Chapter 52
Chapter Fifty-Two
Emmeline
It had been a mistake to let Roremar so close. His touch was a phantom on her body, addictive as she walked away. Every part of her ached for more. She had a feeling if she dropped the reins entirely, she’d never be sated.
“Are you okay?” Perry’s voice sliced through her internal debate.
They were approaching the competitors’ tent, the sun dipping behind the grapevines in the distance and painting the sky in streaks of oranges and pinks.
“Yes,” Emmeline assured him, tucking away all lust-driven thoughts of Roremar. Fates, she could still feel his grip on her thighs.
“Here,” Perry said, pulling her to a table inside the back entrance and grabbing them each a glass of wine. “Steady yourself. Get back into your act.”
She took a long sip of the crisp white blend. “Why are you helping us?”
“I told you before,” Perry said, lifting his glass to his lips.
Emmeline squinted at him. “No, you didn’t.” She placed a hand on his arm, pulling his attention to her. “You’ve alluded to your curiosities about the Constellation Isles, but you’ve said nothing else, yet you continue to ally with Roremar and help us sneak around.”
Could they really trust him?
Perry hadn’t necessarily done anything to warrant her suspicion, but she’d been wary of him since the Presentation.
He was the leading competitor in the Races, the favored among those who scorned Roremar, and she was almost positive someone in the competition was working directly with the Chancellor.
Perry’s family had wealth and a notable reputation thanks to their mining projects. Who was to say he wasn’t the plant she suspected?
When they danced at the Presentation, Perry swore he didn’t want to win, but there were other ways to put a knife in her back.
“Now’s not the time to speak of it,” Perry said, gaze flicking around the crowd rather than meeting her eye.
The knot in her gut thickened, her magic perking up when he leaned closer.
“Tonight, I think you need to find your friend. I tried to keep an eye on her when you went off with Devinli, but she’s flighty every time I approach. ”
All suspicion fled Emmeline’s mind. Her attention snapped to the tables littering the space, quickly dragging over every face in search of Myrella. “Where is she?”
Perry gestured to the corner, and Emmeline’s gaze landed on her, gold-threaded gown standing out. Myrella waved, and Emmeline released a breath when she saw Graves was still beside her.
Before leaving, Emmeline turned back to Perry. “I want the truth next time I see you.”
“Of course.” Perry nodded to her. “Have a wonderful evening, Miss DeLeoste.”
“What was that about?” Myrella asked when Emmeline met her.
“I asked him why he’s helping Roremar and me,” Emmeline explained.
“And?”
“And he’s only given some vague excuse about having interest in the Constellation Isles.” Emmeline watched Perry disappear among the other men, suspicion nagging at her.
“The isles?” Myrella repeated, looking after him, too. Despite Perry’s revelation that Myrella had seemed flighty around him, she didn’t seem unsettled now. At least not more than she’d been all day.
“I don’t know.” Emmeline sighed, banishing Perry from her mind, as well. It was almost time. She dropped her voice. “How’s it going here?”
Myrella’s round eyes lit. “Small portions of each blend of incense are burning around the perimeter of the tent. Graves turned out to be helpful when I told him we wanted to read to let off steam. It’s subtle. I think we got the proportions right.”
“Excellent,” Emmeline exhaled, nodding her thanks to the guard a few feet behind Myrella.
The air wasn’t thick with haze, but she could smell the faint medley of scents mingling on the breeze. See the shoulders loosening, her own magic starting to flicker faster in her veins.
She banished Roremar and his dejected expression from her thoughts to focus on their plan. If she was going to save him, she had to.
“Let’s go find the others.”
“How did it go?” Emmeline asked when they found Desmond and Lola at their designated meeting point in the center of the vineyard.
“Got a few dozen drunks smoking in the eastern quadrant,” Desmond confirmed.
“Higher ranked officials were more challenging,” Lola said, deflating Emmeline’s hope a bit. “I had to place the oil wells very specifically. Desmond helped me distract them so I could use the heavier strains you gave us.”
