Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Emmeline
The washrooms of the instructors’ dormitory wing in the Lyra Temple Academy were crowded at this time of night after the students were in bed. Emmeline approached the door, her pack slung across her back, and listened carefully.
Fuck. She counted at least three, maybe four voices mingling within.
She wouldn’t be able to hastily rinse her blood-spattered clothes in the wash basin as she liked.
The material was dark enough that she could afford to wear them on her next venture into the city, but the smell would ripen.
At least it wasn’t the height of summer, when sticky humidity pressed across the jungle isle.
With a deep breath, she pulled down the skirt she’d slipped into after her hunt so it sat low enough on her hips that the ribbed, lavender chiffon trailed on the floor, hiding her boots, and she pushed the door open.
Eyes swung her way as the hinge squeaked, and for the briefest moment, the chatter hushed. Such a small stutter that some people might not even notice it. Not if it hadn’t happened in every room Emmeline walked into in this Academy since the day she’d arrived.
“Hello,” she said as she strode to the wash basin and rummaged through her bag.
She was used to the pauses, the discomfort from them. When one was given the prestigious job title of Lead Fate Tie Instructor without even having attended the Lyra Temple Academy, odd looks and curiosity made sense. It didn’t help that she was otherwise reclusive.
But the attention and inexplicable otherness she carried still twisted behind her ribs, a subtle sawing sensation tensing her lungs.
Emmeline forced herself to breathe through it as she pulled out her soap, towel, and comb, kicking her pack and boots into the shadows beneath the ledge of trough-style wash basins so no one would spot the bloodstained leathers.
“Hi, Emmeline!” Myrella, a fellow instructor, greeted with a cheery smile that smoothed out Emmeline’s breaths.
Her voice was eager, genuine care in her round eyes.
Myrella’s soothing presence seeped across every room she entered, which was beneficial since she worked with the Academy’s first-year students who had only just begun to learn their magic and were easily spooked by it.
As if a spell was broken, the others resumed their chatter, and Myrella asked, “How was your walk to the cliffs tonight?”
“It was peaceful. Thanks for asking.” Emmeline gave Myrella a soft smile in the mirror. Her round tawny cheeks lifted in response, giving way to dimples.
“Anything interesting in your readings?” Myrella stepped up beside her, dragging a comb through her wet hair.
Emmeline offered a little more to sell her ruse.
“The Fate was loud tonight, but she tends to be when I prolong tapping into the magic throughout the day. There weren’t any particularly impactful fortunes, though.
” She left it intentionally vague, but that wasn’t uncommon with Starsearchers.
Every member of the fortune-reading warrior clan was aligned to one of Valyrie’s twelve Fates, and many considered the readings passed through that tie to be very personal.
A detail Emmeline used to her advantage to avoid talking too much about her magic or the readings she conducted each night.
“How was your night?” she quickly asked.
Myrella’s cheeks darkened, hands pausing on the comb.
She was about to answer when a sharp voice preened, “Oh, little Myrella had quite an evening.” The speaker, Charisse, was perched in the circular windowsill with a rolled paper containing some kind of crushed herbs dangling in her hand.
Her waist-length braids were piled upon her head and tied with a silk scarf, bare feet tapping against the pale stone ledge with each of her teasing words.
“We went to the Mezzanine, and she was with one of the boys who came in on the latest ship all evening. They even disappeared for a long stretch, nowhere to be found.”
Giggles bounced off the stone floors, the other two instructors clearly as entertained as Charisse. Emmeline ignored the lump crowding her throat at the mention of Lyra’s most popular gambling and dance hall, wiping her sweaty palms on her dress and blinking through tunneling vision.
She cast a curious glance around the room. Regina lounged in the bathing tub behind a partition, only her feet visible, and Liana busied herself slathering her skin with an assortment of oils, but no one elaborated.
That feeling of otherness twisted behind Emmeline’s sternum again, but she raised her brows at Myrella. “Did you now?”
It wasn’t surprising that they’d gone out. Instructors at the Academy were allowed one school night off duty per week. Emmeline was the only one who didn’t partake, trekking to the cliffs every night to conduct her readings.
That was sanctioned by the Temple Master, though, in order to corral her overly insistent magic. She could have taken a night off if she liked, but she couldn’t afford to skip her personal missions in favor of taverns and incense dens.
It was better this way. To keep everyone at arm’s length.
Myrella waved off the taunts, but she wasn’t able to banish her rosy blush. “He was very kind, and yes we did speak outside near the docks for most of the evening.”
“Are you sure all you did was speak?” Charisse encouraged with a click of her tongue and a wiggle of her brows.
When the others joined in on the teasing, a beat of longing weighed Emmeline down, but she shoved it aside.
Charisse’s eyes glazed over from the drugs she was smoking, and Emmeline’s throat tightened as she took another long drag from the roll at her fingertips, a sweet, slightly burnt scent puncturing the air.
“You’re certain that strain is safe, Charisse?” Emmeline asked. She unplaited the two dainty braids pulling her hair back from her face, busying herself to hide any hint that she knew too much about the effects of tainted drugs and poisons.
“It’s as safe as the tinctures you use for your readings every evening.” The Apothecary Studies instructor—teaching everything from growing to harvesting to crafting—dismissed her concern. “These were bought from my personal supplier. Good for a bit of fun and relaxation, nothing more.”
“Okay,” Emmeline said. Swallowing, she tried not to sound like she was reprimanding her, to put herself even more on the outside than she already was. “But be careful. You know what they’re saying about the recreational stuff. Even harmless oils and incense are turning up contaminated nowadays.”
