“It can’t go anywhere.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, it already has. And if you’re going to fall back on the immortal’s lament, it doesn’t fly. Yeah, I’m going to die. Could be today.” She flicked a hand toward the storm outside the window. “Could be fifty years from now. Could be next week or I could live to be a hundred and four. Five of the six of us have that to face, and it sure as hell isn’t stopping Bran and Sasha or Sawyer and Annika from grabbing what they have for as long as they can have it.”
“None of them have stood by and watched the other die.”
“But they will.”
“It’s not the same, not remotely.”
“Grief is grief, but you hold on to that if you need it. I’m not asking or expecting you to hang around should I hit a hundred and four. I just wanted the truth. However long it works, it works.”
“Marriage is—”
“Who said anything about marriage?” she demanded. “I don’t need pledges and rings and white dresses. I just need the respect of the truth. Now I’ve got it, and we’re back on even ground. That’s enough.”
She sighed, and this time laid her palm on his heart. “That’s enough, Doyle, for me. Give me the truth, and stick with me as long as it works, and that’s enough.”
He closed his hand over hers. “I swore I’d never love again.”
“That was before you tangled with me.”
“It was. There’s no other like you. Your eyes lured me, your mind fascinates me, your body . . . didn’t hurt a thing.”
She let out a half laugh. “You forgot my sparkling personality.”
“It doesn’t sparkle. I’d rather the edge than the shine.”
“Lucky for you.”
She moved into him, rose to her toes, felt his hands grip her hips. And heard someone running down the swirl of stairs.
“You need to come!” Annika clasped her hands together. “To the top. I have to get Sawyer. You need to come.”
With no questions asked, they raced up.
Bran stood beside Sasha, a hand on her shoulder as she stared through the wet glass of the terrace doors.
“A vision?” Riley asked.
Even as Bran shook his head, Sasha spoke. “Not exactly. It’s . . . Something’s out there, but I can’t see it or hear it. I just know it.”
“Nerezza?” Riley walked up to stand at Sasha’s other side.
“She’s close—too close, but that’s not it. In the sea, through the storm or beyond it. I can’t tell.”
“There’s more.” Bran turned to where the three paintings stood on the mantel.
They pulsed with light. A deep strong red through the painting of the path through Bran’s forest, a pure rich blue through the painting of the house, a clear brilliant white from the Island of Glass.
“It’s— I think it’s their hearts,” Sasha said. “The heart of the stars beating. And there’s something out there we can’t see. In the heart of the storm.”
“Wait.” Riley pressed her fingers to her temples as Sawyer and Annika hurried in. “In my notes . . . Let me think. I’ve got references. The heart of the stars, heart of the sea, heart of the storm.”
“I’ll get your notes.”
“Just—” She held up a hand to hold Doyle off. “References to the stars’ resurrection—the fall and the rise. Silent breath, blah, blah, beating hearts. They pulsed when we found them, so I put it down to that, but there’s references to the heart calling to heart, leading them home. And . . . ah . . . when the stars wake full, the storm breaks, land and sea. Ride the storm to its heart, and there the heart of the sea, the heart of the worlds waits.”
“The Island of Glass?” Sawyer moved closer to a window, peered out.
“It’s a theory. And Sasha talked about the storm, riding it. We sure as hell have the storm.”
“Ride it to where?” Sawyer wondered. “Visibility is complete crap out there.”
“We wouldn’t be the first to follow a star. And we have three.” Bran scanned the faces of his clan. “Do we trust in the fates, in the stars?”
“If I’m going to ride into that, it would be with the five of you, and with them.” Doyle looked at the paintings. “The fates are bastards, but I’m in.”
“I would be in, too.” Annika reached for Sawyer’s hand. “If it’s with all of you.”
“I say go for it,” Sawyer agreed.
“Yes.” Sasha turned from the window. “Yes. Riley?”
“Let’s make us a plan, and do it.”
• • •
In the deep twilight, while the storm screamed, Sasha and Annika walked outside toward the seawall. They might have been patrolling, and the black slickers turned them to little more than moving shadows.
Sasha took Annika’s hand, squeezed hard. Then, wrenching her bow off her back, shot a bolt high. It exploded with light, illuminating the swarm streaming silently across the blackened sky.
From both towers gunfire erupted. On the parapet Bran hurled lightning.
Agile and quick, Annika ran to place the vials of light where Bran instructed, leaping to avoid keen wings and vicious beaks. Doyle charged to clear her path, sword lashing.
And the ground began to quake.
From her position on the battlement, Riley reloaded, fired, fired. She hissed when black lightning struck a tree at the verge of the forest, exploded it. As shrapnel rained, the ground burst open to swallow it.