Song of Sorrows and Fate: A Dark Fantasy Romance (The Broken Kingdoms Book 9)

“Greta, I don’t know if I can do this.”

I blinked my gaze into focus. A tower room perhaps. Near the window, a woman with long, pale hair looked to the stars.

“I’ve told you, darkness comes at crimson night. There the true fight begins. A fury sleep does not end your battle,” I said. “Merely pauses it for a time. Give fate time to unravel, Lili.”

My heart jolted when the woman turned around. I knew her. I bleeding knew her well. Liliana Ferus, dressed in a simple gown, stared at me with tear stains on her pale cheeks.

“How can I leave my children? What if . . . what if Arvad and I don’t wake?”

“I will do all I can to see to it your path is set. Your children have grand roles to play in these final tales. They will not be alone, I swear to you.”

Lilianna took my hands. “Eli will kill you.”

I smiled and cupped the side of her face. All hells my hands were . . . they were frail and old. “He can try.”

Lilianna blinked; her chin quivered. “Our armies, they’ll be cursed, but hidden? Is that true?”

“The Ettan warriors will rise when the blood of the heirs restores this fight. I have seen armies be concealed before. You folk will rise when battles rage again.”

The hidden Rave. The twist of fate when the Ettan warriors rose from those horrid shadow guardians at the tomb came from some instinct, some forgotten lifetime where Rave warriors were hidden in the dregs of the West.

My head was spinning.

“You’ll look out for my children?”

I nodded. “They will be as my own family. I will not leave them alone. I swear to you.”

The moment I moved to embrace her, instead I slammed into a broad body coated in battle leathers.

His face was hard. His skin was flushed red from sun and exertion beneath the long beard over his chin, but I knew those eyes. The blue was the same as the cruel king at the Night Folk queen’s table. They matched the innocent boy who’d stood at his side.

“Ice King,” I said. “What more can I do for you? The queen and king are dead. You’ve entombed them. You’ve destroyed folk I called friends.”

The king of Old Timoran paused, a dangerous darkness in his countenance. He’d deluded himself into believing Lilianna Ferus would merely forget all the blood spilled here. The pain of her children, children I would never stop defending.

“You told me my bloodline would reign with Lilianna’s.” The king gritted his teeth in a vicious snarl.

“I said what I said. My statement remains unchanged. The blood of Eli and Lilianna will rule this land.”

He shouted at me, cursed me, and grabbed my arm, yanking me toward him. The force didn’t slam me against the Ice King, it tossed me into a cramped room with a table and blades and a disgusting smell of blood.

I let out a shriek of pain when I saw the man tethered to the table. On instinct, out of rage, it didn’t matter, I rushed to his side and stroked his blood-matted hair. “Sol . . . Sol look at me.”

The Sun Prince was thin—too thin—his cheeks were sunken, his eyes didn’t have the glitter of wryness when he lifted his gaze. “G-Greta?”

My heart ached. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to shout that he was Lumpy, I was his little irritating bird, I was me, but a past I didn’t know stole my words.

“I’m going to look out for you,” I promised. Distant sounds of a humming wrapped around us as I lifted a rolled parchment from my tunic. “When it is darkest, I’ll be there to remind you of your heart.”

“I don’t matter,” he said, voice rough and dry. “He is gone and there is no life for me without him.”

I pressed a kiss on his damp forehead, whispering, “In the darkness, a voice small as the song of a bird will guide you toward the song of your heart. This life is not yet done for you, Sol Ferus. It is not yet done for either of you. I will be with you, even when you do not know your own name.”

I opened my eyes, but Sol was gone. A woman was tied and unconscious in the corner. Herja Ferus.

A guard shoved me forward. “King says to hurry it up. He wants her quiet from now on.”

I glared at him and kneeled beside Herja. She’d been battered. Old blood soaked her brow, and her eyes were swollen from beatings. I pressed a hand over her forehead and removed a parchment, the same as I’d done with Sol, and read the words, praying she’d hear.

