Chapter 79
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Roremar
Roremar had to fight to control his temper, his mind jumbling in ways it usually wouldn’t. “What in the Fates is a Warder Mark?”
Images of Perry absently touching that spot on his chest flashed through Roremar’s memory, but he couldn’t place any of them before they disappeared again.
Perry eyed him warily. “Why are you so worked up?”
“Take a deep breath,” Rian advised, eyes flicking from Roremar’s face to the dagger in his hand.
“That symbol”—Roremar pointed at Perry’s chest with the blade, pulling details from the depths of his mind—“a version of it was at every scene of the murders Dryvius made me commit.”
Roremar took two threatening steps forward, the point of his blade resting against Perry’s tunic.
Holding his stare, Roremar tore through the fabric, buttons popping and bouncing across the dirt floors.
With the winged sigil on full display, Roremar rested the tip of his dagger against it.
“Why, in all the fucking realms, is the same mark on your skin, Perry?”
“Okay, calm down,” Rian said, forcing himself between them. Roremar’s blade nicked his arm as he guided him back, and Rian hissed, but Roremar couldn’t think straight enough to move it. All his mind could focus on was the winged symbol.
“What is a Warder Mark?” Roremar seethed. Khasson was quiet, studying the three of them as if debating where best to intervene.
“It’s a symbol of the Warders of Selene,” Perry said, and shock jolted through Roremar.
“Who are the Warders of Selene?” Rian asked, trying to mediate.
But Roremar answered, digging up any pieces of the explanation he could, “It’s a reference to the Fates. Selene is a three-pronged being the Fates are meant to defend. Goddess, Angel, and unknown. And that is a rendition of their symbol.”
“And this has to do with the murders how?” Rian asked, looking between Roremar and Perry.
“I don’t know,” Roremar said tightly. “We know some—the details are messy.” Messier now with his head scattered.
But Perry, gaze flicking about the tunnels to find an exit, said, “That makes sense about the murders. A Warder Mark isn’t a sigil, though. It’s a symbol left behind when Fate magic is used.”
Roremar narrowed his eyes. “Why is it on you?”
“Good question, and something I’ve been trying to figure out my entire life,” Perry answered. He cracked his neck, his movements growing more frantic every second they stood still. “I’ve had this mark as long as I can remember. If I can ever get out of here…”
Rian placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him, evaluating the mark closer.
Roremar leaned in, too. The edges were distorted, as if it had stretched with his growth. And now that he was closer, he would see it wasn’t a typical tattoo, nor was the score raised like a brand. It was pale, almost like a scar, or a piece inked in white.
“It’s part of why I’ve always been so fascinated by my grandfather’s stories of the Constellation Isles,” Perry went on, eyes on the ceiling. “Why he told me so much about them. He told me that’s where these marks originated.”
Roremar had to admit, that made sense. He’d wondered what drove Perry so relentlessly toward the Constellation Isles. While the story about his grandfather was an explanation, it hadn’t really convinced Roremar of Perry wanting to ally with him.
But this? A mysterious mark of Fate magic left on his own skin that his grandfather swore was connected to the isles?
That he could believe.
And it added to Perry’s fear of being contained—of being trapped without ever finding this answer about a core part of himself.
Roremar backed down a step, the pieces assembling sloppily in his brain. As before, he was aware there was more about the Warder Marks that he wasn’t remembering right now. It danced elusively at the edge of his memory.
Whatever ritual Dryvius had been trying to commit didn’t only need the bodies and incense, but Fate magic, as well.
He’d been channeling that magic through Roremar.
Disgust wound through him. He’d been so manipulated, he wanted out of his own skin.
His entire body—his magic, his blood—it was all tainted.
“Are you three done yet?” Khasson’s voice echoed from one of the offshoots. Roremar hadn’t even realized he’d disappeared, but Khasson emerged, bracing a hand on his hip. “As fascinating as Fate magic is, we have more pressing concerns. Come on, this way has more moss.”
At least one of them was focused on finishing this trial. Roremar could figure out what Perry’s Warder Mark meant for their theories about the Warders of Selene later. Right now, he had to focus.
Perry and Rian hurried ahead. Roremar jogged behind them, stopping to match Khasson’s pace.
“Given that we all have to rely on each other, we should know, what are you afraid of?”
Khasson laughed. “Nothing that can reach me here.”
They hadn’t gone far when a piercing noise blared down the tunnel, like a gong struck directly in Roremar’s head. It echoed down every nerve and wiped his memory clean.
He tried to cover his ears, pain shooting through his injured shoulder at the sudden movement.
Fucking Svalla.
Roremar stumbled against the wall as the skull-splitting, dying feline wail rang and rang, his eyes watering.
“What is that?” Roremar ground out.
Khasson shook his head, teeth gritted. Rian searched the tunnel like mad, too preoccupied to even cover his ears.
And Perry—
Perry opened his mouth, the crazed fear dilating his pupils as he prepared to shout.
“No!” Roremar lunged for him.
The deafening blow was a hammer shattering the defenses they’d built. They needed to fight it. To remain present.
But before Roremar got close to Perry, a memory slammed into him, knocking him to the ground.
Nico—it was Nico. Laughing. Nico happy and with his arm around Myrella. Their siblings all nearby.
