Page 7 of Stone Sentinels

“I don’t mean,” he starts.

“If you don’t want it to happen again—”

“That’s not what this is about, Eilish,” he insists as I face him with confusion. “I’m not running. Not anymore,” he explains. “But, I need to get my head together and figure out what this all means and how it ties into everything else.”

“What do you mean?”

He nods as if he’s aware he doesn’t make any sense. “I need to process the fact that you aren’t mine. Not exclusively.”

“A huge part of my heart is dedicated to you.”

“And to Revenant, and to Cambion.”

“We’re all bound in some way, Dragan,” I offer with a shrug.

“How are we all bound?”

“One cataclysmic event that we all witnessed or experienced connects us in a way we haven’t figured out yet. At least, that’s my theory,” I say. “I’ve shared Cambion’s bed, yours, Revenant’s, and Variant... came close. All of you were part of establishing the balance. But I think... I think there’s another side.”

“Cambion’s bed?” he repeats, his eyebrows furrowing. “When did that happen?”

“I don’t know,” I answer as I shake my head. “But, I can feel the truth of it in my bones. All those visions I witnessed of the two of us together… I don’t think they were visions of the future. I think they were memories of the past.”

“How is that possible?”

“How is any of this possible?”

He nods as he ponders my question.

“Aima says there’s a dark force out there, someone more powerful than Morrigan and Silvanus combined,” I say. “Each day, we learn more and more about Variant and Theren being puppets to some unseen master. There’s always another side of the story that we can’t see, a side that holds all the answers while we hold the questions.”

“Morrigan,” he repeats her name as he shakes his head.

“Do you trust her?”

“I don’t know,” he answers as he cocks his head to the side. “Morrigan protected you, yet she won’t say why. She brought Revenant back from the grave with forbidden magic and the reasons she’s given him are weak. Almost like she’s hiding something. Both of your memories are fractured at best. Who took yours? Who took his?”

“The answers are in the prophecies. I was only given part of one.”

I jump to my feet at the sound of Pyre’s voice. He rests his shoulder against one of the trees as Baron practices in the clearing. Pyre smirks and casts his sightless gaze around the forest.

“Son and the son of Autumn and Summer. Death begets Darkness in horror’s spawn. Light upon the lust of the damned ones and the eye of the Forgotten’s soul. Maiden is to Shield as prick is to rose, but none does bow like the caster and bow.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Dragan grumbles.

Pyre snorts. “Prophecies rarely ever do. You’re lucky you weren’t in the mortal world when bards would sing their visions in mournful laments.”

“What’s the point of telling prophecies if no one can understand what the fuck they mean?” Dragan asks.

“The answers are often revealed when they are needed most. For example,Son and the son of Autumn and Summer. It speaks of brothers, Seelie and Unseelie,” Pyre explains.

“Cambion and Theren,” I say as Pyre nods. “Each line of the prophecy represents all of us?”

“Perhaps,” he answers. “Keep going.”

I nod as I replay the words in my head. “The next line must be about Dragan and Revenant? Death and Darkness?”

Pyre nods. “You’re the third line, Eilish.”

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