Chapter Thirty-Three Viola #3
“I promise,” Beau murmurs, then he draws his dagger. Ever so carefully, he pokes the tip of Victor’s thumb, holding his hand a moment longer. Victor doesn’t break eye contact with Beau as he presses his thumb to the authorization form.
My hands are clammy as we head to the door. Beau tucks the agreement in his jacket. Before we step out, he gives Victor one last look.
“What was that about?” I ask as we retrace our steps back to the front.
“I’m not as forgiving as you.” Beau looks down. “Even if, sometimes, I wish I were.”
When we come out to the front room, Lyria waits there alone.
I wonder where the guard went. She sees us, and her face lights up.
“He was trying to dig for old copies of The Daily Mage with your picture, Beau. Sylas offered to help him get out of prison duty. They’re in the back room.
Let’s go before he’s out and gets suspicious again. Sy will meet us at the cemetery.”
Beau gives her a delayed nod, and she frowns. “Haal, you look frazzled. I’ll drive.”
Lyria drives two streets over from the prison and parks near a large lone mausoleum occupying a vast garden.
Willow trees border the garden from the street.
I expect to see more greenery and flowers, but the cold white stone building with a vaulted roof sits in the middle of the same unnatural manicured grass that’s all over Riverview.
We step out of the car onto the wet grass. As we get closer to the structure, I pull my jacket closer; maybe it’s just the drop in temperature or maybe it’s my fear creeping up my spine, because I am suddenly deathly afraid of going in there. What if I’m stuck in ghost paralysis again?
I won’t let you, my ghost reminds me. I nod in thanks, unable to form any words.
Beau steps in between the pillars and slides open the heavy door, and we walk in to find a large marble pedestal in the middle of the small, rectangular room. To my right and left are stairways, and toward the back of the room, two other stairways mirroring them.
“It’s the registry,” Lyria says as we pass the thick leatherbound book that sits on the pedestal. She takes the top right stairway and leads me down two flights that open to an endless maze of smaller marbled mausoleums.
If the burial chamber at Gorhail was extravagant, this place was forged by the Gods.
It’s huge, with its own path system and dustmaker-powered streetlamps.
I stare in awe as I walk past the individual mausoleums lining the pathways in alphabetical order.
All are marked by their House crest. It feels like we’re in a small city, walking through the history of thousands of families.
Beau stops in front of a small white-and-gold mausoleum. “My parents are here,” he says.
I remember Sylas told me most mages were buried in the crypts at Riverview. Beau runs his hand over the black plaque in the middle. Etched in gold is his last name: CARDOT.
He pats his coat, then turns to Lyria. “Do you have your dagger? I think I left mine back at the prison.”
Lyria shakes her head. “Nyx can…”
“What’s the first rule of the field?” Sylas’s voice echoes off the walls before I see his silhouette. Lyria mutters a curse under her breath. “What is it, Beau? Because you’re a regular on the field now.”
“Never step out without a dagger,” Beau mumbles.
“Now, whose genius idea was it to forget all your weapons? It’s after curfew.
Do we think Riverview is immune to poachers?
” Sylas scolds us as if we’re a group of incapables.
Incapable of making our own decisions, incapable of handling ourselves.
The last one might hold some truth, but still, the condescension in his tone annoys me to no end.
Sylas hands Beau his dagger, then he cautiously approaches me, his eyes trailing the length of my body. “Did Victor help?”
“Nothing new.” I shake my head. “We did get permission to bring a reader to his mother, but not before he aired out some frustrations about how we are privileged and never face consequences.”
“Funny, coming from an Arkani.” Sylas scoffs.
“Our magic is our consequence. Death magic sacrifices the Mortemagi, and Aspieri are brainwashed to think that death is honorable during fights and somehow above survival. What consequences do they have for their magic? None. If they run out of magic, they refill it with dust, and they can make dust out of anything.”
“I told him I’ll testify that there was no Mortemagi,” I blurt out, meeting his eyes.
“You can’t do that.” He echoes his brother’s words.
“I only have two, maybe three more years left to live.” A shiver crawls down my spine as I speak. Somehow, with Sylas in front of me, the words weigh heavier. I thought I had come to terms with dying, but the dread curling in my chest begs to differ.
“Viola…” Sylas’s worried gaze stirs a low, warm feeling in my belly. I still don’t know what to make of us: not quite friends, not quite more. I’m used to the cold, calculating, and volatile Sylas, not the calm, understanding, and concerned one.
“Ouch,” Beau groans, drawing our attention. He hands the dagger back to Sylas and flattens his bloody palm on the crest to the right of the door. At first, it faintly lights up. Then it burns fiery red as the door opens with a high-pitched scrape.
“Wait here,” Beau says. But Sylas is already following him into the darkness.
“He’s not so bad, you know?” Lyria rests her head on my shoulder. “Losing Dad was tough for him.” She blinks and a warm tear trickles down my arm. “He carries Dad’s death as his personal failure. And now, a unit was killed, and Gryff is in recovery for weeks because of his actions…”
“What happened with your dad?” I ask. Then I realize I’m overstep-ping and immediately apologize. “You don’t have to—”
“Sylas disobeyed orders and ran into poachers. They were outnumbered, he and Gryff. Dad let go of Raiek to save Sylas, and a poacher killed him so fast that Railesza couldn’t heal him in time.”
Gods. I bring my hand to my mouth, tears prickling at my eyes. I feel sorry for him, for all of us, for having to live through the loss of our parents, our family, and our friends. We were all children, robbed of our innocence too young.
“As I was saying…” She clears her throat. “He’s not a bad person. You should give him a chance.”
