Page 138 of Reign of Stars and Fire

“I’ll guard . . .him.” Gorm gestured at the new face. “Go, My King.”

I peeled away, racing for the shore, a single line on repeat in my head.

When Annon falls, she is ready.

A thousand questions about what I’d witnessed, about the connection to Riot’s letter, rattled through my mind. I abandoned them at the feet of Riot Ode’s captain, and ran after my wife.

Chapter43

The Raven Queen

I knew that man.Not Stefan, the man he became.

Captain Väktare.

Riot’s highest ranked Rave captain. A friend, trusted deeply by my brother’s court. The man who’d bleeding trained Davorin. Calista screamed and stumbled behind me. A girl who rarely showed emotion could hardly contain it now.

“We . . . we need to go back. I-I-I need to be with him.”

My heart cracked. There was such anguish in her voice, such pain, that she couldn’t see something was shifting. Something had changed here. A new kind of power, of spell, was unraveling. The hum of glamour, of seidr, of pure magic burst underfoot.

Why was Annon hidden as the storyteller’s brother? Why was he revealed now?

Gods. All the times Stefan never called me queen because Iwasn’this queen. Anneli had been his queen.

I was his princess.

The far shores of the Court of Stars were windy compared to the warmer isles near the Court of Blood. The whip of salt and sand burned my cheeks when we burst through the low shrubs and ferns onto the pale sand.

My shoulders rose and fell in heavy gasps. The horizon was buried in thick, rolling mists. Nothing further than a length or two in the distance was visible. Gods, let this work. I wheeled on Calista. Grains of sand clung to the streaks of tears on her face, and she looked to me with such despondency, a silent plea to fix what had gone wrong.

Focus. We had to finish this for her sake, for Stefan’s, for all of us.

I gripped her shoulders. “It’s time. Cal, I know it is hard, but keep your wits a little longer. We end him, then we do what we can to save . . . your brother.”

“Something’s happening, Raven Queen.” She frantically tapped her head. “Up here. I’m having thoughts and . . . I don’t know—”

“Calista.” I squeezed her arms. “I don’t know what’s happening, but hang on with me a little longer.”

“Stay with me.” Her voice was hardly audible over the wind.

“The gods couldn’t get me to leave you.”

I’d hardly finished my declaration when branches rustled. Davorin stepped onto the beach, anger and rage like a dark cloak on his shoulders. He wasn’t looking at me, he held Calista’s gaze. “Who are you?”

“You can’t win this, Davorin,” I shouted. “We have fate on our side. We’ve overpowered you.”

His eyes flicked to me, holding me in his disdain for a few breaths, before he prowled in slow, dangerous steps for Calista. “I was wrong about one thing, little raven. Why keep a seidr fae when I can just take the power myself?” He chuckled viciously. “When I have it, I will deal with you, my love.”

He took a long step, only mere paces away.

Part of the plan, I kept reminding myself.

“What we know isthis bastard wants Calista as much as he wants Saga,” Niklas had told us as dawn approached. He wiggled a vial of clear liquid. “We give him what he wants and lure him to the proper place. When he’s trapped, use the ring.”

“Then,” Malin showed the glow of her ring, “we’re led straight to you, and he will have nowhere to go.”

“Then how do we kill him?” Elise pressed. “Seems a man like him is not an easy kill.”