Chapter 27 Romie
THE INSTITUTE WAS A FAR cry from the dank dungeons Atheia remembered from her day, where criminals of all stripes had been left to rot in the cold and the dark. But the essence remained the same.
There was a peculiar energy to the place, especially when blood was drawn from an Eclipse-born.
The lights flickered in and out, as if shying from the surge of unlimited power contained in that silvery substance.
Liquid magic. The wrong kind of magic, until it was mixed with the blood of a lunar mage to create a synthetic version of whatever tidal alignment they were born with.
A synthetic that could then be used by anyone to wield such magic.
It wasn’t exactly the eradication of Eclipse magic that Atheia had first envisioned, but it was ultimately what was happening here. Draining Eclipse-born of every morsel of power contained in their blood to give back to those who were always meant to carry magic in this world.
Atheia had been coming to the Institute for the last couple of days now, watching how the synthetics were made, taking inventory of all the Eclipse-born who were contained here, encouraging Regulators to round up more and more Eclipse-born and force their Collapsing upon them in order to access their silver blood.
The Tidal Council was a near permanent presence at the Institute, overseeing all of this.
Even the two boys, Louis and Javier, spent most of their time here instead of at the college, being groomed to take leadership roles within the Order once they graduated.
Javier, she learned, was a legacy who bore the name of one of the Order’s founding members, though none of his Belesa relatives who’d been Selenics before him were alive today to see him carry that legacy.
Louis, on the other hand, had no familial ties to the Order whatsoever.
Atheia was intrigued by them. According to Romie, the other Order member who should have been with them was Ife Nuru, yet the girl had abandoned the other Selenics to side with the Eclipse-born, just like Virgil and Nisha had sided with Emory.
It was odd, then, that these two boys had remained.
Was it loyalty to the Order that kept them here, or something else?
When Atheia looked into their minds, no memory raised suspicions.
And yet there was something there that caught her attention.
She’d been showering them with attention ever since, interested to know everything there was about them and their time spent with Emory.
With Keiran, too, this boy who had led the Order’s quest to wake the Tides.
Atheia would have very much liked to meet him.
She stood with Louis, Javier, and the Tidal Council in the clinical room where Eclipse-born had their silver blood taken.
Two Regulators brought in a woman who was fighting with everything she had, screaming at the top of her lungs in another language.
They managed to strap her to the gurney, but the young woman did not stop fighting even then.
Atheia’s heart nearly dropped at the sight of her.
She looked so much like someone she had known.
Jet-black hair, narrow dark eyes… and two distinct beauty marks on her cheek, one pale and smooth, the other dark and raised, overlapping the edge of the first one.
Like a moon creeping over the sun to eclipse it.
The resemblance was almost uncanny, and yet the differences were there the more Atheia looked. This was not the same woman. Of course it wasn’t, because the person Atheia was thinking of was long since dead.
“This one was a new professor at Karunang College,” the Memorist from the Council, Vivianne, said as she sifted through the woman’s memories.
“She was at Aldryn for the Quadricentennial and was found helping other foreign Eclipse students escape the Regulators. That’s when she was brought here and made to Collapse. ”
The woman spat at Vivianne’s feet. “May you all go to the Deep for this.”
Atheia stepped closer, eyes trailing the woman’s collarbone, where fine lines and geometric symbols were tattooed on her skin. “What are those?”
The woman only glared at her.
“They’re traditional to Luaguan culture,” Vivianne said, sounding bored. “A way to ward off the evil of Collapsing. Baseless superstition, clearly.”
A Regulator burst into the room then, his face pinched with concern. He carried an odd-looking device. A radio, Romie called it. “I—excuse the interruption,” the Regulator panted, “but I think you’ll want to hear this.”
The crackle of the radio gave way to a voice both Atheia and Romie recognized. It was Emory, going on and on about the power of unity and Eclipse magic and healing the world together. The message came to its end and started over, as if on a loop.
Atheia saw the flicker of doubt on the faces around her, the Regulators and the Council members.
It was there and gone, but it was clear they were taking Emory’s message seriously.
Atheia couldn’t let them start to doubt what they were doing, couldn’t let Emory’s words corrupt them from the path they walked.
The Eclipse-born strapped to the gurney laughed. “You’re all going to pay for this. The Shadow reborn will not let what you’re doing here stand.”
“Silence,” barked Leonie, the elderly Council member. To the Regulators, she said, “Someone get a syringe and take her blood already.”
“Wait,” Atheia said. “I have other plans for this one.”
An idea was forming. She watched Louis and Javier closely. “How long have you had those shields up in your minds?”
They blinked at her. “Wh-what?” Louis stammered.
“It’s a well-constructed ward, I’ll give you that,” she said to Javier.
“It speaks to your talent as Wardcrafter that no one else noticed. Small enough to pass undetected from, say, a Memorist, and iron-clad enough that no Unraveler would even know how to look past it.” Atheia tilted her head, smiling.
“But of course, as a deity, I see through it plainly enough.”
Javier narrowed his eyes at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She laughed. “The ruse is up, and the wards are down. If Vivianne were to look in your memories just now, she would see the truth: that you are here to act as spies, feeding information to your friend Ife in the Eclipse-born resistance through the Selenic Mark you bear.”
Vivianne’s mouth fell, her shock mirrored on the other Council members. Atheia could sense her rifling, now unencumbered, through the boys’ memories.
“It’s all true,” Vivianne breathed.
Louis reached for Javier’s hand, the two of them fitting together in grim solidarity, recognizing they had been made and there was nothing they could do to refute the word of a deity.
“Lock them up,” the New Moon leader of the Council said to the Regulators, his face red with anger. “Get them out of our sight.”
Atheia stopped the Regulators with a gentle hand. “That won’t be necessary. I have a better use for these two.”
Her eyes went to the Eclipse-born watching this exchange with a puzzled yet guarded look. It might have been Emory who’d sent that radio message out, but she spoke for all Eclipse-born, for Sidraeus, too. And Atheia had a message of her own to send.
You might want to look away for this, she told Romie as she lifted a surgical knife from a tray and got to work.