31. Rahzlyn
Rahzlyn
Even with the breezy, open chamber allowing the wind’s soft music to reach my ears, I could not settle myself. I refused to believe Basil was dead. So as I tossed and turned throughout the night, it wasn’t my brother’s face pestering me from sleep.
It was Kole’s.
Did he know about the apostai’s connection to Serpentine?
Reflecting back, it was obvious he’d been there before.
I thought of all our nights spent in his bed, and I wondered if he had a brand all along.
Mine was impossible to see now—but I felt it with every step, like I did my glyphs with every breath.
I wanted to shed my body of its skin and free myself from these burdens.
Kole never spoke about the apostai. Then again, if what I believed was true, he wouldn’t have been able to.
I thought back to the Stinky Boot and everyone in it.
The only whispers I’d gleaned of Serpentine came from the Stinky Boot.
Even during Tempus, no one wore yellow to honor Gemini.
The songs sung there were not tales of the Astrals.
I buried my face into the silken pillow. My heart couldn’t take the thought of such deceit. Maybe Kole didn’t know, and he really was trying to help me get a job—as gratitude for how I’d supported him and Mel through their grief.
Regardless, I couldn’t reveal Kole’s name and brand him an apostate if he wasn’t one. That would break Mel, who had already lost enough in her life.
Still, it was bothersome that of all people, Raithe was the only person capable of bypassing the dark magic imbuing the brand on my foot. Maybe we should have let him strip naked to prove he didn’t also bear the—
My body heated. No. I was not going there. Picturing Raithe naked was too visceral. Too appealing, when it should have had the opposite effect. He was rude and infuriating and entirely off-limits.
“Breakfast!” Felaf announced in a sing-song voice upon entering my chamber. I sat upright, grateful for the intrusion to deter unwanted thoughts.
Beside her, Letti rolled her eyes and set a tray down at the foot of the massive bed.
“Not a morning person?” I asked.
Letti yanked the crimson curtains open in response, blinding me from the abrupt sunlight that shone through.
I squinted, sliding my feet into the pair of black slippers she’d laid out for me.
Such attentive care was difficult to appreciate when I was more than capable of tending to myself.
But I was grateful for the company, surly as it was, and Letti seemed eager in all her duties.
“Once she eats, she becomes a bit more tolerant of others,” Felaf stated. “And more tolerant of my singing.”
Letti glared over her shoulder. “You can’t sing.”
Felaf grinned. “I can, just not well.”
I inspected the tray that consisted of colorful citrus, an assortment of pastries, and a steaming drink that smelled lightly caramelized and almost nutty. Coffee. It was too expensive to import into Gemini, harvested mostly in the southern territories.
“Figured you’d need that after the night you had,” Letti stated.
I inhaled the beautiful, dark liquid. “How did you—”
“Raithe,” Felaf clarified.
I flushed at the idea of him listening to me move around in bed all night. “Well, these make it a little difficult.” I gestured vaguely to my glyphs.
Letti frowned at this. “Raithe could have sent for me if you were in such pain.”
I shrugged. “Didn’t seem worth the trouble.” And it was mostly afflictions of the mind that kept me awake.
Letti sat down next to me and got to business, unraveling the bandages around my arms. I hissed, biting my lip.
“Mine took forever to heal.” Felaf swiped a pear off my tray and bit into it. She wiped the excess juices from her mouth with the back of her gloved hand. “The pain will endure if you don't let Letti help.”
“That food is not for you.” Letti tsked in disapproval. “You already had your own breakfast served.”
“I’m a guardian. We burn a lot of energy and need more food to sustain us.”
“That is your excuse for having a bottomless stomach,” Letti chided.
Setting aside the wrappings tainted with spurts of my dried blood, she said to me, “We’re past the window of infection, so no more bandages unless you reopen any of them.
You’re going to be itchy for a little while, so make sure you have this salve on hand.
” She pointed to a jar filled with a clear, gel-like substance.
Aloe. “I don’t want to hear about another sleepless night. ”
“As if I could sleep on command,” I retorted as Letti went about undressing the rest of me.
“Guardians can,” Felaf quipped. “We learned how on the Martial Isles, the place where all guards and guardians hail from.”
“Exactly how long can a guardian go without sleep?”
“Twelve days.”
“Twelve?” I gawked. “What about air? Is it true you can hold your breath indefinitely?”
“Our lungs can expel water and other pollutants, retaining enough air to sustain us for an hour on average.”
