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“Does that count for arrows, Nik?” Gunnar whispered as he took hold of his bow.

“Let’s hope so,” was all the Falkyn said.

“Back to the beginning,” Eryka muttered again, like she’d done before our world shattered.

The hair lifted on my arms when branches snapped. Trees shifted. Raum stood beside Bo, eyes narrowed as he peered into the shadows.

Soon, the Kryv’s mouth cut into a grin. “It’s blood fae.” He looked to Gorm. “I think one of them looks a bit like you.”

Gorm stalked to the edge of the camp in the same instant dark figures stepped into the firelight. Faces masked, spears in hand. Cuyler pulled down his mask at the first sight of his father.

“Daj. Thank the gods.” Cuyler hurried over the borders of our camp and clasped Gorm’s forearm.

Always formal, always on duty, still, Gorm clapped the side of his son’s cheek. “Good to see you safe. Where is the princess?”

Cuyler found me and Ari. He dipped his chin. “My Queen, My King. I was sent to find you. We suspected you would be here. All of you.” His pale eyes scanned the weary camp.

“Suspected?” Ari folded his arms over his chest. “So, Cal is behind this?”

“She was guiding you. The lands were breaking, and she did not know what would become of you. She did what she could and sang . . . or used seidr to bring you here.”

“She’s all right?” Sol stepped forward.

“She’s . . . well. There are some changes with Raven Row and Calista. Are you all well, at least as well as can be?”

“Most of our people are scattered across this new land,” I told him. “The Night Folk have need of help with Queen Lilianna.”

Cuyler’s mouth tightened. “We have refuge, room enough for us all, by the shore.”

“The light is Cal, then?” Elise asked.

“It is. Rest for now, but there isn’t much time. I think . . . I think we are facing the return of our enemy.” Cuyler glanced to me.

Ari stiffened at my side, and his voice took on a violent rumble. “Then he will face us all. But his head belongs to Saga. More than any of us, she deserves that.” He pressed a kiss to my hair. “I promised you, sweet menace. He returns? Then he will not be leaving with breath in his lungs.”

The truth was, if Davorin was returning, then either he or I would be greeting the Otherworld. I would fight to the death to rid this bleeding world of the battle lord.

Gifts of Fate

Chapter29

The Storyteller

A glimmer of gold,that was all I had on which to lay my hope as the dawn spilled into the dusky, red satin night. My legs dangled over the edge of a parapet wall; I gazed out on the turbulent sea.

Soon. A voice in my head spoke the truth of it. I liked to think it was my daj, maybe Stefan in his big burly Annon form over there in the Otherworld. All I knew was something was to change, and it was to change soon.

All night Olaf and our Rave had planned how to guard up the shores. I’d helped lay spiked fences. I’d aided the Norn sisters with their odd warding spell casts. I tried to find a song, words kept creeping up my throat, then dying once they reached my tongue.

In one breath, I wanted the sun to rise. In another, I wanted to run back to Hus Rose and hole away with Silas and never face what the dawn might bring.

According to Olaf, with a new length of land to manage, shielding every port, every cove, and every bit of the kingdom would be impossible. We had new peaks, new isles, places I certainly didn’t remember. I’d been too young to have every speck of land memorized.

Olaf and many of the Rave warriors knew well enough, there were plenty of areas our enemies could rise and overtake.

“I know the battle lord,” Olaf had said, hunched over an old, tattered map he’d pulled from one of the towers. A part of the fortress I’d guess was his old alehouse. “He’d often lead ships upriver and take the peaks, then descend from behind since he is quite skilled at navigating rocky terrain. Likely the reason you told me he set up his battle camp in the peaks of the old Southern Isles, true?”

“He overtook it, but I thought it was because he’d learned a blade for my Golden King was hidden there.”