“It’s true,” Myrella added. “I spent six hours yesterday double-checking all of the Academy’s stores at the Temple Master’s request.”
That surprised Emmeline given that the Academy grew and processed many of their own oils, tinctures, and herbs used to conduct readings.
The supplies had been carefully harvested since the days the Angels created the seven Gallantian Warrior clans and Valyrie imparted her celestial magic onto the Starsearchers.
For centuries, the materials used for sessions had also been used recreationally, as Charisse did tonight.
From her window-perch, she puffed sweet smoke from the end of a lit roll of herbs, and nerves prickled Emmeline’s skin.
Different strains were grown to ease the mind and relax muscles rather than enhancing fated connections, but some created hallucinations or worse, and it was always tricky to ensure proper portions.
Those were the ones growing more dangerous as imports to and from the isles became less reliable and the drug problem grew worse.
But despite her glassy eyes, Charisse gave Emmeline a grim nod that said she understood the severity of the issue and was being careful. Emmeline worried her lip but didn’t respond.
“Oh, who cares about whatever Char is smoking right now? Little Myrella is going to have herself her first battle-worn soldier!” Liana cheered, flicking her sheet of ice-blonde hair over her shoulder as she perched beside Charisse in the windowsill, its round frame pressing them together.
“Please,” Myrella scoffed. “I’m only two years younger than you, Liana, yet you act as though it’s two hundred.”
“Two years isn’t much when warriors can live to five hundred,” Emmeline said, attempting to aid Myrella, who nodded emphatically.
“But some say you don’t become a woman until you’ve fucked a soldier,” Liana taunted, dragging her fingertips over Charisse’s knee.
Myrella argued, “Who says that?”
Liana shrugged and took a drag from whatever Charisse was smoking.
The star-flecked navy sky beyond their huddled frames wavered beneath the smoke.
Emmeline could just make out a few of the Fates’ major constellations.
Once, all twelve lined the skies, but ever since one suffered a brutal death long ago, only eleven shone.
“My grandmother taught it to me. She was very popular,” Liana hummed as she exhaled, the smoke obscuring the rest of the constellations from Emmeline’s view.
“My mother claims it, too,” Regina tossed from the bathing tub, water splashing across the stone floor.
Nose pointing up, Myrella spun toward them, her wet hair sending a sprinkle of water droplets over Emmeline’s skin and the mirror above the wash basins.
“He wouldn’t be my first! Just the first warrior I’ve been with who’s seen true battle.
And it’s a fruitless conversation anyway, because he’s leaving tomorrow. ”
“Leaving?” Regina sputtered with a commotion that sounded like she launched herself from the tub. Her head of dark, luxurious curls popped around the partition’s frame, an arm banded around her breasts and golden skin dripping.
“Yes, he has family matters to attend back home,” Myrella stated, her chin lifting even higher.
Liana clicked her tongue, chiding Myrella’s soldier’s inability to show her a true night of pleasure before he left.
Emmeline gathered her towels and soaps, ducking behind the second bathing partition, as the others chattered on about which instructors were sleeping together besides Liana and Charisse, and about the mysterious new sparring instructor rumor said would be joining the Academy after the last retired unexpectedly to travel the isles.
The water from the tap was blessedly hot, steam pooling over the edge as it filled.
Emmeline stripped down, grateful for the partition shielding the bits of blood that still flecked her skin.
Once the lavender oil she’d poured into the basin was permeating the air and the water was as high as the tub could bare, she sank in and reclined against the edge, allowing their voices to waft together.
It wasn’t that she didn’t care about the stories the girls shared—truthfully, she found them enticing and full of things she had too little of: leisure and pleasure.
But Emmeline had spent her entire life on the outside.
She was a jagged edge that never quite pieced with her peers exactly right, no matter how badly a part of her wanted to belong.
The men and women who worked at the Academy with her were welcoming enough, but there was always that initial beat of hesitation. Every room she stepped into, a lull followed. A look over a shoulder. An extra breath before the next sentence.
Often, as a girl, it was because she was shy. She never allowed others to get to know her. Here, it was because her position afforded her certain privileges, such as her nights reading at the cliffs rather than monitoring the corridors for rebellious students.
And truthfully, she used that distinction to avoid allowing others to get to know her too deeply.
Beneath the water, her nails scraped at the latticework of crescent-shaped scars along her thighs.
Flashes of blood dripping from a bedframe.
A knife sinking into a gut.
A cool, unwelcome hiss against her skin.
Her breath hitched, fingers curling into her flesh.
No. No one could get to know her. She needed to keep everyone out. To keep everyone safe.
“Emmeline?” Liana’s voice pierced her reverie as she peered around the partition, applying yet another layer of oils to her skin. “What in the Fates’ good names happened to your boots?”
Liana flung a hand toward the wash basin. Emmeline’s gaze drifted down to the crimson speckles coating the brown leather peeking out from beside her pack. Her heart stuttered, but she tilted her head as if noticing for the first time, masterfully masking any worry over being noticed.
“I took the path through the vineyards home tonight. Some grapes must have fallen from the vines early.”
Liana shrugged, flouncing back around the partition when Regina squealed about the new imports of wine that were arriving this week. After months of being stuck with only Lyra’s varietals, it was a treat. One that had a familiar longing beating through Emmeline’s chest.
Not for the vintage. For the innocent joy it afforded them all.
She reclined against the rim of the tub, spinning her opal ring around her finger. As she slipped beneath the surface, she knew it was an ache she couldn’t indulge.