Chapter 30 #2
My heart thumps as I study her likeness.
My breathing shallows. Her hair is braided, but ringlets the same fiery colour as Serafine’s plumage strain loose from their bonds.
Her chin is pointed, her cheekbones and brow, high.
Her nose is straight, her lips full. There’s a strength to her features, a pride in their sharp angles.
And her eyes… glowing coals that rival even an emberwing’s in intensity. Not exactly beautiful, but majestic.
Dusty stubs of candles wreath this monument, and the statue of my ancestor. Each one brought here by a member of the faithful, in thanksgiving. I sink to the floor.
Once, my kind were venerated, seen as a force for good. Once, we were loved.
I sit there for a long time, then walk aimlessly through the remaining aisles, trying to reconcile myself to this truth, to this alternate reality, to what it might mean for me. But it’s dizzying, too much to process. Threatening to unravel a lifetime of tightly knitted self-loathing.
One aisle is lined with bookcases. I gravitate towards them. I don’t understand that memorial, or the emotions seeing it has unleashed inside me, but books… books I understand.
Many of the shelves are empty, their contents transferred to the Bindery, but a few still sag under the weight of dusty manuscripts.
I take a few at random and inspect them.
No sign of the Book of Mysteries, just astral birth-charts, though it’s all but impossible to read them.
Water damage has stuck the pages together and bled the ink.
Mould has invaded almost every page. Some crumble beneath my frost-chapped fingers. I wince at the wreckage.
This is the seat of my people’s history. It deserves reverence not ruin.
I place the spoilt documents back on the shelf and press my lips together. Arden did this, destroyed my people’s heritage – their culture. I use this flicker of resentment to drive my search through the rest of the ruined shrine.
Eventually, I stumble upon a niche dedicated to cartography. Starting with the highest shelf, I work my way through the documents that remain. The map of the caves – Noelani’s last clue – it must be here.
Shadows shift and stretch as I work. My fingers are numb from cold, fumbling with each new document I lift.
Before long, I’m light- headed. Maps swim in front of my eyes, none the one I’m looking for.
My legs sway beneath me. There’s a buzzing in my ears as I sink down on the dusty floor.
Tansy was right. I’m not ready for this.
I rest my head on my knees, breathe slowly, until the worst of the giddiness passes, and I’m able to stand again and continue my search.
I find some interesting material: maps of Estelia, some charting the other realms, too.
I set aside a large one of Xylia that’s avoided serious damage, together with another of Riveria – in sorrier condition, but still legible in parts.
I hope there might be one of Oralia too, to complete the set, for my father removed all maps of the enemy realms from the Bindery in his most recent purges.
But there’s none to be found. Many of the remaining records chart the High Lands and the Desolate Peaks.
A great number are devoted to Talini itself. All these are of no further use to me.
I check through all the papers. Twice. But there’s no map of the Crystal Caves here. No sign of the Book of Mysteries either.
I hang my head and dust the grime from my knees.
Now what?
I put my faith in Noelani, remained stubbornly hopeful I’d find what I needed here.
I snatch up a plan of the Prism Glacier from the floor.
I chose to trust my ancestor, dragged the Outrealmers on this quest on her say-so, brought them all to untold suffering in Galtair.
Conditions on the Astral Mountain will test us further, might very well kill us if the tincture fails, and for what?
If we ever reach the caves, I have no idea where to look for the lost sceptre.
I slam the map back into place on the warped shelf with a heavy sigh, sending a loose leaf of vellum spiralling to the floor.
I bend to pick it up and something catches my eye.
A glint coming from a niche at the furthest end of the aisle.
I straighten and move towards the glimmer.
It’s coming from a large cabinet shaped like a moonbeam – an ancient symbol of enlightenment.
It’s carved from starcrystal, inlaid all over with silver stars, echoing those on the floor.
Its feet take the form of sculpted cielsylphs, drapery swirling around them to convey the vortices of the four winds.
The cabinet bears more than a passing resemblance to Noelani’s desk, to the bookcase back at the Silver Palace.
It has a diamond-shaped lock but no key.
My vision shimmers as I study the mechanism, grows hazy. The gauzy blindfold is back, blurring the edges of the niche and the bureau, translating the starcrystal’s soft iridescence to a vivid sparkling rainbow.
It’s happening again. Whatever it is.
I blink, shake my head, screw my eyes tight shut and then open them. But the strange diaphanous film is still there, and something else too. Or rather, someone.
A slim figure hidden in the shadows of the recess.
My stomach drops. Is this who’s been following us?
I start back, clutching the wall for support as the figure turns.
It’s like looking in a mirror. But no – not quite.
An imperfect reflection. For the apparition’s eyes are amethyst to my lilac, the streak staining her hair broader than my own.
I blink again, but the vision of Noelani doesn’t melt away.
She slips a chain over her head. Her chain.
I reach for it. The weight of the pendant is still settled over my heart, though not reassuring as it once was.
Now I know it contains vestiges of Shadow, it feels heavier – a burden rather than a comfort, its strange crystalline pulse more unsettling than steadying.
Noelani crosses to the bureau, inserts her pendant into its lock. She turns, smiling at me – an encouraging smile accompanied by the faintest suggestion of a nod. And then she vanishes.