“Silent you may be, but when he pleads to speak awhile, stay your blade, and find your words.” I leaned close to her ear. “You are strong; you have much to live for. Fight, Princess. Fight until your heart sings and take your place when we return to the beginning.”

A shadow of a tune filled the room as I struck a matchstick and ignited the parchment into flames before the guards could read a single word.

I screamed when they yanked my hair, but the room spun and landed me in front of three men.

Tied to tables as they waited for death. I touched Tor’s forehead. He snapped his eyes to mine, terror lived there, but also agony.

I whispered beside his ear. “Live for him.”

A tear dripped from the corner of Tor’s eyes. He shuddered, no doubt, believing Sol was dead.

I rounded to the center table, holding the dark eyes of my Cursed King. He was broken, terrified, and kept glancing to the corner.

Let him see her, a familiar voice broke through my soul. Sometimes it is the only way to have peace when you see the song of your heart.

Valen was seeing moments of my Kind Heart. A fate tale that had yet to unfold, and my phantom in the dark was singing the tune of it.

You’re doing this for him. I smirked to the emptiness of the room. You’re a sentimental bastard, Whisper.

I knelt beside Valen’s table. “Faces in your dreams live, Night Prince. When you see her, you will not recall your dreams, but a spark will ignite in your heart. Follow it, and you will find her.”

“Witch,” King Eli shouted. “Finish this.”

Oh, I plan to, Ice King. I gave Valen a soft smile. “Keep focused on her.”

“You . . . see her?” he whispered.

“I am allowing it to be so.” More like my own phantom was allowing it to be. “Hold to her.”

My heart cracked when Valen took hold of Halvar’s hand, of Tor’s. They braced for death. They’d be sent to the hells instead.

I removed a third parchment, hands trembling. I’d spent so much damn time constructing these words. They had to be perfect. This would begin the end. The Night Prince burned like a golden bloom against the darkness that polluted his kingdom.

A gentle melody rang in my head as I spoke the words:

Every day twenty-two, by draw of blood or light of moon,

Rises a beastly reign to torment you.

Live for death and gore,

A lust for blood forevermore.

No thought for name or past,

Till she lights the dark at last.

Royal of beauty, passion, and love.

The willing one to give of blood.

A choice to make, a way to mend.

Then will the reign of bloodlust end.

In the next breath, heavy shackles tightened over my wrists. Damp stone soaked my bare knees. King Eli sat mere paces away, shadows he couldn’t see wrapped around his cruel throne.

“Until the next tale.”

I blinked and found Stefan’s gaze.

I smirked. “He snatched you too, I see.”

“Every time.” Stefan was older with peppered hair and a wiry beard. Here, he looked more like Annon than he ever had.

“Kill them.” Eli waved his hand and two Raven guards stepped behind us.

We are nearing the end. The next tale is short, I whispered in my thoughts. One where we finally send the bright king to her. Will you be there, Whisper?

A broken voice answered, Always, Little Rose.

The Ravens rammed their blades through our hearts, and I woke to the sobs of a boy.

I peered around a thick tree. No longer an aged storyteller, my body was thin and dirty, a rogue child without a clan in this land. Neither fae nor Timoran, but this, this moment felt damn important.

“Son, son, look at me.” A man with bone beads in his rust-colored beard smiled despite being chained and on his knees.

A naked boy with messy golden hair was tethered to a tree with barbed rope. At the man’s voice, he stopped struggling. The boy’s face was swollen from sobs. Women, stripped of their clothes, were sprawled at his feet. Gods, my heart ached for him.

“Ari, look at me.”

I ducked lower in the shrubs. The man was Petter Sekundär. His contribution to the power of fate in this soil was felt here, but it was passing on. It was passing on to a new path.

His son held his father’s gaze, shuddering through silent sobs.

“I am proud of you,” Petter said. “I will save you a seat with us in the great hall, my boy.”

