Chapter 104
Velis moved to the desk. The sound of a drawer. Paper.
He came to the window and placed a single sheet beside Caelum's hand on the glass.
Not giving it to him. Placing it where he could take it or not.
Caelum picked it up.
The text was in Velis's handwriting. Careful, precise, the hand of someone who'd spent centuries writing orders that couldn't be misread.
He'd assembled the fragments into a continuous passage, marking the gaps where pieces were still missing.
When the last pure line breaks itself against love and the blood between is made it will sleep until the moon bleeds and wake to what was always owed.
Neither throne will hold it. Neither war will end it. The child of the between will stand where both fall down—
A gap. Three lines missing.
—and the debt of blood will close.
Caelum read it twice. Three times.
"Both thrones," he said.
"Yes."
"Ysoria's. And Isabella's."
"That's the current interpretation."
"Will stand where both fall down." He set the paper back on the glass. "That's not a gentle prophecy."
"No," Velis said. "It isn't."
"It's a replacement."
"It's a possibility." He leaned one shoulder against the window frame, arms loosely crossed. "Prophecies require interpretation. They require someone to choose to fulfill them or not." His eyes were on Caelum's profile. "You're not obligated to the words of a dead king."
"But Ysoria believes it."
"Enough to have wanted the child. Enough to have stopped looking when she thought it was gone." A pause. "Enough to have looked very carefully at you in that tower before her face met the stone."
Caelum was quiet.
Outside, the courtyard was doing its ordinary business. A kitchen boy crossing with a basket.
Two guards changing position. A horse being walked in slow circles by a stableman who looked like he'd rather be somewhere warmer.
Normal. Small. Entirely indifferent.
"She'll move soon," Caelum said.
"Within the fortnight. She'll want to do it while the blood moon fog still has the nobles uncertain. While she has room to act without witnesses who remember clearly." Velis's voice was level. "She'll frame it as something else. A ritual. A security matter. Something with enough institutional legitimacy that it can't be challenged easily."
"She'll try to take me."
"Or remove the question entirely."
Caelum turned from the window.
"You're not going to let her," Caelum said.
"Why are you so sure?”
"Because of the prophecy. Because of what I represent strategically."
"Among other reasons."
"Say the other reasons."
Velis held his gaze. That same beat of decision he'd shown before. The moment of choosing how honest to be.
"I won’t let you know," he said,
Caelum looked at him. “Why?”
“I have my reasons.”
The anger was there. Always there. But it was quieter tonight. Sitting differently in his chest.
Not gone—it would never be gone, it was part of the architecture now—but redistributed around something else that had been taking up more space than he'd been willing to admit.
"The three missing lines," Caelum said. "In the prophecy."
Velis reached into his jacket. Produced a second, smaller piece of paper. Held it.
"You found them," Caelum said.
"This morning. An informant had a text I hadn't accessed." He didn't give it over immediately. "You're not going to like them."
"I haven't liked anything about this week. Give it to me."
Velis held it out. “Sleep with me for three nights a row.”
“Fine!” Caelum took it. Read the three lines filled into the gap.
The between-blood will choose a side or be chosen. To be chosen is to be ended. Choose, or be the ending.
He read them twice.
Set the paper down on the window ledge.
"Choose," he said.
"Yes."
"A side."
"That's the interpretation."
"Between what. Between the vampire court and the human kingdoms." He looked up. "Between Ysoria and Isabella."
"Between the Dominion and the Federation, broadly." Velis's voice was careful. "Or—there's a second interpretation. One that the scholars who handled this text preferred."
"Which is."
"That the choice isn't between the two existing powers." He held Caelum's gaze. "That the choice is whether to become a third one."
The room was very quiet.
Caelum picked the paper up again. Read the three lines one more time. Put it back down.
"A third power," he said.
"A stabilizing one. Something neither Ysoria nor Isabella can fully claim or control." A pause. "Something that belongs to both sides because it came from both sides."
"That's a very significant thing to suggest to someone who woke up three days ago not knowing what they were."
"I'm aware."
"You're doing it anyway."
"You asked for the second interpretation."
Caelum looked at him for a long moment. Then he moved—past him, away from the window, into the room. He needed to move. He needed the body occupied so the mind could work properly.
He paced once. Twice.
"Ysoria moves within the fortnight," he said.
"Approximately."
"And between now and then."
