Chapter 7 #2
The massive gate was made up of two solid wooden doors that stood fourteen feet in the air, with a high arch at the top. Over the arch, runes and writing that might have been old Latin were etched deep into the wood, age having added more depth to the carving.
I squinted up at it, the words going in three portions up the side of the gate, across the middle, and then down the other side.
Audi, vide, tace.
Scientia potentia est.
Per aspera ad astra.
“Hear, see, be silent. Knowledge is power. Through hardships to the stars . . .” Liam said, reading it quickly, as if the words had been written in English.
“What do we do next?” Ross asked, stepping up to the gate.
“Knock and then walk through,” Liam instructed.
Marina lifted her hand and knocked, and the doors creaked slowly open, until we were looking at Heathermoor the way it was no doubt meant to be seen for the first time.
The white stone of the castle glowed even in the dim light of the overcast morning.
Huge, rounded cobblestones that had been smoothed over the years to a flat path led all the way to the front doors of a stunning castle, interspersed with greenery and the bright purple heather that seemed to be everywhere here.
“Wow.” Marina shook her head. “That’s . . . something.”
“You have your papers, get ready.” Liam tipped his head as a figure approached us, drawing all eyes to her.
Tall and willowy, the woman’s long brilliant-white hair flowed around her, as if she’d stepped off the set of The Lord of the Rings.
Right down to the scooped sleeves of her deep-green dress – which trailed through the heather and moss.
The tips of her ears were slightly pointed, and that wasn’t the only physical feature that gave her away as part-Fae.
No, it was her eyes that I could not look away from.
A blue so deep they bordered on black, they were framed by white eyelashes that fluttered against her cheeks as she smiled and dipped her head. Her face was ageless. She could have been twenty or sixty, I had no idea.
“Welcome, I am Sage Thalienne. Liam sent me a message that he’d come across you lot on the road to Heathermoor.”
Keep it simple, that was the thing about lying, you had to keep it simple.
Ross opened his mouth, and it was strange, but I could feel his urge to over explain and say too much, as if I were seeing just a quick flash inside his head. I moved before I could question the feeling and jammed my boot into his instep, making him yelp.
“Sorry, Rick,” I said with a pointed smile. “Yes, Sage. That’s correct.”
Rick. He shot a look at me, and I grinned. He gave me a long slow smile.
“No problem, Hannah.”
Marina rolled her eyes. “You two. They act like siblings, even though they’re not. Sorry about them.”
Sage Thalienne dipped her head. “And you are?”
“Maritza. Friends call me Mari.”
Damn, she got the fun name.
Thalienne’s disturbing eyes swung toward me, and I lowered my gaze. I had to think about not being myself here, about fitting in more than ever before. Submissive was not my usual go to, but here I had to work it.
“I’m sure I’ll get to know you all this coming term. Please, students, step through one at a time to be set into your house. Has Doyen O’Connor given you the blank pendants?”
We each pulled a pendant from under our collars.
“Excellent.”
Marina stepped forward first. A flash of what looked like lightning shot from the center left of the top of the arch. It struck the pendant dangling against her chest and threw her back a couple steps.
I caught her as she stumbled and then turned my attention to the Sage. “What the –?”
“She is unharmed,” Thalienne smiled, though it did not reach her eyes. “It is her power that calls the mark to be so strong. A very good omen.”
Oh . . . shit. If that was the hit Marina took .
. . in terms of raw power, I was the strongest in House Phoenix – hell, I was a Boost, which meant I could allow my power to build inside me before expelling it through a rune, multiplying the power behind the spell.
I hadn’t had the chance to press and see how far I could take it, but I had the sense that I was about to get my asterisk – er, ass – fried . . .
Marina looked down at her pendant. “Kelpish? Abyssus aubyssum invocat. What does that mean?”
“Deep calleth unto deep,” Thalienne said. “House Kelpish has a depth to not only its powers, but to the character that it attracts. The power within the gate senses that there is great depth in you, Maritza. It will be up to you to find just how far that will take you. Welcome to Heathermoor.”
Marina pulled out the contract, and signed it with her new name, Maritza. The contract flared and then rolled up and floated to our new Sage. “Well met.”
Ross stepped up next to the edge of the gate. Thalienne dipped her head to him.
He took a step, and the lightning flashed again, this time snapping from the center right, slamming into the pendant.
Ross had braced himself and was only pushed back a half step.
No surprise there. In addition to lightening his hair, altering the shape of his face, and squaring his jaw a bit, the pendant had widened his shoulders, leaving him with the build of a linebacker.
“Whoa. House Draconell?” He looked up at Thalienne, then to Liam. “Is this . . . right?”
“The placement within houses is always correct here,” Liam said with a sniff as if all this meant very little to him. “Igni ferroque. ‘With fire and iron’ is your house motto.”
Thalienne motioned for Ross to cross the threshold, which he did, quickly signing the contract with his new name.
Marina shot me a nervous look, and I tried not to make eye contact as sweat beaded along my forehead. I suddenly had a bad feeling rumbling through me. The last time I’d gone through a gate, I’d been with Typhon, and the damn thing had nearly squished my guts out. What if here, it was worse?
“I . . . I don’t know if I can do this.” I took a step back and found myself bumping against a body. I looked over my shoulder to see Liam there.
The echo of my stepping through the gate to Neverthorn, Typhon at my back, was not lost on me. Liam didn’t push me though, of course. I looked like a nineteen-year-old girl, so he kept his hands to himself, and just murmured soft encouragement.
“It will be okay, Hannah. You are safe here.”
“You say that. But you aren’t the one about to get struck by lightning, based on your strength, are you?” I put more than a little emphasis into those words.
Liam grinned. “It will be fine. The gate has never caused anyone serious injury.”
“Not entirely true,” Thalienne said. “Nocta came to Heathermoor once, before he was known as a villain, and before he killed those poor children in the Neverthorn Nine. When he tried to cross . . . the lightning did indeed hurt him. In fact, it very nearly ended him. So long as none of you are Nocta, though, you should be fine,” she added with a smile.
Aw, fuck me up and down with a cactus. If I’d been sweating before, it was nothing to the moisture that popped out of my pores with that little nugget of history.
Here I was, about to cross the threshold of another school I didn’t want to be enrolled at, and this time, it might actually kill me because I was Nocta’s secret love child.
Lovely.