Chapter 60
Chapter Sixty
Roremar
A wall had been broken.
It was obvious Emmeline wanted him as badly as he did her.
Her confessions at Wisteria Falls said as much.
But she’d had so many choices taken from her.
She’d gone from following a relentless goal to being forced into a role she never wanted.
Roremar would tear through the stars to have her, but she needed to let him.
It needed to be her choice, her relinquishing of this fear that held her back.
So Roremar would wait and follow her around this city as long as she’d have him.
The clouds shifted as they entered the Third District, and the misty dawn light spilled over her. Fates, she was beautiful.
No, that word wasn’t enough.
She was regal and endless and powerful, carved of the stars and born of every damn perfect dream he ever dared to conspire.
He didn’t just want her, he needed her. A physical ache in his bones, a seizing of his breath. Like nothing in this realm made sense unless she was in his arms.
Because she was his. He thought she had been his since before he’d met her, when she was a nameless set of hazel eyes plaguing his dreams. When she was nothing more than a means to an end.
She was always his.
And he was trapped watching her pretend she wasn’t.
“Fuck the Fates,” he whispered, voice as ragged as his will as he followed Emmeline past a row of taverns, hoods up and as nondescript as possible.
Despite the fact that everything in the city was a Fatesdamned mess, as his footsteps traced hers, something was healed. This—them sneaking quietly through sleeping alleys, his heart beating out of his chest with how much he loved her—was normal.
Emmeline led him to a street where the opera house and a theater loomed at the end of the cul-de-sac. Bright signs declared costumery and tailors and all manners of masks sold at the various shops lining the row, but no one was out this early.
Emmeline stopped between an apartment and tavern, crouching low to the stone.
“Do you see it?” she whispered.
Roremar stooped at her side, tilting his head to let the mystlight lamp behind him illuminate the ground—a pair of wings. “The Warders of Selene?”
Emmeline nodded, gaze flicking up to him. “This is where I was attacked the night before the opening ceremonies.”
His gut soured, the knife wound in his own side throbbing. Roremar brushed his fingers over the symbol of the cult, trying not to picture Emmeline fighting for her life on this very street.
The wings weren’t carved or painted. It looked like they were part of the stone itself.
“And you still have no idea who it was? No one’s tried again?”
“No,” she said. “Granted I normally have guards with me now, but there’s been no sign of him.
” She contemplated the sigil for a second, adding, “When I was looking for information on the temple traders, I found a reference to a place called the Temple of Selene. It’s the only other mention of Selene I’ve seen. Do you think it could be connected?”
“The temple trades to the Warders?”
“My sister’s kidnapping, the temple trades, the Averian… all connected back to the Fates and the Warders of Selene?”
When she laid it out like that, it seemed more likely.
Roremar blew out a breath, straightening and looking around the street for any more symbols.
“Could be. But let’s focus on this one for now since it’s in front of us.
Then we’ll find your sister. How’d you fight off the guy who attacked you again? ”
“Clawed at him. Threw a dagger. Eventually, others exited the tavern, and he realized he wasn’t getting me,” Emmeline said simply. “Left some deep scratches on his arms—they may scar.”
Roremar tsked. “Violent, Huntress.”
Emmeline shrugged. “I don’t recall you having a problem with violence when you broke the Snake Charmer’s fingers for what he’d done to me.”
Roremar’s blood heated at the reminder. “Not a single problem with maiming anyone in either of these situations.” He forced himself to focus on the street and not how much he liked the idea of harming someone who hurt Emmeline.
“It’s good you left a mark. It gives us something to look for. And you were on the roof before?”
“I was reading up there.” Her chin tilted to an apartment building, the top lined with potted plants.
Checking that the alley was empty, Roremar scaled the trellis, getting a look at the city from a different vantage point. Emmeline followed without question.
They weren’t high enough to see too far. Morning mist clung to the grey skies, giving the mystlight bulbs framing the signage a hazy effect. The sound of bakeries opening and delivery carts wheeling through the streets echoed from a few blocks over.
Nothing was unusual, though.
Roremar stalked the roof’s edge, searching for anything that would indicate why this street bore a symbol of the Warders of Selene. What the Fates wanted—
His eyes dropped, and he halted. Roremar crouched, brushing his fingers over the identical sigil staining the roof. Like the one on the street, it wasn’t painted or carved. It simply existed, marking this spot.
“Em.”
She was at his side instantly. “What in the Fates?”
“I’m guessing this wasn’t here before?”
“Not that I recall.”
Nothing else about the rooftop was disturbed. Nothing that hinted this was a site of a murder or attempted kidnapping.
“I don’t think this was Dryvius—or whoever is recreating his rituals,” Roremar said. “It’s too discreet.”
Emmeline nodded in agreement. “After how the two bodies we know of were displayed, I believe it.”
“So, there’s a sigil in the spot you read, and on the street where you were nearly taken.”
“You think…” Emmeline’s gaze dropped to the winged symbol. “You think it’s me? That these symbols are following me now?”
Maybe they weren’t following Emmeline, but taunting her, claiming her…
Evidence clicked together in Roremar’s minded, blood chilling.
“I found a note in my bunk before the second trial. I thought it was Svalla messing with my head about winning the Races; it said he will have her. What if—” Emmeline gripped his arm. “What?”
“That was written on the temple with the body. To tempt the Fates and realms will wrest. He will have her.”
Roremar swore he stopped breathing.
The note wasn’t a reference to the tournament or someone claiming Emmeline.
It was about the murders, and he never put it together because he’d brushed off the note as a stupid scare tactic.
Plus, every time Desmond tried to force him to look at evidence from the scene, he turned it away.
He’d never known those words were on the temple.
“Then whoever left that note isn’t a competitor threatening to win you in the tournament. It was the person recreating Dryvius’s rituals.”
The same person who attacked Emmeline. And they wanted—
“And whoever’s killing…” Emmeline said, gaze dropping to the winged sigil. “They’re after me.”