Page 144 of Blood of Ancients

She shook her head solemnly. “It was ordained. You may believe you had control, but it was meant to happen, child. Do not fault yourself for that.”

“I’ve put everyone in danger. My peopleandyours.”

“Not completely. Other races will need to craft portals of their own, because yours is binary.”

“What do you mean?”

“A portal opened can only be used by the bloodline of the one who opened it. Human portals will only carry humans. Elven portals will only take elves. Since you are both elven and human, it allowed you, your human friends, and the Dokkalfar and Ljosalfar to use it for transport between realms.”

I latched onto a phrase she’d just muttered, reminiscent of something she’d told me before. “I am . . . both and neither.”

She shot me a crooked smile. “That’s very good, child. You remember more of the prophecy.”

“Can you tell me more about it, Elayina? You think I have a connection to it?”

Elayina started walking again, into another long corridor with a high, vaulted ceiling. Here, a vast floor-to-ceiling window was partly open, letting in a balmy breeze.

I followed, hurrying to her side.

She recited the prophecy in a measured, chanting tone.

“Fly me to on wings of leather, not feather.

Haul my sunken soul to the gates of the gods.

Drag me forth from the darkness, Lightbearer.

And leave me dying in my rightful resting place.”

When she finished, we fell quiet for a moment, and I took in her words, playing them over and over in my mind.

A few things stuck out.Fly me towhere? Okay, the gates of the gods. But I thought elves believed in ‘spirits,’ rather than deities? Maybe they’re interchangeable.

“There are many names for the one who will be our savior,” Elayina continued. “The Lightbearer, the one who walked, the one who flew, the Winged One. Our people believe they are one and the same—the enemy of our enemies.”

I gritted my teeth, flexing my jaw and trying to keep my questions from flying out so she could continue. I had so many.

She turned to me with another solemn look. “And I believe, Ravinica Lindeen, thatyouare that person.”

It wasn’t the groundbreaking bombshell I’d expected. Deep inside, I knew Lady Elayina had believed that, from the get-go. Tohearher say it though, and with more certainty and grit in her voice than before . . . was certainly something.

I chewed the inside of my cheek, not trusting my words.

Is she so certain now because she has her powers back in Alfheim? Can her foresight “reach” further?“What has changed?” I asked. “Between here and your tree in Midgard?”

“Nothing, other than perspective, child.”

Great. We’re onto the riddle portion of this history lesson.

Then she went a different direction with it. “You know me as Elayina, but my truth is much more relevant to your own history. I am one of the three children born to Queen Amisara and King Dannon.”

I gasped, eyes bulging.Thatwas a bombshell. My History & Tomes class came roaring back to me, reminding me of the tragic tale of Lord Talasin, the Deceiver in Gold, and King Dannon, the King Who Saw.

In that tale, Dannon, the human ally of the elven Talasin, had stolen Talasin’s sister—who had been in love withDannon’ssister—and kept her locked away in his dungeons for years. He raped and bred her, eventually given three half-elven children . . .

And Elayina is one of them?!

“But that was a thousand years ago!”

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