20. Chapter 20
“Shay, wake up.”
I blink back the groggy daze that’s worked itself into my eyelids and stare at the stratosphere above.
It takes me a moment to realize that my back is pressed against a cool slab of concrete, and even longer to realize that my friends are encircling me on the bridge with worried looks slathered all over their faces.
It was all a dream. It wasn’t real.
It seems the crowd on the bridge has dispersed, given it’s entirely empty, aside from my friends hovering over me with concerned looks.
Lily’s eyebrows are drawn together so tight, they flaw her perfect skin.
Maxine folds herself into a pretzel behind me, then props my upper body up with her arms. Bella paces around with her hands clasped behind her back, nearly barreling straight into Regent, who’s standing on the outer lip of the bridge, right where it tapers off into a patch of grass.
“Wh… what happened?” I ask.
“The gods intervened on your behalf,” Regent says, stepping out of Bella’s way and directly in front of the sun, his silhouette casting a butler-shaped shadow over the rest of us. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
“I swear to all the gods, if he says wonderful again, I will personally shove glass down his throat and make him chew it,” Maxine mumbles underneath her breath.
“What do you mean, the gods intervened on our behalf?” I ask.
Regent adjusts his shirt collar and swallows, as if he’s not sure of how to answer that.
“There was a flash of lightning, and then all the bandits who’d been pursuing us turned to dust,” Bella says.
She stops her pacing and plants her feet.
She studies me carefully, then motions toward a pile of shattered glass to her left, which is surrounded by tendrils of swirling ash that are taking flight upon wisps of wind.
A raven takes flight overhead, allowing the wind to carry it over the river without it needing to flap its wings.
It would be a beautiful scene, if it weren’t so unsettling.
“Wait,” I gasp, sitting up a bit straighter. “You’re saying that pile of ash right there is the cremated remains of our aggressors?” I point to the swirling dust.
Bella sharply nods. Maxine and Lily nod slowly along with her. Even Regent bobs his head up and down, gritting his teeth, as if still reeling over what he witnessed.
“It must’ve been the gods,” he says, as if rationalizing to himself. “There’s no mortal magic in the realm that can wield a power such as that. Not even a Stormwielder can incinerate that many people at once. It’s impossible.”
My three friends look to me, their eyes widening, as if they’ve just remembered what Priestess Seraphina called me. Stormwielder.
“Right…” I say weakly as I think of my sister, my throat drying up. “Must’ve been the gods.”
The four of us follow Regent off the bridge and up the side of a gentle foothill rising toward the Heavens.
I vaguely recall this crest of cliffside from the map in my cartography class, solely because it leads to the finest market in all of the land—the Golden Bazaar.
Although admittedly, I’m not sure why they coined it the Golden Bazaar, considering how teal it is.
The marketplace is seated on an emerald-green terrace, littered in statues of the gods, all of which are encircling a glassy-teal pavilion that’s shaped like a giant star.
Beneath the pavilion are hundreds of vendor tables, scattered with handspun jewelry boxes, ancient brooches, waxy buttons, and casts of celadon pottery molded into effigies of dragons.
There’s bracelets, necklaces, and fancy earrings, too, along with fantastical paintings and diamond-encrusted shoes.
It all glints back at me in shades of cyan and aquamarine, almost as if other colors—such as red, orange, and pink—don’t exist in this place.
Lily plucks a necklace off a vendor table.
“Pretty,” she says, giving the vendor a crisp nod.
The vendor nods back, ancient and brooding, almost as if she expects Lily to steal it and run off.
A few tables over, I’m bombarded by fragrant spices that make the backs of my eyes sting, along with the wafting aroma of freshly baked cinnamon bread, honey-glazed apple tarts, and some kind of fluffy pudding, all of which makes my stomach howl.
“Look at that!” Lily shouts, her twinkling eyes catching sight of a lilac gown spun from sheer chiffon, which is billowing in the breeze beside a vendor stand shaped like a treasure chest. She latches onto Regent’s arm and drags him in the direction of the little shop, where she entangles him in a deep conversation with the seamstress, who looks tickled pink by the conversation.
Meanwhile, Bella yanks me in the opposite direction.
“I’ve traveled this way before with my Pa,” she murmurs under her breath, keeping her head down and her arm looped through mine.
