into my head, until my thoughts could not stay focused.

“Do you know what it’s like?” I clenched my eyes and pressed my fists against the sides of my skull. “She doesn’t know. She doesn’twantto know.”

I didn’t recall lowering to a crouch, but at the touch of her hand on my wrist, I opened my eyes. Calista was kneeling in front of me.

“Silas, speak to me.” Her thumb ran over the bones of my wrist. “I am here now. What is it I don’t want to know?”

I flattened my palm against my ruined cheek again, shielding the carnage away, and slid my back along the wall until I was standing.

Calista followed. “What don’t I want to know?”

“That you have a place on a fated path.”That you have a place with me.

Her lips turned down in a frown. “I promised myself long ago that I would make my own fate. It is wrong to force someone to act against their will, Silas.” She licked her lips and stepped closer. “You must let me go.”

“How do you know if I let you go, that you will not be stepping exactly where the Norns want you?”

Her cheeks flushed. “At least it will be my choice. I have people out there who need me. The folk of Raven Row, blood fae who have guarded me. I have friends and family in distant kingdoms and . . . I must try to protect them.”

I knew all this. The royals of restored kingdoms, I both envied them and respected them for what they had done for her.

“You are safe here,” I said. My thumb traced her bottom lip. Pleasure surged through me when she didn’t pull away. “I will protect you now that you are back with me.”

“And what of the others?”

“It is too late.”

“No.” She pulled her head away from my touch. “No. That isn’t good enough. I’m not letting them fall simply because I took too long in your eyes to find you.”

It was much more than all that. She could stand beside me until the world ended. If she did not accept me and the soul bond between us, our song would never take flight again.

“I will hate you,” she said and lifted her chin in a bit of a challenge. “No matter what memories I have of you, take my freedom from me, and I will hate you. I will not forgive you for it.”

Anger swept through my veins, hot and furious. “You would hate me? After . . . aftereverything?”

“I don’t know everything but . . .” Her chin trembled in the slightest. “Yes, I would. Too many times I have had freedom taken from me. I won’t do it again.”