Chapter Four The Nova
Chapter Four
The Nova
Typically, I wouldn’t do two rituals so closely together. They were not bound by any laws of reality, but I tried to err on the side of restraint. Good fortune could make one sick with greed, even if it wasn’t as tangible as the weight of gold in one’s palm.
Rituals required a clarity of mind. I did not believe in passive manifestation; work was required, no matter the circumstance. It was about what you were willing to sacrifice to the depths. Blood was good, but baring your soul was better.
With the circumstance of my father’s condition, the strain from the patent preparation, Dorian competing for the most important role in his institution, among whatever else I was letting slip through the cracks in my clouded path . . . one more wish for certainty was all I needed.
The bath oils soaked into my skin like water on salt plains. Dried lemon balm and bacopa clouded the water. Passionflower blooms danced around my legs, spinning along the surface as the ripples disturbed them.
The steam collected on my face, clearing my airways and thoughts.
Cleanliness was a ritual, in a way. It was grounding in the most mundane way. Each bath varied by person.
I reached over to my stool and picked up an Everie card from the top of the deck in its intricate wooden box.
Altair in Eclipse.
An eagle with six wings, three eyes, and a crown tight around his throat.
Reversed image, with the beak pointed down: a negative premonition.
A click of my tongue against my tooth as I flicked the card away, sinking deeper into the bath.
Four seasons, four major constellations in the Everie.
Altair was the patron of Ruina, the season of unforgiving.
The coldest months of the year. I was a superstitious person, spiritual even.
I believed there was something out there, but maybe not something as literal as deities.
All constellations had a patron, an image of which our imaginations created, a form we could conceptualize instead of bursting stars that didn’t even know we were here.
While I believed the divine to be fictional in all the ways that worshippers would regard them, I also believed they were based in logic to navigate the world we lived in.
Ruina being the season of unforgiving made sense, especially to those alive when Astrium had been conceived as a religion.
A people of little means, in a new land, having to survive the coldest, darkest, most fruitless season.
It felt like a predator, waiting to pick off those who were unable to adapt.
Death came swiftly, without warning, like a critter in an eagle’s talons.
The Altair represented a struggle between good and evil, the material and the metaphysical, truth and lies.
Fierce leader qualities and the struggle that came with being an apex of nature.
Infinitely curious to improve things for all people, restless until successful.
The card in Nova, upright, represented success in this pursuit.
The reversed Eclipse of the same card suggested failures in this realm.
The cards were my mother’s, and her mother’s before her, and so on. As superstitious as passing a horseshoe.
The bath was cold by now, cutting my lounging short.
I dried myself carefully, patting down any buildup of oils before slipping a fine deep indigo robe over my shoulders. It was thin, completely sheer. Alencon lace outlined a map of the stars in glass beads and silk floss, finished off with a long-tasseled trim that tickled the backs of my calves.
Along the washroom wall was a vanity. On the surface, a complete collection of blue Whitefriar perfume bottles.
I tapped my nail on each of the glasses.
The difficult part was choosing just one.
I ended on a short round glass with a velvet spray pump.
The blue glass distorted the liquid color, but I knew what it was.
I spritzed my neck, then my chest, finishing on my thigh, the smoky scent a ghost of incense and oud.
Through the mirror, my reflection was the centerpiece of my dressing table.
Mirror images were something you were supposed to recognize. At the risk of sounding self-absorbed, my heart skipped every time. It was like looking at someone familiar, but with new features.
The white patches came and went, more of them appearing after rituals before slowly returning my color.
Large patches of white started around my eye socket, then spread across my cheek and down to my lips.
Every large patch was accompanied by smaller specks of white along the edges.
A couple of stray white hairs at my forelock, which I routinely plucked, since the vitiligo did not stop with just the pigment of the skin.
I turned my head from one side to the other, then opened my robe.
My first patch of vitiligo had been high on my chest, directly in the middle.
At first it was a circle. Then, as I grew older, it expanded into an elongated, four-pointed star.
Then it appeared on other parts of my body: the divots of my elbows, my knees, my inner thighs, and under my breasts.
All sharing loose star shapes as the patterns webbed across my body.
No two marks were the same, but the placements tended to be vaguely mirrored.
They always reminded me of folding ink between a piece of paper. Most parts were symmetrical, with a few outliers.
There was nothing so awe inspiring as something truly one of a kind, one in millions, never another to be replicated. That was me, in this body, with this skin, with my gifts. It was a blessing.
No one would believe me, but I knew that even my markings were just as alive and enigmatic as the Otherside. That would explain their habit of glowing whenever I neared an opening or a Peculiar, burning as bright as my desire to know it, to touch it.
My father always said I was touched by stars, and I believed him, even now.
