Chapter 18
Jane
At the foot of the staircase in the entrance foyer, Joy seemed to take the measure of Elaith Tarsis before leaving for her tutoring session.
I’d requested separate rooms to be prepared for us, knowing we would soon be parting ways for the next sessions. For a moment, I lingered on Elaith’s magenta eyes. On the smile he offered Barracus Crow, who had just arrived with his partner and left the foyer with a brief nod to us.
It was strange to imagine Barracus sharing any kind of bond, but he was far too reserved for me to pretend I knew him at all.
After leaving Joy and Elaith in another chamber, a maid from the larger Hall’s staff named Rhea guided Laerune Xanthos and me through the corridors, eventually ushering us into a room furnished with a cherrywood desk and two blue sofas facing one another.
I remembered her as the woman with scale-textured skin I’d only greeted a few times.
Now her skin was golden smooth beneath an olive dress, her features suggesting someone a few years my senior.
“I’ve never been in this room,” I said to Rhea as we lingered at the threshold. “What is it used for?”
“This one is rarely used,” she replied primly. “This wing is accessible to guests in case the Lord’s staff requires a place for private conversations. Ms Cobweb and Mr Crow are the only ones with claimed rooms.”
“Doesn’t Reagan have an office here?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Lord Reagan prefers to use the common chambers in the private wing, and I believe he handles all businesses there.”
“Quite unusual for a Lord,” Laerune commented, her velvet robe whispering over the floor. From all the tutors we had met, she was the only one who hadn’t taught him.
“I don’t think he likes working alone for too long,” I said.
Whenever I had seen him working by himself, it was in the dining room, where anyone might interrupt him at any moment.
It made sense that he would not isolate himself, considering his role.
Still, I found myself wondering if he avoided being alone with the work that already set him apart from most people.
“Thank you, Rhea,” I said, watching her leave.
By the time Laerune settled into one of the chairs by the desk, I had claimed the chair on the opposite side. The divination tutor observed me with keen almond eyes.
“I told Caedmon my dreams aren’t cohesive,” I began. “There was only one I remember clearly, when I dreamt about my sister being attacked. And even then, I thought it was my own experience somehow.”
“I would expect as much,” Laerune said, her voice smooth and even.
“The Mage Lord shared little beyond his suspicion that you possess a gift for divination. We’ll test it today, and if it can be confirmed, we will continue these lessons until you learn not only how to contact the Sight, or the Chantress as some prefer to call it, by yourself but also how to sever yourself from it. ”
That name struck with a dull thump in my chest. “Chantress. As in the entity of Fate?”
Laerune inclined her head. “Fate, Sight, Chantress. The weaver of Fate bears many names and even more origin stories. The oldest texts claim Zara was the first to possess the gift. Some schools believe the Chantress is Zara herself, chanting fragments of what fate holds. I prefer the line of thinking that says the Sight is an inherited ability, passed through certain lineages and emerging in even fewer individuals. Whether it is Zara herself speaking through us or merely an ability she left behind has never been proven.”
That sinuous voice still lingered in the edges of my memory, reciting Reagan’s curse. Just recalling that unworldly voice raised goosebumps along the back of my neck.
“What you have experienced so far is access to fragments of Fate’s threads,” Laerune continued.
“The closer you are to someone, the easier it becomes to glimpse their path.
There are many reasons these visions surface.
If you are not actively seeking them, then the Sight has chosen to be heard.
It finds its own avenues, through dreams, through thought, through instinct.
Sometimes even through a perfect sketch drawn with a skill you do not consciously possess.
With practice, one learns to recognise its voice, to listen more clearly.
“As your ability matures, the visions will intensify. In time, you could become an invaluable counsellor to Mountheim. It is a rare and coveted gift, and rarer still for it to manifest without guidance, but it can be taxing.” She said this as a warning.
“I understand you once wore a nullifying relic, except at night, when you seemed to tap the gift. Now that you have discarded it, you should expect communications to grow more frequent. Have you experienced anything beyond sleep?”
My nails pressed crescents into my palms. “No. Only dreams. But they’re frequent. Some replay events that have already happened, and others make no sense at all.”
“Describe them,” she said.
With a deep breath, I recounted the disjointed images that tore me from sleep recently, though even as I did, I heard how befuddling they sounded. Bright lights, feathered wings, colours bleeding into one another.
“I saw a sign that said, Goldsworth. Do you know what this means?”
Laerune shook her head. “No. I’m not familiar with this term.”
