54. Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Four

Tovi

L ong neck ducks, burly goats, pepper feathered chickens, and curly-haired cows milled about a farm behind Sven and Opal’s estate. Sliding doors revealed a fresh layer of hay in the black painted barn. A few animals slept, forms lost to the piles of warmth. Ducks quacked as Maxie chased them through the snow. Opal threw out feed, encouraging the goats and chickens to follow her while Sven scratched under the chin of a blissed cow. Both wore matching wedding rings, a bloodstone at the center of each.

A hundred questions rooted Tovi in place, but she managed at least one—the most demanding of them all. “Forgive me, but I thought Opal died the day of the curse,” she said.

Sven shrugged. “She did die, technically, but not in the way that you may think.”

Todd crossed his arms. “I think we should make a list of those we think are dead and triple-check. I’m beginning to notice a trend.”

Belle giggled beside him while the rest remained silent. Her brother and his mate moved with the animals in a dance. Opal possessed a lightness, like she floated step to step, the same kind she’d possessed the few times Tovi had met her. She twisted and turned at times, the layers of her dress and apron spreading like a blooming flower. Sven had a roguish air to him; he seemed unburdened and happy as he never had at court, like he spent most of his days like this. Outside, under the endless gray sky, tending to his land and livestock.

“You turned her?” Tovi asked.

It wasn’t the fact he turned her, but more so he’d kept her a secret. By technicality, Opal was a princess as his mate, but perhaps that explained his actions. He’d protected her from court, perhaps even from Riven. The setting only made the stark difference between her younger brother and her twin more obvious, leaving her off balance, shocked even. It was as if she were seeing Sven not only in a new light but meeting him for the first time.

“He did,” Opal said. “The same day as the Blood Curse. The timing was unintentional, of course.”

“Mother and Father didn’t approve of Opal and I. Riven didn’t disagree, but he never stood up to them for me like he did you. Visha, well, you already know. She can’t be trusted. Her version of fun and games can be deadly. And well, you were nowhere to be found. I decided to take Opal away in secret, let her transition away from court and the castle. At first, it was frightening—the curse befalling us all hours after I’d turned her, but I decided to use it to my advantage.”

“You kept her a secret all this time. Why?” Kade asked.

Tovi shared the same question, but shock dried her words on her tongue. For once, Tovi herself understood the marks secrets left. No matter the reason, they stung.

“Because vampyr court is a wretched place,” Sven said. “Neither of us belonged there.”

It confirmed Tovi’s suspicion. “But—”

“Mama! Papa!”

Tovi whirled in the direction of the manor. Two children sprinted from the open back door and ran in the cleared pathways in welly boots too big for their small, unsteady legs. As well, they wore knitted wool sweaters, wide grins, and bloodstone necklaces. A boy and a girl, a few years apart, shared Opal’s copper hair and had Verena jade eyes.

Tovi sucked in a breath. A knife pierced her heart.

Children.

Someone grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. Her heart thumped. Skipped a beat. She blinked away tears and found it was Evelyn holding her hand. Tightly. Reassuringly. A sheen coated her friend’s eyes. Tears of her own. The two said nothing. Only a shared look. Like the ones they’d shared for years. Thank you .

The children sprinted into their parents’ arms—the daughter into Sven’s and the son into Opal’s. Their wide smiles and bright eyes outshined the dreary gray of Drystan, and for a moment, the land no longer seemed cursed with their giddy presence. Tovi held her friend’s hand, certain without it she’d crumble from happiness.

“Would you like to meet your auntie?” Sven said, bouncing the little girl.

Bashful, she buried her head into his chest, peeking out at Tovi. “Is she the one who took down the elks?”

Tovi let out a broken cry, and Evelyn kept her steady. Eldrick drew closer to her. The other team members sent small, reassuring smiles. Her heart almost burst.

Her brother laughed, eyes landing on her. “Yes, Tovi is the huntress.”

“Hi, Tovi!” the daughter said.

“What are their names?” she sniffled.

“Juni and Bryn.” Sven kissed his daughter’s cheek. “Why don’t we give everyone a snack in the house, Juni? Mom needs to talk with your aunt for a moment.”

The little boy, Bryn, mumbled about wanting to meet a werewolf, and Sven took his hand and led the rest of the Gray Fenris indoors.

“I’m a werewolf,” Todd said.

“Wow!” Bryn’s childish excitement lightened the chilly air .

Tovi leaned into Evelyn’s ear. “Thank you.”

Evelyn nodded and pulled away, falling into Kade’s side. Eldrick placed a reassuring hand at the small of her back. The four of them stood with a wide-eyed Opal. She removed a handful of carrots from her apron’s pocket, and the bells around the cows gonged at a faster tempo as they hurried towards the sweet treat.

“Go on then,” she said. “Ask your questions, I will not bite.”

Tovi gave Evelyn an encouraging nod.

“Was your brother a seer?” she asked.

“We were all seers.”

“All three of you?” Tovi asked.