I finished my routine with hair oil, brushing my fingers through the coils and properly scrunching the dampened strands to encourage the shape.
The night was calm, embracing the corridor like a wool sheet, the tension in the air holding static. It was palpable. Just stepping out of the water and into the heart of my home demanded energy. Today was heavy, a new moon. Opportunity sang with high voltage, bright and full of danger.
Absinthe and Tonic slunk from the dark corners, intermingling with the tassels of my cover swaying around me.
My library was dark, even after I’d fed the plankton in their wall-mounted bowls. I approached one, a brass holder with an enclosed glass sphere. I repositioned the glass, the water within offering a small sprite of blue light before settling to a faint radiance.
At the center of the room, the large round rug—but no Peculiars.
I looked back at the doorway, where the two black forms paced the entry.
“What is it?” I called to them. “Come.” I swept my arm through the air, my hand pointing to the center of the floor.
They paced, jittering. As if deliberating whether to obey.
“Come,” I said, a harsh strain on the words.
The deliberation ended, and they slid quickly into the room, circling each other before combining in the middle of the rug, just as I’d trained them to do. Their dark expanse flattened, widening before it reached the woven fringe.
I took a globe from the wall, the movement waking particles of light as I approached my task.
I whispered my assurances, whether the Peculiars were listening or not, or even if they didn’t care to hear: “For good measure, and good tidings.”
It was a transaction; no care was really needed. Even if they were not my focus tonight, they reaped the benefits of being near: a good meal for them, no matter what.
I placed the water lamp at my feet, the glow growing stronger as it neared the abyss. With light fingers, I slipped the robe from my shoulders and discarded it on a lounge chair, then lowered myself with my knees edging the void. The vitiligo began to glow as well.
The opening was viscous, liquid. The specular reflection was as pristine as mercury, the glow of my patterns bouncing from the image. A ring around my iris matched the glow of everything else.
With a grounding inhale, I closed my eyes. The smell of rainfall on parched earth, a kiss of sulfur. A metallic tinge to the air. Static crept along my arms, hairs standing on end one by one.
Focus was instrumental in gaining the outcome you wanted.
Negative thoughts should be left in the wind as you visualized the things you desired, the feelings you’d have once you were victorious.
Let the frequency build, tickling your toes as it rose to the very pit of your stomach, enticing your appetites before swelling your heart, then a lung’s stretch to hold that desire just out of reach, just before your fingertips, within your grasp.
The inky liquid was icy to the touch. The texture was smooth, not as sticky as oil, but not as fluid as water. Before much longer, the void swallowed my fingers and pooled in between the creases of my palm, the glow of my markings strong enough to see through closed eyelids.
Through the strength of my voice, the incantation at the peak of my energy: “Florescentia.” The word sounded like a thousand whispers, echoing in my state of meditation around me.
Then—there was nothing.
A sudden snap of energy, as if grounding a charge.
My eyes opened so fast I had to blink to clear my vision.
The portal was there. My hand was submerged. Nothing was happening.
I braced my other hand on the floor and plunged my arm up to my shoulder. I grasped, wiggled my fingers, searching in the abyss. It was no different from sticking my arm in an ice bath.
I closed my eyes again.
Come now . . . something!
A small cracking noise from beside my head.
I looked up, the water lamp burning bright, the plankton moving faster, faster, faster.
It was too late to move away.
The glass shattered—no, more than shattered. It combusted.
A sharp yelp as the glass hit the side of my face, and I removed my hand from the void. A screech like a climaxing kettle, an unnatural howl in my ear, before I pulled my knees to my chest, burying my face and covering my ears as if the room would collapse on me then.
My head became disoriented, a sickening sourness in my stomach like bad chemicals. Everything was spinning, crashing, things were moving . . .
Something was here.
My belongings were tossed as the floor quaked beneath me.
Then—it just stopped. The stillness was as jarring as the commotion.
I lifted my head to see the rug torn and tattered, Absinthe and Tonic gone, glass absolutely everywhere.
After my hand touched the wet floor, I snatched it back.
The biolight water was . . . hot?
The little glowing organisms were no longer glowing. Had they generated enough kinetic heat to cook themselves?
The silence of the room was deafening. I cleared my throat just to check if my eardrums were still intact. Within the tatters of the rug, pieces of wood were scattered.
With a careful touch, I gathered the rug, pulling and shoving the heavy material out of the way. Deep, splintered cuts marred the hardwood. These floors were verawood, one of the densest flooring options you could use.
After yanking the bunched rug away, I shoved it aside to assess the damage.
Dorian was going to kill me. How would I begin to explain this?
And I thought the damage was bad before seeing the final piece. The warning wasn’t small, not even implied. It was explicit.
Carved deep into the floors was an unambiguous omen.
A single demand.
Obscuria.