“And that’s been proven?”
“If you’re trying to learn our weakness”—Felaf grinned—“you won’t find one.”
“No, you’ll find many,” Letti muttered as she guided me into a loose-fitting black dress with a modest neckline that tapered at the waist to give it some shape.
Felaf laughed, a sound so genuine it had me smiling in response as well. Letti’s cheeks pinked. Felaf straightened and snapped her head toward the doors. “It’s Maryn,” she said. “Her advisors and the tutors are approaching.”
I straightened, glancing down. “Here? Now?”
“I imagine she means to catch you off guard. She can’t come in unless we permit it.”
Whatever game Maryn was after, I found myself up for the challenge. “It’s fine. I’m ready.”
Letti helped me slip into a robe. Felaf opened the door, allowing Maryn to enter with an entourage of followers. Two guards—a buff man with beady eyes and a tall woman with her head shaved—sneered in my direction. Maryn’s sycophants who took joy in dragging me to the council room the other day.
“Good morning, Your Highness,” Felaf and Letti addressed in unison. Maryn ignored them, focusing on me instead. The room waited as all other eyes fell to me as well.
“Oh. Right. Um, morning?”
Maryn’s answering thin-lipped smile sent a shiver coursing through me. She wore a regal black dress with jutting shoulders and sheer, glittering sleeves bedecked in swirling patterns—like glyphs. The dress glinted from all sorts of jewels, fitting her bony figure tightly.
Her scrutinous gaze roved over my chest. Her steps were slow and calculated as she rounded the bed.
She stopped before me, her chin high and her eyes cast down as though I were mud stuck in the crevice of her shoe.
It was a warning; all it took was a single look and those around us would heed her word and inflict some form of punishment on me.
But she didn’t, and she hadn’t yet.
I stood taller. “Something the matter, Your Highness? You seem distressed. I hope you’re not still upset about what happened in the courtyard. Holding onto grudges can age you.”
A shocked gasp left the tutors' mouths. Maryn whipped her head in warning. They bowed apologetically. She handed them a rolled-up parchment and said, “Here’s her chart from Gregorios. You’ve got your work cut out for you.” She strutted out of the room without another word.
“Perhaps you all could give our princess a few minutes to prepare herself,” Felaf suggested, “and find your way down to the council room for a more suitable learning environment?”
A tutor proceeded to unroll the parchment and read aloud, “Born the twenty-first of November in Pipirima, Novah Artemis’s three significant placements are Sun in Scorpio, Moon in Leo, and Ascendant in Gemini.”
I braced for the concocted narrative Gregorios’s cards had woven about me.
Letti and Felaf drifted to the side, the former lighting the logs in the large fireplace. I stood and tightened the robe’s belt around my waist. I didn’t know how to act while these scrutinizing strangers huddled in a circle, whispering about me.
“Quite a complex, multi-layered personality,” the tallest of the advisors announced.
“Moon in Leo signifies pride and dramatic, attention-seeking habits. The combination of her intense Scorpion nature and scattered focus from her Gemini ascendant placement may result in conflicting desires and inner turmoil. Though it does seem like she has the potential to be a powerful, charismatic, and strategic leader.”
Gemini ascendant. There was a piece of Gemini in my personality after all.
“Her Mercury is in Pisces though, which means she’s sensitive.”
“And impossible to give feedback to, which will prove challenging for the advisors.”
“And the barons.”
“Indeed.”
I cringed as they dissected every facet of my personality as though I were invisible. Because the truth was, their descriptions were unbelievably accurate. I didn’t want to admit it, but the Novah they described was me.
“Emotionally complex and theatrically expressive. Her decorum will need training.”
“Fiercely loyal and deeply loving. We must keep an eye on her attachments.”
“She may struggle with oversharing while simultaneously bottling true feelings until a breaking point is reached. She’ll need proper coaching on how to conduct herself.”
My ears burned in disbelief.
It seemed Gregorios’s tarot cards proved true after all.
I finally had a natal chart that made sense, a chart that captured the true complexities of who I had been all along: a Scorpion woman.
Dying sunlight filtered through the open apertures of the observatory, illuminating the golden apparatuses and gadgets that filled every nook and cranny. Many of the trinkets reminded me of things my grandfather would have once appreciated during his scholar days.
Basil too. A hole in my chest had formed in his absence, expanding each day that passed without knowing what had become of him.
“You are acting as though your life is not on the line,” Gregorios reprimanded from the other side of his desk.