“My Valor Reborn, come. Your vicar commands it.”
My body betrays me. It moves on instinct and without thought. It moves because he commanded it and I have been trained for six years to jump the moment he tells me.
Everything seems to occur at half speed, happening in a faraway place. I’m at the vicar’s side. He places a hand on my shoulder, and keeping myself from falling over is all I can manage.
“Blessings of Valor upon you,” he intones.
“Blessings of Valor upon you,” I repeat like a puppet.
But inside… Inside, that fiery ball of rage is burning hot. So hot that it’s looking for any escape. If the vicar were to cut me now, nothing but molten lava would slide out.
The vicar continues to speak, and I echo his words. It gives me an opportunity to get my first real look at the new supplicants—anything to take my mind off another Creed prayer.
The tallest is a broad-shouldered guy. He has brown skin and short, dark-brown hair that is shaved on both sides, longer on the top, and pulled into a bun. He studies me with dark eyes as one might a scroll.
The two girls have fair skin and light-brown hair with streaks of gold. One’s is cropped short and messy, not even past her ears. The other has hair down to her waist, a shining, unbroken curtain of it. Their features are identical, down to their button noses and green-blue eyes. Twins, undoubtedly. A rarity beyond compare.
The prayer reaches its end, and the vicar declares, “So sayeth the Creed, guide and guardian of Vinguard.”
“So sayeth the Creed—” My voice cracks.Guide and guardian?The people who tortured me? Who dictated the life of a young girl?
“Isola?” the vicar almost growls under his breath, even though his face stays passive.
I look up at him and feel a sliver of that heat escape me. It unspools as a golden thread that lashes harmlessly against the vicar’s cheeks. It looks identical to the Etherlight I’ve seen before. No one else must see it, because they don’t react. But the vicar must feel it. He leans back, eyes widening.
“Guide and guardian of Vinguard,” I finish hastily, and, without a second thought, I move, leaving the vicar and pushing past the inquisitors. The second I’m out of sight, I dash up the stairs, heart pounding in my throat. Burning with every beat.
I almost unleashed Etherlight again—more than just a little curl. I know it in my marrow.
What’s happening to me?
34
When I reach the atrium, I suck in a breath, trying to cool the burning inside of me. Everything is so overwhelming. My chest is too tight. The scar-knotted flesh is so tender it hurts with every shift of my jerkin over my shirt.
I want to scream.
But instead, I force myself to keep calm and head toward the residence hall, pausing at the central dragon statue to catch my breath. As I do, I try to ignore the lifeless eyes glaring down at me, the way fear prickles under my skin. It knows what I am.
This power… Maybe it’s because I’m Valor Reborn. Or maybe because I am dragon cursed. If the dragons are beings of Etherlight, then of course I could draw magic. And both times it emerged as heat. This burning inside of me, threatening to consume me.
My gaze is drawn to the copper dragon tapestry.
Am I one of you?
A pair of footsteps comes up quickly behind me, and I straighten. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and my stomach twists. The vicar must’ve followed.
He’s going to take me away again. I know he sensed it, the moment I drew from the Font without a sigil again in the refectory, however slight it was.
A shoulder brushes mine as someone comes to a stop beside me, and I nearly break down in tears when I find myself face-to-face with Lucan and not the vicar.
He stares down at me through his mess of dark-blond hair. In the fading sunlight, there’s something almost radiant about him, despite his exhaustion. I still see the strands of gold threaded around him, in his eyes, in his hair, in the air that surroundswhere he walks.
“Lucan,” I say softly, keeping this conversation just for us and not possible nearby inquisitors. Somehow, his name eases the tension from my shoulders, as if my body still remembers earlier—how comforting his presence was as he held me steady. The way the Etherlight of our sigils danced together alongside our breaths.
He props an arm on the dragon statue, looking completely at ease, but his eyes dart to the corners of the room. “Don’t let him get to you.”
I force the corners of my mouth up. “I’ll be fine.”
