This is what the oracle meant. This is what she had done. It had been her words, her prophecy, that had made the boy-king so. Her words that had led to the abandonment of the babes. Her words that had brought about the deaths of the twins. She was to blame.

“No,” she whispered, as the king, no longer a boy, no longer delicate and unformed, found his words at last.

“The sibling,” he said. “You said the sibling would bring my own fall.” His grin curdled in triumph. “I have come to tell you your words were untrue. I have thwarted your prophecy. I wish you to tell me how I was wise.”

Despite the grin, Alba could hear desperation in the man’s voice. He was seeking relief. He had been in torment for years.

Was it guilt that tormented him? Or fear for his life?

Next to him, the other man raised his wide, tumescent brow. “The king wishes to know his decision was wise,” he repeated. “This is what he desires to hear.”

Alba recognized this man as well.

“Unwise,” the waters gurgled and spit.

She struggled to speak. Should she ease his torment? If she did, was there anything beneath that clotted mask to save? Anything left of the pale, fragile boy to redeem? “Your decision…,” she started, only to founder. “The sibling…”

The vapors curled about her, clambering over her legs. A low hiss sounded in the air: “Your rule began with worms feasting in coffins; fate will see you meet the same end.” Alba shifted, twisting out of the mist’s watery grasp. Not again, she thought. She shook her head to clear the fog. I will speak this time.

“Take comfort,” she spoke to fill the cave.

Below her, the waters seethed. A haze rose around and within her, but Alba, seeing the king’s cheek soften, pressed on, pushing aside the clouds in her own mind.

“Take comfort…,” she boomed, frantically casting about for a way to console the former boy inside the king. You acted out of fear for your life, she thought to say. You were only a boy. She felt the words in her mouth. Were they enough?

“Take comfort,” she said for the third time, as the waters roiled. The mist washed over her, creeping over her skin.

“Take comfort—the twins live.” Alba heard the waters slick in her ear.

She stood, startled. The chamber swung wildly.

“Oracle-Apprentice, the king seeks to hear his decision was wise,” the worm-lipped man said again. “Tell him his decision was wise.”

Alba staggered and reached to balance herself against the stool but found instead the oracle, taking her arm.

“Take comfort; the twins were both saved,” she heard the oracle thunder as though from far away.

Through a shimmering haze, Alba saw something like relief shift under the king’s flat expression… then it flickered and was gone. His gaze turned hard and blank again.

Beside her the oracle was still roaring, “Your rule began with worms feasting in coffins; fate will see you meet the same end.”