“Okay,” Emmeline said, mind spinning. The incense they’d exposed over the vineyards clung to her more by the minute. The twining smoky and floral scents sent anticipation buzzing through her. Her magic strained to be unleashed. “Let’s set up further east then.”
They traipsed toward where Desmond indicated he’d passed out the rolls, Graves and Eston remaining at the entrance to the grapevines. As soon as they were a few rows away, the clouds of smoke slammed into Emmeline.
She stumbled, Myrella bracing her. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Emmeline breathed out. Voices sang through her mind, dozens of fortunes spinning like dancers on a stage. “It’s strong. This is going to work. Come on.”
She slipped her hand into Myrella’s, pulling her down the row.
Desmond and Lola were on their heels. They stopped at the end, where the rolling hills of the vineyard stretched beyond Valyn.
Lilac skies bathed the scene, spiraling columns of incense reaching up to the stars that hadn’t woken for the night yet.
Warriors frolicked through the fields in pairs and groups, music pounding through the air.
“This spot works,” Emmeline said. Crouching, she pulled vials from her belt and started setting up her reading supplies.
Myrella dropped beside her, removing her own incense, and Desmond lit a roll blended for both Arenothos and Aevollon.
“You sure you’ll be okay?” Desmond asked. When Emmeline looked up, his attention was trained on Lola.
“Yes,” she assured him, voice soft. “I’ll keep watch.”
They’d all agreed it was best if she didn’t read Anphrosia in such a volatile magical environment. Desmond still appeared reluctant to leave her, but he seemed to swallow that argument.
Emmeline and Myrella finished filling her eleven oil wells, the scents already pulling at each of her ties. The Fates whispered in her ears, everything loose thanks to the incense they’d set up around the vineyard.
Hovering, Lola said to Desmond, “Give me the roll once you take a hit, and I’ll extinguish it so the lingering smoke won’t continue to pull you further. That way if something’s wrong, you should be able to snap out of the session quicker.”
Desmond nodded and took a long drag. As he exhaled the smoke, the ashy citrus scent tugged at two of Emmeline’s Fate ties.
“Ready?” Desmond asked, eyes already glazing over.
Myrella nodded. Emmeline counted her wells, rechecked every mixture was correct, and placed a reed in each. “Ready.”
Desmond took a second hit and extended the roll to Lola, fingers lingering on hers as she took it.
Emmeline struck a match, hovering the flame over every stick to release the aromas into the air.
A medley of fog consumed them, spiraling thicker into the sky with each oil she passed. Luckily, the later it got, the more Starsearchers expected to see recreational clouds of incense blooming across the city. No one would think anything of them.
Emmeline inhaled. The new concoction mixed with the countless, strong incense blends they’d lit around the vineyards. All her Fates screamed, the vastly different readings they communicated to all the Starsearchers in attendance blending.
Be careful tapping into more than one Fate at a time, her mother’s voice warned from twenty years ago. They are volatile and competitive. When combined, their strength is unmatched.
“Sorry, Mother,” Emmeline whispered, her heart still stuck on the broken stare in Roremar’s eyes.
And she fell into the Fates.
Star’s Reign
Fire floods the Skulls of Deadlands
Gold paints the purple skies
Star’s Ruin
Two hearts staked through with malice
A sacrifice proclaimed by the balance
The voices slammed into Emmeline as if she was the center of the universe, the point at which all stars and beings orbited. As if she was a goddess herself, a commander of Angels and Fates in a tunnel of starfire.
And now for all revenge rejoice
Prophecy dictates a promised choice
Emmeline employed the tactics of joint readings she’d researched, mentally reaching out for Desmond and Myrella first, latching on to their unique Fate ties as they ebbed through the air around her.
Desmond’s, a flaming, gold-tipped streak of sky.
Myrella’s, a calm and peaceful ripple, as it had been in the pottery studio.
Him to fall
Her to bleed
Fortunes sped every which way, shooting to Starsearchers all around the vineyards.
In a typical joint reading, she would only have to let the session occur with those she was reading with—as she and Desmond had—but they were trying to manipulate this one. To crack open windows to the Fates through their combined power. To force the answers that had been blocked to the surface.
