Sixty-Two
Odessa
Father stood on the balcony of the throne room, staring up at the twin moons.
He'd taken off his coat and draped it over the railing. His shirt was unfastened at the collar, revealing a faint scar beneath his throat. He took one look at the journal clutched to my chest and hung his head. But he didn't seem surprised. "Did Margot have it?"
"Yes."
"She swore to me she didn't, but whatever vow she made to your mother was stronger than any promise she made to me.
" He tilted his face back to the sky. "Whenever your mother had visions that woke her from sleep, she'd slip out of bed and stand on a balcony.
She said she liked knowing that somewhere across the Marixmore, her family was staring at the same two moons. "
I took the empty space beside him, staring out over Roslo. My cheeks were still damp from too many tears cried over the story of my mother's life.
She'd written everything in this journal. Her life. Her visions.
Even the vision of her death.
There shouldn't be any more tears, not after all I'd cried in the jail beside Ransom after reading my mother's journal. But a new wave filled my eyes as my throat burned. "You killed her."
"Yes," he whispered. "And have hated myself for it every day since."
"Why didn't you tell me any of this?" A sob broke free as the tears spilled down my face. "You should have told me who she was. What she was."
Starling.
A princess. A warrior. A shapeshifter from Nelfinex. A land I hadn't known existed until I read this book.
"I'm sorry." His voice wobbled. "I only wanted to protect you."
"Protect me? Or yourself." I wiped furiously at my face, hating that I couldn't stop crying.
"Both."
"You sent me to Turah with the High Priest."
"I had no choice." He dragged a hand through his hair. "If there had been any other way, I would have kept you here. But I feared if I refused, the High Priest would be suspicious."
"You could have at least told me the truth."
"So they could use it against you? It was better that you knew nothing. Then you wouldn't have to lie."
My ignorance was just another part of his plan. "And now? Will you ever trust me? Will you ever tell me the truth?"
Father looked to the twin moons, the light catching every line of heartbreak, every bit of sorrow.
"I've always trusted you, Dess. That's what's so terrifying about telling you the truth.
I trust that you are your mother in every way.
I trust that you will take up her fight as your own.
I trust that you will sacrifice your life if it means saving the realm. And I cannot lose you, too."
The man I'd thought was unbreakable cracked before my eyes. His face crumpled as he folded forward, his own tears falling, splashing on his boots. He reached for me, so quickly it caught me off guard.
I fell into his chest as he pulled me into a fierce hug, the same kind of hugs I gave Mae and Arthy and Evie.
"Forgive me, Odessa." He let me go, sniffling as he took my face in his hands.
"You are more and more like her every day. There are times when I look at you and she's staring back.
The night you came home to Quentis from Turah, there was a moment when I thought she'd returned. I didn't mean… Forgive me."
Maybe I should have told him no. Maybe I should have pushed away.
But when I stared into his eyes, all I saw was heartache staring back.
"You should have told me," I whispered.
"Probably." A tear slid down his cheek. "She would be furious with me. And so very proud of you."
I sniffled, falling into his chest. "It's not fair."
"No, it's not."
We held each other until the tears were finally spent. Then as he let me go and leaned his forearms on the balcony's rail, I moved in beside him.
"Where do we start?" I asked.
"The beginning, I suppose. At a small hunting cabin in Genesis."
By midnight, the winter chill had driven us inside the throne room.
By dawn, we'd been sitting, side by side, on the dais's stairs for hours, staring across the marble floor as we spoke.
The same marble floor where he'd held her body, cradling it to his chest after he drove his sword through her heart.
I hadn't asked him about the day of her death, but he'd told me anyway. Like the rest of his story, it was a perfect mirror of Mother's journal. And Father had filled in the missing gaps.
"She killed the Voster who came that day," he said. "The moment she feared you were in danger, she told me not to hesitate. Then she shifted. It happened in a blink. The priests were dead. This floor was coated in blood. And when she turned to me, I dropped my sword. I couldn't do it."
"But you did?"
"She never would have forgiven herself. If she'd killed me, killed any others, it would have destroyed her.
Better I live with that on my conscience than her.
" His voice was thick and heavy with regret.
