CHAPTER TEN
“How went the trials, child?”
I stopped a few paces from Sora’s desk, my throat tightening.
She was not aware I had hightailed it out of that cavern before the Priestess could even process my absence, and I was counting my lucky stars that the report had not yet reached her.
I could not tell her I had left, or why. As far as I was concerned, the woman sitting before me could no longer be trusted.
If the High Court was using the very forest to track me, how could the woman who managed their history be unaware?
“The crystal was silent,” I lied.
Her eyes softened for a heartbeat, then she masked it behind a quick nod. “The Lunthra works in ways we cannot always perceive. Do not strain yourself unnecessarily before dawn.”
I swallowed, aware that she could not know what I really meant. That pull, that thing inside me that was far too alive and far too dangerous—I could not let her see it. I needed information, and I needed it without alerting the High Court to my true trajectory.
“Keeper,” I started, my voice steady despite the roar of my pulse. “Are there any books I may read regarding the origins of the Veythar?”
Sora paused, her quill hovering. She studied me from beneath her frames for a long moment before nodding. “A wise pursuit. To know one’s shadow is to understand the light. Come.”
She rose, her heavy robes whispering against the stone as she led me toward a secluded alcove in the western wing. She pulled a leather-bound volume from a high shelf, the silver leaf on the spine tarnished with age.
Flipping the thick tome open to the middle, she looked at me. “What would you like to know?”
I had hoped she would hand the book over and leave me to it, but she remained anchored to the spot.
“Could a Veythar plant an illusion in one’s mind?” I asked, settling for a vague enough question. “Could he make you see something that is not real?”
Sora regarded me carefully, her fingers steepled before her mouth.
“Not that I am aware of,” she said after a moment. “The Veythar’s art lies in binding, forging, and commanding the remnants of spirit.”
I swallowed hard, my palms slick with sweat. Talon was no illusionist.
“Look here,” she said, tapping a dusty page. “This depicts the way of a Veythar’s abilities.”
The image was a grim, sketched diagram. Each square detailed a drawing of a Veythar ability: commanding spirits, building, forging, and consuming.
I pointed to the last box, where a dark figure loomed over a kneeling form. “What are they consuming?”
“A soul,” she said simply, flipping the page. “The Veythar also use terminology we do not. This page shows a list of words you have probably never heard of.”
My ears perked up, my mind racing back to the word Talon had uttered in the woods, but the ink was faded and the script was foreign. I could not see it.
“Is the word ‘Solea’ of their language?”
Sora stilled. Her eyes flicked up to mine, sharpening into two points of cold steel. “Where did you hear that word, dear?”
My eyes widened fractionally. I scrambled for an answer that would not lead her to the oak tree in the woods.
“I… I read it in a text this morning,” I stuttered, before quickly adding, “but there was no other information on it.”
Sora’s eyes narrowed skeptically. “No, it is not from their language.”
“So,” I pressed. “What is the meaning of it?”
Sora slammed the book closed, shoving it to the furthest end of the desk. “It refers to one’s true counterpart. It belongs to the Sayel bond.”
Talon had not named me after a curse. He had called me his mirror.
My mouth wanted to drop open in shock, but I forced my expression to remain neutral. I cleared my throat and straightened my spine. “Do you think the bond could ever come back into existence?”
“I do not,” she said shortly.
“Perhaps it would have been easier if it could,” I muttered, looking down at my hands. “Then, I probably would not struggle for such connection.”
A cold hand landed on my shoulder, bringing my gaze up.
“Child,” Sora said. “Believe me when I say you are safer not in the presence of the bond.”
I frowned. “I understand the High Court would deter it, but if they did not? Would it still be dangerous then?”
Sora crossed the room and moved toward a high shelf, her hand brushing the spines of forgotten tomes before selecting a small, dust-covered velvet pouch.
“Perhaps I can offer you clarity,” she murmured. “This is an artifact usually reserved for the high priests, but you are a special case. You seek answers the books cannot provide.”
From the velvet, she drew a crystalline orb, its core alive with drifting motes of lilac light. It pulsed with a soft, rhythmic glow. “A Seer’s Orb. It will show you what pictures cannot.”
Stepping forward, I cupped my hands and held them out.
“Close your eyes,” Sora instructed, placing the cool glass into my hands. “Think of what you seek answers to.”
Letting my eyes flutter shut, I did not think of the High Court. I thought of Talon’s glacial eyes and the way the world had folded in on itself when we touched.
The orb stirred. The cold deepened, seeping through my skin until I felt like a statue of ice. I opened my eyes into the vision forming within the glass.
I saw a sky torn apart by violet lightning and seething, toxic green clouds. It was a world at war. Shadows twisted like smoke across a blackened landscape.
Veythar forged weapons from raw dark matter, directing their fury against the armored High Court Guards. A banner with the twin-serpent crest waved sadly in the soot-choked wind, a large tear separating the intertwined fangs.
The crowd dispersed, forming a gap around a lone figure in the center of the carnage. He stood bare-chested, his expression raw and agonized. Littered wounds across his body drained him of life, the dark blood of the Veythar staining the earth.
Before the vision could sharpen into the final blow, the orb went still. The light dimmed with a violent flush of heat, evoking a shocked gasp from me as I pulled my hands away.
“You see, Kaelia,” Sora started, taking the orb from my hands. “That war was the result of the Sayel.”
“You are saying,” I began, “that not only would the High Court execute the counterparts of the bond, but our realm may also fall to dust?”
Keeper Sora nodded, her eyes boring into mine. “That is exactly what I am saying.”