Chapter 100 Serena
SERENA
TWO WEEKS AGO
Amber eyes inspect me from across the small table. I wait for the door to close behind Zadyn and Mar before turning back to the stranger wearing my mother’s face.
“Say what you need to say.”
She moves to the beverage cart, picks up a crystal decanter, and pours out two shots of golden brown liquor. Handing one to me, she sits.
“What is this?”
“Does it matter? You’ll need it for what I’m about to tell you.”
I glower at her before taking the glass and tossing it back.
She sighs, and begins, “The Fates are angry. You have been evading a destiny they took great care in mapping out.”
I lean in, my brows slashing together. “Who are the Fates?”
“The weavers of destiny. They have great plans for you, but you must stop running. You must start facing what you are meant for.”
“And what is it I’m ‘meant for’?”
“When your ancestors died, they cast out their energy to preserve their line with the intention that you would return to finish what they started. That you would be this world’s salvation. That you would defend and protect its inhabitants, as they did.”
“Protect them from what? What are you saying?”
She flips over the first card she placed in front of me. The Wheel of Fortune.
“You are the queen this world has waited for.”
My stomach turns to lead.
Not this again.
I shake my head as she presses on. “This is what you were made for. To free the witches and restore the balance.”
“Free the witches? From what?”
“I am not at liberty to say.”
Thanks, that’s super helpful.
“Look, I’m not interested in being queen. All I care about is stopping—”
“Something is coming.” Her eyes glaze as if looking through me—not at me—into some distant void. “If you hope to face it and live, then you must stop running and accept your birthright.”
Her words strike a chord with me.
Something is coming.
Derek had said something similar that day in his study—the day he told me of his father’s belief that I was the answer to Solterre’s prayers.
A fresh wave of pain flares up at the memory of his face. I swallow it back as she continues, “The choice is yours. Choose well, and you may stand a chance at survival. Choose wrong, and the cost will be this world.”
Cool. No pressure.
I pinch my temples between my hands. “What you’re suggesting is insane. Becoming High Queen? No one will follow me. No one will listen.”
“You are a dragon rider. You will make them listen.”
“How?”
“Align yourself with Vod.”
“Oh, like Derek tried to do by marrying Ilspeth? Look how well that turned out,” I scoff. “I cannot team up with Kylian—he’s the entire reason we’re in this mess. He has to be stopped.”
“I have seen what happens if you continue to pursue this notion that he is your enemy. You will err, and your mistake will set the wheels of destiny in motion.”
“You expect me to just turn a blind eye to all he’s done? All he’s doing? If I’m supposed to protect this world, then this falls under the job description, don’t you think?”
“You cannot see the entire picture,” she says, her expression grave. “You cannot see what awaits if you keep resisting. Without him ruling at your side, you do not stand a chance.”
“Ruling at my side? Kylian doesn’t share anything! You expect him to scooch over and crack me off a piece of his crown?”
What does she expect me to do? Let Kylian trample all over us because it’s part of some great master plan?
No. Abso-fucking-lutely not.
“If fulfilling my birthright means marrying Kylian, then people will die regardless. He’s a tyrant who only cares about power.
He does not care who has to die in order for him to get it.
Aegar won’t accept him without a fight, and I doubt the other kingdoms will kindly evacuate their thrones for me.
This will only lead to more bloodshed, more lives lost.”
“The other kingdoms will have no choice. Your mates are very powerful and very determined. If it’s a throne you desire, they shall make sure you are seated comfortably.”
It’s like a record screeching to a halt.
“I’m sorry—my mates?”
As in plural? As in more than one?!
I blink. “I’m sorry, I think my brain just hemorrhaged. You said—”
“You didn’t know?” She chuckles as if I just delivered the punch line to a joke.
“No—I—that’s impossible.”
“Rare, but not impossible. I’ve seen it before, multiple bonds. The Fates work in mysterious ways.”
My eyes narrow in confusion. “The Fates? But I thought Adelphi—”
“Like most of the gods, Adelphi has not concerned herself with matters of our kind in centuries. The Fates now choose.”
“But why would they do this?”
“They are like the gods. Old as time itself, always searching for entertainment, amusement, ways to feel alive. Seeing our struggles, watching our pain and our joy—I think it reminds them of a time they felt all of that too. A time that has been long forgotten.”
“So they thought it would be fun to stick me with two mates and make me choose between them?”
“Not two,” she whispers, a fascinated look in her eyes. “Three.”
“Three?!” I practically shriek.
She nods. I burst into laughter. Even though I don’t find it funny. Not at all.
“No. No.”
She reaches out a hand and flips over the second card laid before me. The Lovers.
