A glimmering light flickered out of the corner of Astrid's eye.
Ever since being banished to her rooms—a completely unjust punishment that had caused Astrid to claw in frustration at her cuff until her skin bled—she had flipped furiously through the books she kept stashed beneath her bed. They were ones she had taken from her mother's keep throughout the years: histories of the seven realms, collections from Soleitian priestesses, genealogies. Reading through them now in light of her mother's, not to mention Matthias's, betrayal felt vengefully soothing.
Yet nothing she had read so far that night had mentioned anything of the true origins of Sebastian d'Aximos.
Gods curse his false surname.
She threw the useless book across the room. It hit the wall with a dull thud before landing, half-bent, on the floor.
Something shimmered again, this time from underneath her door.
Astrid sat up just as another heavy thump fell against her wall.
This time, she hadn't thrown a book.
Astrid tossed her legs off the edge of her bed and rushed to the door. Whatever had fallen outside of it had sounded suspiciously like a weight of a body.
"Matthias?"
Her instincts brought forth his name first. It was followed closely by an irrational fury that she even worried over him after the stunt he had pulled earlier with Sebastian. Besides, there could be any number of guards beyond the door; the queen should know it would take at least five to stop her from leaving her chambers, after all.
Grinning recklessly to herself, Astrid gripped the knob and threw it open.
The door came up short, catching on a prone, armored shoulder.
Matthias laid across the corridor in a slumbering position as if he had simply fallen asleep. His helmet sat askew over the side of his head.
"Thias?"
Astrid slipped through the gap of her door and peered in both directions. No one else appeared to be nearby. It seemed as if her mother had underestimated her yet again. She knelt at Matthias's side and placed two fingers to the side of his neck. His pulse beat steadily against her touch. No sign of injury or trauma was on him. He had simply fallen asleep. How odd.
Astrid sat back on her heels, glanced back into the darkness of the corridor, and then froze.
A shimmering beam of light hovered above the ground in an airy path that led from Matthias down to the far curve of the corridor.
Astrid stood. In response, her cuff twisted around her arm. "This is not of my making," she told it indignantly.
She swept her hand through the path's warm light. It reminded her of the leaf-strewn one she had created outside the fortress when she had searched for Sebastian, which told her that this path was also one bred from magic.
There was only one other person in this fortress, beside herself, who had the ability.
"What are you playing at, fisherboy?"
The light beckoned her down the hall as if it had heard her. So, Astrid stepped over Matthias's sleeping body and followed it.
O O O
Sebastian lost count of how many stairs he had ascended. The moon's path glimmered higher still, up the spiraling iron-cast staircase that twisted within the tower. He followed the light in a trance, like a dream from which he hadn't yet awakened. Somewhere within the remaining rationality of his mind, he found it odd that he had met no resistance on his trek through the fortress. In fact, the guards who had been stationed outside his elaborate prison room had been slumped against the walls, blissfully sleeping.
Melvin had even been snoring.
Logic warred against what he witnessed with his own two eyes, but the warmth of the light lulled him back into complacency. Sebastian, it called. Come to me.
He climbed higher.
By the time he reached the heavy set of doors at the top of the staircase, sweat dripped down his back. For the first time since following the beam's path, Sebastian hesitated with a palm outstretched. He looked behind him and then over the railing of the staircase. Had he really walked up all of those? The beam of light glimmered up to the doors, flickering in and out as if it grew impatient with him.
What was he doing?
Sebastian blinked and shook his head. "I've gone mental."
Before he could think any more clearly than that, the double doors creaked open, swinging inward before him.
The glowing path pulled him in.
It was a room full of books. Sebastian stared at the dark walls and the built-in niches where leathered, bound parchments awaited him. Golden glass protected some of the shelves, and Sebastian imagined that reading in here would be like studying the stars. His feet moved automatically towards one of these protected books when the lighted beam flared from the center of the room. It shot up in a circular motion, wrapping up and around an elaborately carved wooden stand.
A book lay atop it. Whispers seeped from its hidden pages, and the hushed sound sent a shiver down his spine.
Sebastian licked his lips and approached it.
His veins became a nest for hornets; it buzzed against his skin as he came to a stop and looked down upon the cracked, weathered brown leather. Sensing him, the beam of light flared again and shot up towards the ceiling. It hummed, creating a sudden wind that blew Sebastian's hair across his face. He stumbled back a step just as the light dove back down and straight into the book's pages. The aged book absorbed it quickly before folding open, the binding parting right down the center.
Sebastian glanced at his hands, which hadn't even touched the book, and then went back to the pages that had opened on their own accord.
He stepped closer and startled at the sight of a shallow, mortar bowl placed on the wooden stand beside the book. Held Inside of its gray walls was a pool of blood. He knew it was blood because it was his own.
So, this was where the queen had need of his blood.
But what was the test?
His intestines tugged within him and twisted his attention back to the book.
Two drops of blood sat in the center of one of the exposed pages. He stared from those drops to the shallow bowl of his blood.
Before he could talk himself out of it, he brushed his thumb over one of the spots.
It was dry.
Sebastian clapped a hand to his mouth to muffle his shocked scream.
The droplets of blood were spreading outwards from his touch.
Like living veins of the parchment, the blood seeped like ink into the crevices of the page, spreading and connecting into some sort of design. The original drops of blood became two, red eyes that stared up at him. Sebastian watched, one hand pressed firmly to his lips, as the scarlet image completed itself.
