Chapter 27 #2
Emmeline kept her hood up the entire walk to the Temple Archives in the Second District, Graves and Eston only a few feet behind them. It wasn’t far from the Chancellor’s manor, passing the tavern Lola had helped Desmond and Myrella secure a room in on the way, but the air in Valyn was ravenous.
For her.
Rumors about her magic, conversations about which contestant to bet on and who they wanted her bonded to floated down each street. With every step her humanity slipped away further, no more than a prop.
It wasn’t until they were closed in a private room in the Archives, their guards outside, that she fully exhaled.
Lola rubbed her arm, stepping around her to light the odorless candles decorating the shelves. Myrella gave her a wide-eyed stare while Desmond tensely unpacked books on the low table in the center of the room.
Emmeline shook off his discomfort. “Let’s get to work.”
The only way she was going to stop being choked by this city was to find answers. The tournament, Roremar, and her sister. Those were her priorities.
Myrella agreed to take point on translating the Endasi scroll, having a preference for languages when she was in school. Emmeline handed over the reference books she’d gathered and the few translations she’d been able to parse out so far.
From the patterns and the commonalities to languages Endasi had informed, she hypothesized it was about the original tournament, a section about each trial, perhaps the purpose.
The word certa, which in some languages referred to competitions, had been used repeatedly, as was the Angel’s name. Fatorum was used often, too, a Fate connection Emmeline hadn’t been able to figure out yet.
“These Archives are normally reserved for temple acolytes,” Lola explained. “The different levels are organized by subject.”
“How did we get in then?” Desmond asked.
Two floors below ground and with its windowless walls and locked doors, this room was exactly what they needed. Privacy.
And Emmeline was hoping she’d be able to slip into the Archives before they left to hunt down some historical information on the temple trades.
“Same way I do everything,” Lola said. “Through my extensive network of friends.”
“You’ve got this whole city wrapped around your little finger, don’t you?” Desmond asked, his attention so fiercely on Lola, Emmeline almost felt like she was intruding.
Lola blinked sweetly at him. “Just a few people in the right places who are happy to do my bidding. I am my uncle’s niece after all.” She tacked on that last sentence sourly, tossing a stack of flat cushions on the floor around the table for them to sit on.
“No,” Desmond corrected, “you’re your father’s daughter.”
Lola gave him a grateful smile, ducking her head.
“Okay,” Emmeline cut in as she finished arranging her various strains of incense. “I’m ready.”
Hours.
She spent hours in and out of readings, alternating with Desmond, the two trying every different type of incense or herb imaginable. Lola had even run out earlier to grab them more options.
Still, Emmeline’s readings were producing no concrete answers. She heard the same words over and over, in the same cadence, but no questions she asked prodded the Fates to explain more of them.
A fortune spun by Fated hands,
A choice taken from forsaken bands.
Two hearts staked through with malice.
She was ready to give up on those entirely for the day.
“I’m going again,” Emmeline said after a long stretch of frustrated silence.
All attention shifted to her as she took a seat on the floor before the low table, making sure the pillows were piled up nicely after the last session had been so strong it nearly made her faint.
Lola snapped her book closed. “Who this time?”
Emmeline didn’t want to read Anphrosia with Lola so close. If Starsearchers tied to the Fate of Cruelty and Adoration were still involved, she didn’t want to risk calling attention to Lola and somehow marking her.
Emmeline looked at the list of Fates she had yet to contact today, eyes landing on three words: Secrets and Greed. She couldn’t recall the last time she read him.
“Serchus.”
Lola’s lips pressed together, a wave of mourning in her blue eyes at the mention of Nico’s Fate, but she nodded quietly.
Emmeline grabbed the jar with crushed wildflowers and rolled a pinch in a slip of paper, lighting the end.
“I thought you didn’t like to smoke it?” Desmond asked, charcoal bouncing between his fingers.
“I usually don’t, but I want answers.” She’d smoke the crushed herbs, bathe in them, brew fucking tea with them if it would help.
For extra strength, Emmeline splashed bergamot oil on her wrists, the tart floral flooding the room. She lifted the roll to her lips and inhaled, blowing the smoke out slowly.
Starfire rippled eagerly at the edges of her vision, fingers stretching out for her, closing her window of vision into this realm.
On the second hit, it devoured her.
Emmeline dug her nails into the rug, the soft fabric against the pads of her fingers a reminder of where she was bodily.
She tumbled headfirst into the cosmic realm of readings, and when she opened her eyes it looked…different. Vibrant.
Typically, everything in a session was endless starry skies and rippling starfire, barren planes dotted by constellations.
Now, she stood among very real rolling hills of night-blooming wildflowers, petals looking like stars pulled down from the sky.
A breeze rippled around her, stirring the hem of her skirt around her ankles and rifling the tall silver grasses, their twinkling bristles bent beneath her boots.
The skies were swirls of galaxies. Blends of the richest purples and deep wine reds, navy blues and pops of blinding silver. The moon hung overhead, the light cool as it kissed her skin.
Even the air hummed like the space between the stars, a current making her feel more whole here than ever. All the crackling energy of today’s readings finally soothed, each bead of fortune slotting into place.
In her body, she pressed her palms into the floor. She was still present in both realms, yet this one was so much more real.
This was what she’d been trying to reach. Serchus was who she was meant to be reading.
Running water rumbled in the distance, but Emmeline couldn’t see where it came from. She could almost feel it, though, a stark contrast to the burning starfire she was used to.
Overhead, the stars shifted. A dozen rearranged into a constellation she didn’t recognize. No—not a constellation.
They stilled, and smaller stars filled in the gaps to form an ornate mask with feathers branching out on either side, curling up and around its carved edges. It cracked in two, a single bead spiraling down to the hills.
With a flash of light, a celestial male form stood before her, and Emmeline breathed, “Serchus.”