Chapter 34
When she entered the labyrinth, she found herself back in the cottage.
Her first home, where she’d lived with Styerra and Ervos in the woods.
The last time she saw it, the floorboards were covered in black feathers. Today it was as if years had passed once more.
‘Strange,’ Ezer said, because she’d never begun here.
She was just about to turn and head back to the hall of memories … when she heard footsteps.
And suddenly a hooded figure emerged from the frozen tunnel.
Ezer gasped and reached for her blade, but a gust of sudden wind knocked it from her fist.
It clattered to the floor, useless.
‘There’s no need for weapons,’ said the figure. ‘Not with me.’
Ezer sucked in a breath, because she knew that voice. And when the figure lowered her hood … it was her own face staring back at her. Without the scars but lacking none of the sorrow.
‘Mother?’
Styerra smiled. ‘Hello, Ezer. I’ve been working towards this moment for a very, very long time.’
Styerra looked about the cottage with a sigh. Like she couldn’t believe the state of the place. She crossed to the table and pulled out a chair. Ezer winced as it scraped against the dusty floors with a screech.
‘Sit,’ Styerra said. ‘There’s not much time.’
‘You can see me?’ Ezer asked. ‘This is … real?’
Styerra smiled. ‘It’s taken all my energy, all my time, to find a way to meet with you.’
‘But … how?’ Ezer sat across from her.
‘Death holds many secrets, my dear. I fear I can’t spill a droplet of them without repercussion. But this is real. And important. There’s little time to waste, so … let us begin …’
Ezer nodded, too shocked to argue.
She could see the mark upon Styerra’s finger where her skin was a bit paler, the place where she’d worn her beloved ring. Her eyes slid to Ezer’s hand.
Where that very ring now sat.
‘All my life, I tried invocating. I failed, of course, and was cast aside. Useless, to the Sacred, except to serve them.’ Styerra pursed her lips, like she was still annoyed.
‘I feared you’d end up like me, too. But the night I died …
when the wolves came for you. Something happened, Ezer. Something I cannot explain.’
She spoke like she knew Ezer had seen her memories behind the doors.
Like they were old friends, catching up.
‘It wasn’t from an invocation, for I was not so lucky as to wield magic, even near death.
But you …’ Her eyes widened, like she still didn’t believe it.
‘You were just a baby. How could you invocate? But the moment the wolves attacked, just after they managed to swipe your beautiful face …’ She frowned, shaking her head as her eyes fell to Ezer’s scars.
‘It was not me who led them away. It was your ravens.’
Ezer sucked in a breath.
‘A thousand of them strong,’ Styerra said. ‘They protected you, fought for you as if you’d called them, or maybe they’d been sent, but … it was you, Ezer. You saved yourself. With your beautiful magic.’
Ezer shook her head.
It couldn’t be.
But … she had seen the feathers inside the cottage.
She had seen the way the baby Ezer had them clutched in her furious little fists. And she could imagine it, the very same thing that had happened two months ago, in the woods.
An army of ravens.
For her.
‘But … how?’ Ezer asked.
‘Your ancestor, Wrenwyn … she could do what you do. Magic, raw and real, that does not require invocating. That does not have to pay a price.’
But if that were true …
It would change everything for the Sacred, if they could only learn. If only they could stop relying upon the granted invocations to the gods.
‘There are a rare few that possess your ability,’ Styerra explained. ‘Very rare, for only those in Wrenwyn’s line can wield without invocations.’
It didn’t make sense.
And yet … it explained her entire life. Her connection to the birds. To Six. Her ability to call upon the ravens, when death was near …
Her dreams.
‘What am I?’ Ezer dared ask.
Because … she couldn’t be Sacred.
Styerra frowned. ‘That is a question I cannot answer. But there is another who can. Another who your father believed in. Wrenwyn, too.’
‘The Acolyte?’ Ezer asked.
Styerra nodded.
She flickered for a moment and winced.
Her hands curled like she was in pain.
‘I doubted Erath when he first told me of this other power. How could I, born and raised in the Citadel, taught the laws of the Five, witnessing the glorious magic from them … how could I ever think there was anything different?’ Her eyes glittered.
‘But he was right. The gods are not alone, Ezer. The Acolyte is far more powerful than they think.’
A tendril of fear shivered through Ezer.
She needed to know more, had to know more, but first …
‘What happened to my father?’ Ezer asked.
