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“I was told. A long time ago. By my mother. She was an oracle.
There will be times when the world seeks to destroy you, Kingfisher. But you are stronger than you can ever know. You will not falter. And you will not face it all alone.’”
“She said, when I needed you most, you’d come blazing into my life like a meteorite, riding on a wave of chaos that would turn my whole world upside down. That you’d shine so brilliantly that you’d light up hell itself and guide me out of the darkness. She had no idea what your name would be. Just that you’d have dark hair, and a beautiful smile. And that I’d love you with a fierceness despite myself.”
Centuries ago, a mother had looked into her son’s future, seeking comfort, to assure herself that he would live a good life.
“Fuck the fates. They don’t get to decide shit for me. I decide what my future is going to be.”
I’m going to research how to save Everlayne and you. Because I don’t just throw my hands up and accept defeat when things get hard. I’m honestly shocked to learn that you do.”
“You really think I’m going to let you sleep out here again?” he asked. “I didn’t know if you’d want me in your bed,” I told him. “If it were up to me, we wouldn’t spend another night without each other again.”
There were so many angry, hurt, frightened words I could hurl at him, but I’d done enough of that last night, and I really didn’t want to do it again. As if he were thinking along similar lines, he cupped my face in his hands and said softly, “Let’s have tonight. You and me. Tomorrow night, we’ll bring Everlayne home. And once Iseabail and Te Léna have her fixed up and good as new, then we can worry about me. Okay?”
You did this for me? It felt wrong to speak out loud. I didn’t want my voice to ruin the illusion he’d created for us, so I asked him in my mind. Yes, he answered simply. And for me, too. I am selfish, Saeris. I wanted something quiet and small and special for the both of us. Something we could keep.
“Nobody will ever fuck you the way I’m about to fuck you, Saeris Fane. I’m about to introduce you to all seven gods. When you meet them, don’t forget to tell them I’m the one you worship on your knees.”
“I’ll be grateful for every second that I can say that I belong to you, Saeris Fane. Eighty years or eighteen hours. It doesn’t matter to me. It’ll still be the highest honor of my life. But don’t—Are you about to have a heart attack? Your pulse is flying.” The bastard laughed, and I nearly burst into tears. “Don’t freak out. Here. Look.”
“I’m in love with you, Saeris Fane,” he whispered quietly into my hair. “And I’m already half-mad, anyway. What’s a little complicated thrown into the mix?”
“When we were here last time, you said that the people of Ballard had something you needed. But you never got it,” I whispered. Fisher gently kissed my forehead, and all around us, the flickering candle flames started to blink out. “Yes, I did,” he said. I barely heard his next words as I drifted away. “I came for a little hope.”
“Carrion Swift, if you don’t wake up right now, I’m going to tell all of your asshole friends back in the Third that you were a shitty lay.”
I wanted to save you from this. I didn’t want you to suffer with me.
“I play back,” Fisher spat. “It might not be today, but oh, I am coming to find you, Madra. Fear the shadows, bitch. I’m made of them. One night soon, I’ll climb out of one and slit your fucking throat.”
“My name is Carrion Swift. But there was a time when I was known as Carrion Daianthus. Firstborn son to Rurik and Amelia Daianthus.”
He is the storm. You are the peace that must come after it. Tell me, do you believe in the fates, Alchemist?
“You were supposed to have been born Fae, in the same realm as your Kingfisher. So I separated you. Hundreds of years before you were born, I shifted the events around your birth. Moved the pieces on the board and placed you far away, in a realm that should never have come into contact with his.
“Fuck the fates. They don’t get to decide shit for me. I decide what my future is going to be. Did you not just say that mere days ago?”
Trepidation built inside me, growing more unbearable by the second, but Fisher hung his head in a very boyish way that made my insides squeeze.
My head snapped up, eyes boring into Tal’s placid face. We had grown up together, he and I. Apart from Renfis, I had known him the longest in the span of my miserable, piteous life.
I had seen it a hundred times, sketched into the pages of my mother’s notebooks. I knew who she was supposed to be to me—the one my mother had told me would come. My counterweight. The female I would love and scourge the worlds for. And she was beautiful. Breathtakingly so. The way she stubbornly clung onto life, refusing to die even as her body failed her, was remarkable. But she was human. She wouldn’t survive her injuries, no matter how hard she fought.
What cruel kind of irony was it that I would find the one I was destined to spend my life with at last, only to discover that she wasn’t long for the world?
The pulling sensation I had felt back in the maze was growing weaker by the second. I could barely feel it. It had become faint—a gentle pulse, as light and delicate as an Oshellith’s wings, fluttering inside my chest. It hadn’t been the sword that I’d sensed, back in the maze. It had felt like the same kind of pull, familiar and insistent,
No, it hadn’t been the sword calling to me. It had been the girl. And she was dying.
“If you die before you can give this back, I’m not going to be happy,”
“You had better pull through this, Oshellith,” I told her. “For better or for worse, I get the feeling that you’re about to turn everything upside down.”
