Chapter 30 #2
Just as she’d told the stars last night, she could tell him now. Please, let her tell him now.
“It mounted as we walked here. One push and it’ll shatter. It’ll crack and melt and become rivulets of a heated past. Fuel to Arenothos’s forge and fodder to the tales.”
Her words bordered on the verge of nonsense, seeming to maintain one foot in this reality. Clouds of incense pressed around them.
“Are you reading?” Roremar’s hand slid against her icy cheek. Gone was the warmth Emmeline burned with.
She shook her head. “No readings.”
“Then what’s—”
“My, what an honor it is to welcome you,” a high voice purred.
A beam of maroon light streaked through the dome, illuminating one of the twelve panels on the floor and the woman now grinning at them from within.
Not just a woman—a Storyteller of the Fates.
Dressed in a crimson gown that left very little of her body to the imagination, the woman sauntered forward. The light followed her, rippling with red hues, but it left the upper half of her face drenched in shadow.
Like a helmet.
And the ivory jewelry draping her body…fashioned after bones. Roremar didn’t want to know if they were real or not, but he understood what was going on.
“You’re the Storyteller of Arenothos?”
She bowed, the shadowed helm following her nod and confirming she—in her crimson dress and bone jewelry—was the representative of the warlord, the Fate of Wrath and Redemption.
It unsettled Roremar that he couldn’t track her eyes, couldn’t pick up her tells and use them to frame his opponent.
“There’s one of you for each Fate,” Emmeline whispered, voice still airy, like she was barely clinging to the realm. Roremar tried to keep her a step behind him, but she wasn’t distracted enough to not be stubborn, sticking to his side.
Damn headstrong Huntress, he swore internally.
Another nod from the Storyteller of Arenothos. “Apparently,” the woman intoned, “I am at your service today.”
“Why you?” Roremar asked.
“Ask your questions and we shall see. But I have not been sent alone…”
Another beam of light streaked down a few panels over, this one gold and illuminating a coiled snake etched into the floor with an arrow through its neck, a lyre atop it and setting sun beyond, the rays angled to stretch through the wedge on the floor.
Emmeline flinched at the image, and Roremar stepped closer as another woman came into view.
“Aevollon,” he greeted, recognizing the sigil of the Fate of Artistry and Trickery. Where the fuck were they coming from?
The presence of these two particular Storytellers had him planting his feet. Why them? Was it because of the isle they were currently on, or was it…
He cast a glance toward the sealed door but shoved that thought aside.
The newcomer, wrapped in a gown nearly identical to the Storyteller of Arenothos but in shimmering gold silk, stepped forward. Her face was entirely visible, skin a rich tan and hair bright blonde, like she basked in the sun for long days as her Fate was rumored to enjoy.
“Hello,” Aevollon’s Storyteller greeted. “Why have you come here today?”
“We have questions,” Emmeline began.
The two exchanged a curious glance, and Arenothos’s Storyteller answered with a hungry smile, “Ask and we will see if we can provide guidance.”
Emmeline leaned against Roremar ever so slightly, but the discomfort rolled off her in thick waves, so he said, “On Lyra, women have been turning up dead. Three bodies so far with a few others missing.” Tension bracketed both of the Storytellers’ jaws.
“All the women have been from Alvan, and we were denied more information on them from the Accords, but we need to know if there is anything you can tell us about them. If there is any connection to the Fates as some evidence has indicated.”
Aevollon’s Storyteller tilted her head, blonde curtain of hair sliding around her frame. “The Fatorum?”
Roremar told them the details of each body that made up their theory. The tattoos and wounds, the ashes. When he finished, both of the Storytellers considered, seeming to search their infinite minds.
“Please,” he begged. “We need to find the person responsible for this.”
“Our expertise lies in our Fates,” Aevollon’s said.
With a swing of her long ponytail, Arenothos’s added, “Not in the realms of the present.”
And though they both spoke with a haughty, all-knowing tone, apology rang rich in their voices.
“I understand, but anything you can tell us may be of assistance,” Roremar said. “Maybe some reason anyone here would want to hurt them? To summon the Fates to this realm maybe?”
Instead of an answer, a third Storyteller stepped into a fountain of pale pink, shimmering light between the other two.
This one was a shirtless male with flowers similar to those coating the building’s exterior draped along his sculpted torso like a woven scarf.
With sultry eyes and a lick of his lips, he assessed Roremar and Emmeline. A growl rumbled in Roremar’s chest.
And with that light, the flowers, and the air of vicious seduction, Roremar immediately recognized this man for the Fate he represented.
“What does Anphrosia have to do with this?” Roremar asked of the Fate of Cruelty and Adoration. The fountain outside flashed through his memory. The flowers adorning the building…the ones coating the hillside leading to the Lair…
“Is this whole place dedicated to her?” he accused.
“Only a heart of it,” Anphrosia’s Storyteller declared, lips quirking into a smile Roremar thought was supposed to be flirtatious. “My Fate has always been keen on dabbling with love, as her name implies.”
“Dabbling?” Arenothos’s Storyteller scoffed, the crimson trail of her gown sliding across the floor as she spun toward the male, toes meeting the edge of her panel but not daring to cross over. “She did more than dabble. She wore down the hearts of legends and spun them to their graves.”
