Page 42 of The Throne's Undoing

When her brother remained silent, she wrapped her arms around herself tightly and muttered, "You have told me little as it is, Fynn. You can at least answer that."

"I have told you plenty, Kallie, but you refuse to listen."

Kallie groaned and strolled forward, her feet sinking into the cool, damp sand along the shore. Although Kallie hadn't heard him approach, Fynn now stood beside her.

Brushing a hand through his hair, he sighed. "We are here because this place is embedded with Pontanius and Sabina's spirits."

Kallie's brows furrowed. Perhaps that was why there was a strange energy here. "Is this a dream?" Kallie wondered.

He paused, then said, "Of sorts."

"How can it be a dreamof sorts? Are we here, or are we not here?" Kallie asked, perplexed as she stared out at the water.

Whatever this was seemed unlike any of her other dreams. It was visceral and vivid in a way she couldn't quite fathom. The water looked and felt real. She could feel the coarse grains of sand scrape her skin. She could smell the moss in the air. And yet...

"In the physical sense of the word? No, we are nothere, Kalisandre." He peered at her from the corner of his eye and smirked, his brows arched. "I am dead, after all. I no longer walk the mortal plane."

"The mortal plane?" she repeated, sparing him a glance.

Fynn hummed, folding his hands behind his back. "There is the world of the living, the world of the dead, and the world of the gods."

"Am I dead then? Is that it?" The very thought filled her with dread as she shifted uncomfortably.

Fynn chuckled. "No, you are not dead, sister." He tilted his head toward the sky, smiling softly with amusement. "Although from what I have gathered, my wife did knock you out cold."

Hesitantly, Kallie reached up and felt a bump on the back of her head where Dani must have struck her. She couldn't remember the incident clearly. But as she tried to recall it, anger bloomed.

Her hands fell to her sides, her nails biting into the flesh of her palms and knuckles blanching. Kallie could sense Fynn's eyes on her, but she refused to meet them as the memory of the fight resurfaced.

But the more she mulled the fight over, the more she realized she could do nothing about it. Not here.

By the gods, Kallie still didn't even understand whereherewas.

Fynn kicked at the sand. "You and Dani would have been best friends, you know. Always looking for logic rather than accepting things for what they are."

Kallie recalled thinking the same thing once upon a time, how the two of them would have grown up together, how they would have studied and trained together with the twins and Graeson.

But that was in another life, one that Kallie could never return to. One she never truly possessed.

"Her forgiveness will not be easy to earn," Fynn said after a moment.

Folding her arms over her chest, Kallie scoffed. "I do not want her forgiveness. I do not wish for the forgiveness of any of them."

Her brother snorted. "That is a lie."

"It is not," Kallie spat. "I do not care what they think of me."

Fynn laughed, and the sound bounced off the cliffs as if to haunt her. "You care more than you think."

Kallie rolled her eyes. "And you call me the liar."

Fynn turned to her, then took a step closer, staring at her with an intensity that Kallie could not ignore despite her efforts. "Tell me this: why do you believe you don't want their forgiveness?"

"I don't believe it; I know it, Fynn," she said pointedly.

He brushed his hair back and looked at Kallie with such sadness. "By the gods, Domitius really does have his claws deeper in you than I first thought."

"What?" Kallie exclaimed, stepping back. "No, he doesn't."

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