Page 25 of Revels on an Angel’s Grave

Emmeline had always loved her power even though it isolated her. It had been the one constant in her life all those lonely years. Now, a disjointed knot of resentment lodged itself behind her ribs.

This city was supposed to be a promise, a place where she finally found what she’d been searching for, yet she was beginning to feel like all it wanted was to gobble up her value and spit her ruins back out.

“I think I’m beginning to see that,” Emmeline said. Eyes stinging, she turned to leave.

But the Chancellor wasn’t done. “And my dear?”

Emmeline paused, looking out over the revelrous streets of the capital again. “Yes?”

“Next time you want to venture out of the manor, use the front door.” Rocarri patted her shoulder, voice lifting with an amicable lilt. “It’s your home now, too. Don’t feel like you have to sneak around.”

A pit opened in her stomach at his words. He knew she snuck out last night?

Never in all her years had she’d been caught as she crawled through the shadows, but Balmour Rocarri knew. An icy chill slithered down her spine. How many spies did he have watching her? How far did the Chancellor’s reach go, and what would he do with it?

“Well”—Emmeline looked over her shoulder and into the arena, where the twelve chariots still sat, gleaming in the bright sunshine—“the manor is only my home for now. Right, Chancellor?”

“True.” The smile in his voice curled through Emmeline. A waving of a flag, an initiation of a game she never asked to play. “For now.”

That evening, the manor grounds crawled with guests. They stopped her around every corner, asked invasive questions about her magic, and talked to her like she already belonged to them.

Every step Emmeline took, someone waited to taste that value Rocarri had placed upon her name until she had enough of it and barricaded herself in her suite, guards whispering outside the door.

She closed herself in a cage within this promised city, watching her sister get further away, feeling Roremar’s words dulling in her mind, and the walls of her dreams shrank around her.

Chapter Nine

Desmond

“What do you think it is?” Desmond asked, hunching over the table so his frame blocked the item between him and Myrella from view of the rest of the tavern.

The place was rowdy, warriors deep in their cups after some festival in the capital. He and Myrella had made it here after the event was already over, every damn tavern they passed overflowing with drunken warriors.

It had taken him ages to find an open apothecary to purchase pre-rolled herbs to read. He’d burned through all his on the journey here, and his magic grew more agitated with every passing moment in this city, like the bones of the earth were riling it.

Maybe others called having two Fate ties Angelblessed, but tonight it was a damn inconvenience.

By the time they left with enough pouches of herbs, oils, and incense to appease both of his Fate ties and Myrella’s, she’d located a tavern with a singular room left for one night only. Two beds, but even if they had one, it would have been innocent. Neither of them thought of the other like that, especially not after how much grief they’d shared over Nico on the voyage here.

They’d dumped their stuff in the thread-bare room and went downstairs for food. Now that their plates were empty and shoved aside, they could focus on more important things.

Desmond picked at the remains of the bread roll Myrella hadn’t finished as she said, “I don’t know⁠—”

A brawny, intoxicated warrior guffawed behind Desmond and stumbled into his back. Desmond pitched forward, reaching out a hand to keep the object he and Myrella were studying from crashing to the floor. He couldn’t say the same for his empty ale bottle as it rolled off the table, the shattering glass inaudible over the folksongs being shouted. Badly.

“Sorry, brother,” the man said. He righted himself with a hand to Desmond’s shoulder, a series of ostentatious emerald rings glinting on his thick fingers.

“Don’t worry about it.” Desmond waved him off without turning around.

He felt someone lingering behind him. Myrella’s brow pinched, and Desmond waited for her to give him some sign that the guy was bothering her, but whoever had been there was gone by the time he turned around.

“Back to this,” Myrella said, pulling Desmond’s attention to the object in the center of the small wobbly table.

Object was about the only way they could identify it.

It was made of stone, one side smoothly sculpted and refined into a curved design. The other was jagged and rough to the touch. That side was a deep grey, nearly black, reminding Desmond of a lava rock with its spongey appearance, but the polished side shone.

It wasn’t the color of any stone he’d ever seen, the hues as dark as a moonless night, like those depths Starsearchers knew lurked between the stars. At certain angles, it radiated a halo of colors as if it was coated in something—ink, paint, or melted and reforged metal, he had no fucking clue. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to capture the unique aurora in watercolor if he tried.