Anphrosia’s Storyteller laughed, crossing his arms. “Always so dramatic.”
“You know I tell no lies.”
Somewhat detached, Aevollon’s added, “Anphrosia earned her title.”
“Cruelty and Adoration is a devout way to live, is it not?” the male mused, running a hand over the soft petals against his bronzed chest.
Roremar exchanged a glance with Emmeline, whispering, “Do they even remember we’re here?”
She smiled weakly, her eyes still fogged over, and panic ratcheted through Roremar’s chest. He barked, “Someone explain it to us.”
Arenothos’s Storyteller did, thank the stars, her bone necklace clacking as she turned to them.
“You know of our Fates as those who wind fortunes through the paths of stars, but they are much more than that. Each Fate holds legends of darkness, and the Fate of Cruelty and Adoration was worthy of her name. She attracted many lovers over the years, but while their infatuation ran as deep as their bones, hers did not. Not for most of them at least.”
Emmeline’s hand landed on Roremar’s arm, gripping tight, just as she had on the path outside. “Was that it? Was Anphrosia the great love of Arenothos that Desmond spoke of outside the Accords?” she asked, blinking heavy-lidded eyes so full of trust up at Roremar.
But the Storyteller continued, “No. She was a much later entanglement, under much different means.”
“She involved herself with many of our Fates,” Aevollon’s female said, a hint of bitterness indicating he was also a victim of Anphrosia’s cruelty.
The Storyteller of Wrath and Redemption said, “When it came to Arenothos, Anphrosia was already promised to another—to many in her twisted games, but one in particular—and the affair with my Fate dropped doom upon the realms.”
“Anphrosia is at the heart of everything held dear,” the flower-draped Storyteller praised, still assessing Emmeline and Roremar with a too-enthusiastic curiosity. “She has defined bonds, spun love stories, and written the fortunes of their perilous truths.”
“And left ruin in her wake,” Arenothos’s Storyteller added with a disdainful twist of her lips.
Something shifted behind Roremar, and he turned, keeping Emmeline at his side and an eye on the three people in their illuminated wedges.
He hadn’t realized a fourth Storyteller had entered the chamber.
Directly across from the other three, the panel entirely drenched in shadow, someone stood atop the sigil of the jungle cat wreathed in ivy, two wine jugs at her feet—one overflowing and one shattered.
“Do not mind him,” the Storyteller of Anphrosia instructed, his smile a viper’s. “He does not speak.”
“He doesn’t speak?” Roremar asked, a floral note he couldn’t name deepening on the air.
“Not in a very, very long while,” Aevollon’s said. “He has simply come to observe.”
“Observe what?”
A shrug from Arenothos’s Storyteller. “We cannot know.”
“Do you know anything about the Warders of Selene?” Emmeline asked, voice strained.
Shocked silence coated the room, grating on Roremar’s patience. “You speak of our purpose?” Aevollon’s Storyteller asked, and it landed like a punch to Roremar’s chest.
“It’s you?” he accused. “You are the Warders?”
“Not us,” Arenothos’s corrected, “but that which we are made for.”
Fuck, what was it with all these riddles and vague statements? Now more than ever, Roremar was fed up with the Fates. He hadn’t been lying last night when he told Emmeline he didn’t always trust them, but now? With their Storytellers seeming to enjoy dragging them around by their necks?
No, Roremar was out of his very limited amount of patience.
“Do you know anything about the women that have gone missing or not?” Roremar snapped.
The golden Storyteller of Aevollon ignored him, her gaze locked on Emmeline.
A serpent slithered lazily along her shoulders, draping her frame like some predestined notion of the very Fate’s sigil that marked her bare feet.
A tremor wracked Emmeline’s body as it climbed, and she pressed tighter to Roremar’s side.
He wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her, her nails feebly digging into his forearm, but her attention was homed in on that snake’s glittering scales. The Storyteller smirked, dragging a delicate finger over its iridescent head.
“Our magic differs from typical Storytellers,” Arenothos’s reminded them. “We can only share that which pertains to our Fates.”
“Tomorrow night,” Anphrosia’s added, and Roremar’s attention whipped over so quickly, Emmeline nearly stumbled.
The pink-tinged incense around the Storyteller thickened.
“Go to the Mourning Gardens beyond the Steel District and find that which reflects her. If there are answers to be given, that is where you will find them.”
“What are the Mourning Gardens?” Roremar asked. What in a Fate’s starry-eyed fuck did any of that mean?
Emmeline’s skin grew colder, her form shuddering against him until she went utterly still.
“Your friend will know,” Aevollon’s Fate said, exchanging a glance with Arenothos’s. “He who speaks to both of ours.”
That was enough for Roremar. Scooping Emmeline into his arms, he carried her from the hall.
But not before casting one last glance at the shadow-drenched, silent form in the darkened wedge.
He couldn’t help but feel that while they’d finally gotten a hint—finally earned a step forward—every inch was being watched.
And while he’d told Emmeline he wasn’t afraid of entering the Lair, as she became heavy in his arms and her breathing slowed, he admitted to himself that perhaps he should have been.