“The Thorne lineage.” His voice rumbles like thunder. “Scholars. Researchers. Hoarders of knowledge stretching back seventeen generations. A family that measures its worth in books preserved and secrets uncovered.”
I don’t react. Because this isn’t news.
“And you, Evelyn Thorne.” He tilts his massive head, studying me like I’m a specimen under glass. “You watch your older siblings succeed and wonder if there will be anything left for you to discover. You measure your worth in what you know, because knowing is the only currency your family values.”
Fine. Keep going. Tell them I’m forgettable. Tell them I’ve spent my whole life in my siblings’ shadows. It’s nothing I haven’t told myself.
“You fear being unremarkable.” The Seer’s tone carries no judgment, which somehow makes it worse. “You fear that no matter how many books you read or patterns you catalogue, you will always be Thorne child number four, the one whose name people forget to mention.”
Stop.
“But there is one person who never forgot you.” The Seer’s ember eyes soften fractionally. “One person who made you feel seen. A brother. Third-born, but first in your heart. You love him fiercely. You would burn down libraries to find him, would sail impossible seas, and would face judgment from beings older than time itself.”
My eyes are stinging, but I refuse to blink.
“This love is pure and true,” the Seer concludes. “And now, your heart is breaking.”
The Seer of Essence moves before I can process what’s happening, and those burning red eyes are locked onto me, pushing into my mind like a hot knife through butter.
I gasp.
It’s like being stripped naked in front of a crowd and having every imperfection examined under bright lights.
“I see a worry that consumes your thoughts and haunts your dreams.” He moves closer, his massive form leaving no wake. “You seek a thread you follow across these waters, growing more desperate with each dead end.”
“My brother.” The words come out hoarse. “I’m looking for my brother.”
“Yes,” the Seer says, lower now. “The brother whose signature ended in a blast pattern on volcanic rock. The brother you refuse to believe is?—”
“Don’t.” I hold up my hand like I can physically stop what’s coming. “Don’t say it.”
The Seer of Essence falls silent.
The Seer of Consequence drifts forward, and when he speaks, his layered voice is almost gentle.
“The brother’s thread was cut.”
“No.” I shake my head, stepping back, nearly tripping over a coil of rope. “You don’t know that. You can’t know that. He could be anywhere. We haven’t checked every island, every shore, every?—”
“The scholar who hungers for truth now runs from it.” The Seer’s silver eyes swirl with pity. “But truth does not change because you refuse to hear it. Oliver Thorne died on the night of the storm. This is not a possibility—it is a certainty.”
My legs won’t hold me, and I grab the railing, trying to stay upright while the world tilts beneath my feet.
“You’re wrong,” I scream, as if saying it louder can make it untrue. “The Council said he was missing.”
“The Council lied.” The Seer of Consequence cuts through my denial. “As did the two among you who have known this truth since the night he died.”
The words don’t make sense at first—until suddenly, they do.
Two among you.
Process of elimination. Five people on this boat. Two of them know.
Kieran found me on the Crown when I was half-frozen and barely conscious, and he brought me back to his room without a word. He sat across from me in the Ember Archives and helped me research, even though libraries are his least favorite place on earth. He insisted on coming with me on this journey and stationed himself between me and every threat we encountered as if my survival was the only mission that mattered. He confessed his kill count to me in a moonlit spring while hishands shook against my skin, and then he kissed me like it was the most dangerous thing he’d ever done. He was inside me—barely, just enough to make me feel the absence of the rest of him—before he pulled back and said everyone he cares about dies, as if he’d already started grieving me. He looked at me two nights ago and saidwhoever did this will bleed for itwith fury in his war-torn eyes.
Was that all a lie?
I round on him, and he steps back, his face whiter than when the Geryon exposed his divine blood.
