Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Callan
Grey Oak slept under a blanket of thick clouds; its streets shrouded in mist that swirled like a nightmare’s thin veneer.
Few lanterns still glowed in windows. Even the drunkards kept to themselves at this late hour.
I preferred the solitude. It was better than the constant murmurs during the day.
The king was dead, and the new one was worse—or so they whispered.
Maybe they were right.
Every day, our lands grew colder. More frozen.
Crops had died. So had the sick and weak.
The Withered, especially, were too frail to withstand the plunging temperatures.
At least, Heliconia’s frost hadn’t reached the city yet.
I prayed to the gods that it never would.
But I knew I couldn’t count on the gods.
Not anymore. Nor could I count on Aurelia, their Chosen One.
It was up to me to protect my people. To save them.
I was sure my father would have groaned in his grave to know that. Maybe that’s why I’d already cast aside every possibility the old bastard would have considered viable. And now, here I was, doing the last thing he ever would.
Alone, I moved through the back alleys with my hood pulled low, the cold gnawing at my knuckles. Above me, the great stag banners of Autumn hung limp, their golden embroidery dull in the moonless night. Fitting, when I knew the once-great magic of the Autumn fae had long since dulled to match.
I’d stopped the donations on the same day I’d held my father’s funeral. It had felt righteous in the moment. Noble. Now, walking the empty streets of my starving capital, I wondered if it was too little too late. At least, with the donations, they’d been given coin so they could eat.
The oracle’s shop was tucked in a narrow lane behind the apothecaries’ square. The symbol of an open eye marked it, but I’d known it anyway—and had avoided it until now. I was surprised to find the door unlocked and was instantly wary of it.
The bell chimed once as I entered.
The air smelled of crushed herbs and burnt honey. Shelves crowded every wall, stacked with vials of dust and bone, fragments of quartz still humming faintly with captured light. Above my head, candles floated midair, their flames flickering as I passed below.
Seated at a small table tucked against one wall was a woman with hair the color of clouded moonlight and weathered hands. Meerdra, I’d heard she was called. She didn’t look up from the rune stone she was carving.
“I wondered how long it would take you,” she said. Her voice was soft and sharp at once, like silk wrapped around glass.
“You knew I’d come?”
She glanced up then. Her face was lined with wrinkles, but her moss-colored eyes were all-seeing; the kind of ageless that spoke of magic alongside the many years. “Everyone comes eventually, Your Majesty.”
The title scraped, but I didn’t bother to deny it.
I pulled my hood back and met her gaze. “Then you know why I’m here.”
“Of course. The Harvest Throne has awakened, and you don’t want it to fall into the wrong hands.”
That startled me. “What do you know of my throne?”
“Maybe the question you should ask is why you, its king, did not know?”
I frowned.
“Then again, I learned of the history of the thrones before your bloodline became kings,” she said, returning her attention to the rune stone.
“And I’ve watched those same kings starve their people on altars to gods they don’t understand.
So, is it any wonder that I didn’t share what I knew with your kind? ”
Her words stung. “My father—”
“Was a fool,” she finished. “And you are trying very hard not to be. So, tell me, Callan of Grey Oak, do you want to preserve or simply to control?”
I hesitated. “I want to save my land. And its people.”
“We cannot always have both, as your father well knew.”
I exhaled slowly, refusing to acknowledge that or believe it. “You said the throne is awake. What does that mean?”
She finally set down the carving tool. Her cloak shifted as she moved, and faint runes glimmered along the hem—old, curved symbols that tugged at my memory. I’d seen them before. Or something like them.
“Verdant,” I murmured. “I’ve seen markings like those before… on Aurelia’s neck.”
Her gaze flicked to me, unreadable. “You notice more than most.”
“Then you are truly descended from the Verdant tribe?”
A small smile. “A line that yet lives even if a home for us does not.”
I blinked, stunned.
Aurelia had asked me to bring her to see the oracle. She’d suspected there would be clues to breaking Summer’s curse buried in the Verdant’s history. Its old magic. Its healing. And I’d ignored her. Assumed the Verdant had vanished long ago, along with the rest of the Calidium empire.
Aurelia had been right.
I’d been a fool.
“Wait. You’ve met Aurelia, then?”
The old woman’s eyes sparked. “More than most, indeed.”
“What did you tell her?” I asked.
Meerdra continued carving. “What she needed to know. As I may offer you, if we agree.”
“You demand a price for your information,” I said.
“As you demanded a price of her,” she pointed out.
I tried hard not to scowl. “What do you want?”
She motioned to the empty chair across from hers. “Sit.”
I did as she asked, impatient.
