Chapter 2 #2
Percivale’s head tipped from side to side. “Call it a familial obligation.”
That makes two of us, she almost said. Although, her search for her sister was more of a bone-deep need.
She spun her opal ring around her finger and tried to force herself to focus, but the pain in her chest wrenched tighter. With every twist, her Fate ties pulled.
The swishing chant in her veins mixed with the chatter of the ballroom rising around her. One voice over another, one stranger’s face replaced by the next. So many eyes. There were so many eyes on her at all times. People who all seemed to want something from her.
A show. Even Perry, who seemed so at ease, amused by this world, had said it was true. This was an act, a play, and she was a puppet among them all.
At the thought, her throat constricted, a coiling pressure mounting behind her ribs, threatening to pop.
“Excuse me,” Emmeline said, voice hoarse. “I need to read.”
Perry tossed a grape overhead, catching it in his mouth. “Duty calls. I’ll be seeing you around, Emmeline.”
It wasn’t until she was out of the dining chamber, barreling down the halls to somewhere quieter, that she realized Perry had never asked her name.
Emmeline’s skirt swished as she took wide turns around endless marble halls. She wasn’t certain where she was going—so much of the manor was still a maze to her—but she had to get away from that room.
An ache split through her skull as she rounded another corner and lurched to a halt.
She bit down on her cheek to keep from crying out, not sure if anyone would hear.
She thought she was in the east wing, but the corridor around her blurred, her magic beating a war drum through her blood, choking each inhale in her lungs.
Emmeline stumbled, gasping. Heat crackled along her skin, and a bolt of pain shot through her skull.
Her vision swam with white flames, the walls and rug all layered with haze as if she was looking at the many tapestries and paintings through starfire. The corridor flickered between here and a dusty, star-strewn landscape. Far off, silhouetted towers jutted into the sky.
“What’s happening?” she panted, clutching her aching head. She wasn’t sure whom the question was even for.
But the Fates answered, a deluge of voices, one toppling over the next.
Star’s Reign, a voice reminiscent of booming battlefields called.
“Arenothos?” Emmeline asked as chains of bones rattled through her mind, taunting her.
Star’s Ruin, a second Fate echoed, whimsical music trailing on the edge of the words, so disjointed with the cracking bones.
“Aevollon,” Emmeline whispered.
The Fate of Wrath and Redemption and the Fate of Artistry and Trickery, talking to her at once. Both Fates who were entwined with the Fate of Cruelty and Adoration’s messy history as they’d discovered during the murder investigation on Lyra.
Sweat broke out along Emmeline’s skin, and she staggered to the side. Braced a hand against a window. Voices popped like firecrackers in her mind, readings whooshing like shooting stars.
Emmeline’s entire body heated, a forge lit in her gut. She could see it, melting down metals, bending and breaking and recasting ruthless weapons and crowns and scepters, all gleaming silver.
Not long now. Though the bones still rattled and music trilled louder, that voice wasn’t Arenothos or Aevollon.
This one was nurturing, an embrace and a balm wrapping around her.
“Hyllara,” Emmeline breathed, the Fate of Fertility and Betrayal’s constellation flashing overhead in the reading. “Not long until what?”
But Hyllara’s starry form vanished.
Aevollon’s music built.
Arenothos’s war beat pounded.
Come play, they chanted.
Laughter barreled through the reading, high-pitched cackles and low, sultry rumbles, splitting everything in two, right down the center of her body. Lightning flashed and shouts echoed like thunder, drowning out each cackle as if trying to contain it.
Emmeline stifled a whimper. “What do you want?”
Pain split through her head as the towers flickered in the distance again, ancient, shadowed spires stretching toward the starry sky like aching fingers reaching for…for—
The cackling laughter split the air.
A fortune spun by Fated hands,
A choice taken from forsaken bands.
Two hearts staked through with malice—
Emmeline fisted her hand against the glass. Fates, she wanted to shatter it. To tear down this whole manor around her and let it burn in the starfire that tried to consume her.
Teeth gritted to avoid screaming, she forced her eyes to open. Through teary, blurred vision, she counted the details around her, grounding herself.
The tapestries on the walls; woven landscapes and hand drawn star maps; the sculptures between the windows; the doors at the far end, sealed.
Anyone could stumble around the corner, though. Anyone could find her vulnerable. She needed to get away from here to really process what the Fates were saying.