Page 19 of Reign of Stars and Fire

“What about the part about darkness feeding and thrones falling?”

Stefan and Calista shared a look.

“What?” I rested the parchment on the tabletop. “Do you understand it?”

“It’s been a feeling.” Calista stared at her hands. “I even sent your husband and the thieving prince missives about it before all this began. I had . . . a dream, I guess. If my royals from other kingdoms stepped into shadows before I found . . .something, then I saw their thrones burn.”

“You don’t know what you what you were supposed to find?”

Calista shook her head. “As I said, these fate words dig into my heart and become feelings sometimes. I knew there were missing pieces, the kind I couldn’t find on my own. I don’t know what they were, but we need to take care when it comes to the other kingdoms.”

By the hells. I picked up the parchment again. “If they hear nothing from us, there will be no keeping them off the isles. Not to mention, Gunnar is supposed to be taking vows. How long can we keep his mother and father away?”

“It’s a conundrum, Raven Queen.” Calista brushed a thin braid out of her eyes. “But I think this dark battle lord will hurt them in a strange way. It feels almost like he . . . needs them to step on the land before we can fight back, like they are part of his victory.”

“Because dark glamour like this grows,” Stefan interjected. “It strengthens and finds new abilities. Think of the risk if every fated throne were to be in one place where he could reach them.”

“They can never set foot on the isles?”

“I would be wary until our enemy is dead,” Stefan told me.

I let out a heavy breath. “Then we have little time to find a way to kill him. Ari has not been in contact with his people for too long already.” When I’d only been a thrall in his household, I knew the foreign ambassador was impeccable with his consistency in sending the North updates on relations with the South and with the young prince.

“We’ll find a way,” Calista said.

“And we’ll need to do it fast. Davorin will have the ability to overtake them,” Stefan said, speaking his name for the first time with acidic bitterness. “He’ll expand his influence to other kingdoms and our world will be lost.”

With a twitch to my lip, I looked to the table. “Then we agree—we do what we can to keep the distant kings and queens separated from this fight.”

“Won’t be easy. They do love to take blood when others piss on their folk,” Calista said.

I could understand the thirst for blood in that regard. “The falcon. It comes before the different kingdoms are mentioned. Let’s figure out what it means, since it has now been mentioned by two.”

The steadytap,tapof Calista’s blade was the only sound that followed for a few breaths.

“Calista,” I said. “Anything to make of a falcon and games?”

She didn’t answer; her gaze held on to the upper rafters and her blade kept the steady beat against the wooden posts.

Stefan rubbed his chin, clearly as lost to answers as me. I slumped into the chair, my eyes gouging the parchment, the heels of my palms pressed into my forehead. Why a falcon? What did a falcon have to do with anything?

Brightens deep your heart of pain.

My heart? Ari’s absence was a heady kind of pain. There was no light so long as he was lost to me. Ari was the light in my heart.All gods. I sat straight again.

Ari was my heart.

“Wait.” I tapped the wordbrightensexcitedly with one finger. “This . . . it means Ari. The only way light fills my heart will be if he wakes. A falcon’s game . . . brightens the pain in my heart. It wakes Ari.”

A rush of heat filled my blood, as though whatever magic flowed through those rune seer words confirmed the truth of it.

I re-read the words. A falcon’s game. What game? What the hells did it mean?

Calista smiled with a twisted look, almost vicious. “Want my thoughts?”

“Desperately.” Why did she even hesitate?

“I keep trying to convince myself I’m wrong. It puts a great risk to the other kingdoms if I’m right. Seeing how we need to keep them away, this’ll make it harder.” Calista fiddled with a snag on her trousers, voice low. “I didn’t think of a falcon-falcon earlier; I thought ofa Falkyn.”