She leaned closer until the scent of sage enveloped me. “A promise,” she said softly. “When the time comes, protect the Marble Throne. Heliconia must never touch it. Not even if it costs you your own.”
The Marble Throne. The Calidium throne, far in the south. But it was long-abandoned. Empty now. As it had been for centuries since the war.
“Why the Marble Throne?” I asked.
“It is the heart of Vorinthia,” she murmured. “And the only throne that remembers the balance.”
I had no idea what that meant. And what she was asking—to protect another throne above my own. It was the opposite reason I’d come in the first place.
“Give me your hand.”
I hesitated then offered it. The oracle took it and spread my palm open, shoving up my sleeve to reveal my wrist. She pressed her thumb to my vein, and I felt the faint hum of old power beneath her skin.
“You seek to be a better man than your father,” she said.
“So be one. Do not seek to rule. Seek to restore. Only then can you keep my promise and fulfill the one to your people.”
I swallowed hard. “All right. I will protect the Marble Throne from Heliconia even over my own if it comes to it.”
Meerdra nodded gravely, and magic slammed into me. I tried to pull my arm away, but she held it fast, her grip impossibly strong. Pain lanced my arm, burrowing into my bones. I gritted my teeth, holding myself to the chair despite the urge to kick and scream.
As quickly as it had come, the pain vanished, and Meerdra released me. I yanked my arm back and noted a small rune inked into my skin.
“The bargain is sealed,” she said and sat back.
My heart pounded, but I forced my breaths even. “And the answers I seek?”
She picked up the stone and the small blade beside it and went back to carving.
“When the moon split an age ago, even the gods knew the balance of their own power had shifted irrevocably. They fought and negotiated for their grip on this realm, but they each knew there would be no going back. They must make room for one another in order for each to enjoy the flow of life and magic in these lands. And so the thrones were fashioned. Each one a living conduit to what the gods had imbued to sustain us. Together, they kept Menryth breathing. But power is greedy. The more your ancestors took, the more the thrones gave. Until their magic belonged not to the gods but to kings.”
Magic. There was living magic in the throne itself?
“And Heliconia?” I asked. “Why does she want access to my throne? What will she gain from it?”
Meerdra’s eyes darkened. “What she always wanted—more. The Ice Throne bends to her will now. But she’s drinking from a well that cannot refill itself.
The frost you see crawling down your borders is her hunger, not her strength.
She wants to drink from Autumn’s throne. To drain it. To take it into herself.”
“Is that what she wanted from the Summer Court? To drain the Whitestone thrones? Take their magic for herself?”
“The power in those thrones…two rather than one. It would have made her unstoppable. Instead, Tyrion and Celeste made sure the thrones were able to strike back at her. It’s why her curse failed.”
I rubbed a hand over my jaw, the weight of it all pressing like stone. “Then maybe I can use mine. If it’s a conduit, I can draw from it, replenish what we’ve lost. Fight her.”
“You can use it to replenish your land, or you can use it to fight off Heliconia. You cannot do both. Your father knew that. He chose the land. He chose his own ego so that others would think him great. So that others would fight for him. He was a coward.”
“If I use it to fight her, will it be enough?”
“I cannot say.” She stopped carving, her gaze faraway. “Taking from the thrones would require a sacrifice. There will always be consequences when you steal from the gods.”
I laughed once, hollow. “We’re already living the consequences. I have dying crops, razed villages, and a withered kingdom. The only thing left is for Heliconia to storm my gates and take the throne by force.”
“It is never the only thing.”
“If there is another way, I would like to know it.”
“That is not for me to tell.”
“Then what the Seven Hels am I doing here?” I snapped.
“You are asking for help,” she said, eyes flashing. “But that is not the same as someone else doing it for you.”
“So fucking cryptic,” I muttered, sitting back. Of course she would go this far and then refuse to give me anything actionable.
Meerdra tilted her head. “The gods are watching you closely, Autumn. You stand at the threshold of legacy or ruin. And I fear both roads will feel the same beneath your feet.”
This was nonsense. A lecture disguised as wisdom.
I shoved back my chair and stood. But one last question held me still.
“And if I fail?” I asked quietly, bracing myself for the answer.
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Then I’ll see your bloodline again in the next life. Kings always come back.”
Outside, I pulled my hood up and started toward the castle, Meerdra’s words echoing like the wind itself. You stand at the threshold of legacy or ruin.
I had a rune etched on my arm to prove it.
I’d wanted to believe I could save my realm with a throne’s power. Now, I wasn’t sure if that same power might destroy it in the end. But one thing was certain: If Heliconia thought she could claim every throne in Menryth, she’d have to go through me first. I now had two thrones to protect.