“Yes,” she said. “We were all plagued with horrible visions from a young age. They were worse for Orla, and on her twenty-second birthday, she jumped from the cliffs in Morrow to rid herself of them forever. Odin and I feared we’d one day share the same fate if we did not find a remedy to rid our minds of them.”

The farm dropped in temperature, the coolness of Opal’s tone icy.

“Whisperings of immortals began to trickle into Nūa’s underground. They were rumored to have been touched by a goddess, changed into something anew. Odin’s lover, Matilda, set off on a mission to learn more. She became a visiting scholar for the vampyr royals. She soon won enough favor for them to hear her request. Turn Odin and save him from the visions that plagued him.

“But vampyrs hadn’t turned anyone but humans. There was worry it would not work on one already touched with the magic of a goddess. Could any soul handle the power of two, or would one cancel the other? In the end, which one would prevail?”

The four of them stood, listening as the cows took turns nibbling to carrots.

“Odin and I were both invited to the castle to stay as guests. Drystan was quiet, different than the growing city of witches. I found a sense of peace here in this land, and I also met Sven. Odin found comfort, too, but he struggled with his decision. If he turned, he would one day outlive Matilda. She begged him to choose peace. In the end, though, Odin didn’t make his decision in time. They placed us in the guest wing of the castle atop the human servant’s quarters. When the curse fell, it became a bloodbath there. No one survived the vampyrs who fell to bloodlust immediately, not even Odin.”

“He died that day?” Kade asked.

“Yes,” Opal said. “And from what I know, Matilda vanished into thin air.”

Evelyn nodded. “Your visions, did they stop after you were turned?”

“Yes.” She forced a smile, eyes downward. “Sven gifted me with a life of peace. I’m no longer plagued by sights, new visions, or the whisperings of past, present, and future, but when your mind has been connected to the in-between for over two decades, there are things you never forget.”

A heaviness spread through Tovi’s chest while the cold tingled across her skin. She and the others sat at the precipice of answers, the fall a breath away. Her heart hammered to the impending beat.

“Opal, we believe Evelyn found notes that might’ve belonged to your brother,” Tovi said. “I know the past can be painful, but will you look at them for us?”

Her brother’s mate nodded. “I can try.”

Evelyn reached into her cloak and retrieved the paper she’d used to draw out the stanzas. She handed them to Opal with shaky hands. “Do these words mean anything to you?”

Opal smiled to herself. She held the meek notes and began to walk and weave her way through the gathered animals. Then, she began to recite words like they were lines of poetry.

"As frost bites trees and ferns, whispers of Gods and Goddesses travel on the wind. The banished One reaches from Below, grasping the hope of a heartbroken mortal. A bleeding bargain struck, weaved with trickery, and the tendrils of immortality.

But when true love dies, it’ll be the land’s demise. Not until the land is cast in red, a new dawn will rise.

The age of curse, a crack in the land, the seep and sorrow of death, darkness, and rot. Her children cast in night, whilst a hunger for blood will be their blight.

After a storm between mistaken enemies, the wolf and dove, the clash of the light and night, those of these lands will unite.

A sowing of seeds, a journey to the beneath where life and death meet. A king and queen will emerge, with the seeds sown from elsewhere, life to rid the shade and make way for the Prince to walk with Light.

With bones an old friend now set free, and the blade of the ancients the truest of unions between the third-borns of the Sun and Moon will defeat the darkness."

Her too-wide eyes landed on them all. “I’ll never forget these words. ”

A chill, not from the winter, trickled through every one of Tovi’s tendons, muscles, and bones. She tried to grasp the words, their possible meanings, but thoughts didn’t connect as the weight of what they learned descended over her.

“Evelyn and I are not the only ones mentioned in the prophecy,” Kade whispered.

The wolf and the dove.

Panic laced through Tovi, and she turned to Eldrick. His usual stony expression cracked with concern. His nickname for her. His magic. Both had been stated in the prophecy as if—

“There are others,” Opal said, turning to Evelyn. “It was your eyes the most I saw in my visions. They were the brightest sight against the horrors my mind whispered.”

Eldrick stepped forward. “But who exactly are the others?”

Opal shook her head. “You don’t understand. I did not know who Evelyn was until now. I did not see full faces. Only glimpses. Symbols. My siblings and I saw so much, so many, it all blurs together. I cannot make sense of these words. I do not know who or what these words belong to.”

Eldrick shook his head. “How can that be? You’ve seen visions, you recited them!”

Tovi held his arm, pulling him back.

“I’m a vessel, a messenger. What it all means, I can’t tell you,” Opal said.

Eldrick shook his head, raking a hand through his hair. “We need to return home, get this to Lorkan, the scholars. It needs to be studied.”

Kade and Evelyn nodded their agreement. Both third-borns had paled, growing tauter together as if the words threaded them closer. Tovi agreed, too—returning to Sorin, outrunning her brother and the Blood Moon, and getting the prophecy to those who could study it had to come next. But a small part of her grew unnerved by those lines that hit too close to her and Eldrick. Unlike him, she was in no hurry to learn their part in the prophecy, no hurry to learn how much her future was not her own.

Not when so much was on the line.

Especially her heart.