He didn’t acknowledge how right I was, which was annoying. “Is that an order?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes.”
“As your advisor—”
“You will say, ‘My, what a kind Queen our people have.’”
“You are kind. Too kind.”
Shaking my head, I looked at the records on the tea table as I shoved thoughts of the old woman aside. “Do you know how the first mortal was created?”
“That’s a random, unexpected question.” He crossed his arms but didn’t sit. “The first mortal was created from the flesh—”
“Of a Primal and the fire of a draken?” I finished for him, surprised that the widow had spoken the truth.
Kieran frowned. “If you know the answer, why did you ask?”
“I didn’t know until now.” It didn’t pass me by that I was called the Queen of Flesh and Fire, but my brain was already too full of confusing things to consider how or if those two items were related. “Did you know that the Rite existed before the Ascended?”
“It didn’t.”
“It did,” I said and then showed him the ledgers.
Kieran’s surprise was like a splash of cool water as he dragged a hand over his head. The hair there was growing longer. “I guess it’s possible that the gods had some sort of Rite and that the Ascended copied it.”
I thought that over. “Malec would’ve known about it. He could’ve told Isbeth. But did it stop because the gods went to sleep?”
“That would be a plausible reason.” He folded his arms, giving the chamber a not-too-discreet glance.
“It has to be related—why the gods took the third sons and daughters,” I said, staring at the ledgers. “And how they can become Revenants.”
Chapter 5
An hour or so past dawn the following morning, I walked across the vine-smothered remains of one of the buildings situated among the pines that crowded Cauldra Manor. A gust of chilled wind swept through the decaying pillars, ruffling the pure white fur of the wolven prowling the length of the crumbling wall of the structure.
Delano had followed when I left the manor, staying only a few feet behind me as he continuously scanned the ruins that had either been destroyed by time or the last war.
Thirty days.
The shudder rolling through me had nothing to do with the cool temperatures. The sharp swell of pain deep in my chest made it difficult to breathe and blended with the nearly overwhelming need to escape this haunted place and go to Carsodonia. That was where he was. That was what the Handmaiden had told me, and I didn’t think the Revenant was lying. How could I free him if I were here, trapped amid the skeletons of a once-great city? Held captive by the responsibilities of a Crown I hadn’t wanted?
My gloved fingers trailed down the buttons of the woolen sweater coat to where they ended at the waist. I reached between the flared halves and closed my hand over the pouch secured to my hip, clutching the toy horse.
My thoughts calmed.
Near the bushy, yellow wildflowers growing along the foundation, I sat on the edge, letting my legs dangle off as I eyed the landscape. Waist-high weeds had reclaimed most of the road that had once traveled to this part of the city, leaving only glimpses of the cobbled streets beneath. Thick roots had taken hold among the toppled buildings, and the sweeping pines’ heavy limbs climbed through broken windows in the few walls that still stood. Sprigs of lavender poked through abandoned carriage wheels, the sweet, floral scent following the wind whenever it blew.
I had no idea how old Duke Silvan had been, but I was sure he’d lived enough years to clean this part of Massene up. To do something with the land so it no longer resembled a graveyard of what once had been.
The Chosen who will usher in the end, remaking the realms.
A shiver accompanied the memory of Vessa’s words. As far as I knew, neither Naill nor Emil had been able to find her chamber, but she was locked away, fed and safe in a room two doors down from the Great Hall.
“You shouldn’t be out here,” a gruff voice said from above, causing me to jump.
Delano hadn’t been the only one to follow. Reaver had, too, taking to the air as he tracked us through the pines. He glided so quietly above us that I’d forgotten he was up there, circling.
The voice could belong to no one but him.
Tilting back my head, I looked up a dozen feet or so to where the draken perched on the flat surface of a pillar. Warmth crept into my cheeks.
Seeing Reaver in his mortal form was already an utterly unexpected experience. But seeing him completely, absolutely naked whilst crouched on a pillar took the oddness of the situation to a whole new level.