Chapter 21
Chapter twenty-one
The Clock Tower
The blade cut through the top layers of my skin.
My dagger was within reach, but I knew I couldn’t beat someone with this Ember, and even flinching could mean a slit throat.
I considered mentioning the parchment I’d found in Queen Amara’s tomb but decided against it until I knew more about what I was dealing with.
So I spoke the truth. “I know of no pass phrase. But I know you’re Emberborn. I could sense when you used your Ember. I have a friend who can stop time like you.”
The woman’s blade quivered for a moment, taking another layer of skin. “You have Veilsense?” she asked, sounding shocked and impressed.
“I do.”
“And you’re here for the Emberlight Trials?”
“I am. I have a parchment that was stashed in the queen’s tomb.”
“Then you should know the pass phrase,” she said. “You would have encountered it along your path.”
I thought through each step of the Trials that had led me to the clock tower. I recalled the details of the Bleeding Oak, the Royal Catacombs, Queen Amara’s tomb, and my journey through the Citadel Library.
Oh! The engraving on the queen’s tomb. I pictured it in my mind: Here lies Queen Amara, the last of the royal Emberborn race. May her wisdom extend beyond the hands of time’s embrace. Now it made sense. Her wisdom could mean this library, and the hands of time’s embrace must mean the clock tower.
I repeated the phrase.
The woman withdrew her blade from my throat and stepped back.
I spun around, hand moving instinctively to the hilt of my dagger.
A middle-aged woman with dark skin and short, curly black hair speckled with gray stood before me wearing worn leather garments like those of a craftsperson. Her warm brown eyes spoke of a wisdom beyond her years.
She assessed my defensive stance. “No need for that. You said yourself that you’re familiar with my Ember, so you should know that if I wanted you dead, you’d be dead already. You are my guest here.”
She was right—I was powerless to stop her if she wanted to kill me. I moved my hand away from my dagger.
“And you have a note for me, I assume?” she said.
My instinct was not to trust her, but she could easily take it from me by force, so I retrieved it from my breast pocket and handed it to her.
She took the note and raised her arms. “Welcome to the Citadel Clock Tower, the spiritual heart of the Order of Emberlight. My name is Adela Fenn. What is your name, recruit?”
While she could kill me and take my possessions, she couldn’t take my name. She clearly knew about the Order of Emberlight and the Trials, but that didn’t guarantee that she was trustworthy.
Adela seemed to sense my hesitation. “You’re right to be suspicious. That shows good instincts on your part. You’re welcome to ask me any questions you have.”
“You said this was the heart of the Order of Emberlight. How are you able to be here? Why does King Tarnasau allow it?”
Adela let out a sad laugh. “You’re starting with the question. We play a delicate game with Tarnasau by exploiting his own ego and hubris. He thinks he’s holding us captive here, forcing us to tend this clock against our will.”
“Couldn’t he just replace you with people he trusts?”
“Because of our special relationship with time, only we can keep the clock going with such precision. To him, the clock is a symbol of control and perfection for his kingdom, so he has ‘walled us in’ and ‘forces us to maintain it.’ In reality, we could leave at any time.”
“And yet you choose to stay.”
“We do. Generations of Emberborn have maintained not only this clock but Emberborn history and knowledge.” Adela gestured toward the trove of books around the room. The sheer number filled me with awe, knowing they were all filled with Emberborn lore.
“Still, it must be hard being captive here,” I said. The weariness in her eyes spoke volumes.
“It is. But it’s our sworn duty. Since Tarnasau destroyed our history elsewhere, maintaining this secret cache of information is of critical importance. We would defend it with our lives. And we have also become the core of the resistance against his tyranny.”
“You keep saying we. Where are the others?” I asked.
“It might be easier to show you,” she said. “Follow me.”
Adela ushered me out of the library. We walked side by side along the corridor past several other rooms filled with books, much like the one we had just left. Shadows danced in my peripheral vision, vague shapes roughly the size of people.
“So many books,” I whispered.
“Indeed,” Adela said, the pride plain on her face.
“I am the fifteenth generation of Fenns who have maintained the clock and the library. Come and meet the fourteenth and sixteenth.” She paused at the base of the next flight of steps.
“You are my guest, but I’ll remind you that I am extending you a measure of trust. I expect you to honor it. ”
“Of course.”
With that, she led me up the steps and into a large common room dominated by a massive fireplace, surrounded by ornately carved and upholstered sofas.
Behind it were several tables and chairs where a handful of men and women studied, ate, and talked, all dressed similarly to Adela. Several people looked up as we entered.
At one table sat an old man and a teenage boy, both with a familial similarity to Adela. Open books and pieces of parchment cluttered the table before them. They watched as we approached.
