SWNOVELS Song of Sorrows and Fate: Chapter 34
Let the dream descend, Silas.
“Silas.” His name was soft on my tongue. My lashes fluttered. Pitch coated the room where there had been a sliver of light when my eyes closed.
I propped onto one elbow, a heavy weight around my middle. The smile came at the sight of his strong arm still draped over me like a new growth on my own body.
I peered over my shoulder. Silas slept, the mask removed, his chest bare. Gods, he was a bit of a delicious marvel. One worthy of stone, no mistake. One I ought to commission that bleeding earth bender of mine to design into a statue.
I bit back a laugh. I was certain Valen would not agree to any commission of the kind, but it would be entertaining to detail, in every salacious term, how I wanted the chiseled edges of Silas’s muscle to shape.
Then, between his legs, Valen, it must be made to size for it’s magnificent.
I could imagine the horror on my Cursed King’s face, an image which promptly drew out a chortle that fashioned more into a wet gurgling noise in my throat. Silas shifted in his sleep, then settled again with a sigh.
With care, I shifted so I was facing him. He looked so peaceful during sleep.
Let the dream descend, Silas.
My brows furrowed as I lifted one fingertip and traced the edges of his jaw, the curve of his lips. I must’ve been dreaming of him, and it was sticking with me.
The other royals had witnessed Silas unraveling the memories of the lifetimes, sat still and stoic for a time, then we all scuttled away to find a bit of rest before blood and death found us once again. I hadn’t expected to sleep so long.
A flash in the night caught my eye through the gap in the thick, black shades. I skillfully maneuvered free of his arm, a chill struck my skin at once, but I wrapped one of the furs over my shoulders and went to the window.
My stomach lurched.
Beyond the gates, Tor’s pyre was not as vibrant, not as tall. Along the shores, into the docks, even a few of the outer towers of the fortress that butted to the sea, tents and shanties lined our shores.
Mammoth ships filled every bend in the shore, every distant tide. Sea fae were everywhere. Soon enough, they’d rise against us. The dawn would still be tolls away, and a new pressure gathered in my chest, like an omen, heavy and fierce.
This day was when new fates would be written.
This day, something would change.
I cast a lingering glance to Silas in the bed, then slid into a simple pair of trousers and one of his oversized tunics. With my belt, I tightened the fabric and secured my knives. There was little time, and if this was my last approaching sunrise, words needed to be said.
I placed a blood rose beneath their names and sat back on my knees, staring at the symbols carved in stone.
“I wish you were somehow, I don’t know, here again,” I said, voice rough. I closed my eyes, imagining their faces, from both memory and from those moments I saw in the fae sleep.
Since learning the truth of my bloodline, I often imagined Riot Ode laughing. I imagined Anneli being the one who brought it out.
In my heart, I knew they were a love that would live on. A love meant for sagas and dreamy tales.
Still, I wished they were here.
“I wanted you both to know,” I said, a thick rasp to my voice. “That . . . that I’m grateful to you. I know all that you did to keep me breathing.” I chuckled softly. “Rather creative, a little horrific, but still quite the sacrifice.”
Tears burned behind my eyes. I traced my mother’s name in the stone. “I remember you loved to laugh and loved sweet things over the savory. Always with the berries and cream before the meat. I remember you let me braid my own hair because I wanted to try when other majs would’ve been horrified knowing their little, precious girls were running about with manes on their heads.”
I let my forehead drop to her name. “I remember you taught me how to be afraid and fierce, all at once.”
I pressed a kiss to her name, then looked to my father’s. A tear fell onto my cheek. “And you, King. I remember the tales beneath the stars. The way you taught me the kingdoms, the lore, the magicks through starlight. I remember you were gentle when some fathers were not. Proof of it was when I first heard you bark an order at the Rave and I nearly pissed myself.” I laughed and used the back of my wrist to wipe away another tear.
Always with the tears.
“I didn’t know you could get so loud because you never did—not with me.” I flattened a palm against his name. “The point is, I . . . love you both. Part of me feels like I always remembered you, like I always remembered all of it, just hid it away. But your sacrifice, for me, for our people, hasn’t been forgotten. Who knows, maybe I will see you soon and we can talk about this life together.” Thick, knotted emotion burdened my words. “I hope I’ve made you proud.”
“You have, Little Rose.”
I spun around toward the front of the mausoleum. Silas had the misfortune of being fully clothed, but he looked at me with those dark, glassy eyes.
I grinned sheepishly, and wiped more tears. “Wanted a few words. In case they’re the last.”
He shook his head. “You’re rather morbid.”
“Realistic, I think you mean.”
I kissed the petals of their roses once more, then went to the entrance. My chest butted up with Silas’s as I strode past. “You should be sleeping.”
“Your tiny form brings a great deal of surprising heat. It was cold.”
“I’m not tiny.” I shoved his shoulder gently.
“Like a twig on a tree.”
“You should talk. You try to move like a phantom, yet you’re ridiculously thick around the shoulders and your feet might as well be the paddles of two oars.”
Silas’s teeth flashed white and bright when he laughed. “That is not even close to the best you can do, Little Rose.”
“Yes, well. I’m tired.”
On the gates were a mixture of Rave, Ettan, and blood fae warriors who strode along the new parapets across the fortress. Gunnar Strom had a bow strapped over his shoulder, his attention on the sea. Beside him was Eryka.
Perhaps they were restless like me. A blood fae paused at the young prince. Cuyler. Again, did anyone sleep here?
“I’ve run from this and run toward this in every memory I have,” I said, voice soft. “This day is what we have all been both avoiding and building.”
Silas pressed his chest to my back, one arm curled around my shoulders, tugging my body to his. “You feel it?”