Ari, my Golden King, cried for his father. He pleaded, he raged, he asked forgiveness over and over as the Ravens lifted their swords and slaughtered Petter and a man at his side. They never stopped until blood soaked the grass and heads were piked in front of the last surviving boy.

“Let him rot for a few sunrises,” the lead Raven barked. Darkness coated his body, shadows and hatred. I could almost make out the damn battle lord in the cruelty of this moment.

The Raven gripped Ari’s chin and forced the boy to look at him. “Then it’s his turn.”

“Now’s our chance, little one.”

I spun around. A skinny boy was there. Stefan. He didn’t look old enough to grow a beard.

This tale was important. Deep in my soul, I knew this path of fate would guide us to the end, to the missing piece of my whole soul. But it would fail to take shape if I didn’t move and save the boy tied to that tree.

We kept to the thick trees of New Timoran, resting briefly behind thick ferns during the night, and before dawn we sprinted toward the hidden refuge of Night Folk rogues.

“Got anything to shield us?” Stefan asked. “They’ll cut us down if we’re not careful.”

Rogue Night Folk did not hesitate to kill outsiders, even young ones. I removed a slip of rice paper from my tunic and used a stick of charcoal to write a shield of protection. Using Stefan’s lit paper herb roll, we burned it to ashes.

Somewhere in the trees was a comforting song. A voice that matched the words on the paper. A promise of protection.

Stefan told me to stay down, then climbed up one of the trees near the tattered archway of Ruskig. He tossed a pebble. “Oi!”

An old man with tangled hair over his shoulders and a beard to his chest stepped out. He yanked a curved knife from his belt. “Get down here, boy.”

“There’s a Night Folk house near the docks under attack. Killed ‘em all. Only the boy’s left. He’s a fighter, but they’re slitting his neck in two days’ time.”

The man narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “That so? Who is he?”

Stefan peered down at me. I closed my eyes. A bright king. He was a bright king for . . . someone important, but . . . not yet.

For now, he was a boy of House . . .

“Sekundär,” I hissed back to my brother.

“House Sekundär.”

“I know that house.” The old man’s face sobered. “Once a royal cartographer for House Ferus.”

He took a few breaths, then whistled to hidden rogues in the shadows.

“Klock, what is it?” One man said gruffly.

“Gather the people. Night Folk in the vales are under attack.”

As the fae assembled to go after the tortured son of House Sekundär, the low melody in the shadows grew louder. I wanted to run toward it. I wanted to touch the one to whom it belonged. Time was running short.

Stefan climbed down, and before Klock and rogue Night Folk could catch the feral children in the trees, we sprinted deeper into the wood, their shouts at our backs.

Deeper and deeper we ran, until Stefan cried out when the earth gave, dropping us into a pit. Silky webs coated our faces. Hairy, bulbous weavers hissed and spat, attacking the intrusion to their peace. When I should be horrified, I fell into a sense of calm.

Stefan winced when one of the poisonous creatures bit at his throat. His chest rose and fell in rough breaths. “Until the . . . the next tale.”

I whimpered when the light faded from his eyes and his chest stopped rising.

“Whisper . . .” It took a moment, but soon my body warmed, as though someone had wrapped me in furs. “I miss you.”

Do you know me?

A smile tugged on my face, even through the harsh ache of the bites from the weavers. A moment of clarity brought his face into focus—a boy who tried not to smile too often, but when he laughed, his features brightened like the sun.

“Silas,” I whispered. My body felt heavy.

Anguished despair cut through my heart. It didn’t feel as though it was my own.

“Will you finish the tale for a bright king, Silas?”

He’ll find her, his voice was soft, burdened.

“Good. Sing me back to you.”

What will you be called?

Each tale, each life, took a different name, a different storyteller. I didn’t hesitate, as though the name burned the tip of my tongue, begging to get out. “Calista.”

