Chapter 41 #2
“And my mother knows?” Thane’s face had grown pallid. “She knows he seeks to slaughter me, meld me to his bones?”
“Perhaps much like the blood crafter queen has kept Fadey’s bond with Lyra hidden, he, too, has kept dark truths from her, Jorvan prince.” Gammal leaned forward and patted Thane’s knee.
“We don’t have any connection to the bones,” Yrsa insisted. “I’ve never seen one, never even been told about this tale.”
“But it is no less true. I said Fadey is misguided, but he is not wrong that every heir holds the power of the Wanderer King.”
“What do you mean, ‘holds the power’?” Thane pressed.
“Three veins of the gods’ craft were torn from that first king, scattered among his heirs to make their own lands, palaces, armies, and households. Don’t you see? Generations have passed with the bones of the Wanderer within them. The power of the first king has always been there, my elskans.”
Thane shook his head. “Like Yrsa, I have never seen the Wanderer’s bones.”
“All gods.” It felt as though the walls of Gammal’s hut were closing in on me. “Fadey doesn’t need their souls to find the first king. He doesn’t realize it, but by taking their bones, he will already have the shards with the Wanderer King’s soul.”
Gammal’s thin lips split in a grin. She leaned back in her chair. “Why is that, elskan?”
“Because the craft of the first king is inside them. Because the firstborns are true descendants of the Wanderer King. Like you said, I come from the blood of the god-queen, and they come from the blood of the Wanderer’s heirs.”
“Yes,” Gammal said, her voice firm. “We know from the sagas that the god-queen blessed her three young ones with the purest veins of craft during the Wanderer’s downfall.
It was what corrupted him with such envy against his own children.
Because of this, an unbroken vein has lived on within the three bloodlines, passing on from firstborn to firstborn.
Until now, when the firstborns who align with the daughter of the god-queen hold the strongest vein of that ancient craft.
Bone.” Gammal opened a palm to Thane. Next, Yrsa.
“Blood.” Finally, she looked to Roark. “And soul.”
Roark shook his head. I am not the firstborn.
The seer merely returned a pained smile.
“I’m afraid I will disappoint you, dear Gammal,” Thane said. “I come from a long, proud line of bone crafters, true. But like my father before me, I have no craft.”
“Because it was the Jorvans who began corrupting the power. Gifts of the gods can be taken, sweet prince. And it seems they have taken it from your blood.”
Gunter folded his arms over his chest. “Craft faded from your bloodline because of the use of soul bones?”
Thane rubbed the sides of his head. “Seems so.”
“But it does not negate that you are a direct line to the Wanderer’s eldest son. The keeper of bone craft. And that craft lives within you, burning hotter now that the god-queen’s blood is also born.”
Thane leaned his elbows onto his knees, fists in front of his mouth, but said nothing more.
“All this is to say,” Gammal said, a little weary, “Fadey knew he could restore the power of the first king the moment he learned a girl with silver scars lived. He knew he was not the one with the stronger craft, but he devised his wicked scheme to take the power of the girl fated to carry what he desired. Because of my words, he also turned his sights on every heir.”
The truths were monstrous, cruel, evil.
“He would let the girl grow, of course,” said Gammal. “Wait for craft to take hold in her blood. Then, he would strike.”
Roark’s heavy palm covered mine and squeezed three times.
“So my father, Horace of House Bien, knew I was not his daughter?”
“Oh yes. The same as your mother, Gertrude of House Bien, knew she was not your blood mother.”
I coughed. “What?”
Gammal stoked the embers in the inglenook before she spoke again.
“Your mother was of Myrda, from what we’ve learned.
A young woman who likely thought the formidable melder might love her and their child.
When he never returned, we know she went to live in her brother’s household.
There, unfortunately, the birth sent her to Salur.
” Gammal’s eyes glistened. “House Bien, as I understand it, was kin to your uncle’s wife.
The mother and father you knew had no young ones and offered to help raise you. ”
Tears burned. My bond to Roark restored memories, and I could recall it all. Laughter and teasing as my mother chased me to the loft before sleep. My father teaching me to chop kindling and how to fight back against stupid boys who pulled my braids.
And Fadey took House Bien. He took all of them from me.
If Gammal knew about Fadey’s plans, why did she not tell my mother and father when she delivered the prophecy? Roark gestured to me.
