I swallow hard. ‘Why are you telling me this? Why did you tell me the story?’
‘Because I was always going to be the one to tell it to you, girl.’
My heart beats loud and fast in my ears. ‘What does thatmean?’
‘It means that I saw myself telling you this story before you were even born.’
The old man lifts a long, gnarled finger, and I realize that he’s not wearing his usual pair of golden gloves. The orb of light glides closer until it hovers in the space between us, as bright as my brandmark.
‘Seera tried to hide it from me, you know. And she succeeded, for many years.’
I watch, dumbstruck, as the light begins to shrink, growing dimmer and dimmer until it isn’t an orb of light at all but something small and delicate, glinting gold.
‘She went to her grave believing I would never find it,’ he says, as the object falls into his outstretched hand. ‘But Idid.’
I’m shaking my head, refusing to believe that I am looking at the missing Eye, refusing to believe that it has been here in the old man’s possession this whole time.
Fox’s voice comes back to me.
The Eyes are much like their original owners. They’re sisters. They like to be together.
‘You … you have the Eye of the Future,’ I whisper.
‘How observant you are, girl.’
‘Buthow?’
‘You sound afraid. But one should not fear the future, one must seize it.’
A memory stirs. It’s of those very same words spoken to me by another, someone with a voice as soft as silk.
‘But perhaps you are right to be wary,’ the old man continues. ‘Your enemy is close, girl. If only you knew what he has in store for you.’
My hands are trembling. I clutch the arms of the chair tightly. ‘Who are you?’
The old man presses the tips of his pale fingers together. ‘I am many things. I was once fire, I was once water, I was once air and earth and dawn. I was the puppet master. I pulled the golden threads of life. Myname, girl. Ask me my name.’
Another orb of light flares up next to him and I gasp. It is the Imperial Family alone who wields the gift of light, and only then, a firstborn son. An emperor.
My mind is spinning yet I am immobilized by the old man’s eyes, deep black and strangely familiar. ‘What is your name?’ I breathe.
He holds out a hand, and on it I see a faded brandmark,a sun enclosing an eye, and a golden signet ring engraved with a bird in flight. No, not just any bird.
A raven.
‘It is a pleasure to formally make your acquaintance, Storm Weaver,’ he says. ‘My name is Caius Castellion.’
48
The morning of the Binding Ceremony dawns pink and gold.
I sit on my balcony, watching the sun make its slow ascent into the blush-streaked sky, my eyes aching with tiredness. Sleep has been elusive. Since the revelation in the library, I’ve spent most nights lying awake, turning Syla’s talisman over and over in my hands.
Caius Castellion.
The old man is Caius Castellion.
Hal’s grandfather.Fox’s grandfather. The emperor who defeated the Magi and conquered the Otherlands, who enslaved Syla, who knows that I possess the Eye of the Soul and Fox the Eye of the Past, and who himself possesses the Eye of the Future.
