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He walked straight to me, dropping down beside me, pulling me tight against him. As if he too had been tracking that ache in his chest all these minutes. As if touching me was the only thing that could ease it.

He was right.

Exhaustion washed over me then.

I’d been waiting for him.

Some part of me had held the sleepiness at bay until my mate was near once more. Now, with him touching me and satisfaction filling my chest, the creeping tired was taking over.

Of course, that was also when Cyara decided to break her silence.

As if she, too, had been waiting for Arran.

She sat up straight, folding her hands carefully in her lap and addressing us with an even, steady voice. “It has been seven thousand years since the Void Prophecy was made.”

She had been waiting. Not for Arran—for the High King. For the High King and Queen of Annwyn to be there before her.

I rolled my eyes and leaned harder into Arran’s warmth. “Parys would be very proud that you remember all the things he rambles on about.”

As usual, my handmaiden ignored my antics and continued her dignified discourse. “It has also been seven thousand years since the last mated pair in Annwyn.”

Maisri stopped humming.

“You think there is a connection.” I felt the vibration of Arran’s chest against my back as he spoke. It sent a shiver down my spine.

It was that. Not his words.

“A coincidence,” I said, catching his hand and weaving his fingers between mine. Affecting ease. But my mind was in motion, flicking through what she’d said. Two simple sentences that could change everything.

Cyara’s turquoise eyes, turned deep sea green by the moonlight, impaled me with their annoyance. “I think that most coincidences are explainable, but to do so makes us uncomfortable. So we write them off. I think there is an explanation here for why these two things disappeared from Annwyn at the same time.”

It did make me uncomfortable.

I didn’t like discussing the prophecy. It was all supposition until we found Avalon. Everything between now and then was a guess.

Guesses meant uncertainty.

Uncertainty meant surprises.

Surprises could hurt me. Worse, they could hurt my kingdom and those I cared for.

“Accolon and Nimue were the last known mated pair in Annwyn,” Cyara said. Parys had mentioned my ancestors before, too.

Not just my ancestors, buttheAncestors. Accolon and Nimue were among the revered fae who had set the terms of the treaty that ended the Great War between the elemental and terrestrial fae. They’d stripped the priestesses of their power, killed the witches, and set into motion the generations of Offering and Joining that had led right down to Arran and I.

“We all know basic history.” I shifted my gaze to my fingernails.

“But what if there is more to the history? The void power disappeared at the same time as the last mated pair… what if one of them had the void power? What if the void power disappeared because there were no mated pairs after them?”

Arran’s arms tightened around me. I pressed my eyes closed.

Even if it was true, it didn’t change anything in the present. Not the actions we would take—searching for Avalon. Our minds, maybe. Maybe I ought to feel grateful that I wasn’t a complete aberration; that something about this void power was actually passed down to me by an ancient ancestor.

But I just felt… twisted up. Confused. Out of control—like everything in my life was a puzzle I couldn’t fit together.

Arran’s arms were circled around me. Cyara’s eyes expectant. Even Lyrena and Osheen watching. They were waiting for me—the wielder of the void—to confirm or deny. To offer some insight.

I wished I had nothing to give them.