“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