“Valenoria is only a few miles to the east. If we can make it there on foot without anyone noticing our absence, then we can find refuge with the Valenorian people underground. Legend has it, they’ve built entire cities beneath the trunks of the elder trees, burrowing themselves so deeply into the forest floor, they wake up and kiss the planet’s core each morning.
” She drags me past a vendor stall littered in strangely shaped plates, and then around the corner, not slowing until we’re out of Regent’s sight.
“It’s said that the Valenorians are impossible to find unless they want to be found.
Apparently, not even the gods can locate their whereabouts. ”
“Valenoria?” I ask, recognizing that name from somewhere.
Bella nods.
“The Valenorians are a myth,” a stranger’s voice butts in, belonging to a pretty woman with a head of mile-long braids who peers up at us behind wild, untamed eyes.
Bella frowns and plants her feet in front of the shop stall, scrutinizing the goods laid out before us. “How do you reckon that?”
“Easy.” The woman shrugs. “The tales of the Valenorians were created long ago to entice children to go play outside, but many got lost in the forest along the way, never to be seen again.” She taps her long fingers against the table, pausing for a beat to chew on something.
Maybe her cheek. “Which is why those tales were stripped from children’s books ages ago,” she adds, reaching for a cryptic book off her vendor stall and flipping through its pages.
“If you don’t believe me, see for yourself.
The tales of the Valenorians are no more.
” She stuffs the fat book into Bella’s arms. Bella immediately begins skimming through its dusty pages, a deep line wedging between her brows.
“What if the Valenorians removed themselves from fairytales on purpose?” Bella hypothesizes, running a finger down each page and frowning. “I imagine they grew tired of people trying to find them, so they wiped themselves from history entirely.”
“Hmmm,” the vendor confers, fidgeting with the ring on her finger. It hardly budges, as if it’s a size too small. “That is certainly an interesting theory, albeit a false one. The Valenorians are nothing but a fabrication of a fairytale. They’re not real. They never were.”
“The Valenorians are real,” Bella asserts with a low growl.
The vendor folds her arms over her chest and scowls.
I stare at the jewel seated on her finger.
It’s a ring with a timeless, diamond-encrusted halo, and a band of romantic rose-gold wrapping around its sides.
The same exact ring that’s featured on the top shelf of the castle’s vitrine, a delicate jewel meant to embody the Goddess of Love.
Its presence sends a trickle of fear skittering down my spine.
What if the queen is watching us through its reflection?
What if she’s spying on us? Is this how she hunts people down across the universe in her spare time?
“Where did you get that?” I shiver, motioning toward the ring.
The vendor jerks to attention, her cheeks flushing a deep shade of smitten red. “My fiancé was gifted this ring in Windspire by a hooded stranger in a dark cloak. It’s a blessing from the gods,” she says.
I inspect the ring closer until it burns the outer ridges of my eyes. “Can you take it off?” I ask.
She places a hand over it. “I’d never do that to my sweet Sam.
Thank the gods for him, or else I would’ve found myself up a creek and without a paddle as far as this new marriage law goes.
” She tosses a furtive glance over the cliffside and down at the forking rivers below.
I follow her gaze, imagining being heaved over the cliff by the queen herself.
After another awkward moment of silence, the vendor’s gaze shifts to my hand, and her eyes widen.
“You’re unwed,” she says, drawing in a sharp breath, like she’s fighting back the urge to chastise me for my indecisiveness.
“Have you ever tried to take the ring off?” I prod her further.
“Of course not.” She frowns, looking perplexed. “Why would I ever do that?”
“Because the queen has declared that her precious rings are permanent fixtures, and I’d like to know if she meant that figuratively or literally,” I tell her.
The vendor’s gaze flicks down to her newly acquired ring as she ponders this. “I don’t hate the idea of keeping it on forever. In fact, I find it a bit romantic.”
Romantic.
The word makes my vision swim. The scene changes, and I’m suddenly standing on the edge of a cliff.
He brushes a finger across my jawline, his golden eyes burning into mine.
There’s a waterfall roaring behind us, and stars spanning across the sky.
“Must you always be so romantic?” I giggle as he delicately sets a rose in my hands.
“Only when I’m with you,” he replies.
“Oh Augustine…” I whisper, kissing his cheek.