Chapter 33 #2
“Two years to find another is plenty.”
“Stellan—”
“We can count on Cordelia to back us.”
“Even if she convinced half of the Council, it wouldn’t be enough. Unanimous or nothing, that’s the rule. For our own sake!”
Lunara shuffled closer and spotted her mother upon a settee, head in her hands.
The black waves of Almaura’s hair were mussed, her shoulders caved in and skin wan. Such despair, written right there on her body. Lunara had missed her mother’s frustration, a sort of dark surrender. Had she known, even then, what was coming?
“That can’t be the end of it!” Her father shouted. “We can fight the rules, make them hear us.”
“Two of us cannot make them do anything. They wish to shield him, so they will.”
“I know, but—”
“They’ll wait, as ever, until it can no longer be denied by anyone. Do you think his mate will agree based on hearsay? And from whom? Some street urchin in the Lower Block who swears he saw a ghost do it?”
“Someone died today, Almaura.”
The way her mother’s eyes closed… She’d known. Maybe not the particulars, but enough. Lunara wanted to scream at Stellan to listen. To be a worse person than he truly was, and save himself. Save all of them.
Her mother abruptly stood. “I am aware. But there’s no proof it was him. Nor was there proof for any of the others.”
“He said her throat was ripped out by a phantom. Who else could it be!”
Lunara’s gasp flew out of her, unchecked, and her parents’ heads snapped up.
For the first time, Lunara wished she’d stopped that sound. What else would they have said? Which of their deepest thoughts would they have voiced? What difference might it have made?
“You may as well come in,” her father said with a sigh. “Unless you prefer creeping around in the dark?”
Lunara pinched her lips between her teeth as she pushed into the room, looking anywhere but at them. “This is Nachthelliae. Aren’t we all creeping around in the dark?” Her joke pulled a rueful smile from both of them. “Besides, I wasn’t. I was getting a snack and thought I heard voices.”
Her mother snorted. “You’re a wretched liar, Lunara. Stick to the things you’re good at.”
Lunara’s answering look was sheepish as her father wrapped strong arms around her. “I’m sorry you heard that,” he said.
“Someone was murdered?” she asked, pulling away.
“Stellan, I don’t—”
“She deserves to know, Almaura. She should understand what she’s getting into when she endures her trial next week.”
A spike of excitement thrummed. Only days until she’d exhibit her power, publicly claim her name, and join the Elder Tier. Maybe even the Council, like her parents.
Ignorant, optimistic fool. Lunara remembered that moment of exhilaration all too well—felt it again now, straight to her bones—and she wanted to shake her useless, youthful self to knock some modicum of sense into her.
“What does my trial have to do with it?”
Her father plopped onto the settee and patted the space beside him. She sat as her mother perched on the arm, her parents lacing their fingers—as always when they were near one another.
“The Council is… complicated,” her father started. “You’re aware of their basic responsibilities, but you haven’t been exposed yet to our secret.”
Her heart picked up speed. More proof she was soon to be an Elder herself, privy to things others weren’t.
“I don’t like this, Stellan.”
A new ache bloomed watching her mother this time. Almaura had hidden it so well. The worry. The terror. It crept over her face so subtly it was no wonder Lunara hadn’t picked up on it before.
“Better she hear it from us than some prettified version when she’s initiated.”
Her father lifted a lock of her hair, rubbing the strands. He was always fiddling like that.
“The Keeper is our most sacred burden, Lunara.”
“Burden?” The word confused her. How could their protector, a gift to the Evesong from the Sisters themselves, be a burden?
When she said as much, her father let his head fall back to stare at the ceiling. “Sometimes a Keeper… loses their way. It’s our responsibility to determine when they’re no longer fit to wield the stone.”
“I know that. The vote is cast and they relinquish Illamiata to the next, living the rest of their days on the Isle in reward for their service.”
Her parents gave each other a long look, her mother’s jaw clenching. “Not exactly,” she said.
“The Elder Council watches the Keeper”—her father rubbed at his forehead—“for signs their journey is at its end.”
That was… cryptic.
“Would someone please say whatever it is in plain words?”
It was her mother who finally answered. “We don’t vote to send the Keepers off to a luxurious life on the Isle.
We pool our gifts and use them to reclaim Illamiata through violence.
It takes all of us, and we have to agree because we vote to eliminate them, Lunara—at great personal risk to ourselves. ”
She blinked, comprehending and yet… not.
“As far as we’re concerned, Malachyr has reached his end. He’s becoming erratic, strange. He’s hard to find, and tragedies are piling up behind him.”
“You think Malachyr the Mistwarden is murdering people?”
Hearing that name, spoken so reverently from her own lips and with such disbelief, opened a pit in Lunara’s stomach.
He’d been the Keeper longer than she’d been alive. She pictured his angular face, the way he commanded a room and was always so kind to her. She couldn’t imagine him harming anyone.
“Yes,” her father rasped, “but it isn’t his fault.
Illamiata corrupts its vessel over time.
The Keepers know this going in, and accept they’ll have to sacrifice their lives for the honor of once holding it.
Everything they do is for the Evesong. The Elders created the story of the Isle centuries ago because fallen Keepers deserved to have their memories held in the highest esteem after their death. ”
Shitting stars above. It hit Lunara all over again that Stellan had been the kindest male in all of Bordoroth. Gentle. Forgiving. Understanding. Even towards those who didn’t deserve it.
“If that’s their purpose, and they know he killed that girl…”
“They don’t know without a shadow of doubt, and that’s the problem,” her mother said. “No one saw him. At least, no one with enough credibility.”
“So they know, but are protecting him anyway.”
“Yes.” That one word from her father’s lips said so much more than its single syllable.
He gripped her hand. “It’s complicated. Malachyr has succumbed faster than most Keepers before him. He was meant to get us through the next Occurrence at least, but only made it a few decades. That’s alarming, and no one knows what to do with it.”
It wasn’t complicated. Not to her.
“I don’t…” Her stomach turned. “I want nothing to do with that.”
Lunara hadn’t been a total idiot, thank the Sisters.
Her mother reached down to cup her face. “Lunara—”
“No.” She stood, pacing. “How could I while knowing that? I thought I’d be helping people, leading our realm. Not covering up crimes and catering to murderers.”
“You must understand,” her father said, his gaze pleading. “The essence of the Council is good. It would only get better with more that share your mindset. If you don’t like the way it is, change it. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
She considered her father’s words, willing to admit their validity to a point. “I’ll think about it.”
No, don’t think. Just go! Run, as fast as you—
A flash of white glinted in Lunara’s periphery and she spun, coming face-to-face with a door. Gilded in gold and teeming with strange, intricate designs, it rose up from the middle of the floor, ever so slightly ajar.
In a daze, she moved towards it. Towards the light spilling through the crack that wasn’t quite right, and the answers it might give her. Her hand wrapped around the massive, curved handle at its center and a laugh bubbled up out of her.
No, wait. That wasn’t her—