Chapter 51
Avriel
M ercia and I walked down a heavily guarded hallway, tucked in a part of the palace closed off to everyone but the empress and a handful of her most-trusted high priestesses. Oh, and Victor. Of course.
Doors groaned as they opened, and we stepped inside the tower.
It possessed the same layout as the Creator’s Tower and was similarly sized, but in place of whirring tools and nightmarish screams, the space was as quiet as a library.
There were shelves upon shelves full of small wood boxes— millions of them.
“Thank you for coming,” Priestess Anna spoke in a hushed tone as she walked up to us, handing Mercia and me a piece of paper. On it was a painting of two souls. “This is what we are looking for.”
One of the orbs was purely gold with unique markings on it.
I peered closer. It was a sun with a crown floating above it.
The soul beside it was also gold, but it was full of maniacal claw marks, no rhyme or reason to them.
In the claw marks were hints of red, reminding me of blood pooling into a wound.
Priestess Anna continued, her voice barely audible, “Both souls were placed in a golden box. The gold one with the sun on it was a recent addition to the Archive of Souls, added only two weeks ago. The other one has been here for a few hundred years. High Priestess Calandra took the box out so she could add the new soul to it, as the two are kin. She said she put it back in its designated spot, but the box is no longer there.”
“Who do the souls belong to?” Mercia quietly asked, tipping her head in curiosity.
“The empress hasn’t told us; however, she says it is imperative they are found. Every box must be gone through,” Priestess Anna replied.
“Has anyone found the gold box they were originally in?” I whispered, glancing up at the sky-scraping tower. Despite how many people were here, it would take us weeks to go through all the boxes, and I didn’t have weeks—I had until tomorrow, which meant the missing souls needed to be found tonight.
“No, the box hasn’t been found either,” Priestess Anna answered.
“So then why go through every box? Why not focus on looking for the missing gold one?”
“That’s a good question. Maybe you should go and ask the empress,” Priestess Anna stated somewhat sarcastically, a pointed look to her expression.
Internally, I sighed, her message loud and clear.
“I’ll leave you to it,” she whispered, bowing her head before she walked off to another group who had just arrived, handing them each a paper.
“I’m going to go start looking,” Mercia spoke softly before she, too, headed off.
So I did as well.
I picked a random row marked unsearched and got to work.
Hours later, my back was stiff from bending over and my fingers felt like they had collected a permanent layer of dust—enough to make a second layer of skin, honestly. All the souls inside the boxes were beginning to look the same.
At this rate, we were going to be here for weeks doing this pointless task.
This palace was full of goddesses and priestesses, and this was what we were down to?
Manually opening and closing boxes? Surely, there had to be a quicker way to go through them, but the empress had decided this was the best option—not that I could fathom why.
She was sadistic—maybe this was her way of making us suffer.
For what, I didn’t know.
I shook my head and moved on to the next section. Bending over, I reached for a box lower down.
“Priestess,” a voice spoke from behind me—one that made my blood turn to ice.
I jerked upright and spun around. “Victor,” I said.
He offered me a smarmy smile. “It’s good to see you.”
“You as well,” I lied.
“Are you looking forward to our little getaway together?” he asked in a way that made my skin crawl. “I think it will be quite enjoyable for you to get out of the palace and see another side of life, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes, I’m looking forward to it.” Lie. Lie. Lie.
“Wonderful. Say, why are so many people here and at such a late hour?”
“Two souls have gone missing, so the empress is having us look for them,” I answered, picking up the drawing of the souls from the shelf I had rested it on. My body screamed no! as I forced myself to step closer to him, handing over the paper.
Victor took it, studying it for a second. A strange look flickered over his face. It almost looked . . . calculated, but it was gone swiftly. “I know where they are.”
“You do?” I asked, surprised at this development.
“Indeed.” He handed the paper back to me. “I took them a week ago and have been working on bodies for them.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?” the empress roared, her voice murderous as she stomped up beside us. Startled, I jerked my face toward her. Her hair whipped violently around her, caught on the current of her anger.
“I didn’t think I needed to,” Victor retorted, completely unfazed by her fearsome state. “Do I need to, Avena? ”
She was silent. The storm passed in her eyes, and her hair floated back down. “No, you don’t,” she answered, forcing a breath of air into her lungs. “You said you are working on vessels for them?”
“I am, I am, and I’m glad to report they are close to being done. I had planned to surprise you with them before Priestess Avriel and I left. I figured they might be helpful to you in your search for Sagentia.”
“I had the same idea, which is why I was looking for them, but it would seem you are steps ahead of me,” the empress said, her tone much more friendly. “However, I have one more request.”
“What might that be?” he inquired curiously.
Her lips twisted into a cruel smile. “I want you to make another set of vessels for them. If they succeed at their task, we’ll give them their original vessel as a reward.
” Her eyes swung to mine, just noticing that I, too, stood there.
“Go tell everyone else the souls have been found and they are to leave the tower immediately.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” I said, bowing before I swiftly scampered away. I was more than happy to put some distance between me and them.
Come tomorrow, hopefully, it would be even more.