Chapter 30
A NIGHT FOR ANSWERS
LEILANI
THE GATES TO the Starshrine are rusted and choked with brambles, but not locked.
How many times have I dreamt of walking the star-path? Of entering this most sacred of spaces? But it’s a pilgrimage I must make alone.
I turn to Blayze. ‘We agreed you’d escort me to the gates. I can take it from here.’
He arches a brow. ‘Astrophel won’t like it. I’ll see you to the door.’
‘Astrophel doesn’t have to know. If he felt that strongly, he should have come himself.
’ I yank my hood lower. ‘Instead, he sent you so he could sulk inside and accuse me of not trusting him. He’s being a child.
You can see for yourself there’s no one here.
’ I gesture to the silent streets to prove my point.
‘Scout the perimeters if you must, but I have no idea how long I’ll be, and it’s snowing. I can see myself back.’
He frowns, glancing in all directions. But even in his heightened state of watchfulness, which doesn’t seem to have mellowed since Galtair, the Clanschief will have to admit the city is deserted. There are no observable threats.
Though the weight of those invisible eyes is forever at my back.
‘You once told me you braved the Waste, alone, because it was your calling. Well, this is mine. My presence here is star-writ and Noelani’s letter said I’m to do this unaided.’
His eyes narrow. ‘Fine. But I’m leaving Serafine to watch over you. That’s my compromise.’
He whispers something to the emberwing and she takes flight, gliding over the gates towards the Starshrine.
‘Be careful, Sparkles. Any sign of trouble and you call for Serafine. She’s instructed to protect you with her life.’ His throat bobs. ‘And I’ll speak to the others. I know the burden it is to lead, how a throne can be the loneliest place to sit. I’ll make them understand.’
With that, he turns to start his inspection of the boundary walls.
I lean against the gates; they creak open, and I slip inside.
Thorns snag my cloak and hands as I squeeze through the gap.
There’s a ripping sound as I wrench myself free, beads of blood welling from my fingers like chips of moonstone.
I suck them clean, iron coating my tongue, hoping this doesn’t bode ill for my pilgrimage.
The path continues straight at first, but then I reach a fork.
The first of the seven-points of the star-path.
I could stay the course – the wider central route leads straight to the Starshrine – but I need all the luck I can muster for the task ahead, so I follow the snaking pilgrim route instead.
Snow scrunches beneath my boots, carpeting the mosaicked walkway, rendering its intricate designs all but illegible.
I draw my cloak closer and tug my hood lower still to keep the flurries from my eyes.
A faint whiff of the Arx Magnum’s pungent incense still clings to the fur. I shudder, my resolve wavering.
Perhaps I should have listened to Tansy’s advice, put this off till I’m feeling stronger?
But I shake the thought away like the snow settling on my shoulders.
My head is still woolly, my muscles strained and tender, but it’s not far to walk and Noelani’s letter promised details about the lost sceptre’s whereabouts await me here.
My hitched breath curls in a plume above me.
I’ve completed the sacred circuit, and there – directly in front of me – stands the Starshrine, its seven silver points glinting in the late morning light, the tarnished metal just visible through the dusting of snow that blankets the city.
Perched on the highest spire, and screeching to announce her presence, is Serafine.
I hate to admit it, but my chest eases knowing the emberwing is nearby. I lower my head and press forwards.
Ivy and dead-vine strangle the twelve columns that portico the Gates of Creation.
I gasp and stop as I approach them. Despite a murky patina, the silver panels on the closed gates reflect my image.
With shaking fingers, I pull back my hood, revealing the dark streak snaking my hair.
I trace it, this mark of corruption, but though the reflected fingers echo my movements, I don’t recognise the face staring back at me.
Haggard. Harsh. My eyes are larger and deeper than before, bottomless lavender lakes in a spindle-thin face.
We’ve been travelling for a little under two moonscycles, yet I look sunrings older.
This journey has taken a greater physical and emotional toll than I ever expected…
or perhaps these ravages are the price I’ve paid for carrying a cursed object around my neck.
