Page 122 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

Her fingers curled into fists against the panther. Her head pounded with the force of the stars, but anger bubbled through her.

“These murders are meant to happen? But how? How could something so brutal be anything but an act against fate?”

How could this be planned? Who wrote it to be so, and what purpose could it possibly derive?

All life is a Balance. Just as Cruelty and Adoration must uphold one another, so must Life and Death. And that is a beautiful thing. While some departings are peaceful, other losses are rooted in nothing more than savagery. To rewrite star paths, to try to change fate and stop these things, would shift the Balance beyond catastrophic effects.

“But there has to be something you can do. Something any of the Fates⁠—”

No, Anphrosia declared, the melodic tone of her voice sharpening. It was the harshest Emmeline had ever heard her speak. Not even a Fate can change fortune, child. We only communicate and advise, but we are not the writers of these tales.

“Tell me something at least. Please. Are they doing this for you?” Emmeline chose her words carefully, desperate for any hint. “Is it an act against you, to honor their Fate ties?”

Anphrosia was silent for a long moment, and Emmeline had the instinct of the Fate growing further away from her. In a sense, she finally said, voice gentle again.

“Is everything we learned of your past true, then?”

Her history with Arenothos, the bloodied hearts she’d left in her wake.

You sought the Warders, Anphrosia said.

“Are we on the right track with the Storytellers?” We. She needed to stop saying we. There was no more we in this case.

They gave you your next step, you only need to recall.

Emmeline ran through the conversation in her memory—the three who had shown up, the scorned hearts, the land dedicated to Anphrosia—but it was all through a thick fog before she fainted. She couldn’t trust any of it.

Frustration burned through her chest as she fought.

As if sensing her distress, the celestial form before her shifted. In her place, a window of white flames opened on a reading. Gold light splashed across rolling hills, stringed instruments echoing in the distance. A barefoot, silk-draped woman danced through the grass, giving Emmeline a knowing look as if she could see her, too. With a wink, she held her hands loftily at her sides.

Emmeline’s heart pounded as the snake appeared across her shoulders, its tail winding lazily up her wrist. Emmeline swatted her own wrist as if to flick away a phantom creature.

Chase the past that hurts, Anphrosia said. Open the scars beneath the serpent’s scales, and unveil the truth within.

Dark, beady eyes lifted, a forked tongue flicking out. Emmeline’s skin pebbled beneath that look, tainted oil coating her from head to toe.

Beads jingled through her ears, crowds jeering and music thudding with her pulse.

Numbness crept along her limbs. Her fingertips tingled, and the scars on her legs ached.

Do you understand?

“Yes,” Emmeline barely whispered as the Storyteller of Aevollon twirled across the marble floors with her serpentine accessory. “Yes, Anphrosia, I know what I am to do.”

Good. I will see you soon, child.

The stars dissolved, but even once the reading ended, Emmeline couldn’t get the Storyteller belonging to the Fate of Artistry and Trickery out of her mind. The knowing, wily stare and the snake around her shoulders plagued her as she sat on the cliff, begging the stars for any other answer. The only response she got was the comforting purr of the panther beside her.

She knew what the reading meant. Spirits, she’d already suspected she’d have to do this, but now…now she could no longer hope she was wrong.

Tingles spread through her limbs, the piercing scars along her thighs throbbing. A familiar, self-imposed numbness encased her heart, slowly seeping along every vein and nerve ending, dulling the soul-deep stings. A defense. So she wouldn’t feel what came next.

The vulnerability, the exposure.

None of it would matter as long as she stuck to the goal.

For her transfer to Valyn and for those who had been needlessly killed, she could do this.