Stormcaster (Shattered Realms #3)(123)

“All right,” Lyss said, a stone of dread in her middle. “Why are you here?”

“We are here because the Line of Queens is broken, and you must pick up the pieces,” Hanalea said.

“What do you mean? Are you saying that my mother—that my mother is dead?” Lyss’s voice rose until that last word came out in a kind of shriek. Regret sluiced over her like a rogue wave, nearly knocking her off her feet. She’d refused to go home and mourn with her mother, and that had led to a cascade of misfortunes, ending in this.

But Althea and Hanalea were shaking their heads. “Not exactly,” Hanalea said. “It’s . . . complicated.”

“What do you mean, it’s complicated?” Lyss shouted. “A person is dead, or she isn’t.”

But that wasn’t exactly true, was it? Case in point—the bloodsworn, who seemed to be somewhere between. Were they saying that her mother had—had—

“Complicated is what happens when people don’t honor boundaries,” Althea said, curling her lips away from her teeth and looking down her nose at Hanalea. A murmur rose from the gathered queens, mingled agreement and dissent.

“That’s what we do, Thea,” Hanalea said. “We cross boundaries. How else could we offer counsel to the living queens?”

“That’s been tradition for more than a thousand years,” Althea said. “But this thing with Alger Waterlow—and now Raisa—it sets a bad precedent.”

Alger Waterlow? He’d been the founder, with Hanalea, of the New Line of Gray Wolf queens. But that was a thousand years ago.

“I chose love,” Hanalea said. “This New Line of queens was founded on love, and breaking the rules, and I stand by that choice. And that was the counsel I gave to Raisa.”

“That’s turned out well,” Althea said.

“The end of this story isn’t written yet,” Hanalea said. “The journey through it is important.”

Lyss felt like a mortal in one of the old stories watching the gods squabble over her future.

“Hey!” she said.

The two wolves turned to look at her, ears pricked forward. The other wolves shifted and murmured.

“Since you’ve come all this way, I would like to be included in the conversation,” Lyss said. “You’ve said that the Gray Wolf line is broken, but my mother isn’t dead—well, not exactly—but I still don’t know why you’re here, or what happened to my mother.”

“Raisa ana’Marianna was poisoned,” Hanalea said gently.

“Poisoned?” Lyss’s knees buckled, and she would have fallen, but the wolves pressed in around her, supporting her, keeping her upright. “When? And how? And by whom?”

“Three days ago,” Hanalea said. “We don’t know the answers to your other questions.”

Three days ago. Lyss had awakened from a sound sleep, in a panic. She’d had that dream again, the one that had haunted her ever since the summer Hana was killed. Everyone was dead, and she stood on Hanalea Peak, alone with the wolves.

Althea sat, wrapping her tail around her feet. “Raisa crossed over and joined us, thereby breaking her connection to the living Line. Then, what did she do, but she turned right around and went back.”

“She went . . . back?” Lyss clutched handfuls of fur to either side, but the queens didn’t seem to mind.

“Your father interfered,” Althea said.

“My—father?” Lyss whispered. “He was there?”

“It must be that troublemaking Waterlow blood,” Althea said. “First he arranged these trysts between Hana and Alger, and then he—”

“You have Waterlow blood, dear,” Hanalea pointed out drily.

“Highly diluted,” Althea said.

“Anyway, he healed your mother and persuaded her to go back and rejoin the living,” Hanalea said. “But now we have a problem.”

“My mother is alive!” Lyss said, her emotions in a whiplash of confusion. “How is that a problem?”

“The Line was broken,” Althea said. “And that means that, technically—”

“Not just technically,” Hanalea said. She looked into Lyss’s eyes. “That means that you—Alyssa ana’Raisa—you are now the Gray Wolf queen.”