Chapter 38
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
Such a glorious day for the crowning. Mira was beautiful as always, and even Thom cleaned up for it. And now Father is officially de-throned. Take that, old man.
— From the journal of Violet Andrever
“Show me what I need to know.” I wasn’t sure who I was telling that to, but a strange mist rolled in, several scenes flashing in quick succession before resolving and settling into a memory.
The colors were muted, as though someone had taken a brush and painted a glaze of gray over everything.
Violet was in front of me, walking the halls I had walked earlier.
She turned a corner and ducked under a tapestry.
I followed her down a secret passage that I had no clue existed and we went down, down, and down some more.
We ended up in a cave, the rough stone walls ancient and predating the temple ruin where I had traveled through time.
“Alright, I’m here,” she called out to the empty room.
A dark figure emerged from the shadows. I reached for my nonexistent blade, but she didn’t seem concerned.
As he drew closer to the light, I saw that he was, in fact, a man.
He had the same ageless features I had gotten used to.
His dark hair had a few streaks of silver running through it, but his eyes…
they were the most piercing green eyes I had ever seen, ringed with gold, startlingly vibrant given the muting of the rest of the colors.
He stood with perfect stillness, so at odds with Violet’s chaotic energy.
“My lady.” His voice was measured—too measured. As though he was weighing every word before speaking.
I had the strangest sense that I had heard his voice before. But like a melody running through your head that you can’t quite place, where I had heard his voice was just out of reach.
“You said last time that the prophecy I knew was incomplete. How do you know that?”
He stood perfectly still, tracking Violet’s pacing with his eyes. “Because I wrote it.”
“I thought the gods wrote it,” she countered.
“They did. Through me. Solais charged me with protecting it. Seeing it through. Until another one appeared.”
“The One? As in the Orlaith?”
He shook his head. “Not the One. Another one.” His hand shot forward, startling in its quickness.
He grasped her chin, and as he did so, his eyes unfocused, the gold overtaking the green.
His voice became fluid, lyrical. “You are not the One. But you are the one before the One. You prepare the way. Buy the time. For her to grow.” He released her.
The gold in his eyes retreated, clearing from the center outward, the green returning until there was only a small ring of gold around the iris.
“Her? The Orlaith?” She grinned. “I knew it wasn’t me. My father is going to be so pissed.”
The mist returned, covering the scene in front of me, surrounding me so completely I couldn’t see anything. It swirled around me until I ended up completely disoriented, but before I could truly start to panic, it cleared and a new scene unfolded.
“You’re talking about Starfire.” Violet shook her head. “My father tried for years to get me to access it. It never worked.”
The same man looked at her sadly. “Nor will you. It will only answer your call when presented with death.”
She snorted. “Figures.”
As his back turned, I heard her mutter under her breath, “Fuck you, Da.”
The mist appeared again, and this time, I managed to control my trepidation while a new scene appeared before me.
Violet’s hair was longer. A lot longer. Significant time had passed. But we were standing in the same cave, with the same strange man in front of us.
“Flashes of fire run through the sword, bringing sunrise to face the horde,” he said, his eyes gold once more.
“Why do you always speak in riddles?” she fumed.
“It is how the words appear. I cannot alter the words. To speak them brings truth.”
With just those few words, mist swirled before sharpening into a new room.
We were no longer in the cave, but in a room that had to be somewhere in the castle. My breath caught when I saw my father and Nana.
Violet was sitting slumped in a chair, twiddling a dagger, my father beside her, in a similar position. On the other side of the table sat Nana and Zachariah, crowns atop their heads.
“The Veil is failing, Sire,” a guard was reporting.
Idly, I noticed their uniforms hadn’t changed in the fifty-some-odd years between this scene and today.
“Entire sections are retreating. Holes are being burned through it. Each day, we lose more and more ground. People are retreating from the borders, moving inward.”
“Is there space for all of them?” Nana asked.
“There is, your Majesty.”
I startled at him referring to Nana as such.
I had seen the crown on her head, known she was the queen, but everything about this was so different from the Nana I knew.
She had always been strong and regal, but she held herself stiffly, her immaculate clothing having never seen a garden.
Everything was at odds with the woman who’d raised me, mud on her boots and dirt under her fingernails.
