“Because this is where it happened.” He let her go, freeing his hand to gesture toward a pair of doors in the back of the room. “Just beyond the throne room, there.”
“Wherewhathappened?”
“Why don’t you come and see?” He moved toward those doors, not waiting to see whether or not she would follow his invitation.
Again, I wished she wouldn’t.
Again, it did no good.
She followed at a distance, Grimnor still tightly clasped in her hand.
Lorien paused at the threshold, waiting for her to join him. We stood before a medium-sized room with glass walls covered in dust and grime. It was bright despite the layers of filth, the orange glow of the passing day forcing warmth over tattered chairs, broken vases, and worn wooden floors…though not enough warmth to chase away the distinct feeling of melancholy hanging over the space.
I felt Lorien tense with anticipation as Nova moved closer—the excitement of a predator whose prey was coming within pouncing distance.
“We’re stronger together,” he said, glancing her way. “Which means I can magnify your powers, and you could do the same with mine. If you wanted to see anything and everything thisroom remembers, I could help you. There’s nothing we couldn’t unravel together. Unless, of course, you’re afraid of the truth you might reveal.”
I sensed Nova’s magic shifting with those last words—the shadows beneath her skin lifting in indignant protest, ready to prove they were not afraid.
She knelt and ran her fingertips over the warped floorboards.
After a brief bit of concentration, she quietly said, “Something cataclysmic happened here. There was blood. Pain.” She inhaled sharply, as if personally feeling a stab of that pain. “Anger. Despair.”
It wasn’t really a question, but Lorien nodded anyway. The rage that had overtaken him at the mention of Calista was back, only this time he made more of an effort to rein it in. It settled around us like a heavy, itchy cloak.
That heaviness sank in deeper and deeper, until it was difficult to tell who it belonged to—myself or him.
The legends that surrounded Lorien and Calista, the stories that haunted all our histories…I’m not sure I would have been able to resist the urge to see it for myself, either.
So I already knew what Nova would say next.
As did Lorien, a smile curving his lips, even before she said, “Show me where to look.”
NINE
Nova
Istood, and then Lorien touched a hand to the small of my back, guiding me toward the center of the room while pointing to a symbol embedded in the floor.
I’d seen this symbol in a few other places throughout Midna—one of a circle divided diagonally by a vine-wrapped sword. The circle was usually in alternating colors of light and dark; this particular one was stamped in gold and silver—gold throughout the top half, silver in the bottom. The sword, and the vine and the leaves along it, alternated in color as well. Despite the way it all gleamed, it was nearly lost underneath the dust.
I knelt cautiously, pressing a hand to it.
A tingling sensation crept up my arm. I blinked, and the room seemed to break apart and scatter around me. It happened slowly, then all at once—like standing at the edge of a cliff as it crumbled, piece by piece, before finally collapsing completely.
I fell.
I tumbled down, weightless, only to land again in the same room we’d just been standing in. Except now, it was whole,untouched, shimmering with brilliance. As my boots hit the polished wood floor, my eyes began to water and burn.
Another hard blink, and I was fully submerged in a vision of the past—actuallylivingit in a way I’d never experienced with any of my other visions. I recognized things I shouldn’t have. Knew details I’d never been told.
Lorien’s power and memories were merging with mine. And though I didn’t want this bond, I couldn’t deny that I wanted to see where it took me.
So I stepped fully into it.
This place we stood in was an opulent sunroom, a favorite dwelling place of Queen Octavia, the last sovereign of Midna. Its glass walls featured a dazzling array of stained designs, each one casting new patterns of color with every shift of daylight. Warmth permeated the space, which smelled of honeysuckle and sage. It was a space reserved for the most honored of guests; few had been allowed to bask in its beauty.
On this day, however, that beauty was marred by blood.
