Chapter 18
Eighteen
As soon as I’m nestled in the gemstone walls of my chamber, I carefully remove the pressed zinnia, set it on the desk beside me, and begin to read.
I pore over the journal long into the night. Until sunlight bleeds through the skylights and sets the gemstone walls ablaze.
The words set my fury ablaze too.
My people have always speculated about how the Vanzadorians acquired their power. There are dozens of stories, songs, and scripture that range from slightly improbable to wholly ridiculous. But none of them comes close to the truth.
At least not the Vanzadorians’ version of the truth.
I bark out a laugh and flip back to the beginning of the journal, which belonged to Alaric’s great-grandfather, King Callahan Alaverdi—the man supposedly responsible for awakening their unnatural power.
“His audacity is astounding!” I say for what must be the tenth time. I’ve been pacing for hours, talking to the zinnia as if it’s actually my sister. Voicing the same thoughts I’m certain she had while reading Callahan’s account.
“Mustering the last of our courage, I led the remnant of our army to meet the Marauders at the pass,” I read, in a theatrical voice.
“We knew we were marching to our deaths. The canyon walls are low and offer little cover, and my people are cave-dwelling miners, not soldiers. Simple men and women with shovels and picks, outnumbered three to one against these insatiable raiders. But we couldn’t stand by and watch them steal every scrap of ore and nugget of gold and leave us with nothing to transport across the sea. No way to provide for our families.”
“Doesn’t that sound familiar!” I laugh bitterly. “You’d think the Vanzadorians would have a little more empathy for us.”
I resume reading. “The thieves attacked with the vicious strength of wolverines. By sundown, only a handful of men and I remained, and we fought with even more fervor than before. But it wasn’t enough.
My brother, Gershon, fell first, speared through the gut like a boar.
Then my uncle was brutally beheaded beside me, his blood coating my face like mist.
“I didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to defend my people, and I’m ashamed to admit, I didn’t want to go on.
Blubbering like a coward, I fell to my knees, dug my fingers into the rocky soil, and thought of my family.
I pictured the good hardworking people of Vanzador and begged their forgiveness as I called for the Marauders to finish me.
“But then the strangest thing happened.
“I’ve always heard that your life flashes before your eyes when you die, but the opposite was true for me.
The images I’d been clinging to—the faces and memories of the people I loved most—dissolved into a swirl of colors that fell from my eyes in a mudslide of tears.
One precious moment after the next coursed down my face and spattered the rocks, sinking into the thirsty ground, until my mind held nothing but blackness.
“I was utterly alone, screaming into the quiet dark. I didn’t want to die like this, but I also couldn’t press on through the emptiness. My soul cried out in agony, and that’s when I felt a shuddering, deep within the earth.
“All at once, a staggering surge of energy rose through the soil and into my fingers. My ears roared with the rumble of falling rocks. My tongue fizzed with the taste of silt and sediment. And I felt taller, stronger, and more unbreakable than the canyon walls themselves.
“I gripped the ground harder, hoping to steady myself against these delusions—for that’s what they had to be. But as my fingers closed into fists, the rocks surrounding us gave an ancient, deep-bellied groan. Then they moved.
“I shook my head, certain I’d imagined it, but the harder I squeezed, the louder the groaning became. Before I understood what was happening, enormous slabs of stone broke free from the canyon walls and tumbled into the pass, crushing the Marauders and, with them, the remnant of my army.
“When the landslide finally ceased, I alone stood in the dust and debris. I fell to my knees and wept prayers of sorrow and thanks, but secretly, I was terrified. Too terrified to touch anything. Or to think too hard about what had happened. Because, impossible though it seemed—as much as I hoped it was all a hallucination induced by terror—I knew I had somehow caused the rockslide. And when I looked down at my shaking hands, there was no denying that the earth had changed me. I could feel it there, in my blood, flesh, and bone.”
I shiver, even though my room is stifling, and wring my hand around the clover at my wrist until it burns.
Rowenna left a zinnia in this book. She clearly wanted me to find Callahan’s account and those three cryptic words.
The same words that just so happen to be carved into the walls of my maid’s quarters.
