Chapter 14
Chevalyer. My name. My real name.
The name that will let Ravin kill me in an instant should he ever discover it.
“How do you know who I am?” I can barely speak through my shock.
“We know much about you.” The older of the two figures lowers his chin. “And that is why you know you can trust us.”
This omission has the opposite effect from what they intended. I immediately trust them less. Maybe they want me to believe my mother told them. Maybe she did. But I’ve no reason to think they aren’t an enemy who’s sleuthed out my name—my secret safety—and will now hold it against me.
I hesitate, glancing back the way I came, as if I might see Kaelis standing there. But there’s only dark, damp stone. I turn to Gregor and the strangers. Gregor gives me a small but encouraging nod. He clearly trusts them.
And that’s the only thing that has me saying, “Lead the way.” But I guard the skepticism in my voice.
We follow the two masked figures through a maze of passages that quickly become unfamiliar. Gregor walks beside me in silence, his shoulders hunched.
I slip my hand into Gregor’s. His large palm is rough, worn from years of blades and brawls. He flinches and then drags his haunted eyes to mine.
“What happened back there?” he asks. “I heard…I don’t know what I heard.”
“Jura, she—” My throat closes on the words, objecting to the truth.
“She went out saving my life by taking Emilia and the rest with her. She used a card she knew was too much for her and it reversed,” I whisper, the words barely audible even to my own ears.
Though I’ve no illusion that the two in front of us can’t hear.
Gregor freezes mid-step, swallowing hard. “Of course she did.”
“I…” The words stick. “I’m sorry.”
“It was her choice,” he says, though I wish he sounded more convinced of it. Maybe then this crushing guilt would abate some.
“It’s still— If I wasn’t there…” I can’t find what I mean to say.
Gregor stares at the ground, his silence deafening. “At least the rest of us made it.”
Such a hollow victory. What good is “making it” when the cost is so great? I stare at the two in front of us. My speculations about who they are run wild.
“What do you know about these people?” I lean in to whisper, making an admittedly futile effort for them not to hear.
“Not much more than you.” His eyes flick to the shrouded figures. I can’t tell if they’re guides—or jailers. “They say they found Twino, Ren, and Arina in the tunnels and have given them shelter.”
“How do you know?”
He hesitates, freeing his hand from mine to rub the back of his neck. “They described Arina in detail, said how they were already helping her…plus I did see Bristara with someone dressed like this once.”
“And that’s enough for you to trust them?” Surely he must realize how none of that guarantees the rest of our crew’s safety.
“They’re in a small group of people I’ve seen in a week that hasn’t been trying to kill me on sight. Besides, they know things about us, Clara. Secrets about Bristara and the club.” His voice drops even lower. “About you. About your mother.”
That much was clear from the second they used my real name. I fight a chill that has nothing to do with the cold air of the underground. My mother has been gone for years. Yet today her memory has been invoked so much it’s almost like she’s still lurking in these tunnels.
“They called themselves Worldkeepers.”
Bristara had used that term, too. Guardians of the World…Guards of the secret of the vessel upon which the World is imprinted…and your mother was involved with them. She’d said something like that.
“Clara?” Gregor’s voice pulls me from my thoughts.
“I’ve heard the name before,” I admit. All this knowledge they have on us must’ve been why Twino and Ren agreed to go with them.
We stop outside a decaying door leading to what must have once been a grand house. It is now mostly collapsed under the weight of modern-day Eclipse City above us. The older guard knocks in a pattern too complex for me to memorize in one hearing. After a moment, the door creaks open.
The space beyond is unexpectedly large—a once-grand parlor now cracked and crumbling.
A couple is huddled in a corner, sleeping heavily.
Another person tends to a makeshift kitchen that’s little more than a pot and flame.
Supplies are stacked in corners: food, weapons, basic necessities.
At the center stands a table. Seated at it is the man I presume to be their leader, and the last person I expected to see.
There’s no way…
“Vaduin. Fucking. Thornbrow?” I blurt, blinking, as though this is some illusion I might dispel.
He doesn’t look up from the papers spread before him. “I still prefer Head Professor Vaduin Fucking Thornbrow. But I suppose the formality’s dead.”
Vaduin Thornbrow. Head Professor of Wielding at Arcana Academy.
The same man who chastised me for drawing my cards manually.
Who taught me how not to. Who had me scrubbing away Kel’s blood for hours after a card reversed on her.