His voice was thick with emotion when he spoke again. Then it is the beginning of the end. Find me, Little Rose. Find me again.

I smiled as the heat of the poison flooded my lungs. My head drooped to the side, and a final word whispered off my tongue. “Always.”

When my eyes opened once more, swift moments reeled through my head. A small girl playing dice games in Raven Row, her brother haggling with merchants for sly deals, laughter at a game hall.

I was small, barely a girl older than seven turns. I’d been tasting what I thought was my first taste of mead ale when the door burst in and rough traders shouted and shoved, and eventually snatched me off the bench.

I struggled but didn’t cry for my brother. When I caught his gaze across the hall, he smiled. Some twisted side of me smiled back, mouthing the word: Finally.

The cold bars of a cell sent a shudder down my spine. I squinted against the dark. It reeked of unwashed skin and piss. In the cell across from me, a lump of a man shivered in the cold.

“Hey,” I said. “You know, you look like a lump. Mind if I call you Lumpy since you won’t tell me your name?”

He tugged the blanket over his shoulders, turning his back to me. “Irritating little bird.”

I grinned again. A voice small as the song of a bird. I promised you.

One turn of the head and it all shifted. I was looking through new bars, no longer at my Lumpy, but at my Kind Heart.

“Girl!” Her voice was harsh and desperate. “Tell me what you know. You wrote him into the curse.”

“I told you I didn’t,” I snapped. “I’m the fifth storyteller.” The final storyteller. Every tale came from a different song, a different purpose, and different path. Deep inside I knew it, but how would I explain it to my Kind Heart when I wasn’t positive I understood it all myself? “And the first four—dead.”

I pressed my head against the bars of the cell, ensuring Elise was listening. “This could start something. It could change the world.”

The Kind Heart and Cursed King would restore the first fated crown. From there, we’d finally find the end.

The Black Tomb faded. On my hands and knees, I gasped as my head spiraled through everything I’d witnessed. Blood raged in my head, my chest; it pulsed through every heartbeat like a stampede through my veins.

“I can’t.” His deep, rough voice broke the silence.

Once more I was in the muddy streets of Raven Row. The night was bloody red, and in the distance, guards traipsed along the glimmering shield against the sea.

Damp mists surrounded me, and it seemed the people, the Rave, even the blood fae, had left me to be alone with him. A few steps to my side, Silas sat on the ground, his back against a broken cask. He combed his fingers through his hair, shoulders shuddering.

“Silas.”

He shook his head.

I crept over to his side, placing my hands on the tops of his knees. My body wouldn’t stop trembling, but I tugged against one of his arms. “Silas, look at me.”

He pulled back his hands. Red lined his eyes; unshed tears brightened them to a dark green. The mask was absent, the cowl he’d used to hide his face had fallen back. A wide, taut scar carved in jagged lines from his brow to jaw. It mangled the skin in a line like a raised spine down his face. How it missed his eye was a mystery, but it looked painful and deep.

Some might call the wound frightening, cursed, even. To me, he was the brightest memory. To me, he was home at long last.

With slow, tender movements, I cupped the damaged side of his face. He blew out a rough breath and tilted his head into my touch. For a long pause, we simply stayed there, heads together, breathing deeper until our emotions calmed.

“Do you know . . .” Silas cleared his throat. “Do you know what it’s like?”

With the back of my knuckles, I stroked his cheek. “What what’s like?”

His eyes burned through mine. His voice steadied. “Do you know what it’s like to watch the light of your soul die over and over? Do you know what it’s like to burn for lifetimes for another who fears you in the end?”

A sob burst from my chest, and I flung my arms around his neck. He jolted in surprise, but it took mere heartbeats before his strong arms crushed me against him. Silas turned his face and drew in a long breath, as though soaking up every piece of me.

“I didn’t . . . I didn’t fear you,” I said, voice rough. “I just . . . feared that fate would rob me of myself. I feared death. I lost sight of who belonged to my whisper in the dark. You were always there, and I . . . I left you alone all this time.”

