Page 44 of A Song of Saints and Swans
And that’s the truth.
Thanks to my heritage, I was much tougher than I gave myself credit for. That my birth mother was a mystical sea swan and my birth father a royal mortal turned immortal contributed, but the real reason for my strength was a certain swan clan leader.
My father.
Gerard felt terribleto learn I’d discovered my mother’s letter on my own, and—being who he was—he apologized profusely for not telling me first. Being whoIwas, I immediately shut down his groveling and made us some tea so he could share everything he knew.
And now I understand why he hadn’t before.
Gerard convinced my mother to leave me with him that day in case her husband’s letter was a trap. It wasn’t, but the Sea Tsar caught up with the runaway couple soon after and dragged them back to his kingdom.
It would have looked like abandonment if my birth father hadn’t planned for the worst. During his travels, he met a Fae named Ulysses who collected seers and convinced him to preemptively compose a sequence of letters they’d distribute on his behalf, if needed.
The first of those letters was to inform Gerard of my parents’ capture by the Sea Tsar.
The rest were all addressed to me—ending with the invite to the Baltic Sea.
Never underestimate the power of fate.
As Gerard never heard from my birth parents again, he assumed they never escaped. And as he didn't know I’d found my mother’s letter—or had received my own—he figured he’d simply continue in his role.
“I am sorry for keeping your family history from you, Anthia,” he’d murmured, blowing on his tea. “You deserved to know who your parents were.”
I considered returning to the World Tree to learn more of my parents’ fate, but then decided it didn’t matter. Leaning forward, I kissed Gerard’s forehead—a childhood ritual of affection we hadn’t used in a few hundred years.
“I already know who my father is,” I’d replied, warmly smiling. “He’s sitting right in front of me.”
Of course, Gerard had gotten all flustered and teary at that, before excusing himself from myVardosoon after. He was more composed later that week, when I broke the inevitable news that Iwouldn’tbe taking over as swan clan leader, considering my other responsibilities.
Like helping other survivors rise from the ashes.
When I asked the World Tree how to save Jarilo and the shifters affected by the Facility, it simply replied that everything I needed was already inside of me.
At first, I feared I was getting more riddles, but the voice quickly explained my unique genetics were the answer. The same witchy woo that gave theAlatyrits healing properties apparently also saturated the waters around Buyan.
Waters I was born in.
In short, I was a walking antidote to what Matthew had been cooking up for decades in his houses of horror.
Revenge is sweet.
Thanks to his legal connections—and thathumanswere now being affected instead of just supernaturals—Rahim Amari could publicly expose the illegal operations of the Facility 2.0, while still keeping our world a secret.
Apparently, Matthew’s counterparts had continued his nefarious plans to make humans the superior race. That they almost killed a god in the process was simply a byproduct of their attempts to strip shifters of their strength and longevity before transferring those attributes to themselves. Lacing alcohol with this super-juice was simply one of their methods of “controlled testing,” but luckily—or unluckily, in Margo’s case—the psychopaths hadn’t perfected the formula yet.
Just as Marena suspected, Margo’s coroner had been paid, meaning her death in the Volga River wasmurder,not suicide. Veles was livid to hear this—mostly because mistakenly bringing her back as a Rusalka made him look dumb. Unfortunately, he couldn’t strip her of undead status without sending the poor girl to the Nav for good.
But we believe in happily ever afters in this house.
Determined to live out her days with her devoted human by her side—and vice versa—Margo bravely took a shot of the same substance that stripped Jarilo of his immortality. Thankfully, it returned her to mortal form, and Rahim ensured what remained was safely locked away in the police evidence room, awaiting the trial.
As much as I wantedto trust the human justice system, my goal was for Matthew to have no legacy left. Now that Veles was invested, I sweetly asked if he might be interested in ensuring all who were indicted joined Koschei in his torture chamber—regardless of whether they were found guilty.
They deserve exactly what they inflicted on others.
Besides wanting retribution for my own experiences, that Jarilo had almost faded into nothingness made my protective instincts go haywire.
Just as Veles had promised, the god of springtime had regained consciousness after they got him back to the mainland, but he needed more than earthly soil to fully heal.