Words, I’m beginning to suspect, that were never a threat against my sister, but a clue.
Something she orchestrated. Which means my maid was telling the truth.
Ro held her at knifepoint and forced her to etch those disturbing words.
But why?
Callahan’s account can’t be true. We are Earth Mother’s chosen people.
She cast her lot with Tashir when she blessed us with bagrava.
She wanted us to survive and thrive on this hostile continent, so she never would have blessed the Vanzadorians with even greater power.
She would have foreseen how they’d misuse it against us.
Which means Callahan must have somehow stolen his strength from Earth Mother and invented this tale to absolve himself.
But if that’s the case, why was Rowenna so fixated on blood, flesh, bone?
Even if Callahan’s account is somehow true, it’s hardly a revelation that the power to move the earth is a part of his body the same way the ability to grow bagrava is part of mine.
And it doesn’t explain Rowenna’s obsession.
If anything, learning Soren’s power is a bodily part of him should have put an end to it.
Their power couldn’t be stolen, and killing them wasn’t an option either, since our protection from the Marauders would perish with them.
So what was her plan?
“What am I missing?” I shout at the little dried zinnia.
When Ro fails to answer, I snatch the flower and journal off the table and march back to Garitt Von Nevus’s rooms. He knew the Rowenna who lived on this mountain, and he led me to this account. Which means there’s clearly something more he wants me to know.
Probably the very thing that got Rowenna killed, my good sense warns. But I choose to ignore it. Just as I choose to ignore the sense of the prickling unease I felt in Von Nevus’s presence. If he wanted to hurt me, he could have easily done so during my first visit.
“I took your advice and did some reading!” I call out as I pound on his chamber door. A passing guard gives me a curious look, but I wave him off as I’ve seen Soren and Alaric do a dozen times.
As soon as Von Nevus’s face appears, I shoulder through the door, nearly knocking him over in my excitement to wave the leather journal in his face. “Is this what you sent me to find?”
After a few rapid blinks, Garitt closes the door, and by the time he turns to face me, his startled expression has morphed into an amused smirk. “Well done, Little Ro. That didn’t take long. Did you learn anything interesting?”
“Rowenna seemed to think so.” I open Callahan’s journal, extract the dried zinnia, and hold it out on my palm.
“I found this tucked into an account of the battle when King Callahan obtained his power. The moment he claims the strength of the earth sank into his blood, flesh, and bone. Do those words mean anything to you?”
Instead of answering, Von Nevus reaches wistfully for the zinnia in my palm. “Gods of the mountain, I’ve missed those little pops of sunshine.”
I close my fingers around the flower. “Answer the question.”
He scowls at my clenched fist before raising his gaze to mine. “Are you asking for a lesson in basic human anatomy? Because blood is the red liquid that seeps from a wound when you—”
“You know what I’m asking,” I cut him off.
“Calm down. I’m just having a bit of fun.”
“Nothing about this is fun!”
“Yes, you’re making certain of that,” he mutters.
He gestures for me to sit in the same dark leather chair as my last visit, but instead of taking the chair opposite, he perches on the arm of mine. He’s so close, his burgundy waistcoat brushes my cheek and the spicy musk of his cologne tickles my nose.
I shift uncomfortably and lean away, hoping he’ll notice and give me space, but he continues looming over me, peering down with a smile, as if this should be the most natural thing in the world.
And maybe it should be. Maybe this is how allies act.
Maybe this is the level of trust required, and he’s testing me before he reveals more.
I clear my throat, open the journal, and point to the words blood, flesh, bone.
“I found these same words cut into the wall of a closet in Rowenna’s bathing room.
I think she may have carved them herself, after reading this account.
Do you know anything about that? Perhaps she told you what she was doing?
You were clearly her closest confidant.”
“Sadly, I was never invited into your sister’s bathing chamber,” Von Nevus laments coyly.
I spear him with a glare, and he raises his hands.
“Fine, fine. Rowenna and I never spoke of her scheming outright. As one of Soren’s advisors, I needed to keep my integrity somewhat intact.
I simply made offhanded suggestions that she pursued as she pleased. ”
That would imply you had any integrity to begin with, I want to snarl, but I hold my tongue.