Page 52 of A Fate Unwoven
Lena swallowed the lump in her throat. It was why her mother had always told her to keep her visions a secret. Why she’d always taught her to never linger in one place for too long.
Why nowhere had ever truly felt like home.
“I understand,” Maia said softly, “but for what it’s worth, it wouldn’t have changed anything. To me, you’ll always just be Lena.”
The words struck something in Lena. Something raw and vulnerable. They were words she’d always wanted to hear. An acceptance she never thought she’d deserve. But instead of relief, all Lena felt was numb.
Because she wasn’t just Lena. Not anymore.
And if she couldn’t sever the bond between her and Dimas, she never would be again.
TWENTY-TWO
LENA
“Are you ready for this?”
Dimas stood before the entrance hall to the council room, where his father’s most trusted advisors awaited his presence. Behind this door were the most important members of his father’s court. People who could refuse to accept Dimas as their emperor. Who could, at any moment, see through his lies and discover the truth of their future Fateweaver’s heretical past.
No, he wasn’t ready for this at all.
“I’m ready,” he lied, adjusting the collar of his tunic.
It was strange to be back in his royal attire after weeks in simple traveling clothes, and the stiff fabric made him feel oddly trapped. His hair had been slicked back, the light stubble around his jaw shaven, his skin scrubbed clean of all traces of grime and blood. It was like slipping back into a costume that didn’t quite fit, and as Dimas strode into the council room, he found it harder than ever to play his part.
Four people sat around a long wooden table, their eyes fixed firmly on the prince. Dimas knew each of their faces. Had spentyears sitting silently in their presence. They looked up as he walked in, the skin beneath each of their eyes dark with grief. There was his uncle, Roston, who sat beside the chair at the head of the table, his already pale skin drained of color. Brother Dunstan was sitting in the opposite chair, regent and priest situated like figureheads at the side of the seat reserved for their emperor. Normally, Dimas and Lady Sefwyn would have sat in those spaces. But with the late emperor and Fateweaver dead, adjustments to the seating arrangements had clearly been made.
Dimas distracted himself from the surreal sight of his father’s empty chair by taking in the remaining court members. Beside Brother Dunstan sat the High Treasurer, Lady Wryn, and General Mirena Alræn, leader of the imperial army, sat beside her.
No one spoke as Dimas made his way to the head of the table, to the seat where his father had sat during every court meeting the prince had ever attended. His chair now. The eyes of everyone in the room settled on Dimas as he came to a stop before it, as they waited to see what he would do. It seemed like such a small gesture, but sitting in his father’s seat would say far more than his words ever could.
Dimas stayed standing.
“Thank you for meeting with me,” he began. His voice sounded too small for such a large room. “As you already know, my father and Lady Sefwyn are no longer with us. The ailment that struck them down was one sent by Næbya Herself, and their deaths were foreseen by Lady Sefwyn. Knowing their end was coming, I traveled to retrieve my Fateweaver so that Næbya’s next vessel could take her rightful place at my side.
“I appreciate you keeping this information to yourselves during my absence,” he continued. “I know it must have been … difficult, but it was what my father wanted. Now that I have returned, however, it is time we let the empire know of my father’s and Lady Sefwyn’s deaths. We will hold the royal funeral at week’s end, to give the noble families a chance to send a representative. And then …”
He paused to blink away the sudden spots in his vision. This was it. The moment he’d been dreading all day. The words he’d practiced in front of the mirror until his mouth was dry.
“And then I will let the empire know their future Fateweaver is safe within the walls of the imperial palace.”
Everyone spoke at once, their voices echoing off the stone walls in a way that made Dimas’s head hurt.
But it was General Alræn’s voice that rose above the rest.
“You were successful, then?” the general asked, doubt lacing her every word.
As the general of the imperial army, and his father’s closest confidant beside Roston, she’d never been particularly fond of Dimas. Mirena Alræn was a woman who valued actions over words. And so far, Dimas had done little to prove he was fit to wear Wyrecia’s crown.
“I was. I returned to the palace last night with my Fateweaver at my side.”
He tried to make it sound as if his trip had gone exactly to plan. As if they had been fools to doubt him. Because if his father’s inner court got even a sniff of his fear, they would know something was wrong, and Dimas wasn’t sure he trusted them to keep the truth of Lenora’s past to themselves.
“Where is she, then?” Mirena asked.
“In her chambers. I wanted to … give her time to settle in.”
His uncle gave him a subtle, reassuring nod from across the table. Maybe it was unwise to keep Lenora’s true past from his father’s most trusted advisors, but whispers surrounding Dimas and his right to the throne were already too common, and with rumors ofHæstasightings, learning that their future Fateweaver was a heretic would only give strength to the fear that Næbya had forsaken the Wyrecian Empire.
