White marble rises out of the night like it grew here, surrounded by gardens so dense with herbs and flowers that the smell hits me before my brain finishes processing the sight. Fountains scatter starlight across the grounds, and the whole structure is so aggressively beautiful it almost feels like a threat.
“By the gods,” Evie says, gazing around in awe. “It’s just like the illustrations inDwellings of the Divine.”
Kieran moves ahead, dagger in hand. “Stay close, stay alert, and touch nothing.”
Together, we climb marble steps veined with silver. The animals follow but don’t enter, spreading around the palace entrance like guards taking their posts.
I stare at the massive door and take a breath. “Should we just… knock?”
A red fox scurries up the stairs, paws at the door, and it swings slowly inward.
“Okay,” I mutter. “I guess the enchanted animal’s telling us to make ourselves at home.”
Kieran leads the way into an interior that’s even more impossible than the outside. Vaulted ceilings are painted with men kneeling before a dark-haired woman, their bodies sprouting fur and tails. Tapestries depict myths I half-remember from school—a woman sprouting branches for arms, a winged man flying close to the sun, and a king with golden hands cradling his frozen daughter.
The fox hurries ahead, and we follow it through corridors and courtyards until we reach a chamber bathed in golden light.
And there, seated before us, is an ageless woman with wavy dark hair and golden eyes. She’s wearing a simple purple dress that manages to look both ancient and timeless, but it’s what she’s doing that makes me freeze.
She’s weaving.
The loom in front of her is easily twice my height, and the tapestry taking shape on it makes my heart stutter.
Three figures glow in the woven threads. A woman with brown hair holds a crescent moon bow, a white wolf at her side. A blonde has beams of sunlight shooting from one hand, gripping a golden scepter in the other. The third has white-blonde hair with blue at the ends, and she holds a pointy, glowing disc in the shape of a star.
And there, next to her, silver and orange threads are creating a familiar shape.
Me.
The figure is incomplete, her edges blurred, her face not quite finished. And there are marks on the weaving—scorch patterns that cut across the threads.
The woman’s hands still on the loom.
“Tempest’s Chosen Champion.” Her voice is low and layered, the kind that makes you listen whether you want to or not. “Welcome to my palace. I’ve been expecting you.”
Herpalace.
Circe.
“You know who I am?” I ask her.
She turns, her golden eyes fixing on me with an intensity that makes me step back. “You’re the fourth and final piece of a pattern that’s been weaving itself for longer than your mortal mind can comprehend.”
My stomach drops.Fourth and final piecesounds a lot likelast resort,and given everything I’ve managed to screw upsince arriving at Blaze Academy, I’m not exactly inspired by the universe’s hiring choices.
But I’m here for answers, and I’m going to get them.
“Do you know why Tempest chose me?” I ask. “And what I’m supposed to do?”
“Those are large questions.” Circe moves away from the loom, her bare feet silent on the marble floor. “What do you already know?”
Where do I even begin? There’s too much, but what Constance told me on Halloween night seems like as good of a start as ever, since it’s the most concrete information I’ve gotten so far.
“Before I left Blaze Academy, the Headmistress pulled me aside and told me that change is coming.” I twist my bracelet, metal cutting skin. “She said it was the type of change that reshapes worlds, topples kingdoms, and rewrites the laws of magic.”
Circe’s golden eyes sharpen. “Go on.”
“She said it requires champions willing to burn the old world to create the new.”
