Chapter 42 #3
She grinned. “Sylvan dragged me before the court and demanded I have a vision. He had promised me in secret that he would return my eyes—the eyes his cousin had carved from my beautiful face—in exchange for me saying no such heirs existed… but I was feeling a little bitter towards him for his part in what happened to me. Being tortured by him for two lunar cycles because of something he was responsible for and then exiled from the palace… none of the anger I felt about it had faded despite centuries passing. So I agreed I would lie for him, and then I told the court that I saw an heir. More than one. Spread across the lands. Protected from the wicked machinations of this court and the fate Sylas’s mate and first-born had faced.
The fate Sylvan had punished me for despite the fact he had forced me to have vision after vision about other courts in the lead up to that event, depleting my magic. ”
“That is suspicious.”
“Your little wolf called it ‘convenient’ but I suppose they are similar enough words.” She matched up three sticks by length and frowned at a fourth that did not match, moving it to rest on her knee.
“She knows about this?” I looked in the direction she had gone, the direction I knew would lead me to the palace if I broke my vow to her.
“More or less. Maybe. I do not think I told her all of that, but she knows not to trust Sylvan, and she will not trust Sylvan.”
“How can you be sure of that?” I paused and added, “You saw a vision of her.”
She nodded. “She is quite safe there. Your little wolf has sharp fangs, a keen eye, and a quick wit, and knows how to use them all.”
That did not set my mind at ease.
“When we met, you told me you had seen my future,” I said.
She lifted her gaze from her sticks. “I did.”
“What did you see?” I tried to keep the eagerness and curiosity from my face, schooling my expression so she would not see how desperately I wanted to know the answer to that question.
Her lips pursed and she toyed with one of the sticks as her pale blue gaze lifted to the swaying green canopy of leaves above us. I knew the moment she had fallen into her vision, her eyes growing hazy and unfocused.
“I saw you, at the shore of that lake your little wolf visits in her dreams. Nestled among towering peaks. Bathed by fire. I saw your pain. I tasted your fear. Agony wrenching stars from the sky. Fracturing the very foundations of the shadows.” Her head tilted, her pale eyebrows lowering.
“I saw a union. A heart made whole. A benevolent queen of shadows. Drifting. Dreaming. Drinking. A wolf on the water. A fae beneath.”
She blinked and her eyes were on me.
“That is what I saw.”
I sifted through it all, separating the two parts, aware one was for me and the other for Saphira. She was the heart made whole. The union? That part could be for both of us. I was not sure.
The benevolent queen of shadows.
Benevolent. Shadows.
The seelie were said to be the benevolent fae.
Arianell spoke of her seelie side, but also of shadows, and I was not convinced she meant the Shadow Court. The unseelie side of Lucia was the shadows. Shadows I would apparently fracture at their foundations while in pain. A lake. Mountains. Fire. Foundation.
My eyebrows pitched low, knitting hard as I stared at the grass.
The Forge.
A volcano in the heart of the Stygian Isles.
The lake. Not just any lake.
The Sacred Milk.
The birthplace of the unseelie.
Water that showed an elkyn as both seelie and unseelie in Saphira’s dreams. And in Arianell’s vision had shown Saphira as a wolf standing upon the water, but a fae in her reflection. Fae. Not seelie. Arianell had specifically said fae.
Lucia was guiding Saphira. Giving her dreams. Leading her to the Forge. Why?
I was not sure, but I would not stop until I knew the reason.
“Do not tell her of the vision,” Arianell said and I lifted my gaze to her. Her expression grew grave as she added, “She must walk her path and find her way there under the goddess’s guidance. It must be her choice.”
I wanted to speak to Saphira about her dreams. I wanted us to work together to understand Arianell’s vision, and the one Neve had given her.
So the thought of keeping Saphira in the dark about this did not sit well with me.
“What will happen if I do?” I watched her closely, awaiting her answer.
“Do not meddle with fate, King Kaeleron the Wrathful. Saphira must walk her path and make her choice and discover who she is becoming, and when this world trembles, she must give back what she was given, or your court will not survive.”
I did not like the sound of that, but I was willing to trust the dragon, because Neve’s visions had never steered me wrong.
I would keep our conversation to myself, as much as I despised withholding anything from Saphira, and keep watch over my little wolf, letting her walk her path under Lucia’s guidance.
But if the goddess placed her in danger, I would intervene.
I would not lose my love.
I mulled over what Arianell had told me, and what I had read in the books I had stolen from the Summer Court, and a feeling condensed within me.
Something I could do with Saphira’s help.
I needed more information about this Sylvan, and the one place I knew I would find it, was the one place it would be reckless to go alone, the journey long and fraught with danger of being spotted since I could not teleport long distances.
It was a good thing I knew a very adventurous wolf who had just learned how to teleport.