Chapter 61 #3
“I believe the steel was forged with a substance mined and pressed from this Fatetouched land.”
“Why is that bad?” Emmeline asked, clutching his ring around her neck.
“Because it—the coating on this ring—is a defense against Fately magic. Truly, it is impressive that a mortal would be able to uncover and fabricate it. Your father was a very smart man, and he clearly loved you deeply, Roremar Silventa.”
A lump formed in his throat.
His father went to lengths to provide this defense, to keep Roremar safe because he knew how much his Fate tie scared him when he was little, and Roremar had killed him. His chest pulled tight, gaze locking with Lola’s—their father’s eyes filled with mourning.
She nodded at Roremar in encouragement. A nod that reminded him she didn’t blame him, no matter how much he blamed himself.
Roremar cleared his throat. “My father gave me a ring that guarded against Fate magic. I still don’t understand how that’s bad.”
“The composition of this ring was blocking Dryvius’s hold on you,” Valyrie said.
“But Dryvius still controlled him,” Lola argued. Her bottom lip trembled as if she was holding in all her emotions. Desmond placed a hand on her shoulder, and Lola leaned closer.
“And I avoided reading at all costs, but I was still able to,” Roremar added.
“Perhaps I should not use block so much as contain,” Valyrie clarified, immune to the emotions Roremar and Lola were battling.
“Starsearchers believe we exist in three parts. The body, the spirit, and the fate. When Dryvius was killed—or so everyone thought he was—his body was slain, spirit gone to the Spirit Realm as all do, but his fate was not. That is what Serchus was the key to.”
Emmeline gasped, putting the pieces together as Roremar did.
Thousands of years ago, Serchus made himself a key to Dryvius’s death, but only his body was killed. His fate remained, became tied to Roremar, and with this ring, Deacon Silventa had tried to guard his son, but instead—
“He trapped him,” Roremar breathed.
Valyrie confirmed, “Because of Serchus, Dryvius did not have his own body, and because of this ring, he could not break free of yours.”
“So, if I wore this ring, he was…stuck in my mind?”
And his uncle was looking for the material responsible for that? What did Aldryn Falliare know? Roremar’s thoughts spun.
“Correct. If you took off the ring, Dryvius still wouldn’t have a fully corporeal form, but he would be able to move independently. Like a shadow.”
“A shadow,” Emmeline gasped, hand going to her throat. “I never saw whoever attacked me in my dormitory.”
“Because Dryvius doesn’t have a body,” Roremar completed.
“Did you ever take that ring off, Rore?” Desmond asked.
Roremar dragged a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, maybe. I do sometimes, rarely.”
It had been Dryvius himself who’d written on Emmeline’s wall.
Who’d attacked her.
To tempt the Fates, and realms will wrest—
“So, killing Nico—a Starsearcher tied to Serchus—fulfilled a prophecy that broke Dryvius free,” Emmeline whispered.
One heart of greed entrenched in kin.
Words from a reading Emmeline had told him about in the apartment above Fated Ink, a message neither of them understood at first. But Dryvius knew.
Because Serchus had found out a secret and positioned himself as a lynchpin, Nico’s death was the key that turned the lock and broke Dryvius’s containment.
But Serchus hadn’t created the ring. No, the containment of the Fate was all Deacon, trying to protect Roremar’s mind without knowing of the other consequences. Which meant that Serchus’s lock and key prophecy wasn’t only about breaking the hold of the ring…
Slipping her hand into his, Emmeline asked, “So after Dryvius killed Nico, he broke free and returned to the Fate Realm as a live Fate?”
“No,” Roremar answered before Valyrie could.
Emmeline was on the wrong path. They all were.
He will have her.
“That isn’t what Serchus meant by freed.” Roremar looked at the Angel, needing her to say it. “What happened? When I killed my brother, what happened?”
Sorrow dimmed Valyrie’s cosmic stare. “If I am correct, and this ring was containing Dryvius’s influence while you wore it, then when Serchus’s tie was slain, the lock containing him in your mind broke because he no longer required a vessel on Ambrisk.”
It was why his Fate tie felt different. Why he hadn’t seen Dryvius in his readings. Why Roremar had no blank spots in his memory from the recent murders in Valyn.
Because Dryvius wasn’t passing him readings from the Fate Realm, and he wasn’t using Roremar or his readings to kill.
The Fate of Chaos and Revelry wasn’t working with anybody.
Not Falliare, not Rocarri’s cult, and not some fanatic recreating his rituals.
“He’s already here,” Roremar breathed. “Dryvius didn’t return to the Fate Realm when he killed Nico. He returned to a body. On Ambrisk.”
Roremar looked out the window over the wide cobblestone street, Starsearchers crossing every which way.
The Fate of Chaos and Revelry walked among them. And because no one knew what the Fate looked like after thousands of years, he could be anyone.