103. Veyka

Lyrena met us on the beach.

Percival and Diana sat up on the bank, wrapped in cloaks, warming themselves around a small fire that Lyrena kept going without a thought.

"Cyara is waiting for you at the top," Lyrena said.

Her voice sent a shiver down my spine. That voice… I had not heard it since those dark days after Arthur's death. It reached inside of me and touched a part of my soul that I had thought gone, healed. But there it was, exposed again.

My golden knight was hurting.

I reached for her arm, but Lyrena shook her head. "Go," she said, lifting her sword—up, toward the center of the island.

For once, I did not use the void.

Arran and I walked every step of the way.

We hadn't slept. There had been no time. We'd barely cleaned up the carnage from Imbolc when the communication crystal began to glow, summoning us here.

Up and up we climbed. I was thankful for the thick leather leggings and heavy fur cloak on my shoulders. Even with the exertion, the temperature dropped with each step we took. By the time we reached the clearing, I was shivering.

Arran tucked me in at his side just as Cyara appeared from behind a monolith that towered over even Arran's head. A ring of them.

She did not wait for us to reach her, coming to where we stood on the edge of the clearing.

"The true story of Accolon and Nimue is etched upon the stones," Cyara said. "And the prophecy. All of it."

Fulfill the prophecy. All of it.

The witch's answer to my question, how to banish the succubus for good.

Inside of me, something began to awaken. Not my power—that was slumbering happily after the way I'd used it to defend Eilean Gay. But an awareness that set my fingertips tingling, nonetheless.

Arran must have sensed it. His hand pressed into my waist hard, keeping me firmly anchored to his side.

Cyara merely bowed her head, her face devoid of all emotion. "I shall wait for you on the beach." She was as good as any elemental at hiding her feelings, but this…

"Cyara—"

"No. It is best you do this alone." Then she was gone.

I flexed my hands at my sides, trying to get the tingling to stop. Maybe it was the cold. So damn cold here in the terrestrial kingdom.

We climbed the last few feet into the clearing until the stones surrounded us. Cyara had indicated where to start. Slowly, still pressed together, Arran and I drifted from stone to stone, examining the engravings.

There it was, exactly as Cyara had said.

It was all as we had suspected until we arrived at the last battle of the succubus and the fae carved into stone. The tower with the whorl at the top. Nimue with her void power, my void power, in the Tower of Myda.

Then, on the next stone, the prophecy.

Long ago, in the goldstone palace, Parys had suggested that Nimue was the original recorder of the Void and Ethereal Prophecies.

Now here they were, laid out in full.

The Void Prophecy, with its depiction of the shadows and moons. The Ethereal Prophecy… more abstract, but there. And then…

I had to pull away from Arran to bend down, to see the carvings at the very base of the stone. Arran remained rigid above me. The tingling was in my wrists now. But the void did not pull at me. I tried to feel Arran through the bond, but he'd shut off his emotions. Much as he had before he'd regained his memories, when he'd wanted to keep me out.

It was probably reflex.

Despite the joy of having one another back fully, we were still healing. It would take time to fully adjust, to share all the secret, damaged corners of ourselves again.

I tucked my hands into my cloak as I leaned closer.

A whorl with the two figures—the two queens, Void and Ethereal. And then they were gone. The prophecy ended—and those two queens did not reappear.

I cocked my head to the side. There was one more stone. It was nearly identical to the one that preceded the prophecy. The tower, the valley. Except that the hordes of succubus were gone. And so was the whorl at the top of the tower.

Arran's hand touched the base of my neck.

Drew me up to stand.

Slipped around my waist.

When I was in Avalon, Accolon came to me in my dreams.

I jerked around to look at him. His eyes nearly broke me.

The wall between us was gone, and in its place… an emptiness as deep and howling as the void. His eyes… my mate's eyes, dark and burning for me, always… they were cold with dread.

He spoke of the sacrifices that he and Nimue made to push back the succubus. But even then, they knew it would not last forever.

I opened my mouth to ask one of the dozens of questions rising to my lips. But Arran shook his head. Pressed his fingers to my lips, then his forehead to mine.

He could not say the words aloud.

Together they must stand, to defeat what once thought dead. Together they must give, if any shall live to the end.

The final line of the prophecy.

All of it.

To banish the succubus forever, to save my kingdom, my friends, my mate, I must fulfill the prophecy. I would have to find the Ethereal Queen. And together, we must die.