Page 112 of Revels on an Angel’s Grave

The Angel’s power undulated off her in the reading. She sighed as it curled away, testing the air, as if it was too much and desperately sought somewhere else to go. Clouds of incense swirled around Emmeline’s—Valyrie’s—feet.

“She’s conducting a session,” Emmeline said.

In the past, images poured over the walls as if the glass mosaic was meant to be a mirror, reflecting whatever Valyrie saw in her mind because her magic was too powerful to contain it.

Within the Angel’s body, Emmeline watched as bloodied sword fights played out in a dirt arena, bodies falling one by one until the earth was painted crimson.

Then, the images rippling over the glass walls shifted. A row of silver chalices overflowed, and warriors grasped at their throats. Their skin mottled as they collapsed, eyes streaked red and veins bulging.

Poison.

They’d all been poisoned.

As each warrior drained their cups, a bead of starlight formed above them. They undulated in the air, wispy silver streaks ebbing outward, and collected in Valyrie’s palm, seeping into her skin.

The arena. The duels. Now poison.

Emmeline gasped. “She’s…she’s seeing her original tournament. I’m seeing the past when she devised it—or was told to hold it in the first place. This is her creating the Races so she could appoint her guard. And this place we’re in right now…it’s her personal seeing chamber.”

The next images flashed across the glass walls almost too quickly to memorize.

A helmeted man strung another up by his throat and turned to kneel at Valyrie’s feet.

A woman slipped a pinch of nightshade into an opponent’s cup and laughed as he went into delirium, convulsing.

Emmeline’s chest compressed as they sped and warped. Her lungs filled with dust, and ash coated her tongue. She coughed outside the reading, her body feeling every effect.

Valyrie gasped, a pained cry leaving her lips, and starlight splintered the air. One side of the glass dome cracked, and Emmeline’s skin burned.

Through the smoky aftermath, silhouetted figures rose in the glass, the twelve deemed worthy to protect the Angel. Kneeling, they swore fealty to their Prime Warrior.

One bore a helmet as he bowed at the Angel’s feet. Another presented her with a bag of coins. A third lifted a glass, wine sloshing over the edge.

The force of the magic around Valyrie had Emmeline’s already sensitive skin heating, her body begging for a release. Her head swam as readings collided within her. Knees buckling, Roremar caught her, his body against hers so inviting.

Her magic was volatile, stronger than she was, thanks to this ancient seeing chamber. She tried to pull herself from the reading, but it sucked her back in.

Roremar swore as if he felt the tug.

The reading shifted, pulling back high above Valyn so she could see the entire city, little spots in each district lit up with stars, before diving back underground.

“It’s somewhere else now,” Emmeline explained. “A different cavern.”

Similar to this one but even larger. This time, she wasn’t sure if she was Valyrie or herself. If she was in the past, present, or future. Everything was coated with a hazy mist like it was fighting to be revealed.

A blurry silver carving was set into the floor, glowing molten. Statues towered along either side, mouths stretched into eerie smiles, all pointing toward an altar where a shadowed form stood. Starfire surrounded the scene.

Fates, how much was buried in Valyn? Not only the humanity Emmeline sought as she was forced into a role she never wanted, but Valyrie’s own seeing chamber, and who knew what else.

And this city’s lawless games were being played right above it. Gambles of power and pride stomping on the hearts of the past. All because the current rulers in Valyn thought themselves more important than those who came before them. Thought they could control everything to benefit themselves.

Rage tunneled through Emmeline. Starfire crackled brighter, the mist thickening.

The reading imploded, starlight and stone and glass domed mosaics bursting as Emmeline gasped back to the present.

She was pressed against Roremar’s chest with her palm braced over his heart. The crazed thump mirrored her own. Straightening, she licked her dry lips, legs wobbling as she tried to unpack everything she’d seen.

A whistled tune drifted down one of the tunnels into their cavern. Light footsteps grew louder. Closer.