Styerra sat forward, her expression darkening. ‘I suppose I’ll never fully know. I was meant to find him in death. That ring you wear on your thumb was meant to bond us. A way to seek one another, a map for our souls after we left this realm behind. But when Stefon—’
‘Ervos,’ Ezer said.
‘You knew him as only his surname, yes.’ Styerra nodded.
‘When he removed it from my dead finger …’ she lifted her hands, frowning at the space where she once wore the ring, ‘it wasn’t so he could hold on to some fond memory of me.
It was because he knew that he would never have my heart.
He took the ring to ensure that I would never find your father again. Not in life. And not in death.’
A horrible fate, to wander aimlessly in the afterlife, searching for a love that might never be found. Ezer’s blood went cold.
‘Why would he do such a thing?’
Styerra placed her hands in her lap. ‘Wouldn’t you, to save the one you loved? We would have been killed together, Erath and I, and you along with us, Ezer… if Stefon had not lied.’
Ezer had read thousands of stories in her life.
But none were quite so bitter. Quite so broken and sad.
‘Stefon loved me. But he loved the idea of me more. A perfect, pious Sacred woman, who was content to do the Five’s bidding and never think twice about what else might lie beyond.
Because like I once did … Stefon believed that the Five, and their thousand impossible laws, were the only way.
And to deviate from that way would mean a fate worse than death.
He forged the letter from Erath. I do not believe your father would ever have left without me.
’ She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, the sadness was replaced with anger, burning like an ember.
‘I tried to show Stefon, that final night. But his eyes were not ready to see. His loyalty to the Five, too strong. It’s why I lied to him, told him that I was the one to draw the wolves away.
He would have treated you like the book.
Like something to be feared, instead of cherished.
’ She looked at Ezer’s pocket. ‘I know you carry the Shadow Tome with you.’
The book.
The symbols.
The blood drained from Ezer’s face as she reached into her cloak pocket … and found Zey’s empty journal there. The one that she’d been thumbing through, night after night. It hadn’t ever made the journey to her dreams before.
When she set it on the table between them, the pages fluttered open.
It was still empty.
Styerra smiled at the pages. Like she could see what Ezer could not.
‘When the Acolyte was set free, only the ones who could see through the cracks in the Five were able to decipher the message. Stefon saw nothing on the pages, like so many others. But I was awakened. I didn’t find the journal in town, like I told Stefon.
I had kept Erath’s book with me, the last thing I had of him.
In secret, I began to read it. And after you were born … I began to see the symbols.’
This was wrong. Ezer knew it was wrong, and yet …
‘What did they say?’ Ezer asked, glancing down at Zey’s empty pages. ‘The symbols.’
‘Your eyes aren’t opened yet,’ Styerra said. ‘Not fully. And there is nothing I can say, nothing I can do, to sway you to open them all the way. That must happen in your own time. For most, it never will.’
‘But that book, that raw power you speak of … it comes from the Acolyte,’ Ezer said, horrified.
‘The same power that caused a stone in the Sacred Circle to turn black. An entire realm. Gone. It’s coming for us, next.
All of Lordach will be gone if he wins the war.
It’s the same power that killed you. And did this to me. ’
She tucked her dark curls behind her ears. She lifted her chin, so that Styerra would be forced to look at her three hideous scars. ‘How can you worship a power like that?’
Styerra looked as sad as she had the day she left the Citadel. ‘I wish I could tell you what it all means. I wish I had been given the chance to teach you and be the mother you deserved. I was going to leave with you, the night the wolves came. I was going to go north to the Acolyte.’
‘To a monster,’ Ezer said. ‘You were going to take your newborn baby to a monster.’ She stood up, chair scraping, desperate to put space between them. ‘He started a war after you died. He’s murdered thousands, women and children and men who never even stood a chance against him. He’s—’
‘And yet …’ Styerra leaned back, holding her gaze. ‘You have bound yourself to one of his monsters. And by all counts, dear daughter … I would say that Six is good. There is always another side to the story.’
Ezer’s heart stuttered. ‘How do you know about Six? About the book I carry? About—’
Styerra’s image suddenly flickered.
She let out a painful gasp.
‘What’s happening?’ Ezer asked.
‘Time is running thin. I cannot give you everything … but I can at least give you this answer. When I died, a young woman met me on the fringes of life and death. The doorsteps to the Ehver. She gave me a choice. To end my journey … or to go back and watch over you until you were ready. A spirit guide. The cost, of course, would be to delay my eternity. My peace.’