Gammal held his stare after I relayed the question.
“To my shame, we did not realize his darker desires at the time. I went to the soul crafters with the prophecy because they despised the Jorvan’s corrupt use of melders.
I wish I had known Fadey’s intentions, for I might’ve warned them of traitors at their tables.
I thought Fadey would help protect the girl.
Alas, the Norns are often finicky when it comes to the fate they reveal. ”
“What happened after the peace meet?” I asked.
“Fadey grew more determined to find the girl before the Draven clan could hide her behind their walls. He cut ties with the Unfettered, and I believe he began plotting with blood crafters to hunt the girl’s blood.
” Gammal did not look at me; she did not speak to any royal; she looked at Emi.
“But there was more I did not foresee. More traitors, more hatred that unraveled so much pain to lead us here.”
Emi shifted where she sat. “What are you talking about?”
“It was my understanding that tensions rose among the soul crafters on how to handle the melder daughter should she ever be found. There was a disagreement between brothers. A king desired to conceal the girl behind their walls, shadowing her craft. But his brother wanted her blood to spill. It began to crack brotherly bonds.”
Emi’s face pinched. “You speak of my father?”
“Yes. But only one other ever discovered how deep your father’s disdain for his brother’s word had grown. A wife who could read the true desire of a soul. A wife whose craft learned the traitorous schemes of her husband.”
“Shit.” Gunter paused in lifting a second horn to his mouth and gaped at Emi.
“No.” Emi’s voice was strained. “That was my mother’s craft. What did she learn?”
Gammal paused, her voice gentle. “Dark plans to take a throne for himself, sweet one.”
Emi clapped her palms over her mouth. Yrsa shifted around Gunter and sat beside her, her hand on Emi’s knee.
Gammal hesitated. “So he banished his sjeleven.”
Why did my aunt not speak the truth? Roark spoke with fiery gestures, a flush to his face.
“Ah, I am told mothers will often agree to the direst of terms when true threats are leveled against their young ones,” said Gammal. “Did you know it was an Unfettered spear warrior who found her in the moments before she went to Salur?”
Gammal gestured to Keela.
The woman ran a hand through her dark hair.
“I found the soul crafter woman likely a day or two after she’d slipped and fallen down a steep cliff near the ledges.
She was fading but pleaded for me to hear her, to vow something with her.
She told me of a daughter who lived with her traitorous husband.
She told me of the soul vow which bound her to silence regarding his desires.
In exchange, he could never kill their girl.
I wouldn’t make promises to her I could not keep.
I could not promise to protect her girl, for I hardly knew the land, hardly knew much about your realms.” Keela hesitated.
“But I am glad to offer aid to her girl now.”
Emi’s shoulders shook with silent tears. Roark’s jaw was clenched so tightly, I thought he might crack a tooth. I pressed a hand to his shoulder, trying to soothe the vicious soul beneath his skin, and gave a somber look at Emi.
To know her mother might’ve been tossed out without a word, all to save Emi from Virki’s madness, was a horror no daughter should need to shoulder. Virki had harmed Emi, brutalized her, but he’d never killed her. He couldn’t kill her.
How I wanted to kill him.
“After her banishment, it is clear he turned his actions against his brother like a viper waiting to strike,” Gammal said.
“It was Virki’s word that convinced Vishon the only way to protect the souls of the fallen was through a deledan rite,” Auki said, low and broken.
Damn the gods. Slowly, Virki had destroyed his brother under the guise of strategy. He’d left Vishon divided, likely convinced that his bond with Elisabet would fade.
What might’ve happened if the queen had not been devious in her own right, if Roark’s mother had been unable to speak to her king, soul to soul?
Roark shot to his feet, his gestures frantic enough that I had to repeat his words for the others to understand. He wanted a crown? He wanted to usurp my father?
A shadow crossed Gammal’s features. “It was a planned betrayal that does not end there, dark soul. The firstborn prince of souls was the one who passed word for any traces of the lost melder daughter. He sent word to us regarding the moves of Jorvans and Fadey. After that first peace meet, he found his heart in our lands, you see.”
“Prince Nivek?” Gunter eyed Roark. “He did go on those trade journeys a lot. Remember, we always begged him to take us?”