Chapter 6
MONUMENT PARK, PROTECTED LAND, DELORNIA
With dread hanging heavily over me, I stroll through the thick morning mist that clings to the many statues of Monument Park.
I barely slept the night before despite my exhaustion.
Lying on my back room’s floor probably didn’t help, but I couldn’t stand to leave Lucas alone and was too weak to carry him to my loft.
I try to shake my bitterness towards Valen for making me wait precious hours to meet.
He can’t catch onto my desperation for the unicorn hair. It would give him too much leverage.
I slipped on an alternate version of my Aster Rosemont disguise before leaving in case there were other park visitors. Wearing my eyes green and hair tinted red helps ease the rippling unease of being exposed outside of my shop. At least the sun is rising to chase away the darkness.
Viola’s letter constantly spins in my mind, “He knows,” echoing over and over until insanity threatens to take over.
It’s why I ensured that the heart of my shop was properly fed, so the wards remain strong while I’m gone.
It’s a tricky task, one where I carefully syphon the extra magic from my grimoire inventory to feed the pentagram painted along the back wall in a hidden alcove.
My own magic is always suckled on in this process, and though I’d only regenerated a small portion of my usual reserves during the night, it was well worth the risk to keep my fortress secure.
A lump forms in my throat. Viola’s response to my letters detailing my shop’s heart was glowing with pride.
I had to bend all four magic sources to create Peripetia, a feat that usually only the Archweaver and Heir can manage.
Preservation magic sits at its core to make the wards near impenetrable, with Entropy woven into it to power the building.
Then I layered their counterparts on top.
Transformation to shift the store back and forth and Creation to power the enchantments.
Awareness prickles my scalp and pebbles my skin, offering me a much-needed distraction from Viola.
In this haunted land that divides Havenport from the Astrum Forest, it is said that specters rise to continue a war that ended five hundred years ago.
It drives visitors away, making the park the perfect place to meet Valen.
After all, not many wish to visit a mass grave.
Beneath the lush grass and pretty memorials are bones.
Decomposed weavers and magicians form the large hill that the park resides on, a result of people growing tired of digging and performing burial rites.
Instead, they piled the bodies after the last battle of Delornia’s Revolution was fought and ignited them.
The smoke was so thick that it rained ash upon Havenport for days.
I try not to think about the number of bodies required for such an event as I trudge up the steady incline.
Here, the Archweaver Antonia cut down Leon Obdurate, the magicians’ radical leader.
With him died the secret of ripping out Soul Threads from weavers and embedding them into objects to create magician tokens.
Finally, the magician numbers were capped and tokens became an irreplaceable commodity among the humans skilled enough to master them.
The hunting of weavers by the Guild became illegal with the treaty signed by the Order and Delornia.
Order was restored, but the world was changed.
The death toll was high, especially among the Entropy weavers whose lands lay along the human boundary.
Victorious yet outnumbered substantially by humans, the weavers had no choice but to grant Delornia independence after seventeen hundred years of Archweaver rule.
Delornia was divided. The Astrum Forest and its sprawling wilderness and mountains were given to the weavers and the rest was handed to the humans. The humans elected a Prime Minister to lead them and a Magical Magistrate to control magic within Delornia.
Without Leon to lead them, the remaining magicians bowed to their new government’s rule. Leon’s Guild was fractured and what were once the leaders of human independence crumbled to infighting over the remaining tokens.
Humans were free, but they relied on the weavers for the comforts magic gave them. That is, until recently.
After a thorough sweep of the area to ensure I’m alone at this early morning hour, I make my way through the lingering tendrils of mist towards the park’s center.
There, I wait for Valen to arrive, silently gazing at the monument before me.
A massive slab of polished black slate expands over the earth with five large white marble statues of the weavers who ruled during the end of the Revolution.
Decorative bronze pathways connect points of a compass with the Council of Weavers sitting at each tip.
Creation is north, Preservation in the east, Entropy sits on the southernmost point, with Transformation in the west. At the center is the fifth statue, the Archweaver.
