Page 128 of Revels on an Angel’s Grave

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Lola muttered. To her brother, she added a whispered plea. “Come on, Rore.”

Seeing Roremar down there now, Emmeline hated how she had to push him away. Hated that she couldn’t have him the way she was meant to.

But she’d promised the stars. Help her save him, and she’d relent.

The indecent chatter of the box grated on Emmeline’s ears. She fidgeted, twisting her opal ring around her finger.

“They’re all like Valyrie,” Emmeline muttered.

“What?” Lola inclined her head without looking away from Roremar, who still showed no signs of the poison overcoming him. He was looking at Rian a few tables over, trying to communicate with his ally.

“All of them,” Emmeline whispered, waving at the box. “They’re as uncaring in this affair as she was when she crafted her own tournament.”

“She could only have the strongest win hers, though,” Lola pointed out.

“True,” Emmeline agreed.

Though, something about her reading in the Angel’s seeing chamber nagged at her. With Roremar getting attacked, she’d barely had time to review the reading of Valyrie devising the tournament in the past. Now, her memory flashed through everything she’d been shown.

The first trial—the duel—and the poison challenge after. The woman who had dropped nightshade in another’s cup, that cruel, familiar laughter she’d released as they died.

She ticked through the deluge of fortunes, remembering what other symbols the competitors had borne. Out of the twelve who remained at the end, along with that faceless woman, she could remember a helmeted man, one presenting the Angel with a bag of coins, and a third toasting an overflowing glass of wine.

Her eyes raced around the arena as she ticked off each name.

Anphrosia.

Arenothos.

Serchus.

Dryvius.

“Bloody realms,” Emmeline swore.

“What?” Lola asked.

Emmeline replayed the rest of the memory. The power pouring off Valyrie as she read, an overwhelming amount that desperately needed a place the go.

The figures rising at the end, all their faces obscured.

The original races hadn’t been to select a guard for Valyrie.

“It was the Fates,” Emmeline whispered, her skin prickling and magic pounding through her veins. She could practically see it unfolding over the arena. Valyrie ripped power from the stars, giving the winners some of her very own magic that had been painfully overwhelming her. “This entire tournament. It wasn’t a guard Valyrie was forming. It was how she chose the Fates. They were warriors when they entered, as common as anyone else.”

Lola inhaled sharply. “You mean, the Fates were made from Starsearchers?”

Emmeline nodded. “That’s why the scroll has so many references to the spectrums of their magic. And the translation of sanctuary…I bet it was referring to the seeing chamber I saw below ground where Valyrie devised the entire tournament.”

No one knew for sure how the Fates were created. There were countless stories like the Fates’ Dawn. Some legends suggested they were ripped from the stars by the Goddess of Fate and Celestial Movement. Others argued it had been from Valyrie’s own bones, sacrificed to form her henchmen.

The truth was, they’d been warriors. No better than the Starsearchers they now toyed with.

“What does that mean for today?” Lola asked, eyes trained on her brother. Below, men fell. They screamed as invisible forces attacked their minds.

Emmeline couldn’t see how Rocarri would know the full extent of the original tournament. Her magic was unique enough, she felt safe in betting she was the only person who’d seen that past fortune of Valyrie.

Still, it was possible Rocarri had put some pieces together based on items he possessed like the Endasi scroll. Lola had said there were rumors his predecessor had hoards of valuable information in his vaults.