“We’ll meet you there,” Marie says. Father gives her an appreciative look and ushers me out the door to one of the Creed’s ghastly carriages. They’re excessively ornate and utterly unnecessary in Vinguard. Very few roads are still wide enough for them—the space has been repurposed for housing—so it’s much faster to walk everywhere. It’s yet another thing that screams,Look howdifferentI am!I hate it.
“Are you nervous?” Father asks when we’re settled inside its stuffy, velvet interior.
“A little, if I’m being honest.” I shift. It’s the same carriage that transports me to my training with the vicar, but today it feels like I’m sitting on pins.
A flash of Etherlight, and the wheels begin to turn under us as the carriage moves forward.What a waste of the power that keeps Vinguard safe.
Father speaks with pride. “You’ll be exceptional. You’re Valor Reborn. This is the start of your true destiny. Last night was a sign.”
“What if—” I don’t get to finish my sentence. Father stops me by raising a hand. He knows what I’m about to say before I finish.What if I’m not the hero you all think I am?
“We’ve been over this.” Father shakes his head. “You’re always so ready to ask what if you’re not. But what if youareValorReborn, Isola? Why not change your instinct to believe it could be true instead of fighting it?”
You’d love that, wouldn’t you?I bite back from saying. Instead, I ask, “You don’t think it’s convenient how people were beginning to lose faith in the Creed and then, suddenly, they have their legendary warrior and all the legitimacy that comes with it?”
“Your eyes,” he says, intending to silence me with the simple fact alone. His one golden eye shines, but I focus on the other. Before the attack, I had the same eyes as his remaining brown one.
“I was alone after the attack.” The words are bitter and harsh. “Withthem. Unconscious. The vicar could’ve changed my eyes himself and told no one.” The Creed, and the vicar specifically, oversees the gilding.
Father leans away, clearly shocked I’d even suggest it. “Granting connection to the Font through the gilding is something that only happens after the Tribunal—once they’re certain that the curse isn’t present.”
“Vicar Darius makes his own rules.”
“The gilding only makesoneeye gold.”
“The vicar keeps so much information locked away.” What I’ve seen is only a quarter of it. “Who knows what he can do that he doesn’t tell us about?”
“When did you become so jaded?” Father frowns. “Did your mother—”
I won’t hear it. I hate it when Father acts like the vicar is everything when all that man has ever done is take from me. “If I’m jaded, maybe it’s because you persuaded the council to keep me from her when I was just twelve.” Following their divorce, I couldn’t even see her whenever I wanted until this year when I turned eighteen. I’m clutching the jerkin over my chest now. Grasping at the remnants of the dull ache that only her tincturescan relieve. Tinctures I didn’t get.
Dragon-burned hells, I hope she’s got some at the Convening. I don’t know how I’ll survive the next three weeks if not.
Father’s eyes grow cold and distant. Most people wouldn’t be able to tell this apart from his usual stoic expression. But I can. “Your mother—Valor bless her—is a danger to herself. I know you don’t want to believe me when I say it—”
“Then don’t say it,” I cut him off again. Our eyes catch, hold, and I exhale. “Just…don’t.”
For once, he obliges. Silence folds in, heavy but as brittle as the leaded glass that lines the old windows of the Grand Chapel of Mercy. It feels just as dangerous to shatter. Only the creak of the carriage dares to break it—wood groaning like bones under strain—as if even the wheels sense where they’re carrying me. My scar itches, sharp and sudden, a phantom reminder of talons and fire.
With every turn of the wheels, the itching gets worse, as if to remind me that I am that much closer to my death.
8
I stare at the city through the small carriage window. In the distance, I catch a glimpse of Mercy Spire—the home of the Mercy Knights. It’s the highest structure, taller than even the towers that rise from the wall. Like a sword stretching from the crust of the earth, point piercing the heavens. Every window is a vantage. Cannons poke out of freshly built turrets—a little lighter than the much older, dark-gray stone—giving the whole thing a thorny appearance.
At its foot is a building only opened to non-curates once per year: the monastery.
The carriage stops, and the swell of Etherlight that had surrounded us as it moved dissipates. A crowd has gathered. The Tribunal is a rite of passage—a source of pride and apprehension. Though I suspect with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that all the commotion isn’t just because of the hall reopening.
My fear is confirmed the moment I emerge from the carriage. Vicar Darius is already waiting. His clammy fingers clamp viselike around mine as he “helps” me down. There are murmurs and even some applause as surrounding gazes swing to me, single golden eyes glinting like a shimmering sea among natural colors. The vicar raises my hand as though I have carried out a great triumph by existing.
More applause.
This is the worst. I never thought I’d be yearning for the Tribunal to begin. I offer a tight smile.Duty, I remind myself and stand a little taller,this is your duty.
At least until the dragon within claims you.
My father emerges next, and they escort me to the end of theline of supplicants convening for the Tribunal. It looks like there are about thirty of us this time around. Children are few in a city besieged by dragons and scourge.Thank Valor, they didn’t make a show of walking me to the front of the line.