Who gave me the impression he had no interest in me at best and outright disliked me at worst.
“You…You’re one of—”
“The Worldkeepers.” He finally lifts his eyes. “One of the last. Some might even call me their leader.”
I take in the scene anew. The crumbling sanctuary, the limited resources, the people who look more like refugees than a resistance. “This is it? The mysterious force that fights against the crown? That thought they could take down the king? This is it?”
“What we lack in numbers, we make up for in conviction.” Vaduin stands now, his eyes meeting mine. “Belief is sharper than any blade, stronger than even stone. It far outlives the trappings of mortal men. Even of fate itself.”
I’m not impressed by some fancy words, and I make no effort to hide it. My eyes scan for exits, and I note two—possibly three, if there’s one behind a curtain.
“I assume you have questions,” Vaduin says. I can’t tell if his obliviousness to my skepticism is genuine or feigned.
“A few thousand.”
He gestures to a chair opposite his. “Sit.”
I don’t move. “This isn’t a classroom, Professor, and I’d rather not.” I’m already outnumbered. The last thing I want is to make myself less mobile.
And there’s no sign of Arina.
“Clara,” Gregor says softly, “maybe we should hear them out.”
I cast a wary look his way. Gregor holds my gaze, urging me without words. With a sigh, I reluctantly take the offered seat. The wood creaks and threatens to give way as I sit heavily. Its perpetual dampness seeps through my clothes.
“The Worldkeepers,” Vaduin begins, wasting no time, “originated as guardians of the World card. When a wish is made with the World card, we are the ones who remember past versions of reality when others forget.”
“Past versions of reality?” I interrupt.
“When someone uses the World card to remake reality, everyone but the individual making the wish forgets the world as it was before the wish. But the Worldkeepers—those who have taken the oath and bear the mark of our order—are blessed with the ability to remember.”
I think of what Bristara showed me. The card she used to reveal a sigil on her forearm. But I pretend to be ignorant in an effort to gain more knowledge. “What mark?”
Vaduin rolls up his sleeve, revealing his forearm, just as she had. There’s nothing visible there.
“I don’t see anything.”
“You wouldn’t,” he says. “It can only be shown with a card unique to our order.” He places a seemingly blank, circular card on his forearm.
Like with Bristara, the card vanishes the moment it touches his flesh. A symbol glows in its place like a tattoo emblazoned with metallic rust-colored ink. The design is simple: a diamond with a starburst in its center.
“Fancy way to hide it,” I murmur, trying not to sound too impressed. Invisible ink on the card used to summon the mark, I assume. But the mark itself and how it’s made remain a mystery to me.
“It is survival. To be marked as a Worldkeeper while Naethor lives is to be marked as dead. He has hunted us for a generation in a bloody, almost-complete purge.”
“Was that Naethor’s wish on the World?” I ask.
“No.” Vaduin shakes his head. “His wish was for power. Or so I’m told.
I wasn’t a Worldkeeper then. But he used the power he gained to continue to hunt the ten surviving Worldkeepers from the last iteration of the world, nearly succeeding.
Only one managed to evade him long enough to begin rebuilding the order.
The same Worldkeeper who harbored knowledge of how to ink the vessel—the card that the World is placed upon. Our former leader: Laylis Chevalyer.”
My heart stops at the mention of my mother’s name. “My mother was your leader?”
Vaduin nods. “The last true leader of the Worldkeepers. The last to survive from the previous world, to know the truth of what changed. She rebuilt our order from nothing after Naethor’s wish changed everything.”
Which means none of these people standing before me have ever survived a world-changing wish. They all took their oaths and got their marks after Naethor became king.
“If she was so important to you, why didn’t you save her when she was at the Descent?” My voice is brittle with the control I barely keep on it.
“We tried,” Vaduin says quietly. “But we arrived too late. The Ventalls’ agents had already done their work.”
It’s further confirmation that Lady Ventall is behind my mother’s death. As if I could have any doubt after Emilia…
“If what you’re saying is true,” I begin carefully, “then what do you want from me?”
“You are the only one alive who knows how to ink the vessel card—a sacred art historically passed only between the leaders of the Worldkeepers,” Vaduin says, his eyes never leaving mine. “Your mother taught you, didn’t she?”
The memories of sitting at Mother’s side are hazy: Watching her trace intricate patterns over and over again. Her whispers of encouragement. Telling me to feel the designs. To commit the power to form.
“She taught me many things.” I attempt to deflect.