“But it’s a race right now,” the guard continued, “between people moving inward, starting their lives anew in close quarters, and the Veil’s boundaries shrinking.”
“How much time do we have?” my father asked.
“We don’t rightly know, Prince Thomrin.”
“Guess then.”
“A year? Maybe two?”
It was so silent I could hear my breaths.
Zachariah spoke for the first time, directing his words to Violet. “You are not living up to your full potential,” he fumed. Nana placed a hand on his arm, attempting to stop him, but he shook her off. “You are supposed to be the greatest of us.”
“This is my fault now?” She didn’t move her position, just raised her eyes to look at him, dagger still spinning in her hand.
“The prophecy has foretold it.”
“Does it? Are you sure you understood what it was you read?”
As he opened his mouth for what was sure to be a scathing retort, the scene melted away and we were back in the cavern.
“The Veil is failing,” she said, pacing in a circle. “Nothing you’ve told me will help me fix it.”
The man perched on a stone wall, watching her wild movements. “That is not your destiny. The Veil doesn’t matter.”
She whirled on him. “How can you say that? Every day, my people are getting infected. Every day, the dark power grows.”
“The Veil won’t stop that. It simply delays. Events are proceeding and you cannot stop the passage of time.”
She propped her hands on her hips. “Alright, all-knowing one, pray tell. What is my destiny?”
His voice was irritated, the first sign of emotion I’d seen from him. “I’ve told you before. Your fate is tied to that of the Orlaith. You pave the way—”
“Buy her time to grow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me something real here. Something I can work with.”
He just stared at her, but I caught the uncertainty in his expression. He knew more he wanted to tell her, but couldn’t.
“I thought so,” she said softly, before spinning on her heel and striding away into the mist.
The mist rolled in, strong and thick.
When it parted, the Great Hall was revealed, decorated in gold with hints of the other six colors.
Maybe it was me projecting, but was everyone a bit weary?
A bit more threadbare, even dressed as they were in their finery?
The colors were muted, how they normally were in these memories, but something was off, even at something that should have been a celebration.
And then I realized it—through the skylights, it was dark.
No stars appeared through the night sky. If that even was the night sky.
Violet stood to the side as a priestess raised a crown and placed it on my father’s head, and another on my mother’s.
Nana was on the far side of them. As they turned to face the crowd, they held hands tightly.
I lost sight of them as they were swarmed, everyone giving their best wishes to the new king and queen.
Zachariah sidled up to Violet. “That was supposed to be you. It was foretold.”
“No, Father,” she said tiredly. “It was never supposed to be me. And I’m glad it’s not. I have another fate.”
“And what is that?”
“To protect. And blaze the path.”
I tried to stay, to watch my parents, but the mist would have none of it. It dragged me away from them, and I was left with the blank, misty space in front of me.
Violet stood at the tapestry opening, hesitating. She was wearing more weapons than in any of the previous scenes, and gone was the flamboyant sass. Her eyes were tired, her steps weary.
“Violet!” Her name rang out through the hall. Kaia ran toward her.
“Hey there,” Violet said lightly.
“Don’t ‘hey there’ me.” Even in a memory, that tone of voice from Kaia made my heart rate spike. She was pissed. “Where are you going?”
Violet grimaced. “I can’t tell you.”
Kaia crossed her arms. “You’ve always kept secrets, Vi, but this is next level. Even for you.”
Violet approached Kaia and rested a hand on her arm. “You know I’d tell you if I could,” she said softly.
“I know,” Kaia said, closing her eyes. “Just promise me you’re being safe.”
Violet gave her a wicked grin. “When am I not?”
“Now I’m more worried.”
Violet laughed and watched Kaia walk away, before ducking under the tapestry.
She headed back to the cave, where she stood and turned in a small circle.
“I’m here,” she called out like she had before.
The sound faintly echoed around the chamber.
“Are you here?” she called out. “I don’t even know your name,” she muttered under her breath.
Looking around, she tried one last time. “Hey, Wraith! Show yourself!”
When the echoes of her call faded, there was silence in the chamber. Sighing, she went back up the way she came.
I was now used to the mist, and waited patiently for what it thought I should see next. I sucked in a breath when it revealed my father.