Days and nights merge together . . . Time slips past.
It holds. It builds. As the days weave minds together, a partnership in all things emerging, the nights weave spirits together into one.
Death merged with flame.
In the joining of my essence with his, I am blinded, thinking our growing power can allow for no enemies. That our secrets will never be known.
But I am wrong . . . An enemy already lurks among us. She seeks me out to destroy me. To destroy my king. She despises us with an iron will. And she won’t be satiated until we are ripped from each other.
She won’t relent until all the power is hers.
FORTY-FIVE
SAGE
I open my eyes. The smell of smoke lingers in the air. The familiar dark canopy of my bed hangs above me, curtains a sheer red. I turn toward the king. But the bed is empty.
He was just here. Wasn’t he? I sit up, disoriented.
A trickle of unease fills my chest.
Where is he?
“Hello?” I ask the silence.
But wait. When I fell asleep, I wasn’t here; I wasn’t in the keep. I was with the king in the wood, under the rowan tree. I was . . . why can’t I remember?
Something was wrong before I closed my eyes. The king had called to me, drawing me into the wood, and I’d found him resting under the rowan tree. He said there was something we could do to hide ourselves, hide our secret. Something that would save us from her. We argued because his plan was terrible, it was horrifying what I would have to do . . . but . . .
Confusion rolls over me again. Why can’t I remember?
I rise from the bed, wandering over to the fire. The embers have faded to nearly nothing. I snap my fingers, sending out my spark into the dying blaze.
The energy slinks over my skin but goes no further. The embers stay as they were. I blink at the coals and try again.
Still nothing.
Something is very wrong.
I reach for my pouch of lavender, to call my mother—
Where is it?
I look down. What . . . what is this? Am I wearing trousers? I pat myself and realize how strange my clothing is. And I’m wearing my torque—why would that be? It was taken off me soon after the Bonding. Am I a prisoner?
My heart begins to race as I look around again. And then I spot the painting over the hearth. It’s not the painting that was there before. It’s a portrait of me now. I stand on an icy bank, Fionn perched on my arm, ready for flight.
Fionn.
“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” a voice says from behind me.
I turn, nearly stumbling into the fireplace.
The young man grabs me by the upper arm, tugging me away from the flames, closer to him. “Take care,” he says. “You could catch your clothes on fire, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?”
I gape at him, lost. “Who are you?”
He smirks, his silver eyes full of mischief. “We’re not here to be coy, little doe.” He pulls me to the chair and releases me into it.
As I watch him begin to pace, confusion fills me again. He’s familiar, he’s so like the king. But I don’t know him.
Kieran whispers in my head. The name of my king’s brother . . . but he was just a boy the last time I saw him, fourteen winters old. This is a man.
The ground tips. A memory of this young man’s face, how he broke someone’s neck. The violent moment flashes in my head, and I grip the arms of the chair, panic hitting.
Faelan!
No.
Wait . . . who’s Faelan?
Pain shoots through my head, and I groan, squeezing my eyes shut. I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“Are you well?” the silver-eyed young man asks, urgency filling his voice.
“Where is my king?” I mutter.
“Sage?” Someone shakes my shoulders. “Sage, are you all right? Look at me!”
Sage . . .
No . . . it’s wrong. It’s all wrong . . . My stomach shivers, everything swirling inside of me, bones aching, chest tingling . . . What’s happening—
My eyes fly open, and I gasp, my lungs stinging. I grip his arms as a lifeline. “Kieran!” I gulp in air like I was drowning a second ago. I was. Who was I? What just happened? “Oh my God, Kieran.”
His face comes clear in front of me, fear in his eyes. “That was her, wasn’t it?” he asks.
I nod my head, not even caring how he knows. It all totally took me over. I couldn’t even have my own thoughts. I was just . . . gone.
His hand becomes a fist at his side as tension fills his body. “It’s too soon,” he whispers. “I was sure the torque would hold this in.”
“You what?”
“It was her torque—Queen Lily’s. It should have held her spirit down. That’s what the damn monk said.”
I blink at him. He knows Lailoken? “You know what that was.” It’s not a question. I can see he’s fully aware.
He nods, his eyes going distant.
“How much do you know? About me.”
“A lot more than I like.” He moves to the fire, staring into the embers.
“Tell me. What just happened?” I look back to the bed, all the memories and emotions of Lily swirling in the background of my mind like a mist trying to press in again.
“She surfaced,” he says, his voice tense. “Her spirit took over your body.”
Dread soaks into my bones. “How’s that even possible?” Her spirit? In me? My body begins to shake. This has gotten totally out of control. “Am I possessed or something?” I nearly choke on the words.
“No,” he says, and then he adds, “And yes.” He releases a long breath as my lungs stop working. “The truth is,” he continues, “I’ve known for a long time that Queen Lily pulled all of her power—her spirit—from her blood, leaving her body an empty vessel, before the Cast came to drag her into the Pit. It was her way of escape. I kept her secret. Because all of this time I assumed she’d simply had her essence placed into her owl, that she’d remained in the wood. But when I went to the old monk, he said that the owl had died centuries ago.”
The realization of what he’s implying begins to sink in. “She needed a vessel,” I say under my breath.
“When I read your spirit that night in the alley, it didn’t make sense,” he says, still caught up in his thoughts. He starts to pace again. “Something was wrong. You were merely supposed to be a second daughter, lesser, not a being to be reckoned with, not carrying the power I felt inside you as I looked deeper. It was as if you were something . . . more. Extra. I assumed that I wasn’t sensing right, especially when you didn’t defend yourself, then bled out so swiftly. But . . .” He pauses, looking oddly unsure, not like himself at all. “Then I learned more of the truth of what Queen Lily did to my brother, what they had both done to force the hand of fate, and I knew with sudden clarity that it was Lily’s spirit hidden inside you that I was sensing.”
The stone floor seems to shift under my feet. And the truth looms like a specter, clouding my vision. All I can see is the painting of her above the mantle. Of a woman dressed in pure white, cloaked in furs, wild copper hair a stark contrast to the icy surroundings.
It’s nuts. It’s crazy. These visions, these dreams, they aren’t just memories. They’re actually her. Queen Lily.