But a numbness seemed to have settled over us both.
"I wouldn't let anyone take her from me.
When she died, she shifted back. I held her on this floor for two days.
It was Hali who finally broke through. She brought you to me, and I let your mother go so Hawksley could take her body from me. "
"General Hawksley?"
"He has been with me for a long, long time. Mostly helping the Kennin search for the orbits."
"But now he's your general?"
"When Banner left, with the migration coming, I needed someone I could trust. Hawksley will never betray our secrets."
"For you? Or Margot?"
Father frowned, like the secret of Margot and Hawksley's relationship was one he hadn't intended to share. "For us both."
"What did you do with the Voster that Mother killed?"
"I burned their bodies in this very room, making sure every bit of ash was taken to the sea. I destroyed any evidence that they had been here. Every guard who saw them enter is either dead or paid to keep quiet. Nevertheless, the Kennin feared the High Priest would retaliate, so they offered one of their priests to take the fall. His name was Hain."
A name I knew from my mother's book. "So the Voster have no idea what really happened."
"No. If they did, neither of us would be alive." Father tapped the journal on my lap.
"What's in here must remain a secret. I believe they have their suspicions about me, but they can't come after a king without proof.
And Brother Dime acting as emissary while being loyal to the Kennin has given us some protection. "
"What do the Kennin really want?"
"To return to Kenn. But they are bound to Calandra by blood oaths made at a time when their magic was new. The only way to break those bonds is to eliminate the magic in our realm. To destroy the orbits."
"Do you think it's really possible?"
"I have to believe her death was not in vain. If we destroy the remains of the Six, I believe the magic in our lands will vanish. The Voster will do everything in their power to stop that from happening. We are fortunate they have yet to understand the moves we've made against them. But that fortune will not last."
This was the reason Brother Dime had warned me of Ransom's loyalty to the High Priest.
"You know I was with Brother Skore. He took me to Orson Canyon. Did he bring you the orbit?"
"Yes. And when I found out he took you to that canyon, I told him that if he ever put you in that kind of danger again, I'd cut his head from his shoulders."
"You sound like Ransom," I muttered.
"We both have the same goal, Dess. Your survival. I might not trust your husband, but I do appreciate his loyalty to you."
"That loyalty goes both ways. I won't keep any of this a secret from him."
Father studied me for a moment, then nodded.
"You drew all over the map in your study," I said. "Do you know where the other four orbits are hidden?"
"Not for certain. Skore has spent decades searching with Hawksley. We've narrowed it down to a handful of locations in Laine, Genesis, and Turah. But the magic in them only calls to a Starling. They're somehow veiled from the Voster."
"Then you were always going to need my help."
He shook his head. "I had hope I could find them on my own. I was willing to try."
"Well, now you don't need to. Like it or not, I'm going after them. If there's a way to stop the crux and the Voster, we have to try."
"You sound like her," he said, eyes still fixed on the floor. "She was unwavering. Fearless. She was the strongest person I've ever known."
Then we'd finish this for her. To honor her memory. "How do we destroy them?"
"I don't know. Neither do the priests."
Well, fuck.
"The magic has corrupted the very glass of the orbits. They're unbreakable. Fireproof," he said. "I've a mind to send them on a ship to the middle of the ocean, but if the magic in them has bled to Calandra's waters, I don't think I want to know what will happen if it taints the Marixmore."
"There has to be a way." If this magic had a beginning, then there was an end.
"There is." He gave me a sure nod. "We just haven't discovered it yet."
"Are they together? The orbits?" I asked.
"No. I feared it would be too hard to hide them from the Voster if they were together. That maybe the magic from one would feed off the other. One is in the vaults. The other is beneath the crypts below the infirmary."
Locked far enough away that I couldn't feel their magic. Hopefully the Voster couldn't, either.
"What is in Allesaria?"
"Brother Dime can't break his oaths, and neither can Skore, but from what they have been able to imply, I think the Turans built their capital to protect the Voster's sanctuary. Which in turn could be built upon an orbit."
No wonder he'd been so set on getting there before the migration. "So the High Priest has an orbit. He's not just going to let it go."