It took longer than expected, but Viri finally heard the front door open, followed by Sarielle’s familiar heels clacking through the entryway. But the Magistratus didn’t appear; instead, her footsteps faded down the hallway, until the next sound Viri heard was Sarielle’s bedroom door quietly clicking shut.
Viri winced, realizing her guardian must be more upset by the news than she’d anticipated. She considered bringing her a cup of Wynter’s relaxation tea, but decided against it. Sarielle would leave her room when she was ready, and Viri would respect that, even if it meant she now had no option left but to try to sleep.
Predictably, that task was impossible. After hours of tossing and turning, Viri gave up, leaving her bed for some warm milk, which had always comforted her as a child. Wynter’s bedroom door was open—not unusual, as she often spent late nights in her lab—but Viri was surprised to find Sarielle’s open, too, and even more surprised to find her guardian standing in their dark living room, staring out the window. Clouds had formed since Viri’s earlier pacing, a storm now brewing on the horizon, as if the weather were perfectly in tune with her mood.
“I guess you couldn’t sleep, either,” Viri said quietly as she approached.
Sarielle didn’t jolt, indicating she’d been aware of Viri’s arrival. “I doubt I will as long as those children are missing.”
Viri moved closer until they were standing side by side before the stormy view. “Every available hunter will be working this case. We’ll find them. It’s what we do.”
Whether the children would still be alive was the question, but neither of them gave voice to their fears.
“Have you considered how you’ll keep your emotions under control, especially with the Reaper Priest’s involvement?” Sarielle asked. At Viri’s startled inhalation, she continued, “I know you want him to pay for what he did to your parents, but you already take so many risks while searching for him.” She rubbed her chest, right over her heart. “I’ve already lost one child. I wouldn’t be able to bear it if something happened to you, too.”
Viri sighed inwardly at her guardian’s overprotective nature. She understood where it stemmed from, aware that Sarielle had lost her first child, a son, years ago, and had never fully recovered from her grief. The boy would have been Wynter’s half brother, both he and his father having died tragically from magefever—a rare illness with no known cure—before Wynter was born.
But…while Viri felt deeply for Sarielle, her job as a hunter was dangerous, regardless of who she was hunting. Sarielle knew that better than most—she’d been a hunter herself before turning to politics. All Viri could do was offer reassurance, so she adopted a soothing tone and said, “We don’t know for sure that the Priest has anything to do with this. Let’s not worry about that until we—”
She stopped when an unreadable look rippled across her guardian’s face, visible even in the darkness.
“What?” Viri asked, turning more fully toward her. “Do you know something?”
Sarielle didn’t answer for a long moment, then slowly said, “If it came down to a choice between saving the children or getting your revenge, can I trust you to make the right decision?”
Viri’s stomach roiled at the thought of having to make such a choice. “I told you, we don’t know that the Priest is—”
“He is.”
Two words, and Viri felt the room tilt around her. Hoarsely, she said, “Meera and Darik said it’s just a guess.”
“Neither Commander Roth nor Captain Farrow are the Magistratus,” Sarielle returned. “They deal in facts, not rumors. It’s my job to listen, even to the most outlandish of speculation. But I never thought—” Her voice cracked, keeping her from finishing.
Viri’s pulse began to quicken. “What rumors?”
Sarielle closed her eyes, her features pale in the dim light. “About six months ago, I started hearing whispers about the Reaper Priest planning something.” She ran a shaky hand through her dark hair. “Something big.”
Viri’s insides clenched.
“I thought it was fearmongering—it’s not the first time that kind of gossip has spread.” Sarielle reopened her eyes, staring somberly at the view once more. “But the nature of these whispers was different. Before, there were always specifics involved—the Priest had targeted someone, or made an enemy of so-and-so, or was tempting certain people into becoming reapers—all information that was passed on to the Nox and hunters for investigation. But this rumor was vague, only a warning.”
The hairs on the back of Viri’s neck prickled. “What warning?”
“That it would involve children—lots and lots of them.” Sarielle’s voice was barely audible, but it rose again as she continued, “I brushed it aside, since it was hardly news that reapers target the youth. It was only tonight, when I learned of the mass abductions, that I realized the warning hadn’t been aboutindividualchildren, but agroupof them,together.” Her troubled eyes caught Viri’s. “The Reaper Priest has been collecting children. Exactly as the rumor warned.”
“But…why?” Viri asked, failing to see any motive. “It’s notlike he’s keeping them close just to have a ready stockpile to siphon from, otherwise we’d still find their corpses afterward. There has to be a reason he’d go to this trouble—and hide it for so long.”
Sarielle wrapped her arms around herself. “There was another rumor, something I heard only once. It haunted my nightmares for so long that I convinced myself I’d imagined it. But now…I’m not so sure.”
“Tell me,” Viri said.
“Have you heard of the Aurora Comet?”
Viri frowned at the unexpected question. “No. Should I have?”
“It’s a comet that appears above Elverdine Isle once every two hundred years,” Sarielle said. “The ancient mages called it a ‘celestial event,’ something that could increase the strength of their ellixen to untold levels, making them nearly invincible. But in order to channel from Aurora as it passed by, they needed three things: enough magic of their own to draw down the comet’s power, a pure heart, and—”
Viri interrupted by snorting incredulously.