“Choosing between them seems highly unlikely,” she continues as if I’m not sitting here having an actual mental breakdown. “It would be like trying to sever one of your own limbs. A part of your soul is shared among them. Though I fear one choice has already been made for you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
She flips the third card over, and on the back I read two words—so final and heavy.
The Tower.
Her oval-shaped nail taps the painted card as she goes on, “One among them is your true enemy.”
I stop breathing.
“Where your paths cross, misfortune follows. Pain, heartache, even death.” She peels the card off the table and balances it between two lithe fingers. “The two of you will try to fight it, but just as you were born to rule, he was born to destroy.”
“Who is he?” I demand, teetering on the edge of my seat.
“You will know him by the suffering your bond brings,” she explains. “The love between you may be strong, but it is blinding. It leads to irrational, desperate decisions with calamitous results.” She leans in a touch closer. “I urge you to stay away from that one.”
“But mates are meant to be together. That’s the whole point,” I argue. I may not know much on the subject, but that’s a pretty universal concept.
“Just because two people are meant for each other does not mean they are good for each other. Or for the people around them. I think it’s what you earthlings call toxic.”
This is absurd. All of it. Three mates? One that just so happens to be my enemy?
“What if I can’t stay away from him? What happens then?”
Her voice sends ice up my arms as she whispers, “You will tear each other apart, and those around you will pay the price.”
My blood freezes over, my head reeling.
What does that even mean?
“I’ve said all I may say. Fight your urges and keep your distance. It will make it easier when the time comes. He is not for you.”
The words trigger a distant memory. They’re the same ones Furi spoke to me after Ilsa was killed.
He is not for you, Blackblood.
She had been talking about Jace.
My gut twists as the idea infests my mind. Because if that’s the case, then…
Oh god.
She could be lying. Though I don’t know what she would stand to gain from this, I do know my mother, and rest assured there is always a motive. I’m willing to bet her doppelg?nger is no different.
“Why should I believe you?”
“I suppose whether you believe is up to you. I’ve done my part in warning you.”
“Warning me?” I let out a bitter laugh. “With your vague little riddles and shady bullshit? Something is coming? I’d hardly call that helpful. Do you know who my mates are?”
She just looks at me, her silence confirmation enough.
“You know.”
The pieces of the puzzle start to slowly click into place. The things I’ve been told, the warnings I’ve tried to ignore, the outside forces that always seem to be pushing and pulling me with no regard or respect for my free will.
“You know, don’t you? Tell me who they are. Now.”
“Oh, you know who they are. Deep down. You just refuse to accept it.”
“I need to hear you say it. Out loud. Or I won’t believe it.”
“I cannot.”
“If what you’re saying is true, people’s lives are at stake here!” I draw a deep breath, fumbling to reel back my frustration. “Please. I know you don’t owe me anything, but I am begging you. Tell me who they are and how to fix this.”
She hesitates, her gaze bordering on sympathetic. “There is no fixing this. You must accept that some things that are meant to be just aren’t meant to be.”
It’s never been up to me, has it? It was all just decided upon by those who think they have the right. They don’t.
She begins to gather the cards on the table, and I get the sense that we’re done here. But I have way too many questions to pack it up and be on my merry fucking way.
“Just tell me something—anything. What is coming that we should be so afraid of? Tell me what I’m supposed to do—”
“Would that it were so simple. There are things I cannot reveal. Doing so would alter nature’s course. There would be consequences.”
“There already have been! I’ve already lost people I love. I can’t lose any—”
“That is outside my realm of jurisdiction.”
I bristle at the finality of her tone. “So that’s it? You bring me here to drop a major bombshell, and then just shut the hell up?”
She draws up her spine. “I brought you here to keep you from making the biggest mistake of your life.”
“How can you keep me from making it when I don’t even know what it is?!” I hiss. “And since when has any version of you ever given two shits about my life and my mistakes?” I shout, my eyes stinging with hot tears.
She sits there shaking her head, a coldness creeping onto her lovely face. “Ungrateful.”
I laugh in disbelief.
“I put much at risk to come here to give you this warning.”
“Well, your problem, I guess,” I snap, standing and striding toward the door.
“You’ll be back when you’re ready to face the truth.” Her voice stops me. I turn back to her slowly.
“I’d like to send a message back to the Fates.” I flatten my palms against the table and lean in close.
“This is my life. And I intend to do whatever the fuck I want with it. And if they try to come for the people I love, there will be absolute hell to pay. If they need a reminder of what it’s like to feel pain, to feel loss—I am more than prepared to provide that for them.”
Then I wrench the door open and tear into the hall.