I cling to the wall, afraid my legs will give way, gulping musty air till my vision clears.
With shaking fingers, I slip my chain off and creep closer to the bureau.
Walking in Noelani’s footsteps, I repeat her actions.
The starstone slides into the locking mechanism.
But as it settles into position, it flares, and I almost drop it.
Sister’s sake! Didn’t I swear never to summon starshine again?
I shield my eyes as the niche is bathed in blinding opal light.
The glare quickly fades, leaving only the faintest tinge of ash coating my mouth, the mildest chill swirling my core.
A leaf of the bureau springs open, forming a flat writing surface, revealing a series of drawers behind, surmounted by a row of miniature columns, made to resemble the portico of the Starshrine.
It’s too late to worry whether I’ve made a terrible mistake in opening the lock. It’s done now, and answers lie at my fingertips.
I open the drawers one at a time, my fingers numb from cold, shaking, my movements slow and clumsy.
There’s nothing here.
Disappointment winds around my heart like an icy vine, and I can’t help the groan that tears at my throat.
I think of my desk in Meissa, of the secret compartment I put to such good use.
Perhaps the cabinetmaker added one here, too.
Hope buds in my too-tight chest as I push and pull.
Something must be hidden here. Some clue to take us forwards.
But after a third round of fruitless searching, the bud withers.
I grip the last of the twelve pillars again, waiting for something to release, for some secret to reveal itself, but nothing happens. My hand slackens, slips, and the miniature column twists. Just a fraction. I twist harder and a concealed drawer pops open. Inside is a single piece of parchment.
I blink but I’m not imagining it. A map of the caves in pristine condition.
The starstone may contain traces of Shadow, but it’s also a thing of Light. And tonight, it’s been a force for good.
I lift the map from its hiding place, lay it on the open leaf of the bureau.
The map charts the caves in great detail, indicating the presence of not only the initial cave – the resting place of the Wishing Star, where the bulk of starstone deposits were mined to create the Starfields, and starcrystal harvested to build Meissa – but two additional caves.
The caverns are vast, the tunnels connecting them long, and there’s no marker indicating where the lost sceptre lies buried.
We could spend moonscycles searching for it.
My mother’s wan face rises like a spectre.
She doesn’t have that long.
I peer closer. There’s no marker, but there is writing – a couplet in Noelani’s distinctive amethyst script, on the top left corner of the map.
I bend to read it, but the lettering is clumsy, ill-formed.
Illegible. Yet something about it stirs a distant memory.
I’ve seen writing like this before. Izarius showed me something similar once.
Prismscript. The cyphers used in dove communications during the Plunderings to keep strategic information from the enemy races.
I wrest the Celestial Chain from the locking mechanism and place the starstone to my eye. As I peer through its prism, Noelani’s writing sharpens, resettles into markings I can read.
In the third cavern, beneath the star, lies the lost treasure.
To claim it, first pay in blood, then say: ‘stronger together.’
I bark out a shaky laugh, high and shrill.
I was right to have faith in Noelani. Strength floods back to my tired limbs. We might just have a chance. I’ll be able to save my mother, revoke the Sickening, avenge the neverborns and all the other countless souls lost to the Sickening.
Atonement, redemption, acceptance. All finally within my grasp.
I practically run back to the broken casement, eager to return to the Silver Palace.
Hugging the map to my breast beneath my furs so the sleet doesn’t bleed the ink, I scarcely notice the cold as the wind rips tendrils of my hair free, and its icy fingers tug down my hood. For once, I don’t stop to pull it up.
I can only think of sharing this news with the others.
We can begin our ascent up the Astral Mountain to seek the lost sceptre, now I know where it’s hidden and how to claim it.
I can’t shake the memory of that monument to the Branded either.
I’m heir to a magic I don’t understand, but perhaps I’m not cursed at all.
Not a monster. Perhaps, I never have been.
Like the starstone, despite my flaws, despite the strange powers that lodge inside me, and their capacity for destruction, perhaps even because of them, because of the very magic that flows in my veins, this legacy I’ve resented all my life, perhaps I too can prove myself valuable, a force for good.
Not hopeless… Rather, my people’s hope. Their champion.
I’m glad the Book of Mysteries was nowhere to be found.
As I clamber through the window, careful to avoid any sharded glass, I glance up at the sky.
An inky veil has been drawn while I made my search.
The three moons are already risen, jewel-bright and finally full.
Reminding me it’s a night for answers. I know where the lost sceptre is, and how to retrieve it.
Now I need an explanation for the needling gaze at my back since the Council of Four.
It feels like a good omen that I’ll finally use the mooncrystal tonight.
Only the red comet scarring the night sky puts a dampener on things – an ominous, bloodshot eye to echo those that haunt my imagination.
I won’t let it unsettle me, or deter me from my plans.
Somewhere above me, Serafine’s shrill cry lances the still of the evening. I reach inside my cloak pocket. If I’m going to do this, I’d better do it quickly. The others will send out a search party if I’m not back before full dark.
I’ve laid one ghost to rest here already, one I’ve carried far longer than the weight of these phantom eyes pinned to my back. But perhaps I can lay this newer ghost to rest as well, before we leave the Silver City.
I take a breath and draw the box into the open.