These were not at all the “warrior clock tenders” I’d expected to find here, although I was certain that Adela would defend this place to the death.
This was a family—a family of Emberborn, in fact.
Something Elena and I had had ripped away from us.
The boy was no older than Elena, and Adela was likely the age my mother would have been if she were alive, making this both the most beautiful and melancholy sight I could imagine.
I had to swallow hard to hold back my surging emotions.
“This is my father, Edric, and my son, Corin,” Adela said, gesturing to each in turn. “And this is our newest Trials recruit. He is Emberborn. He has Veilsense.”
The old man, Edric, turned his deeply wrinkled face toward me, eyebrows raised. “Veilsense. Impressive. What is your name, son?”
Adela looked as if she were about to speak, but I held up my hand. I had seen enough to extend some measure of trust to them.
“My name is Cassian Nightbrook,” I said. “But people call me Cas.”
“Nightbrook,” Edric said, as if trying out the name for the first time, assessing how it felt on his tongue. “And both your parents were Emberborn?”
“Honestly, I don’t even know. They died when I was young, and they never told me about my heritage.”
Edric nodded with a sad frown. “I’m so sorry. All too common a story, I’m afraid. Do you know your real surname?”
“My real one?”
“Most Emberborn families on the run adopt new surnames, both to hide their identities and to sound less Emberborn.”
“Nightbrook is the only name I’ve ever known,” I said.
“We have extensive records of Emberborn lineage in our library. Keeping track was a necessary evil, I’m afraid,” Edric said. “Corin, will you go fetch my book of lineages? The one ordered by aliases. Volume N.”
“Yes, right away, Grandpa,” Corin said, then ran off toward the library.
I watched him as he descended the stairs. I couldn’t help thinking of Elena and what our family could have been like had it not been ripped away from us. “Has he lived here—”
“All his life, yes,” Adela finished, with a distant look in her eyes. “He was born in the tower, and he’ll likely die here, unless we bring an end to the reign of Tarnasau.”
“And I want to help with that,” I said. “Are my Trials over? Am I part of the Order of Emberlight now?”
A laugh came from deep within Edric’s chest. “Not yet, my son. You have one more task to perform, and then you’ll stand before the elders of the Emberlight Council. They will make the final decision.”
“I’ll do what I need to do.”
“That I do not doubt,” Edric said. “Getting as far as you have takes talent and perseverance. But it isn’t always about what you want or even what you can do. The council decides.”
“Speaking of which,” Adela cut in, taking out the parchment I’d given her, “I need to decipher this message and send one back. Delivering a message to the council is your last task.”
She left us just as Corin ran back up the stairs with a book nearly half as big as he was. On the spine was the letter n. He ran to the table and set the book down in front of his grandpa.
“Thank you, Corin,” Edric said, and opened the book near the middle. “We assess the lineage of each new Emberborn recruit. But it’s a deeply personal thing, and you may find out things you don’t wish to know.”
“I understand,” I said quickly, instinctively, although I wasn’t yet sure how I felt about it. My parents had kept so much from me, which made me feel unmoored. Even so, I wasn’t sure I was ready to know everything about my past, since I was still coming to terms with what I had already learned.
Edric ran his finger down the ledger. The writing in the book was as immaculate as it was intricate, with many columns and rows covering the entire page. He scanned the first column, titled “Alias,” flipped a few more pages, and finally settled on a page filled with surnames starting with n-i.
“Well, there are many more Nightbrooks than expected,” Edric said. “Do you know your parents’ given names?”
“My mother was Cora, and my father was Edwin,” I said, choking back emotion as I recalled my father’s kind smile and my mother’s warm embrace. She’d always doled out affection generously.
“Edwin and Cora?” Edric said. “Interesting.”
“What’s interesting?” I asked.
“Those names feel familiar to me, but alas, I’m an old man and my memory is failing. Let’s see what we can find in the ledger.”
Edric continued to scan. After flipping several pages, he stopped, a frown on his face. “Well, that’s disappointing. And unusual. Our records are thorough.”
“So that’s it? There’s no record of my family?”
“This is quite unprecedented,” Edric said as he closed the book.
His forehead was deeply creased. “It’s possible that they changed their surname more than once or that their alias was never recorded.
I can look for records matching their given names, but that will require going through all the volumes, and that will take quite some time. ”
Adela rushed back into the room. Her footsteps were quick, and her face looked almost panicked, a sharp contrast to her earlier calm. “Cassian, I need to know—do you have a sister named Elena?”
“I do,” I said, feeling my stomach drop. “Why?”
“You and your sister are in terrible danger!”