Silas didn’t speak, but I was starting to think sometimes he simply didn’t know what to say.

Steady warmth built in my heart the longer I held him, some force tethering me to this man. Something sturdy and unbreakable, a promise that he wouldn’t hurt again. A desire to fight off all the demons that came for him, the enemies, the blades; I wouldn’t let them near my Whisper.

Silas’s shoulders shook, but his tears were silent and tangled with mine. A song of sorrow and fate tied us together and kept us apart in the same breath. I hated it. I hated that he’d suffered. He’d watched Annon, he’d watched me, succumb to death time and again, unable to do anything but carry the tales onward with his voice and my words.

He’d been alone and suffering, and I’d fled from him.

I’d ignored him.

I’d left him.

Truths were clear now. I’d spoken true to my Kind Heart when I told her there were signs of four storytellers before me. What I hadn’t known was each one . . . was me.

“How was it possible?” I asked softly. “I looked so different each time, even in my age and name.”

“You . . . chose the proper place to join each path and fated tale,” Silas said. “You kept each name connected to your past.”

“I didn’t know my past.”

“Your heart did.”

My brow furrowed. “But . . . when the tales ended, where did I go? It is like I simply appeared.”

“I don’t know where you would go. I would feel your soul still in existence, until it burned brighter, and you were there again, ready for another tale.” Silas sniffed and tightened his embrace.

So, between each moment, I . . . simply drifted into oblivion? An ache pummeled my skull. “But how did my soul remain? It goes against everything I know of the Otherworld and lifetimes.”

Silas hesitated. “Your soul lived on because . . . your soul bond lived. A tether in the darkness, a ballast in the tumult.”

Soul bond. My lips parted when I pulled back to look at him. “You?”

He didn’t respond, but he didn’t need to. Silas, my phantom voice, was the deepest bond. Deeper than the heart, he was a piece of my soul.

“You were left to live this way all to bring me back? You are the bond—gods—you lived such an existence simply to keep me alive?”

Silas’s eyes burned with something new. “I would do it all again to see you breathing.”

Bleeding gods. The pain, the suffering, it was almost too much to bear. Then again, there was more. Devotion, strength, unyielding love. All the brighter pieces of the heart would be needed for him to survive such a wretched existence of solitude and death and darkness.

And he felt them for me.

I had lived different lives, over and over again.

And he’d watched my slaughter, time after time.

Live and live again until death at crimson night. That’s what Annon meant when he told me I was ready to find my power. Crimson night shattered the endless cycle, it ended my father’s manipulation of a natural life. This was what broke Riot Ode—he’d wiped his daughter from existence, true, because he’d made me a bleeding immortal until I was strong enough to find my power.

It worked; through the lifetimes my power grew. Each fated path added to my voice, it drew me closer to the other part of me. It drew me back to Silas.

“I chose my true name,” I said. “Does it mean . . . this is the last?”

“The final tale. There is no new lifetime here. This is your fated path, Little Rose.”

Hells, like my royals had walked their paths, now I’d unwittingly accepted mine.

I eased back, my palms on Silas’s damp cheeks. He held my gaze, unblinking. His fingertips touched my jaw, traced the lines of my chin, my throat, as if studying every surface.

All these turns he’d watched my blood spill, unable to stop it. I could imagine the madness that might come with such solitude and gore. Affection, respect, adoration, something, was suffocating me. A sensation that raged through my veins, as though touching him was the only thing that might give me new breath.

My thumb tugged at his bottom lip; I pressed my brow to his. He needed to know. “Silas.”

“Little Rose?”

I was not bold. I was wholly inexperienced. But I knew him. Like a piece of me had slipped back into place, I knew he belonged here, with me, his hands on my skin.

“Say the word, Silas,” I whispered, tilting my head, “and I would follow you through the lifetimes.”

Before courage fled from my body, I held my breath, and kissed him.