Page 54 of The Arrow and the Alder

“The Fates sent him to the mortal realm.”

“And closed the veil,” Alder finished at a whisper, as if he now understood something that had long vexed him.

Seph pressed her fingers to her temples and took a distracted step back. All this time, the story of the two princes—a story Seph herself had very recently told Nora, in fact—it’d been about…theirgrandfather?

She struggled to remember the rest of the story as her grandfather had always told it. How every seven years, a piece of the veil opened and the older prince took a mortal bride in hopes of curing Canna of the curse. How after many failed attempts, the younger brother tricked the older by disguising himself, via glamour, and thus proceeded to steal his brother’s mortal bride, with the aim to kill her, but fell in love with her instead. He’d become mortal to be with her, and that day the veil had closed completely—until the Rift had opened three years ago.

“He gave up his immortality forlove?” Seph had asked of him back then, unable to comprehend why anyone would forfeit such a thing.

Her grandfather’s smile had been wistful as he’d stroked her mane of wild hair. “One day, my little lion, you will meet someone you cannot live without, and then you’ll discover that you will sacrifice everything.”

All along, that story had been abouthim.He’dsacrificed everything for Nani.

Including his birthright.

Oh, sacred saints in heaven…

Hewas the one who, with his brother’s help, had committed such atrocities as to garner the attention of the Fates, who had cursed all of Canna to mist and darkness and depraved.

Hersweetand doting grandfather.

Seph couldn’t reconcile the two men, but she also couldn’t ignore how much sense it all made. Why he’d never speak of his family or his life before. Why no one from his past had ever come to call upon him. Why he’d known so much about the kith that no one else ever seemed to know.

How Lord Massie could have known him.

How he’d ended up with an enchanted ringandan enchanted coat—a coat that resembled the one Abecka now wore.

Abecka, anenchantress.

Abecka––Seph’s great-grandmother, and the queen of the Court of Light.

Never trust a kith.

Her grandfather’s words mocked her now.

“How is my Jakobián?” Abecka asked suddenly. These weren’t the words of an enchantress; these belonged to a mother. “You are his daughter, yes?”

Her last question took Seph by surprise, but then she realized Abecka would know nothing of her grandfather’s life after he’d been cut off from his people.

Abecka would not know how richly he’d aged.

“I…he…” Seph dragged a hand over her face, struggling to find words. It was all so much to sift through. “I am his granddaughter.”

A little gasp escaped Abecka’s lips, and Seph saw the pain in her eyes—pain that her son had lived so much life and that she’d been there for none of it.

Seph continued, trying to think of the answers a mother would want to know. “He and his wife were very much in love. They…had three children. Their oldest—Ronan—is my father, but he is at the warfront with my brother Levi. There are…werefive of us, but I recently lost my oldest brother, Rys, to the war.”

Abecka stepped aside—distractedly—her gaze fixed on the floor as if she might see Jakobián’s life in those dark veins of stone. “And Jakobián?” Her voice was a whisper, haunted and frail. “How ishe?”

Seph hesitated. Her gaze briefly met Alder’s. “He is alive, but he has been unconscious since my grandmother passed six months ago.”

Abecka stared at her. Seph could not read the look in her eyes. “He is hanging on for you,” she said after a moment, and her gaze slid to the coat.

“He never said a word to me about the coat,” Seph said. “Not once. I only learned of its existence a few days ago.” At the question in Abecka’s eyes, Seph went on to explain the situation surrounding her discovery of the coat.

“Massie knows?” Abecka interrupted with alarm, looking to Alder who tipped his head with grim confirmation.

Just then, the doors cracked open, and one of the silvery-robed priestesses stepped in, bowing her head.

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