A flash, and it was Nico gripping on to him with that wide, betrayed stare. Nico’s hands losing strength.
Nico’s blood everywhere.
Darkness pressed in on its heels, the sounds and scents and feel remaining, but Roremar couldn’t see a thing—
He couldn’t remember a thing before seeing Nico—
The abyss of missing memories rose up, walls towering high. They choked off his air, his sense of self, and Roremar sank to his knees.
“It’s the trial, it’s the trial,” he tried to remind himself, voice trembling.
He squeezed his eyes tight, but instead of getting rid of Nico’s image, it was Lola begging for his help as a faceless Fate dragged her away.
Roremar shook his head, and it was Emmeline hanging from the temple, Dryvius’s message spread around her with bloodied wings.
HE WILL HAVE HER.
How had he gotten here? Where was he?
His skin felt like it didn’t belong to him. His bones were foreign. Out. Out. He had to claw it all out. Maybe then he’d remember.
Roremar scrambled back, scratching at his chest, tugging his hair. His breaths came in quick pants.
Another blink and he saw Leo, hugging him tight and telling him he loved him. Leo stumbled back, hands pressed to his chest. “How am I supposed to do this, Rore?” Blood poured between his little brother’s fingers, and Roremar couldn’t remember how it got there.
Then, it was Vivi and Siena, their laughter echoing in the darkness but unseeing eyes wide.
“No, no, no,” Roremar whimpered over their cold bodies.
You never faced it, a familiar voice said. His father’s voice. You put your focus elsewhere, but you never faced it.
And Roremar realized as he cowered in the dark, being unable to use his mind wasn’t the sole fear being attacked. That was only the beginning.
This trial was digging up the things Roremar hid within the lost memories, feeding them and breathing life into them. Turning them on him.
All the amnesia moments, all the worries he wasn’t brave enough to combat, and all the grief he’d run from were dug up and forced on him.
What had Emmeline said earlier? We punish ourselves by holding on to the pain.
Roremar had been punishing himself for years. He’d distracted himself from his grief or buried himself beneath the blame, but he never waded through it.
And now, if he couldn’t, it would eat him alive.
I’m so disappointed, his father said.
“No,” Roremar whimpered.
Disappointed.
Disappointed.
Disappointed.
The word drilled into Roremar’s bones, flashing between his siblings’ faces.
But Deacon was the one who told him he could be two things at once. That they all were. He wasn’t bad because of his Fate tie; it wasn’t a dirty secret to harbor.
You have to survive tomorrow, Leo had pleaded earlier.
Don’t let the ones who are really responsible win, Emmeline had begged.
Roremar could be two things. He could, if he chose to.
He could fight his way through his grief and still be strong.
He could break but still forgive himself.
He could hold sorrow for Nico and still save Lola.
He could be ruin and still love Emmeline.
In his mind, a weight settled against his hand, and Roremar looked down to see a phantom ring. The blackened-steel Fatalium band. A defense against the Fates.
Two things at once.
It slipped around his finger, and from its cool metal, Roremar summoned all the strength he wasn’t sure he had.
The vitriolic thoughts poured down on him, but between them, ebbing out as if this ring slid armor around his skin and reoriented his perspective—
There was light. Sun dappling the surface of the water. He only had to swim for it.
And he did.
“Get out!” Roremar roared into the abyss Dryvius had turned his mind into. “Get out of my fucking head!”
And with laborious strokes, the voices of those he loved, and the memory of his father’s ring leading him, he clawed through it all.
He wrapped all the pain around himself but shoved away the blame. He let it be real, absorbed it in the depths of his being. The icy chill of grief, the watery tears of sorrow. The unending warmth of relief for the people he loved.
And then he dragged himself above it.
Roremar came up gasping, the piercing sound still blaring through the tunnel.
His vision was blurry, tears streaming from his eyes, but Khasson’s form wavered into view. He held one hand out, pointing to the candelabras with the other.
The wax.
The part of Roremar that revolted against the idea of forgiveness said he shouldn’t be saved. But a much larger part acknowledged he needed to fight. He deserved to.
Roremar took the still-hot wax from Khasson and shoved it in his ears, sighing when the wailing was drowned out. His entire body collapsed, even more exhausted than it had been from the duels, but he forced himself upright.
“Thanks,” he panted to Khasson. The sound of his own voice was garbled with his ears clogged, like he was underwater. His chest tightened at the compression.
Khasson nodded.
One step of this torment was conquered, but Valyrie had used this trial to select her Fates and delineate what spectrum they would master—they thought Rocarri was possibly doing the same to create his own.
Roremar had a sick feeling the mental torture was only beginning.
Perry and Rian didn’t seem to be in any better shape than he was.
Scratch marks bled down Perry’s throat, his nails cracked, like he’d been trying to claw his way out of the stone walls, and Rian’s curls were a sweat-matted mess, face ghostly and body still trembling.
But they both nodded wordlessly to tell him they were ready to continue.
Khasson jerked his chin, indicating which direction he thought they should head. Rian looked around hesitantly, but the three of them obliged.
As they walked, the piercing sound eventually dimming, Roremar’s mind scrambled even more than before.
If Khasson hadn’t suggested the wax, Roremar could have seen himself succumbing to that mental torture again and again until he took a blade to his own throat.
At least Khasson’s fear was untouchable.