Chapter 2
Chapter two
Seraphina
Sera was late, and this time she couldn’t blame it on Dominick.
With Nora’s trial looming over her and the constant rattling in her chest, Sera sighed.
Just don’t burn the stacks down. The door handle was cool in her scorching hand.
She envisioned herself locking the chains, hiding that well of death once again. One more deep breath.
Sera pushed open the door to her workspace.
The signature fragrance of time and dust helped calm her a little, but knowing she was in a room with ancient relics and tomes had her biting her cheek to keep her magic in check.
Surrounding the worktables, stone walls held shelving, and upon it ancient masks, globes, and broken bottles.
Mage lights danced across the ceiling. Half were back in the stacks, most likely following her mentor, but the remaining ones perched above the wooden tables reflected their light in the golden-framed mirror at the front of the room.
“Seraphina?”
“It’s me,” she yelled back, noticing the ledgers from the previous day were still stacked at her workstation.
Sera sighed. Apparently, for Galene to have miraculously changed her assignment during the night was too much to ask.
The ledgers often held endless counts of livestock and crop yields: hardly exciting.
“Come back here, please.” Galene’s voice was strained. Sera swung her cloak from her shoulders, hung it on the back of the door, and went to find her mentor.
Her fingertips snagged on the rough bindings and spines as she walked back into the stacks. The distinct scent of vanillin permeated the pages of ancient tomes and ledgers, settling the last bit of her magic back inside its cage. And finally, Sera let her shoulders drop.
Tomes and more tomes. It’d been tomes forever. As a witchling, huddled in the library, looking at the monstrous beast forms of demons. Reading about the ancient sacrificial rituals of witches and warlocks. The wars, the mythical beasts that dwelled deep in Eraphon’s oceans.
But the one she’d wanted to get her hands on since the moment she set foot within these stacks was protected behind glass.
Weathered and moth eaten, its delicate leather cover depicted the world giving birth to a god.
Sera had begged Galene to read it countless times, but the answer was always a firm no.
“Seraphina, stop feeling the books and come help me,” Galene crowed at her. “Grab the stool and bring it here. The Vase of Ornelle is waiting.”
“Considering that it’s over two thousand years old, I don’t think another few minutes are going to hurt it.” Sera grabbed the stool and faced her mentor.
Galene’s short stature, beady eyes, and white hair that never seemed to stay in place made her look gnomelike. She retrieved the artifact and delicately placed it onto a secured transport cart.
“You”—her mentor glared at her—“are the safest solution for retrieving items on the higher shelves, due to your height.” Galene waved her hands, whispering a spell, and further secured the vase with magic. “It is why I have let you stay so long.”
Sera snorted. “You’re not sprite-sized.”
“I still believe you taller witches have access to better air quality than I do. I should petition the Council about that.”
“I think you’re just afraid of heights.” Sera laughed, pushing her heavy black curls off her shoulder and returning to her workstation.
“That comment doesn’t warrant a response,” Galene said.
Sera readied her notebook and opened the top ledger.
Crudely drawn creatures coated the pages—on one, depictions of woodland goblins with their giant eyes and even bigger ears. On another, the mighty elken with their massive antlers. A pleasant surprise considering she was expecting tallies of crop yields and livestock.
“I heard a few Daedeth-class members whispering that the ceasefire will end. That maybe the war would end.” Sera kept her eyes down, made an attempt to make herself look studious in her meticulous note-taking for the archives but really, she was avoiding Galene’s glower.
The witch hated to talk about the war. Honestly, her mentor hated to talk about anything other than the pieces surrounding them. But Sera had worn her down after three years.
“And?” Galene asked.
“Do you think the demons have finally given up?” Sera shifted in her seat.
Since the coven founders had defected from the underworld, Gehenna, they’d been at war.
The fact that they hadn’t been retaken was claimed a miracle.
Some said it was proof that witches and warlocks were meant to break free of the demons’ oppressive reign.
Sera had a suspicion there was more to it than that.
Though in the three years she’d been preserving pieces of the past, she hadn’t found her proof yet.
“The start of the truce was not long enough ago to reconcile with Gehenna. Twenty years is a drop in time to demons.”
Sera flipped the page, revealing three separate pictures of the same bird in different phases of flight, all drawn in incredible detail. She had to admit that whoever this artist was, they were talented. “How old were you when the war started?” She bit her cheek to keep from smiling.
“Witchling.” The scowl that formed on her mentor’s face rivaled those of the ancient statues of demonic deities. “You know I am not two thousand years old. Do not insult me, for if you continue, I will send you to another office.” Galene huffed so hard dust motes floated through the room.
“I’m not a witchling anymore. I’m about to be twenty-four,” she said and turned another page in the ledger.
A wolf with terrifying eyes stared back at her.
Dark shading came off the beast like a shadow.
She shivered for a moment, then looked at the name printed beside it: Vuk.
Well, that was a creature she’d never seen before.
“Four years out of your schooling? You’re still a witchling.”
Careful not to damage the page, Sera used both hands to turn the thin paper. As she did, another image was revealed. She gasped.
“What is it?” Galene asked.
A being with giant feathered wings protruding from his back took up both pages.
An aliato, light-bringer, a being of sun and sky.
They were the soldiers of the human god, myths among her people, despite the evidence provided by the old tomes.
No one had ever seen one in person, but here the warrior was depicted along with a sword and shield.
“Nothing… nothing.”
Galene pursed her lips.
“Will you attend Honora’s trial?” Galene asked. Sera turned another page, grateful it was empty.
“As if my mother would let me miss it.” Sera sighed. “Nora’s creating a portal. Our uncle will be on the other side.”
“Artemis? Is he not deployed?”
“He is up in Valburn, but you know how my mother can be. Her goal is to get Nora into Daedeth.”
Galene’s eyes widened. “Impressive distance for a portal, let alone for a novice. Lavinia must be proud.”
“Well, Nora is impressive.” The words tasted sour in her mouth. Her mother had always been proud of Nora. One of her daughters had to be powerful, and it certainly wasn’t Sera. At least not in the way that was acceptable.
And when Lavinia Wildrick had watched Sera present what little magic she had to the Council…
it had been just the tip of her mother’s disappointment.
Sera had stood in the middle of the Menage as three Council members and a quarter of the coven watched.
She’d thought she was used to the scowls Lavinia gave her, but when the coven and Council had realized just how little magic she held…
A surge of scalding heat ripped through her.
Sera bit her cheek hard to keep from yelping out. As if her very thoughts had insulted that other magic. She closed her eyes.
“Are you all right?” Galene asked.
When she opened her eyes, instead of her mentor standing before her, it was a Legion soldier.
Sera trembled as she watched the soldier’s body snap tight, his muscles and tendons constricting from the dark blaze that engulfed him.
His eyes were milky rivers, running down his cheeks into his silent screaming mouth.
She was going to be sick.
The abomination roiled in her gut.
“Seraphina?” Galene’s voice barely made it through the rushing of blood in her ears.
It wanted out. Those black and terrible flames scorched every one of her arteries in defiance. She couldn’t let it happen. The quill.
Sera grabbed her quill and pressed the sharp point into her thumb. There was pain… always pain… but with it, a bit of release. Pushing a great breath out through her nose, she said, “I’m all right. Just had a headache come out of nowhere.”
“Do you need to visit the healers? I will walk you, my dear.”
She wiped the drops of blood on her uniform, right on the underside of her bicep. “I’m fine… better now.”
If they found out, if anyone knew, she’d be done for.
That’s when the chimes rang through the Citadel.