Odin help them all.
Ghisla could feel the listing of the ground beneath her feet, and she clearly was not the only one. Ghost must have fainted or swayed, because Dagmar had swooped her up into his arms and was carrying her into the temple. Ghisla and her sisters hurried after him, and Master Ivo wasn’t far behind, his scepter clacking against the stones.
“Are you unwell, Ghost?” Elayne asked, hovering at Dagmar’s side. She passed a gentle hand over Ghost’s brow. Ghost shook her head in shame.
“I’m a fool, Elayne. I was afraid, and I forgot to draw sufficient breath. I’m fine. See to the others. You were all so brave . . . and I am so proud.”
“Go, Elayne,” Dagmar urged kindly, laying Ghost on a cool bench in the sanctum. “See to the others. I’ll look after Ghost.”
Elayne hesitated and looked at her sisters.
“Do not send us away,” Juliah said. “Tell us what is happening.”
“We deserve to know what is happening,” Bashti agreed.
Ghisla already knew what was happening.
She knew, and her heart raged in her chest. She needed to find Hod, but she didn’t move. None of them moved.
Dagmar seemed at a loss, and Ghost stared up at him, her terror evident.
“What are we going to do?” Ghost whispered, but Dagmar rose from her side and stepped away, turning as Ivo entered the sanctum, his black robes melding with the shadows that jumped from stone to stone in the flickering light.
Ghisla pulled her sisters back, retreating to the shadows, but they did not leave.
Ivo did not sit upon the dais, and he did not ask Ghisla and her sisters to go. Ghisla wasn’t even sure he noticed they were still in the sanctum. Instead he stopped in front of Ghost, his hands wrapped on the ball of his scepter, his chin resting on his hands. Ghost tried to rise, but her strength seemed to fail her.
“Why does Banruud fear you, Ghost?” he whispered.
“He does not fear me,” Ghost choked.
But he did. Ghisla knew he did.
“Banruud will give the princess to the North King to stop their advance into Saylok, and young Bayr can do nothing to stop it,” Master Ivo said, staring down at Ghost.
“I will go with her,” Ghost panted.
Elayne moaned softly and Juliah took a step toward her, but Ghisla laid a hand on her shoulder, restraining her, afraid they would be asked to go. Dagmar, Ivo, and Ghost were oblivious to them.
“You are a keeper—you will not,” Dagmar shot back, incredulous. “You’ve been entrusted with the knowledge of the runes. And that knowledge stays here, in the temple.”
“I gave my word to the princess,” she ground out, her jaw locked.
“You gave your word to me,” Ivo hissed. “To Dagmar. To Saylok.”
“I care nothing for Saylok,” she cried. “I care nothing for the bloody runes. What good are the runes if they can’t protect us? If they cannot right these wrongs?”
Ivo swayed as though he too had lost the strength to stand, and he turned away from her and walked up the long aisle to the dais, his head bowed, his shoulders stooped, and Ghost rose and followed him, Dagmar beside her, as if unable to resist the pull of his displeasure.
“Bayr is going to Alba,” Ivo said, sinking down into his chair. “Even now. And you say nothing.” Ivo raised his black gaze to Dagmar. “Have you not seen the way they look at each other?”
Dagmar flinched as though he’d been struck, and Ghost moaned.
“These secrets have been kept too long, and this one will destroy them, Dagmar. And still . . . you . . . say . . . nothing,” Ivo marveled.
Ghisla’s guilt sprouted like green vines, winding their way up her throat. She too had said nothing. They had all said nothing for far too long.
Tears had begun to course down Ghost’s cheeks.
“Bayr and Alba do not understand that the connection they feel is a connection of the blood, of the heart, but it can never be a connection of the body,” Master Ivo admonished.
“It is . . . not . . . a connection of the blood,” Ghost wept, the words so faint Ghisla wasn’t sure she’d even said them.
But she had. She’d finally said the words aloud. Dagmar turned shattered eyes to her, and Ivo beckoned her forward, curling his fingers toward his palm.
“Tell me!” Master Ivo bellowed.
“Alba is not Banruud’s daughter,” Ghost shouted back. “She was not Alannah’s daughter. She is not a daughter of Saylok at all. She is the daughter of a slave.”
“What are you saying?” Ivo whispered.
“Banruud took her from her mother only days after she was born,” Ghost panted, as if the words were a torrent she could no longer contain. “And you made him king,” she mourned. “You made him king. You made her a princess. And I could not take that away from her.”
“But . . . in my vision . . . I saw . . . her mother’s . . . joy,” Ivo stammered. “Alannah gave birth to a child. I saw it.”
“And I saw . . . her mother’s pain,” Dagmar whispered, as though he finally understood. “You are the slave girl, Ghost. You are Alba’s mother.”
“Odin help us,” Elayne whispered, the words so faint only Ghisla and her sisters could hear. Ghisla feared Odin had abandoned Saylok long ago.
“Yes. I am Alba’s mother,” Ghost breathed. “I am Alba’s mother.” She told the truth like it was precious, too sacred for sound, and when she said the words again—“I am Alba’s mother”—they were hardly more than a whisper.
“Tell me everything,” Master Ivo demanded, harsh, exacting, and Ghost submitted, spilling the story with the relief of the long damned.
“My masters . . . a farmer and his wife . . . brought the babe to the Chieftain of Berne. They told me it was custom—law—and that they would return with the child and a piece of gold. I waited for hours. I worried. I needed to feed her. I went to the chieftain’s keep and watched them come out. They didn’t have my daughter. They said . . . they said the chieftain wanted to bring her to the Keepers of Saylok to determine whether she was a changeling . . . a monster . . . or a blessing.”
Dagmar cursed, but Ghost continued.
“I watched her—I am called Ghost for my skin and my hair. But I have become one. I have learned how to blend in, to disappear, to be invisible. I waited and I watched. I planned. And then one day, I got my opportunity. But I couldn’t do it. As much as I hated the king for what he’d done, what he’d taken from me. I could not hate the queen, a woman who so obviously loved and cared for my daughter. She held her so gently. She was so patient . . . and kind. And she was able to give her a life . . . that I could never give her.”
Ghost raised her eyes to Dagmar and then to the Highest Keeper, pleading for them to understand. She didn’t look toward Ghisla and her sisters. They did not exist. In that moment, it was only Ghost and her confession, and the daughters witnessed it in silence.
“My daughter was a princess. And I was a ghost. I could not take her from the people who loved her so perfectly. There would have been nowhere I could go, no place to take her where I wouldn’t have been hunted down. In this world, in this temple . . . she had a protector.”