Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Roremar
The icy water bit at Roremar’s back, his arms plunging in and out with steady strokes.
Those damn hazel eyes.
Her eyes.
They’d plagued him all night as he drowned in a dark haze punctured by flashes of fiery stares.
He’d tossed and turned, sheets fucking soaked and slicking to his bare skin until he couldn’t take it anymore.
He’d only managed to fall asleep for a couple hours before he was roused once again and finally gave up.
He’d peeked into the three other bedrooms at the top of the stairs before creeping out of his family home and striding quickly down the path that cut from the cliffs to the beach.
The sand had been cold beneath his bare feet, but his body was on fucking fire, his blood a living star. Not flowing through him—tunneling. His entire being had been excavated all night long by the beating inferno that was Emmeline DeLeoste’s stare as it bore into him for some Fatesdamned reason.
Even now, with the sharp sting of the waves off the coast of Lyra trying to turn his body to ice, all he could think of was those eyes.
The worst part? He’d only realized last night that it hadn’t been the first time he’d seen it. Emmeline’s hazel eyes had been burning into his subconscious for longer than he’d even known her, like she was some strange, reoccurring dream.
He didn’t know what that meant.
And trying to puzzle it out had driven him crazy. Hence, the sunrise swim.
The ocean had always soothed him. He thought it went back to his father and how they used to sit on the cliffs together.
How he’d taught Roremar and his siblings to swim and sail when they could rent small boats from the local dockworkers.
Originally from Della, the isle furthest west responsible for naval defense, Roremar’s father, Deacon Silventa, was at home on the sea.
Along the shores of the mainland, the Seawatcher clan were responsible for guarding the coasts, but they—like other warriors—had neglected the Constellation Isles for as long as the history books dated back, so they fended for themselves.
And while Deacon had moved to Lyra before his Fate tie had even woken, he always claimed his soul ebbed with the tide.
That was a piece of his father Roremar refused to let fade away.
This morning, though, for the first time, the methodic swim wasn’t fucking working. He couldn’t get those damn eyes out of his mind. It was like Des had snuck inside his head and tattooed them on his fucking memory.
Growling, Roremar waded back to shore and toweled off, shaking his head so droplets of water sprinkled dark specks along the white sand.
He dug his feet into the cool ground, praying to any damn Fate or Angel that would listen that his dad might send him a sign. Help him figure out…any of this mess.
But the stars had already gone to sleep for the day, and while the Starsearcher Angel, Valyrie, walked Ambrisk, who in the Spirits’ names knew where she was.
With the pleas for his father, guilt ripped a hole wide in his chest. Shivers more powerful than anything the ocean wrought in him wracked his body.
His hands were sticky. Vision blurry with dark spots.
Breathing through the knife in his chest, lungs attempting to seize, Roremar pressed a hand to the letters tattooed on his ribs. He turned his back on the ocean and climbed toward the house, pretending he was ready to battle another day.
He had to be.
The rickety kitchen door rattled shut behind Roremar just as his stomach grumbled.
“Bit early for a mess,” Nico joked, shooting a pointed look at the puddle forming at Roremar’s feet.
“Valyrie’s tits,” he swore.
From her spot beside the wide wash basin, his mother raised an eyebrow at his curse, and he muttered a quick, “Sorry, Mother,” as he dropped his towel from his waist and stooped to mop up the checkered tile.
Dim mystlight reflected on the floor as he cleaned it, drying himself off and draping the towel on the pale wooden worktable when he was done.
His undershorts clung tight to his thighs, the black cotton drenched and finally making him cold for a reason other than his drowning grief.
Feeling a bit less numb for it, he crossed the room and poured a glass of blood orange juice.
As he drank, he leaned back against the counter, pale green trimming the white tile’s edges and matching the curtains framing the window.
“How was your swim?” His mother yawned, watering eyes lined with exhaustion that twisted Roremar’s chest. He scanned the counter, the fresh loaf of bread and muffins cooling beside him.
“Fine. You haven’t gone to bed yet?”
“Heading there soon,” she said as she wet a rag and scrubbed the countertops.
“How’s your head?”
She gave him a soft smile. “Good today.”
Roremar exchanged a glance with Nico that said they’d both heard her come home from work in the middle of the night.
