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His eyes widened, his fingers clenched around my hands in my lap.
“I’d thought it all nonsense. But she wasn’t crazy. She gave me a gift with her last breaths.”
He brushed his thumbs over the back of my hands. “Vayla sent her spirit into the afterworld, but she blessed you first.”
“With her magick. I know she did.”
He dipped his chin in a single nod. “And her prophecy.”
“She meant you,” I stated confidently, not as a question. Finally understanding. “She meant that I was destined for you.” My heart sank a little. “Do you think the gods are toying with us? Forcing us together?” It shattered me to think that what we had wasn’t our own will but merely the gods frivolous game of fates.
Goll stood, scooped me off the chair, and then resettled in it with me on his lap. I accepted his comfort, my stomach twisted in knots, and slipped my arms around his neck.
“I believe the gods are always playing with us, manipulating us to get what they want.”
My heart plummeted at his admission. “We are merely pawns?” I blinked back fresh tears.
“Look at me, Una.” He lifted my chin so that I had to. “If you think the gods can force my heart to beat only for you, then you’re mistaken.” He took one of my hands and pressed it to his chest. “They may have guided you to my doorstep, but you’re in here now. Ever-present in the soul of this wraith king. No god or fae can take you away from me now.”
I pressed my face against his neck, letting his tight embrace and heartfelt words soothe my renewed grief over the old fae lady. The seer who’d gifted me with new magick before she died.
We sat like that for some time, holding one another and absorbing this new reality that the gods had forced us together, but in the end, we’d both chosen each other. What happened from here, the heavens only knew.
In the quiet, I murmured, “Keffa loved Vayla, didn’t he?”
“Very much.” He heaved a sigh. “She’d not given herself to him, remaining true to her vows as a priestess. But after she’d told her last prophecy, and it was obvious the king was going to arrest her, she went to him. They were found together in his bedchamber. When he fought for her, that is how he lost his eye, how his horn was broken, and he was given those scars.”
Closing my eyes, I held Goll tighter, so sad for Keffa having lost his dear one, the fae woman who’d comforted me in the dark and given me the last of her magick.
Finally, I sat up. “When do we go to Dragul Falls?”
“I’ll take Keffa and Soryn and leave tomorrow.”
“And me,” I added.
He shook his head. “There could be danger.”
“But you’ll be there.”
“Yes,” he stated firmly. “And you won’t.”
“Why not?” I squirmed to get off his lap, but he held me tightly.
“Anything that is god-touched can be dangerous and I won’t risk you getting hurt.”
I shoved off my hip the hand that was keeping me on his lap and stood. “But I discovered these prophecies and where they guide us to the texts.”
“I am glad of it, so I can follow through and find them,” he said in that serene manner that made me want to scream.
“They aren’t meant for you to find them. They’re meant forme.”
He arched a brow in that superior way of his. “How do you know?”
Crossing my arms, I mimicked his slow and serene voice, “The same way you knew I would not die in Näkt Lykenzel and that I was marked to be your mizrah.”
He clamped his jaws tight. I held his stare and waited. “Where are the other texts?” he asked.
Avoiding his gaze, I glanced down. “Farther north, I believe.” I knew they were.