I will myself to look away from the strange reflection, to focus on the eight rectangular reliefs that make up the silver gates – one of the lost wonders of the ancient city.
Izarius used to read to me about them. Flanked on either side by statues of the Sisters, their outstretched arms reaching for one another, the panels depict scenes from the Arcelian creation myths, to which this building is dedicated.
The carvings are every bit as beautiful as my tutor described.
I trace a finger over the cold, uneven surfaces, but can’t afford to linger.
I rattle the handles, but the heavy doors don’t budge.
For a moment I regret sending Blayze away; his strength might have come in useful.
But eyeing the hefty locks, this is one gateway I doubt even he could breach.
I’ll have to find another way in.
I skirt the Starshrine’s perimeter. By luck, two of the side windows have blown in. I choose the one with the least jagged glass remaining in the casement and clamber inside. The last thing I need is to sever an artery and bleed out in this desolate place, with only Serafine to hear my screams.
Inside, the devastation is almost total.
I squint, allowing my eyes to adjust to the gloom as my breath mists in front of me.
The quartz floor is cracked and overrun with weeds, the air thick with must. I retrace my steps to the entrance of the shrine, following the pathway of tarnished silver stars inlaid in the tiles.
Fresco cycles adorn the walls on either side of the central aisle, but they’re fouled with mould and peeling.
Only a single image remains legible. A huge black bird with ghoulish white eyes.
I remember these creatures from my mother’s Book of Starlore.
From all the nightmares they engendered.
A few outliers, like my mother, believe the night-birds are still trapped in the bowels of the Astral Mountain, the cage the Dawn Sister confined them to.
Her final resting place, and theirs. But conventional wisdom accepts the Elemagi banished them through their Blood Bond, drove them back to the Cradleworld.
They exist now only as allegories, cautionary tales told to children so they obey their nursemaids and go to bed on time.
An elaborate silver plinth towers in the middle of the central aisle.
The Mystic Scrolls lie atop it. I can just make out the glint of their jewelled cases.
The sacred-writ, scribed by the Dawn Sister in her own blood as she lay injured, ravaged by the night-birds, later retrieved by Noelani from the mountain, and copied and disseminated as the Book of Starlore.
It relates her life in the Cradleworld, her creation of Arcelia.
Most of the Starshrine’s important historical documents were moved to Meissa when the city was forsaken, but the Mystic Scrolls were left in place.
Legend promised terrible misfortune if they were ever moved, and with the Sickening already raging, no one wanted to tempt fate.
Radiating from the central plinth, like a starburst, are seven smaller aisles, which taper to points.
I walk down each in turn, learning the layout of the shrine, trying to unearth the clue promised in Noelani’s letter, while searching for the Book of Mysteries, or anything that might reveal the secrets of the Branded – some way to purge myself clean.
I open my inner eyes and ears too, in case visions or whispers speak to their location.
The first three aisles contain statues dedicated to the various constellations, places where pilgrims used to gather and leave offerings for a bountiful Thaw or a mild White.
The fourth aisle also houses a statue, carved from quartz, and larger than the others.
This one holds my attention. A figure of a woman, a book open in her lap.
I recognise the subject straight away. Noelani’s lines are almost my lines, the sculpted resemblance even more uncanny than the Reliquary portrait.
There’s a title etched along the spine of the book Noelani holds.
Litany of the Starborn. Creeping closer, I see a list of names on its open pages.
Her name is first, but there are others beneath it.
I can’t help but run a finger over the grooves, if only to prove to myself that so many of my kind once existed.
Beside each name is a list of good deeds: a prediction that averted a poor harvest; a vision that spared a child’s life; another that brought good fortune to a family in need.
Something catches my eye a little further down the aisle.
Hanging on the wall, to the right of Noelani’s sculpture, is a painting.
One I’ve seen before. A portrait of the Elemagi, the twin to the one in the Reliquary, though this is larger.
The version in Meissa must be a copy. But the size is not the only difference.
This painting is whole. Four figures stare back at me instead of three.
Arden. For the first time, I’m face to face with her.