There was something comforting about Laerune Xanthos that encouraged me to speak, to want to find the answers to some of the questions surging lately.
“After our first session with Kellan,” I said, “I wondered if the wings I keep seeing might belong to a familiar. I don’t know if I’m just thinking about wings or if they’re coming to my mind for a reason.”
Laerune smoothed a finger along her brow. “Foresight rarely speaks plainly. But for every diviner I have known, their familiar serves as a guide through the Sight, whether it is perceived consciously or not.”
A sudden sensation brushed the edges of my thoughts then, like the beat of wings passing close, and I almost gasped at the immediacy of it.
“I think it’s an eagle,” I murmured, noticing the quick glint in her almond eyes.
“Appropriate,” she said. “Your gift will develop swiftly, and practice must come first. Today, I want to guide you through a simple exercise. Follow your familiar. It will lead you to your mana. See, and do not flee. Many inexperienced diviners recoil from the Sight when it overwhelms them, but doing so will keep you from getting accustomed to your gift. In time, attend to what you feel, hear, taste when you are in touch with it. You will learn to notice even the smallest shift in the threads, because true foresight allows one to see through hidden planes. It’s a privilege. ”
My lack of sleep would argue otherwise.
“We will begin,” she continued, “with how you access the Sight. It is often similar to how you may draw upon mana.”
That was unfortunate. “I haven’t,” I admitted. “Not yet.”
“But you can visualise your familiar?” she asked.
“I suppose,” I said, hearing the hesitation in the words.
“Then let us begin there,” Laerune said. “Close your eyes and picture your eagle.”
Nodding, I let my lids fall as I summoned the image of white and brown feathers and the curve of a golden beak.
It came easily. I imagined the eagle gliding over a canopy of pines, soaring between mountains. Yet, I was unsure how this was supposed to help me divine.
Laerune was silent for the better part of a minute before she said, “Perhaps you need some help for your first time. Keep your eyes closed. I will siphon to you.”
Her thin fingers closed around my wrist and stayed there until heat bloomed against my cheeks. Just as I was about to open my eyes again, the image darkened within my mind, sudden and swift, deepening into a gloomy abyss.
My pulse raced. Part of me expected to be drawn into my own memories, or a dream. But this was barely anything.
Faint, vein-like lines rippled beneath the darkness, spreading until they swallowed the mountains whole. Heat flushed across my face, creeping down my neck and curling around my eyes. When I opened them, I saw nothing but that same black void now occupying my vision.
I gasped and tried to open my eyes again, but I couldn’t see the chamber, couldn’t see the tutor anymore.
My chest lurched into a panicked sprint.
“Do not be afraid.” Laerune’s voice echoed distantly, as though carried from above. “Follow the eagle.”
“I can’t see,” I whispered into the dark.
“You can,” the darkness answered softly. “You are.”
The flap of wings filled the silence, and there it was—the eagle, gliding just above me. A startled breath shuddered from my mouth, puffing into the gloom. Somehow, I could still see, even without any real light. The bird was unmistakable now.
Something clamped around my shoulder, and I whirled, finding Laerune standing before me. Amid the darkness and the silver threads that seemed to be made of solid light, she watched me and didn’t.
I staggered back.
Her pupils and irises were gone, replaced by a ghostly white that fixed on me unblinking.
Pale veins gleamed around her sockets, flowing like charged currents beneath her skin.
I felt her gaze, though she couldn’t have been seeing.
Her mouth moved, but her words were lost beneath the frantic flap of wings tearing through the air overhead.
Numbness crept through my legs, inch by inch, and though nothing moved, the silver lines pressed in, closing around me. Laerune’s strange eyes never left my face as she spoke again, yet, in my stupor, I could only hear part of it.
“The eagle…you…now.”
Something wet struck my eyes when I lifted my gaze, and I blinked.
The brightness of the silver threads surged, blurring Laerune until she vanished in a storm of red.
Blood-red petals, soft as velvet, burst where she had stood.
More drifted from far above, falling between the silver threads.
One brushed my lips, its velvet edges closing over my mouth.
I couldn’t reach for it, and it smothered the scream as I called for help.
Another sealed one eye, then the other, until red consumed everything.
Pressure swelled in my head, clawing at my mind as though something were trying to force its way in. It hurt. It hurt so much I could no longer think.
From behind my eyes, the eagle’s call echoed, loud and desperate, pleading for release.
I never learned if she let me go.