Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Emmeline
Emmeline made quick work of switching out her everyday wear for the spare leathers she kept stuffed in the back of a cabinet overflowing with old scrolls within what was once the office of the temple ruins.
They weren’t as fitted as her usual pair, the material gaping in some places, nearly worn through in others. But she didn’t have time to complain.
Not if she wanted to follow those men. The pounding in her chest had her quickly lacing up the ties at her waist and sliding a handful of triple blades and regular daggers into their sheaths.
She tore out of the sanctuary and toward the vineyard, skidding to a halt as she searched for footsteps. Two sets—one back through the grapevines and another in the opposite direction. Toward the jungle path that wound through the fields of Apothecary Lands until it hit the Eastern Port.
She took a hurried step after that pair, remembering Roremar’s idea of searching the docks for any relation to the disappearing women, but a pounding behind her ribs pulled her to a stop.
Quickly, she took a steadying breath and unlatched her lock on the fortunes.
What path will end in finding out what those men were up to? she asked.
She was prepared to be assaulted with the unfinished readings from before, but a fresh wave of starfire blared behind her vision.
Voices barreled down on her, a barrage as it always was—even without incense.
The tunnel of hot white fire seared as it roared back to life around her.
Spirits, she hated this pressure, this unyielding hurricane that whipped her focus back and forth with dizzying force.
Her skin heated, pulse pounding with the cataclysmic celestial power, as if the stars were within her.
Hurry! she begged and screamed, needing one ounce of clarity to tell her which path to choose.
Not that the Fates ever spoke blatantly.
It was a part of the magic they wove, being vague as all realms. Unable to actually tell a warrior what to do, only offer a multitude of fortunes as to where the current path could lead.
Endless ruin.
It will not be long now, Reignarria.
The time the Fates took didn’t normally frustrate Emmeline, having grown used to it in the more than two decades she’d been practicing, but now, as her boots sank into the soft soil with every passing second and the footsteps stretched further away, anger roared within her.
And that furious demand was enough to stir up a response.
Left leads to tragedy, right leads to revelry.
She took a second steadying breath to parse through the riddles. Revelry. That had to refer to the Promenade that cut through the isle. The man who went right would likely head there from the docks.
But the left…
Tragedy.
Emmeline didn’t think twice. She dove down the vineyards back toward Lyra Temple Academy, careful to stifle her panting breaths and keep her footsteps as light as a jungle cat.
She may not be a physical trainer at the Academy, but she’d learned self-defense as a girl and now she worked hard to keep herself in shape for her nightly hunts, stealthy as could be.
It proved useful in moments like this, when she could hear her target’s footsteps over her own, sloppy through the dirt paths.
She slowed to a prowl as the Academy loomed into view ahead.
Her target stuck close to the pools of shadow created by the towers poking up from its stone facade but not close enough to raise alarms with the guards.
They cut around the high exterior wall and down through the jungle-covered hills that led toward town.
Emmeline silently thanked the Fates for that path as she scaled a trellis outside Mist and Rose, her favorite apothecary shop at the top of the ridge, and followed the cloaked form from the rooftops.
His hood remained up as he wound through the tightly packed buildings.
Their range of colorful tones—from corals to baby blues to dusty purples—were dimmed, the occasional mystlight splashing across the rainbow that forged the Constellation Isles.
Greenery cascaded down stone storefronts like waterfalls, and stained glass and murals dotted the spaces between.
But tonight, as Emmeline jumped from rooftop to rooftop, needing to find this man the Fate said was a lead, Lyra’s beauty was eclipsed.
It was masked by that darker, threatening side. The one that was addictive and consuming, that distracted you by tying a starry blindfold around your eyes while also slipping a noose around your neck if you dropped your guard for too long.
But it was the landscape of her dark fairytale.
And she in turn became its mistress. A huntress thirsty for blood to paint its colored walls. Another justification in the universe, a rung on the ladder she scaled to earn retribution for all she’d lost.
Emmeline followed her prey silently—keeping one eye on the Fates for warnings of the shadowed figure’s next moves—until he ducked inside an unmarked building at the edge of the Peddler’s District where the streets were quiet.
Based on the violet lace curtains and buttery mystlight spilling through the window and illuminating a small kitchen within, it didn’t appear to be an incense den, tavern, or gambling hall. It was a home. One of many lining the narrow alleys winding through this part of the isle.
This building lacked the personal touches other homes on this street boasted, only a couple plants sitting out front. Perhaps the owner was simply bland. Or perhaps they were trying too hard to be discreet. It was likely the former, but she’d be naive to discount other options.
Emmeline folded herself into the shadows atop the roof across the street and made sure to lock out all forceful fortunes as she waited.
Stare intent on the door, she propped her back against a chimney and surveyed the street.
Only once she was certain her post was secure did she slowly let readings seep through her mind one whisper at a time.
They were sweet melodies and brutal declarations, melting into the noises of the island night.
In the distance, back toward the Promenade and the docks, music and cheers spiraled into the navy skies, mingling with the constellations.
This. This was how she preferred her magic.
In these small, harmless doses. So rare when it typically barreled down on her torrentially.
Shadows wavered behind the windows in the home she watched as if the person she’d followed stood on just the other side of the curtains. Her pulse pounded harder with every moment she waited.
A black cat scampered down the street, drinking from a small dish of water set a few feet from the door.
Star flies dotted the night as they crept out of the jungle, their tiny bodies buzzing with glimmering white light and creating a dull hum to which her readings simmered, and her pounding heart tried to calm.
Time stretched toward midnight. Darker corners of the city would be waking, hosting trades by now. Illegal drugs smuggled through the ports were likely being passed around shadowed alleys, heretics rising in the Cursed Markets. Putting more people at risk that she’d have to let go tonight.
Endless ruin.
That was what kept blaring through her mind, the phrase a falling star.
She couldn’t abandon this assignment from Falliare if she wanted to get to Valyn. The capital city was the most likely place she’d find answers, and while she could leave her post at the Temple Academy and move there herself, she needed the access to records an instructor position would provide.
And the security.
So she couldn’t give up on this case, but if she pursued it, would she be led into a fortune drowning in white fire?
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there contemplating her options, but eventually, the bell at Lyra Temple Academy rang out midnight. And still, this man had not exited the building.
Even if this had been some lover’s nest, that was much longer than—
In the distance, a piercing scream cut through the night, trembling enough to rattle every constellation lining the sky. Dread pooled in Emmeline’s gut as she shot to her feet because somehow—by Fates or by pure instinct—she knew that scream meant loss.
And she’d followed the wrong target.
Her heart rate slowed as if beating through sludge, and she forced her legs to move. Forced herself to jump from ledge to ledge, following the crowds now flooding toward those screams.
And as fate pounded at her mind, she didn’t need to open up her readings to know what it would say. She’d been harping over her own endless ruin, but perhaps it was Lyra’s she needed to fear for.