“He’s searching for more Tears.”
Unlike Stark’s stony expression, Venna’s alarm shows clearly. “How many more could there be?”
I shake my head. “I have no idea, and neither does he. What I know for certain is that when I consulted my foresight yesterday, the only viable pathshowed us going to a tower. I think I saw us finding a Tear there. So there may be at least one more out there, in that tower—wherever it is.”
I don’t let myself think about the woman’s body in my vision, or Stark’s agonized shouts. How all my visions ended with death—and this one was merely the least bloody.
“The one Tear he has already gave him enough power to conquer a whole kingdom. If he gets more…” Noemi lets her voice trail off. The implication is clear.
With enough power, we might not be able to stop him, alliance with Astreona or no.
Panic begins to crush in at the edges of my heart, my chest growing tight. But then, Saela’s eyes light up with joy—she looks just the same way when she’s figured out a difficult math problem. “Wait a minute.”
“I’m waiting.” Her simple excitement chases some of my panic away. I smile, breath coming more easily.
She jumps up. “I think there’s something…” She hurtles across the room, disappearing into the next chamber.
“Sae?” I call after her.
“There’s something! I saw it!” she shouts back. Venna makes a small, amused sound.
When my sister reappears, she has one of our mother’s tattered journals in her hands. She plops back down on the couch and cracks it open with intention, flipping quickly through the pages. Our father leans over to read alongside her, then pulls back, a startled look in his eyes.
He must’ve recognized our mother’s handwriting.
“Well?” Noemi asks.
“Give her a minute,” I say, kneeling before my sister. I look up at her, content to watch her in action.
Finally, she slaps her hand down on a page and makes an excited sound, kicking her feet. She turns it around and holds the pages open to me. “See? Look, look.”
I reach out and trace my fingers over the image there.
Ramblings are scrawled around the picture, but that’s not what Saela wants me to see. In the center of the right page is something that looks like a six-pointed star or a geometric flower, but each of the points is in the shape of a teardrop. In the center of it is another tear shape.
Saela is breathless. She leans forward to look at the image again, then turns a hopeful gaze toward me. “Do you think… ?”
That these are the Goddess Tears? My eyes burn. Yet another way our mother wasn’t insane, maybe. Sheknew.
“Maybe,” I tell my little sister. She clearly wants so badly to believe in our mother’s strength. I want that, too. “It’s possible. Seven.”
“Seven total. Which means he can’t go around gathering dozens, at least,” Saela says.
Noemi lifts her head, and her eyes flash. “Seven tears and a tower.” She grabs Stark’s arm and pulls at him insistently. “Stark. Thesong.”
It sounds like nonsense until Stark’s expression shifts with recognition.
“Is this some Bonded thing I never learned about?” I ask.
Noemi steps closer to me, bright hair shimmering in the morning sunlight. “My father, Lord Eisenfall, loves this awful song about a man’s unfaithful wife. She cheats on him with his brother, and when he discovers it, he drags her away and locks her in an inescapable tower where she cries seven tears!Sevenprecisely.”
“It would be a stretch to call that a coincidence. But it’s also just a song,” Venna pushes, clearly worried we’re getting our hopes up.
“Unless it’s not,” I say.
“You think it’s based on the truth?” Venna asks.
“I’m thinking anything is possible. Yes. What if… what if the Faceless Goddess was the wife? What if she was locked in this tower?”