Her job at Felicity’s Tincture Shop in the Peddler’s District often kept her late when they needed to harvest specific starlight blooms. It was grueling physical work—not great for someone who had battled chronic headaches since she was a girl—but his mother wasn’t an ascended warrior.
Like many Starsearchers, she didn’t pass her qualifying rituals.
Unlike some, her Fatorum Revelus didn’t result in death, but it did limit what jobs she could take.
Felicity’s was one of the few, and she loved the work. Always had, even before times were harder for their family. That was what mattered.
No matter how much Roremar wanted to relieve that pressure from her shoulders.
“We’ll clean up,” Roremar told his mother, lifting the rag from her hand as he set his glass in the wash basin and gestured to the baked goods lining the counter. “You were clearly busy all night. Get some rest.”
When Chrysta Silventa couldn’t sleep, she baked. Ever since Roremar’s father died, she liked having something to do with her hands. And filling the house with the scents of Deacon’s favorite pastries dulled the echoing loss.
Tendrils of brown hair drooped around her cheeks and circles lined tired eyes, her frame brittle, but she assessed the kitchen as if searching for another task. Roremar held his breath, but when she sighed and conceded, he exhaled slowly.
“I’ll go rest for a few minutes. Wake me when the kids are up, and we’ll make breakfast.”
“Sure,” Roremar said, knowing damn well he wouldn’t bother her.
He and Nico both kissed her on the cheek, and she disappeared down the hall. Neither of them spoke again until her door clicked close.
“She seem okay to you?” Roremar checked.
“Okay as ever.” When Roremar didn’t respond, Nico added, “So yesterday…” He dissolved into soft, shoulder-shaking laughter when Roremar shot him a look he knew was death personified. “Don’t want to talk about it?”
“You and Des shouldn’t have butt in.” He hadn’t seen his brother by the time he got home last night, Nico putting their siblings to bed so Roremar could check out the dead end at Angel’s Draw.
Nico blinked at him in disbelief, their father’s blue eyes slicing through him. “You’re still stuck on that?”
“Should I not be?” Roremar drawled.
“I was going to ask about Emmeline.” Nico sliced a piece of bread off the loaf their mother had just made, spreading jam on it.
“What about her?” Roremar asked, waiting until Nico had perfectly distributed the strawberry topping to snatch it from his hand and steal a bite.
His brother gave him a flat stare. “That was rude. But I’ll let it pass since you’re clearly deflecting.”
“I’m not—”
“You’re two sides of the same coin,” Nico interrupted. “Two ends of a Fate tie or whatever the expression is.”
Roremar scoffed, ambling to the aged dining table and organizing piles of fresh laundry. “That’s a dumb saying.”
How could two warriors be ends of a tie? One end had to be a Fate, for stars’ sake.
“It sort of is,” Nico agreed. “But my point still stands.”
“I don’t care about your point,” Roremar grumbled, and he wasn’t sure if it was good or bad that his brother let the subject drop.
Based on Nico’s self-satisfied smirk as he popped a grape into his mouth, the conversation was far from done.
Roremar shoved aside the debate, though.
“Everyone was sleeping when you got up?” he checked, though the house was silent.
“Likely not for long,” Nico answered, taking another bite of fresh fruit.
Thanks to the business ventures their father left behind, they afforded basic necessities like clothing and food. It was tight, but the house was stocked—though the structure itself needed work—and now, thanks to their uncle, schooling and training were provided for the younger kids.
He didn’t like taking them from the small school they were used to on this side of the isle, but Aldryn pulled strings to get them into the Academy, and Roremar had to oblige.
As he’d been doing for ten years.
Nico, then sixteen, had yet to complete his rituals and was still at the Academy. The sister between them had been eighteen and off to the continent for a job Roremar and their mother wouldn’t allow her to renege on. Roremar had been twenty-two and had taken on all the responsibilities.
All of them.
His mother had done her best to care for her newborn daughter amid her own grief, a one-year-old and four-year-old also demanding ample attention.
His hands tightened on one of his little brother’s tunics, the hand-me-down fabrics blurring before his vision. He could handle this. It was his fault they were in this mess anyway.
From the moment his father died, he’d been determined to provide for the family, no matter what it did to him.
Until one night, when he’d heard his four-year-old brother, Leo, crying, thinking dinner had been forgotten—which it had been since Roremar hadn’t received the most recent payment from his father’s business partners and had been distracted trying to track it down.