Guardians were not meant to stray far, listening both inside and outside the royal chamber for signs of nefarious activity. Lunar guardians had more time to fill while their royal slept. Hector, Felaf’s predecessor, had stocked books on a small shelf tucked in the alcove between the hallway and the queen’s chambers.
My fingers skimmed the titles along the little bookshelf and pulled out a familiar favorite of mine. Hector had curated a selection on Scorpio’s ancient history, but I never knew if that was a result of his own fascination with the subject, or mine.
I rubbed at my chest.
After a Chosen’s death, all their personal items were to be destroyed. Maryn had no reason to venture up to the palace’s Chosen level, so she had yet to discover his last remaining items. Selfishly, I wanted to keep it that way even though it was against protocol.
Uneven steps ventured up the staircase. I carefully placed the book back on the shelf and resumed my position in front of Cyrene’s door.
“Letti,” I said, wondering if she had another note for me.
She lingered near the stairs with a stack of towels propped along her hip. Her listless eyes glanced at the wall where the bookshelf was tucked behind. Then her eyes slid to mine. She pinched her thumb and forefinger together, dragging them across her lips as if to indicate her silence.
I frowned, attempting to convey confusion. She then disappeared around the corner to Felaf’s chamber. Both guardians’ chambers resided at the core of the palace, next to the queen’s and the seer’s. All four were connected by a terrace with a pool at its center, deep enough to tread water.
Despite her vibrant hair, Letti’s sour quietness made her easy to overlook. I wondered how much of the palace’s secrets she’d picked up, including my own. It was unlawful for a guard to read during a shift, but not for a guardian considering our affinity to multitask and listen for danger a mile away.
I shifted my thoughts from Hector’s books to the Scorpion seer.
Had Gregorios and his guards not crossed paths with me all those years ago when I was a broken, starving boy, I wouldn’t be alive. I could still vividly recall the way he bent to my level, his milky eyes staring right into my soul, right after I’d attempted to steal from him.
Rather than face a beating—or worse—Gregorios rested his hand on my shoulder and spoke lowly. “You will save us from ruin.” He and his guards then escorted me to the Martial Isles, his parting words to me being, “We will meet again.”
Little did he know that his words would give life to me. I’d found a purpose. A reason to stay alive. I became one of the youngest trainees admitted to the Martial Isles andsubsequently one of the youngest guardians ever Chosen by the Astrals at the age of eighteen. Since joining Gregorios at the palace as a Chosen, he had yet to share with me exactlyhowI would save the queendom from ruin.
Or more evidently, the curse that now plagued it.
Our seer was at a loss. That didn’t stop me from searching for answers on my own time, even if Maryn forbade us guardians from leaving the palace grounds. Her orders stemmed from fear of the apostai attacking the palace. The only way rebels could possibly get on and off the skyland was by skybeast or skyship.
While skyships were used for public transport, it would be much easier to detect an attack from such a large commodity than a discreet attack of skybeasts. As far as we knew, the apostai had not yet gotten their hands on Hippogriffs or Pegasi yet, but it was only a matter of time.
Movement stirred the palace back to life as the early morning birds began chirping outside. Felaf’s feet padded across the floor of her room. She shuffled into her uniform, then nibbled on leftovers from the night prior before stepping out into the hall to greet me.
“Morning, Raithe. How did?—”
“Nothing to note,” I said curtly, too eager to meet with Gregorios to care about my brisk departure. Normally I ventured to the kitchens for a meal from the head cook, Nio, before doing plyometrics prior to bed, but I had no appetite, and Gregorios himself insisted on coming at dawn.
It was highly unusual to be summoned alone by the seer, especially so discreetly. Perhaps I’d done something wrong, apart from disobeying the queen regent’s orders to stay grounded. Maryn had already issued her punishment for my latest venture into the royal city. I rubbed at the back of my shoulder, my skin already healed from Felaf’s forced lashings a few days prior. Their sting remained.
Good.
I moved stealthily throughout the halls. The servants’ staircase was more discreet than the main one up to the highest level of the palace where the seer’s observatory sat. Once up there, I pushed open the wooden barricade without knocking. Like the Chosen chambers of the palace, the observatory was a sacred space. Its doors had been imbued with ancient magic, opening only for Chosens donning the topaz talismans.
The opulent room was a two-storied trove dedicated to the celestial study of the stars as well as the pursuit of the queendom’s past and future. The observatory often doubled as both a library and the seer’s living quarters, especially given the messy state of things. Robes and sandals were strewn about surfaces, scattered atop books in need of shelving beside various trinkets and curiosities. By the main doorway, a pile of trays was stacked atop half-eaten meals.
Gregorios was particular about who he allowed inside the observatory. The doors to Chosen rooms unlocked for those granted verbal permission by a Chosen. Few acolytes from the Academies found themselves in here, hand-selected by Gregorios himself to aid his studies and messages of Sight. At the start of the curse twelve years ago, acolytes flooded the palace. As the years passed and princesses continued to die, the quieter this room became. There wasn’t a single trace of an acolyte having been here in years.
I spotted Gregorios in his black robes standing patiently on the second story veranda before a grand telescope pointed out the arched window at the pink sky. All seers went blind upon being Chosen. It amazed me how seamlessly he moved and interacted with his environment.
“See anything up there?” I called, announcing my presence.
Gregorios made a sound as close to a chuckle as possible for him. “If I could, we’d have more problems than at present.”
Above him, the domed ceiling painted midnight blue was adorned with intricate constellations in gold leaf, reflecting the warm glow of sconces that lined the walls. Towering bookshelves carved from dark mahogany and gilded at the edges stretched from floor to ceiling, crammed with tomes on astronomy, alchemy, and forgotten lore.
I walked across the heart of the room, stepping carefully around the magnificent planetary contraption of polished brass and crystal orbits that moved in slow, mesmerizing motion. The intricate gears and arms of the massive orrery shifted with the rotating movement of the planets. All around the room, ornate brass clocks ticked in harmony. It was all I could do but stare and marvel sometimes at how amazing it all was, overwhelmed by the history of this space. Much work had been done over the years to maintain the structure and carved details of it.
It wasn’t lost on me how fortunate I was to be standing here where so many did before, including the first seer.