She envisioned each fortune as a rope of starlight and wrapped them around her fist, gripping tight to the words of the Fates so she could make sense of them while the deluge they’d caused with their incense rained upon the city, unbeknownst to anyone but them.
Even Desmond and Myrella wouldn’t see it—not as strongly as she did.
Cross with bloodied footsteps faring
And somewhere beyond the veil
Spins an utter star-crossed tale
To tempt the Fates and realms have wrest
Touch of Realmspinners and Angelblessed
These words—she’d heard so many of them before. The same phrases, jotted down in her journal. She tucked each away in her memory to make sense of later.
Realmspinners, one of the Fates cheered again and again, hungrier with each word, like they were lunging out to something nearby, but Emmeline didn’t know what the cult had to do with this.
Somewhere, glass shattered.
Faces flickered in the haze of starfire surrounding this plane, all the Starsearchers tapping into the joint reading filtering in and out.
Desmond and Myrella materialized beside her, determination clear in their awestruck expressions as magic swirled around her. Ebbed into her like it had flowed from Valyrie and into her Fates all those centuries ago.
“Emmeline,” Myrella gasped.
But before Emmeline could answer, eleven flashes of light flared in a circle around her, forming a wall of starfire between her and her friends.
“Myrella? Desmond?” Emmeline called.
“We’re still here,” Desmond’s deep voice answered.
“Emmeline,” Myrella called, “try to build the star map. Like we saw before.”
Emmeline reached out to their Fate ties again, grounding herself in the connections of everyone contributing in this joint reading.
Eleven faceless Fates hovered in starfire before her, their bodies more solid the longer they remained. They weren’t quite as whole as Serchus had been, but more so than usual. She had to be on the right track then.
Siphoning power from Starsearchers across the vineyard, Emmeline envisioned the constellations aligning above. One by one, the map was reforged.
Anphrosia, Arenothos, Aevollon, and Dryvius.
The serpent and shooting star that symbolized Falliare and Rocarri.
More came this time, too. Those stars that had beat on an invisible boundary swooshed across the skies, speeding to their places.
As everything gathered, the Fates’ words poured from the voids, jumbling together. Her skull ached, her brain threatening to split in half as she tried to figure out who was saying what.
This is unwise, a voice boomed.
She is unprecedented, another responded.
Serchus’s boyish laugh.
What is it you want, child?
Her. That question was for her. “I need answers. I need to know what Dryvius is doing, and how. And I need to figure out how to clear Roremar’s name. What Rocarri and Falliare are after.”
We cannot speak of Chaos and Revelry more than we already have, one Fate said.
“All you’ve said is that he’s still meddling,” Emmeline argued. Overhead, a mask formed in the stars beside the five-starred constellation that was Serchus’s Coin.
Brighter and brighter the mask glowed.
“Is it the lock and key? Is that what you want me to look closer at?”
Tension crawled across Emmeline’s shoulders, thickening with every passing second, and she had the distinct impression the Fates were speaking to one another.
More stars formed a rippling train in the sky, stopping at the center of her map. Connections stretched out to each Fate.
Beside that web, two triangular constellations, a symbol she knew.
The falls, Reignarria. We cannot divulge more, but you will find an answer in feathers and falls.
Feathers and falls. That rippling train of stars—it was a waterfall.
Emmeline pulled harder against every bit of magic she could grasp. The stars above vibrated with the force. The Fates’ voices exploded.
Star’s Reign and Star’s Ruin.
The Golden Forge.
A foretold death of bridges.
Two lovers’ hearts united.
Eleven forms burned brighter, brighter. Until her eyes watered and a ringing echoed through her ears. Water rushed. Glass shattered again and again. And somewhere, a woman screamed.
As pressure barreled down on her, Emmeline released the reins and snapped back into the present, falling onto her hands and knees.
Her very bones trembled with the magic tunneling through her body, skin sweaty and enflamed.
“Feathers and falls,” she forced out over quivering breaths.
And the world swayed into twilit darkness.