The statue of the Archweaver Antonia, my great-grandmother, stands taller and grander than the other four.
Fierce and formidable, she stares out towards the human lands, as if daring them to challenge her authority again.
Her diaries were my favorite reading material as a child and the start of my love of old books that led to my career as a dealer.
I used to sneak down into the estate’s deep underground archives to read them in blissful, musty silence.
Antonia’s diary that recounts how she ripped off Leon’s hands before decapitating him in a bloody show of raw, magical force was a particular bedtime favorite of mine.
Once I finished making my way through each diary, I convinced Viola to teach me how to read the entombed Archweaver grimoires.
Only a select few have the power and skills to do so.
After all, they are far different to any other weaver grimoire.
The Archweaver’s Soul Thread is a rope of all four sources and the bindings hidden within the book’s spine hummed with power like a forbidden song.
The elevation of their spells was beyond my young mind’s comprehension.
Getting my hands on any of them now would be a dream.
I hesitate before stepping onto the bronze path. Slowly, I follow it down towards the southern point, where my other ancestor stands.
I crane my neck to look upon my great-great uncle, Gerald Rosemont, the most powerful leader the Entropy Domain has ever had.
Rumors spread that he was so skilled at wielding Entropy that he could suck the soul out of a human with only a prolonged glare.
But I’m better educated than that. I know he burned them with the Entropy Flame, the Rosemont line’s most formidable magic and most horrific weakness.
A black flame, mirroring the power of the Creation Flame, that burns cold as ice and reduces its victims to ash, including the Entropy weavers that wield it too carelessly.
I search my uncle’s face like I do every time I visit, hoping to see something familiar within the stone features. But alas, there’s nothing. I only resemble my father’s side of the family.
My shoulders roll, the phantom of Aunt Vi’s comforting hands chilling me.
It was always Aunt Vi who took me here to tell me stories of the Rosemonts.
My little heart clung to those slivers of a long-dead family with both hands.
Now, it’s Viola’s presence that my heart yearns for, but there is nothing that can be done about that.
With a sigh, I look away from Gerald’s face to drift down to his shoulders, where a stone cat lounges.
Statue Jinx is as elegantly bored as ever.
The artist must’ve known the Rosemonts’ one and only familiar to capture her so well.
I huff a small breath and smile, my tension easing with the distraction.
A low voice speaks from behind. “Jinx does look stunning there, doesn’t she?”
Shivers ripple up me and it takes all my control not to squeak when I jump. Valen’s lips brush my short hair and he chuckles darkly in my ear, “I’ll take your surprise as the highest compliment to my stealthiness and not an insult to my integrity. Surely you knew that I’d come when you called.”
I blame my fluttering stomach on my nerves and not Valen’s proximity. I sorely miss being in my shop, where I could use the front counter as a barrier between us. Now there is nothing but my own self-control to keep me away from him, and that’s rapidly eroding by the second.
The wind shifts, and I breathe in the scent of his cologne.
Clean, with a hint of spice and flowering citrus that I can’t recall the name of.
A wave of nostalgia sends me falling into the past, where I’d press my nose into his neck and breathe, the warm skin there a haven from the harshness of our world, and the vice around my chest would loosen until all that kept me standing were his arms around me.
Pressure behind my eyes builds and my throat tightens.
With my breath held, I step away from his warmth and wrap my coat around myself like a shield.
I try to hide my retreat by following the path that leads to the Preservation Domain’s statue.
The fresh air helps center me, hints of cedar from the bordering forest calming my racing heart.
I cannot afford to be distracted, and I breathe in deep to purge my nose of Valen.
Whatever happens here, I must keep Valen from realizing how much I need his help.
If he smells even a hint of my true desperation, he’ll use it to force my hand.
I don’t know how much I would sacrifice to get the unicorn hair, but I’m out of options.
To walk away without the strand would mean death for Lucas.
I smile at Valen and nod towards the statue of his ancestor. “The likeness is astounding.”