He sat down next to me, running his hand over my body as though he was scanning it. “I’m not surprised. Draining yourself to dregs severely affects anyone, especially someone as new to their power as you.” He fixed me with a sharp look that every healer must have perfected for unruly patients. “No training. No using your power. You must rest. And eat. That will help you replenish what you’ve lost.” He looked over at Griff. “I trust you can keep her out of trouble?”
“I don’t know that anyone can, but I’ll try.”
I scowled at both of them.
Eventually, Griff got me back to my rooms, leaving me with plenty of food, strict orders to nap, and promises to return soon.
I thought I’d appreciate the quiet but I just found it deafening, filled with all the things I didn’t want to currently address. It was all interconnected. The prophecy. The Veil. The faction. Hufen attacks. I had some of the pieces of the puzzle, but which way they went, where they slotted in, hell even which side was up, remained a mystery.
I hauled myself up and checked the hallway. The coast was clear.
Sticking to the shadows, I shook my head at the irony of sneaking through my own castle. Praying Finn wasn’t inside, I slipped through the doors to the library. Whichever god covered luck was clearly looking out for me today, as I reached the stacks without being noticed.
I found my way to the shrine where the prophecy was stored. As Ipassed through the wards, I again felt that familiar welcoming and greeted it back. Maybe I was crazy for thinking the wards were sentient, but I’d always felt like they knew what I was saying or feeling. The shimmering light emanating from the book itself flared as I opened it with my mind.
Reading it through again, I got that same odd feeling that it was wrong or missing key pieces of information. This wasn’t the whole story. Big chunks had been cut out—chunks that would make all the difference.
“There’s more isn’t there?” I murmured out loud.
I didn’t expect anything to happen, but the light flared brightly. When it faded, I was no longer alone. A woman, roughly my age, her dark curly hair pulled back off her face, stared at me with bright-blue eyes. An expression of irritation crossed her face as she impatiently tapped her foot.
“Hurry up, kiddo.”Her voice echoed in my mind.
There was a loud clang behind me and I jumped, looking over my shoulder. It was just the bells. Calming my breathing, I looked back, but she had disappeared.
Violet. My aunt.
Everything pointed back to her. I knewsomeonehad to have the answers, but it figured that the person who did was dead.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
I met Thom’s healer today, Mira. She was just as lovely as he had said. She instantly felt like family, a sister. I saw something there, between them. A flash of a future. And while it terrified me, it also, for the first time in a long time, gave me hope. I told him to hold on tight to her. Never let her go.
— From the journal of Violet Andrever
For the next several days, I kept a low profile. Griff fussed like a mother hen and Finn wasn’t much better. Freya checked in at least twice a day. But I listened to Andrei and I rested. And slowly, my channels started to replenish themselves. I spent a lot of time with Violet’s journal, figuring that if I had to be sitting, at least I could be attempting to figure out what she knew.
As I set the journal aside, it fell open on my bed to a random page. A single word jumped out at me.
Destiny.
I slammed it shut. I’d had quite enough ofthatfor the moment. And I was due to meet Finn, to finally do something other than sit andrest.
The gray light that came with early March filled the library. Finn rose when I entered, greeting me with a rueful smile.
“That can’t be good.”
“Nah, it’s not that bad. But it’s time to tackle the last channel.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Soul? I thought that couldn’t be trained.”
“To the best of my knowledge, it can’t. But the completionist in me says that we need to try. And the only person I could think of to help is the soul priestess.”
I looked at him in astonishment. “The last time I was at the temple, I destroyed half of it!”
“You did that to protect it. And then you rebuilt it.”
