Page 47

It felt easy and liberating to be this new Julie. As if she had always been a part of me.

“Because terrible times lie ahead,” Rebecca hissed warningly. “We can't afford to debate the why. The gods know what they're doing.”

The old member of the High Council was not satisfied with this answer and instead asked a question no one had asked before.

“Why his daughter of all people?”

Everyone looked at the woman in shock, and I found it almost amusing how much it seemed to bother the others that he was being mentioned.

No one spoke his name. No one.

In recent weeks, I had been to the Council temple more often than I would have liked, and three things had caught my attention.

First: Never address a Council member who is above you in rank. Wait until you are asked to do so.

Second: You are not a person, but a useful product. In other words, your value depends on what you have to offer.

Third: Never say his name.

The third rule, like the second one, was unspoken, but everyone was aware of it.

People simply didn't talk about the man who had brought disaster to this town. Disaster that no one wanted to talk about, as if the mere mention of it could bring it back. As if his name alone could freeze you to death.

It left me with a tingling curiosity because the more they made him a mystery, the more I wanted to find out about him.

“We don't talk about him!” Rebecca hissed loudly, and the woman snorted morosely, which was drowned out by the loud opening of the stone gates.

Rebecca wasn't a High Councillor, so she ranked below the old woman. But her closeness to Gloria seemed to bring her many advantages among the Council members.

“Coronati Westcode,” announced the Clamator.

Footsteps behind me sharpened my concentration, and the massive door to the hall closed again.

It was different from being in Moenia. The white Greek columns here were not as massive and ancient but tall, and everything seemed more elite. Many silver-colored metal elements decorated the white stepped stone benches that formed a circle. Tables made of white stone towered in front of me in a semicircle. Added to this were the statues of the air goddess Haizea and the grey-colored banners with the silver R, decorated with thorns. And the silver thorn-like patterns in the white marble floor beneath me.

Important decisions were made here. From here, Blairville's Circle was monitored and controlled, as well as all the Council groups that had formed globally to proselytize more Air Quatura.

High-ranking guests of the New York Circle occasionally visited this underground hall. Relationships with the outside world were cultivated here, contacts with other Circles were established, and new power structures were formed. And the mere idea that the Councils – an Air Quatura association once founded in Blairville, which had its headquarters here – were gaining more and more power in the global Quatura society made me feel uneasy.

How could Amara allow Gloria to take more and more? Why didn't she use her power and connections as Domini to keep the Councils in opposition and prevent them from radicalizing into a more powerful force?

With the founding of the Councils in 1804, the Quatura Circle in Blairville had seen its membership grow rapidly over the centuries, as Air Quatura in Blairville had greater opportunities to participate in global Quatura politics, as well as more effective protection from other species and hunters.

And ever since Gloria had managed to take over the leadership of the Councils in the late nineties, the Blairville Circle had become the third-largest Circle worldwide, right after New York and London.

Five years ago, a new wave of Quatura had fled from all corners of North America due to a new hunter plague and had joined the Blairville Circle to benefit from the Councils’ protection, which was why it was only a matter of time before the Blairville Circle became the largest.

The only hurdle Gloria still had to overcome was an Air Quatura named Vera Hendrix. A high-ranking member of the New York Circle, who openly criticized Gloria’s impulsive Council policies and had therefore not joined the Councils, yet was known for pursuing just as radical a political agenda, albeit a more calculated one.

A large number of New York Circle members wanted Vera Hendrix to take over the Councils, just as many New York Circle members were calling for a merger of the Blairville and New York Circles, because not only were professional Elemental hunters becoming increasingly dangerous due to advances in technology and science, but human authorities also seemed to be posing an ever-greater threat to the species’ secrecy.

The sharp footsteps echoing loudly on the floor brought me back to the present, and the familiar knot tightened in my stomach.

I was still afraid of her... She was the only person it would take me a long time to stop fearing.

I loathed her. And it drove me to strengthen my connection with my destructive element, even though very often things tended to go very wrong.

No one would find the chaos I left behind in abandoned underground rooms in Moenia. The humidity far away from the dry library floors was excellent, and many small decorative fountains from the days when Water Quatura had once been practicing here gave me the opportunity to train.