Chapter 55 #2
The Fate shook his head. “Give me a secret, and I shall give you your answer.”
And this time, it was so easy to voice her deepest secret. “I love him, and I want to keep him, even though I promised I wouldn’t.”
Still hanging from his branch, Serchus tutted. “That is perhaps the most dangerous secret of all.”
“And I have shared it,” Emmeline said. “Now, give me my answer.”
“Go back to the boy who lost his life.”
Emmeline inhaled sharply. “Nico?”
Serchus nodded.
“Why was he killed?”
“Wrong question. You already know that answer.”
Emmeline searched her mind for any reason she’d theorized before. “Dryvius needed a Serchus Fate tie for his ritual.”
“One heart of greed entrenched in kin,” Serchus repeated the words Emmeline had been told weeks ago as he swung all the way around the tree branch, landing on his feet on its narrow edge.
He braced his hands on his hips, light-purple starlight gilding his frame as he nodded down at her.
“I am wound into this prophetic future as many others are. The boy was the consequence. His death was not to do with him, but with a promise I made to the stars long ago.”
Emmeline gasped as she understood. “The key. Someone who held secrets and schemes. It wasn’t about Dryvius and Roremar. That’s not how Dryvius is meddling.” No, it had nothing to do with the tournament at all. “It was you?”
A boyish smile.
Serchus created the lock and key prophecy, and Nico’s death fulfilled it.
Emmeline’s heart clenched. That’s why Dryvius targeted him.
Not because of something Nico suspected. Not because he completed a ritual.
Because of Serchus.
“Why, though?” she asked, voice hoarse. “What did it do?”
“In killing my representative and fulfilling that fortune, the Fate of Chaos and Revelry won something he’d been long working toward. Something his tied and those who came before him took precautions against.” A small laugh. “Though, they never knew the whole story.”
“What did Dryvius win?” Emmeline asked, not daring to breathe.
And when Serchus said, “Freedom from his tie,” she thought her heart would stop beating all together.
Freedom.
“But Roremar can feel him,” she said. “He didn’t sever their Fate tie. Roremar said he’s felt him. He read him tonight even—spoke to him.”
Although, Roremar had told them all on the ride out here that something was wrong with his tie. It had been since Dryvius killed Nico.
“There is more than one way to be free.” Serchus crossed his arms, leaning a shoulder against the tree trunk. The silver leaves shimmered with the motion, iridescence sprinkling the Fate and the earth beneath his feet.
“In what way was Dryvius free from Roremar?”
“That is what we are all asking,” Serchus said, nodding gravely. “We thought him dead just as you did. We have all clearly been proven wrong, and we are still waiting for him to reveal himself to us.”
Emmeline’s skin prickled, as if Dryvius would leap from the branches of Serchus’s tree right now.
“So, it freed him from the ruse of his death? Freed him to return to the Fate Realm and track you down if he wished?” Emmeline asked, still feeling like she didn’t have all the pieces.
“That is a good way to put it.” Serchus shrugged, entirely dismissive about the Fate of Chaos and Revelry being alive and killing his own Fate tied. “This all deals with more prophecies than you can comprehend. We shall see how it plays out.”
Fear chilled Emmeline’s skin.
“You don’t seem afraid,” she observed.
“Do not be afraid of fate, Reignarria. If there is one certainty in these realms, it is that what’s meant to pass shall pass, and we will all deal with it when it does.” It was the most serious she’d ever heard Serchus, his expression beneath his mask pleasant but expectant.
Emmeline exhaled in disbelieving amusement. “That actually sounds like a peaceful way to live.”
He gazed at their surroundings. “Live as long as I have, and it will prove to be the one that leads to greatest inner serenity.”
Emmeline followed his stare to the dusty landscape, those rolling hills of starlike flowers in the distance. “Where are we exactly?”
“You will one day see. For now, I leave you with a piece of advice: Pay attention to the magic steeped in your surroundings. You have seen the graves hidden with maps of secrets past and found the Point of Constellation in which you speak to me tonight, but keep digging. There is much more to unveil.”
“What is a Point of Constellation?” she asked.
“It is a place of heightened magic in the earth. There are many to be found, where stardust has been woven and Fates are strongest.”
Where stardust has been woven.
You’re woven with stardust, her mother used to say. Her eyes stung at the reminder.
“You didn’t ask for a secret that time.”
“I need not make a trade for that piece of information.” Serchus shrugged again, so unaffected. “Pay attention. Now, it is time to go. He is worried.”
“What?” Emmeline asked, but then she heard it, her name wrenching apart the skies.
Emmeline!
Her body was rocked.
Emmeline, wake up!
She opened her eyes to a steely, crazed gaze.
“Thank the stars,” Roremar sighed, clutching her closer. He kissed the top of her head, his chest rising and falling rapidly against her as she tried to focus.
Water rushed at the mouth of the cave, but there weren’t any flowers on the walls nor could she smell them.
“Where are we?” she slurred, shivering from her damp underclothes and hair.
“The back of that cave formed a tunnel to another. We’re behind the eleventh waterfall.” Panic streaked Roremar’s voice as he rubbed warmth into her arms, and she lifted her gaze back to his. “Normally when you’re reading you can still engage with me. This was…different.”
“It was,” she agreed, cupping his cheek. “I’m okay, though. Internally, it felt the same as any session.”
Roremar’s hands fisted against her, his distaste of the Fates evident in that grip. But he asked, “What did you see?”
“It was Serchus.” He stiffened at the mention of Nico’s Fate tie. Slowly, careful of ripping open any wound, Emmeline explained to him what Serchus said. Finishing with, “I don’t exactly know what he means by Dryvius was freed.”
“I don’t know. I can still feel him.” Roremar’s brow creased, and she could tell he was on the verge of a theory, as she was. “But fuck the Fates thrice now. They not only used us, but my brother died for their games.”
Emmeline swallowed, the fury in his voice heating her chest.
“They’ll all fucking die for it,” Roremar swore.
Emmeline didn’t answer, lacing her fingers through his in a vow. She pulled strength from his touch, and could tell he did, too, their eyes locked in a silence that conveyed more than words ever could.
Until a yowling screech echoed over the rushing water.
“What was that?” Emmeline asked, breaking their trance.
Roremar’s brows rose to his hairline, blinking rapidly. The sound echoed again, and the worry marring his features vanished. A laugh burst from him, warmth spreading all the way to Emmeline’s toes at the sound.
“No way,” he whispered, scrambling to the mouth of the cave and peering around the curtain of water. Disbelieving laughter tumbled from him as Emmeline followed.
“What is it?” she called.
Roremar’s gaze was tipped to the top of the twelfth waterfall, head shaking. Without looking away, he held his hand out to Emmeline. Her heart inflated at his joy as she slipped her fingers between his and followed his sightline to—
Jade-green eyes and moonlight glinting off a sleek black form. A glowing crescent moon patch, and a tail swishing happily.
“Cirre,” Roremar breathed.
And Emmeline swore the panther smiled.