“Envision a map, with routes such as those drawn by a Master of Trade.” Titus rose, speaking thoughtfully as he walked to the open wall, his hands behind his back and three-pointed dagger in his belt. “Every possibility—infinite futures—are mapped by celestial hands and turned over to my clan by the Angel Valyrie, the Fates, and the Celestial Goddess through our use of incense and tinctures. We can’t choose what we read; it is the path that a warrior’s current course puts them on.
“Last night, when I read at the Sacra Temple in the city…I saw destruction.”
The word echoed down my bones, shocking my frame, but I tightened my hold on the Revered mask.
“What kind of destruction?” Meridat asked.
Titus met my eyes over his shoulder. “The heavens did not speak of how; they did not deign to share their understandings with me.” His lips twisted to the side as if he was unsatisfied with the higher power. “But they showed me we are on the brink of darkness. Gallantia, Ambrisk—all are threatened.”
Threats. Darkness. Destruction. My hands clenched. I scratched the Curse scar on my wrist, searching for something to steady my nervous energy.
Control yourself.Do not react.It is a test. I had to remain in one piece, the face of strength and capability.
“And what does this have to do with my appointment?” I asked.
“Because”—he turned now—“when I enacted the power of the Angel Valyrie—when the prime Starsearcher transferred this warning to me—it was your face I saw among the darkness, Ophelia Alabath.”
The mountains could have crumbled around me, and I wouldn’t have noticed. Not over the deafening roar in my ears, the way my bones were splintering under the weight of his reading.
Annellius’s words during the Undertaking came back to me:Your blood is strong enough to cause and end wars.
Titus’s reading swooped over me, snuffing out every bit of fortitude I’d worked to instill in myself. He took a breath, preparing to drop the final proclamation that would shatter my resolve entirely.
“It is for that reason that I cannot give my support for your appointment as Revered, Miss Alabath.”
Vaguely, I was aware of the uproar the chamber erupted into, but I thought I might collapse. Fate said darkness was entwined with my future, and I was useless against it.
Voices rose. Ezalia and Meridat argued with Titus, imploring him to read again, but their words were a dull buzzing in my ears. Aird was straightening his cloak, ready to flee the chamber. Brigiet still examined that map in her own contemplative silence.
The Starsearchers and Mystiques had a history of amiable relations. Until now.Until me.Because whatever the stars wrote for my future—it was a promise of shadows and fury. Defeat gripped my bones, dragging me into the despair I’d barely fought my way out of.
I couldn’t even earn alliances.
I’d thought—I’d hoped having this position would brighten the stain of betrayals I’d suffered. Would give me a purpose after being aimless for years, but perhaps Aird and the stars were correct. I was barely an ascended warrior?—
Not fit for rule.
Just as I had the thought, my core guard surrounded me. Chocolate-brown eyes swam before my own, Tolek stooping to catch my gaze.
“Compose yourself, Alabath.” He slipped a length of rope Ihadn’t realized he carried into my hands and nodded pointedly at it. Standing before me, he blocked my hands from view so I could ground myself and my breathing through the repetitive action of tying knots.
“Don’t let them see you falter,” Cyph said, and I lifted my chin.
Jezebel pinned Titus with a glare. By the door, Malakai remained stoic.
I siphoned off their steady calm, gathered the pieces of my mask, and slipped them back into place. With my energy stifled, I could think straight, approach this from the opposition’s point of view.
It was outlandish of the chancellors to think youth and strength were mutually exclusive; damn what the fates may say of my undoing. I may not have had as much experience as the rest of them, but I had overcome just as much. I’d been trained as my father’s heir, for Damien’s sake. And I had room to grow, to evolve into the ruler the Mystiques needed.
The chancellors didn’t know me. They saw a young woman who claimed to have proven herself through a sacred ritual they didn’t understand. My journey to the Undertaking—though it revealed Lucidius’s secrets—had been illegal. It would lookrash and immatureif one hoped to see it that way.
But it wasn’t one-sided.
I’d make them see the other side: the undeniable traits that drove me into that quest and landed me here.
But I’d also open up my heart and show the honorable, raw side of me. I’d peel back the mask of Revered and bleed from those mangled pieces if need be.
If they wanted to see a young woman when they looked at me, so be it. Instead of pretending to be otherwise, I would take that image and forge her into a leader through her accomplishments. One with passion and grace and ferocity.