“He hates my magic,” I murmur.
“Death magic killed Mom,” she whispers. “But you aren’t the worst of your magic. I’d argue you’re the best of it.”
I want to tell her that if I could scrape the magic from my veins, I would. What good has it brought me other than heartbreak and misery?
Before I can reply to her, Beau steps back out, his face beaming like the sun. Around his arm is a shiny emerald aspier.
Lyria’s jaw drops. “Haal, she’s even more stunning in person. No offense to you, Railesza,” she calls back into the vault.
“Vi, this is Briar, my father’s healing aspier,” Beau introduces her.
Lyria reaches for the aspier, but Briar pulls back, cocking her head.
Then, slowly, she rubs against Lyria’s finger.
“She’s a healer like Railesza,” Lyria says softly.
Briar’s scales are sharply woven along her slender body.
Her emerald is lighter than Railesza’s, and her eyes lean more yellow than green.
A moment later, Sylas joins us, brushing spiderwebs from his jacket, Railesza coiled around his left arm again. He tousles his raven-black hair, shuddering as he steps out of the crypt. “With all the money we sink into the Balish economy you’d think they’d clean these things.”
“How many aspiers are there?” I ask.
Beau shrugs. “More than there are Aspieri, for certain. Our books say that in the beginning, Haal granted all Aspieri three aspiers. It’s not until Gorhail was founded that the singular aspier became common practice. Then you have Sylas, who needs to be special.”
“You ass.” Sylas loops his arm around Beau’s neck, ruffling his hair. Lyria pushes her way in the middle, wrapping her arms around both of them. I smile, watching them make their way through the paths, taking a different route than the stairs we came down.
My steps lag behind. The lavish decor of some of these mausoleums brings me pause; how important must the dead be for them to have a whole city in which to rest. Magic is so deeply rooted in family history— something that’s forever lost to me.
As I cross over to another section, a dull, golden plaque glues me in place.
The Corvi name twinkles under the low light, our House crest above it. I look around, and my eyes fall on the statue of a raven standing on a short pillar to the right of the black marbled mausoleum. The raven’s sapphire eyes burn into mine, daring me to take a step forward.
I do.
The raven blinks. Impossible. It’s but a statue, guarding the bodies of the dead.
My fingers caress the top of its head, running down the length of its beak, when something sharp pricks my finger, spilling blood in the small stone bowl that sits in front of it.
The raven’s eyes turn red, and the door scrapes open.
I hold my breath.
This could be a trap. Poachers could be waiting inside, ready to kill me and take my cuff. But my legs are ensorcelled, and the faint light coming from the inside lures me through the door.
An altar welcomes me with a single black candelabra in the middle. I run my hands along one of the three long, black candles, feeling the ridges of the melted wax. There is no dust; these candles seem to be new. My finger brushes across the altar, and it comes away with a thick layer of gray.
My suspicions ring true. Someone was here recently.
I glance over my shoulder. No one followed me in. I wonder if they even noticed my absence, but this place won’t let me dwell for too long. The arched opening behind the altar invites me in, and I press my heels into the floor to mute my steps.
Several rows of vaults are laid out in the same fashion as the burial chamber.
I approach one. Isobel Corvi, it reads. The next one: Percival Corvi.
The next and the next are generations of Corvi I’ve never heard about.
When I die, will I be buried here? Or will I be buried next to Olivia in Albion, even if we’ll never be together in death?
I hold the thought, because the inscription on the last vault steals my breath.
Rhea Visaya Corvi. Nan. I blink, and I am ten years old again, told I couldn’t attend Nan’s burial because only mages were allowed at mage burials.
I had to say goodbye at the vigil, and Olivia was the only one allowed to watch her casket be placed into this vault.
Hesitantly, I brush the plaque with my finger. It’s still bleeding, and red smears across the gold, filling in the cracks of her name. That’s when I hear the quiet scrape of a boot against the marble.
My heart thumps, and I cling to the vault like Nan’s ghost will crawl back from the Underworld to save me. I take comfort that if I do die, I’ll die in my ancestor’s resting place.
“Viola.” Sylas’s voice is breathy. There is no bite to it, only concern and… relief.
I whirl.
His eyebrows pull together as he runs his eyes all over my body, a new habit I’ve noticed since Dearly Departed, as if he’s constantly making sure no part of me is hurt. No one’s ever looked out for me like he does; no one’s ever feared losing me before.
He comes closer, and the thump of his heart sets my own alight.
Gods, he must have been worried if he hurried here.
I lift my head to meet his eyes, swallowing hard.
He’s looking at me like nothing else matters, and Gods, I want to run my hands through his soft hair.
I want to hold his face and tell him to close the distance between us.
And ancestors be damned, I want to kiss him.
His hand brushes my hair behind my ears, and he holds it there, cradling my head as his gaze trails from my eyes to my mouth. “Don’t scare me like that again,” he whispers.
The vault clicks open, startling us. He quickly lowers his hand, and I steal the briefest glance at his flushed cheeks while biting down a smile. Letting out a steadying breath, I return my attention to the vault in front of me, prying the door open with my fingers.
At first, I don’t see anything, but Sylas brushes past me, Raiku perched on his hand, hissing violently. I watch helplessly as his face drains of color and his mouth falls open. Something from the vault rattled him, so much so that he’s not saying anything.
Leaning in, I scan over Nan’s belongings.
In the middle of her jewelry sits something I mistook for a choker countless times when I was a child rummaging through her jewelry drawer. Hidden in plain sight is a scaly, black metallic necklace.
But now I know it’s not a necklace at all. It’s an aspier.