“Do you?”
He nodded. “The end we’ve all foreseen.”
“Words came for you,” I told him, turning in his hold, so I could rest my cheek on his chest. “Well, I’m not certain. I woke with them in my mind.”
“Seidr?”
“I don’t know.” Hells, sometimes it was bleeding impossible to figure what was my power and what was a simple thought. “Let the dream descend. That was all I thought.”
“Hold to it,” he said. “It speaks to me.”
“Think it’s meant as a tale? A twist? A premonition.”
“Yes.” He chuckled. “I’ve learned that sometimes the tales and the songs begin small. Simple warnings that you give so well. But when there is power to the words, we ought to hold them close for later. They could build into something larger. It’d be a shame not to remember them.”
“Likely it will be vague as always until the last moment.”
“Possibly not even then for the Norns are rarely accommodating.”
“Such true words. Those wenches.” I closed my eyes, embracing the slow cadence of his heartbeat. “Dawn comes soon.”
Silas hugged me against him in response.
“I like this moment,” I said, gliding my open palms up his firm chest. “In the quiet, with you.”
Silas freed a rough breath when I slid my hands beneath his tunic to his bare skin.
“They’re certainly over too soon.”
I didn’t want to be melancholic, but the thought was there—would we have these moments after dawn came? Time was fleeting, and I didn’t want to miss a single instance with Silas.
“Perhaps . . .” I kissed his throat. “Perhaps we should drag it out a bit more.”
His gaze slammed into me, a tumultuous storm of need and desire. Silas checked the walls once, then grabbed my palm and hurried us deeper into the gardens behind the palace.
Once we were deep in a thicket of flowering shrubs, I opened my mouth to ask where we were going, but Silas silenced any words by pressing my back to the trunk of an oak tree. He hesitated for half a breath, then kissed me. Brilliantly forceful. Silas kissed me like if he did not the whole of the world would crumble yet again.
He urged my body closer until our hips, chests, knees, all of us knocked into the other. I whimpered when the strain of his hard length pressed into my center.
“Time runs short,” he said, pressing kisses down my throat. “What we do with what is left, I leave in your hands.”
In another moment we were shredding the lower half of our clothes away. I fumbled with his belt, the laces of his trousers, until I could shove them down his hips enough his hard length sprang free.
Silas had less patience, less finesse, and tore the waist of my trousers trying to slip them off my body. He spared me a heated look, then lifted me under my thighs, wrapping my body around his. Skin to skin, I thought my soul might split in two. Soaked and starving, I rocked my hips.
With a bruising kiss, Silas claimed my mouth. His tongue slid between my teeth at the same time as a finger slipped inside me.
He took the gasp from my tongue for himself, and added another finger until I bit down on his lip to keep from crying out his name for the whole palace to hear.
He pumped his fingers in and out, deep and slow. My body quaked. I burned for him, for all of him.
I shook my head. “More. I need you, I need more of you.”
A low, gritty growl was my response. He removed his fingers and dragged the tips over my thighs, over my lower belly, as though marking me with the evidence of what he could do to me.
“More of this?” he rasped. “You need more of your mate, Little Rose?”
He shoved my back firmer against the tree, so he could release one of my legs and grip his length. In beautifully cruel strokes he teased my entrance with the crown. “Is this what you need? Need me to fill you until all you feel is me?”
“Gods,” I said. “Where did you learn to talk like this?”
He grinned. “Comes naturally with you. I’m still waiting for an answer.”
“Yes. I want you inside.”
Silas slid the tip inside. He kissed me, sweeter than before, and whispered. “We don’t have much time, so I’m going to need you to come fast. Come hard.”
Damn the gods. I wanted him to crack my body in half and fill every vein with more of him. This passion, this obsession, was heady and vibrant. No wonder everyone on these palace grounds could hardly see reason when their hjärta was threatened.
“Ready?” Silas’s breath was hot against my ear.
I couldn’t catch a breath and simply nodded, clawing at his shoulders. Silas rammed his length inside to the hilt. I moaned when he offered no respite, merely tightened his hold on my thighs and pumped into me deep, hard, and fast.
My breasts bounced against his chest with each thrust. I hooked my ankles at the small of his back when the heat of my release built, then snapped in one vibrant wave.
I couldn’t stop rocking against him, desperate to squeeze out every last piece of pleasure.
“Calista,” he moaned, wildly thrusting into me. “Again, do that again. Gods, you feel so perfect wrapped around me.”
His tongue tangled with mine. My core throbbed, but I kept rocking into his length as he deepened his movements. Silas kissed me, his teeth trapped my lip, then in a few more breaths, he went still. A heavy moan hummed from his throat to mine as his length twitched inside.
His release dripped down my thighs, it dripped onto the soil, and I loved the whole sight of it. Like we were staking claim across the palace. This was our kingdom. Our world. Our home.
But this man, he was mine alone.
For a moment his forehead pressed to mine, and my arms remained locked around his neck. A tinge of gray was chasing away the velvet black of the night. The precious bits of peace were fading away.
My heart ached when voices lifted from within the palace . Distant glides of steel and leather rippled into the thicket as warriors roused and prepared.
“There must be movement at the shore,” Silas whispered.
I forced a smile, desperate to suffocate the disquiet in my chest. There was no choice—we faced a battle today. Run and be killed, fight and be killed, or . . . fight and claim back our land for good.
Silas kissed me, a mere whisper of a kiss, and slid out of me. He helped me gather my tattered trousers, and fastened his belt. When we laced our fingers together, he kissed my knuckles, his eyes locked on mine. “I love you, Little Rose. I always have.”
“To the Otherworld, Whisper.”