Sebastian grasped the edge of the book's stand to steady himself.
It was a bloody image of himself.
"Seabass! Don't you dare!"
He jumped at the sudden intrusion.
Astrid had rushed into the room, her cheeks pink from the exertion of the climb, and her typically braided hair lay in a tangled mess over her shoulders. She glared upon the book.
"Don't touch it!" .
"But—" Sebastian turned back to the book as if caught in a stupor—"It has my face." He looked up at her. "What is it?"
Astrid's icy gaze widened as it fell upon the open book and then snapped to Sebastian's wrist. "Stop right where you are."
He realized that his palm hovered over the image, a mere centimeter from pressing into the page itself. Yes, it seemed to tell him, touch me.
"Sebastian!"
When he slowly met Astrid's distressed expression, an abnormal feeling of reckless abandon tore through him. This was his blood. His face. He had even followed a weird, shimmery light through the fortress to stand before this...thing. It should be his to do what he so pleased. He deserved these answers.
His eyes narrowed. "No."
He shoved his palm into the book.
Astrid sprang for him, but it was too late. The book bit into him and yanked.
Sebastian cried out. The pain was immediate and attacked him from everywhere. His own, bloodied portrait twisted into other things entirely. Images flooded the backs of his eyelids as they shut against the onslaught: a much younger Queen Davina sat by a window, furiously ripping apart a letter, tears streaming down her beautiful face; a man with skin nearly the shade of his own sat on the back of a horse-drawn cart, scrawling onto parchment with a black quill; Abel scaling the cliff of a mountain and slipping, only to be caught by an updraft of wind.
Astrid, her hair shorter than he remembered it, bleeding at his feet as Sebastian stood over her with a sword made of fire held in his grasp.
Sebastian roared and twisted his wrist. Fingers clamped down over his, like a pair of shackles, but it was Astrid, her curses loud against his ears as she grappled for his hand.
When their skin finally touched, the room grew impossibly heavy and then popped.
The book's stand exploded between them.
Astrid yelled.
Sharp bits of wood pelted into his cheeks, cutting his exposed skin. Blinding heat swept up his fingers from where they still stuck to the parchment of the book. He felt Astrid slam an arm into his middle and throw him to the ground. She landed half on top of him as chaos rained down around them. She kicked out at his wrist, forcing the book from his grasp.
"You complete idiot!" Her words were wild above him, disrupted by her retching coughs from the dust. "I told you not to touch it!"
He tried to shove her away as she kicked at him again. The book refused to budge. His ears rang, and he swiped at them viciously. It was difficult to hear even himself. "What sorcery is this?"
Astrid coughed against the debris. She kicked at the book again. It was clumsier then Sebastian would have expected her movements to be.
"You finally admit it, then?"
"Admit what?" But even as he said it, he knew what she had meant.
Sebastian shut his mouth and glanced around the room. Sorcery. Magic.
Where the book had stood upon its stand, there was now only a blackened smear along the ground. The stone ground. They were inside a bloody mountain, and it had been charred. By what? The bowl of blood was upside down against the far wall, its contents splattered grotesquely against the dark rock.
He brushed a piece of splintered wood from Astrid's hair absent-mindedly. "Magic?" The word tickled his tongue. "No. It can't be. I don't—I need--"
Space. He needed space. He wiggled out from underneath her. As soon as their skin no longer touched, the book released its grip on Sebastian's fingers. He stared at it, his heart beating up into his throat.
Dizzy, he tripped and stumbled as he forced himself to his feet. Astrid had already beat him to it and was pacing back and forth in tight, controlled lines, hands on her hips as she surveyed the damage. He glanced back at the book. It looked deceptively innocent.
"It—" Astrid's cheeks were pale. "It didn't work."
"What didn't work?" He swallowed. "What happened?"
She shoved at a haphazard pile of broken wood with her toe like she was kicking herself into motion. "Nothing good, I can promise you that much." Her blue gaze was hot like flames. "What were you doing up in the queen's keep?"
This was Queen Davina's keep? By the Scribes, he had utterly demolished it! Ruckus, indeed! Sebastian hesitated, unsure how to answer. After all, he had followed a voice from his dreams, and a shiny, glowing path that floated in midair had led him here. It sounded completely foolish, and yet—
"I saw you," he said instead. "The book, it showed me things, and you...I think I killed you."
Astrid laughed outright. Sebastian frowned and crossed his arms. He winced at the motion. The fingertips of his right hand were blistered where they had touched the pages. Gingerly, he pressed them into the torn sleeve of his shirt.
"That wasn't a normal book."
She only stared at him, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth, as if waiting for him to figure it out on his own. He frowned at her silence. "You mentioned forces to me earlier. So did Queen Davina. What does that mean?"
Astrid swiped dust from her eyes before frowning. "Earth's forces. The seven elements: earth, water, fire, air, light, darkness, and spirit. Each has its own essence. Invisible threads in our atmosphere that only those born to it can see." She must have noticed his blank expression because she sighed. "Honestly, not even you can be so daft. Especially not you. You must have heard of the Tale of Earth's Deceit."
"Of course, but--"
"But nothing," she snapped. "You can see the threads. You followed one up here, did you not?"
Sebastian knew immediately what she spoke of. "That shiny path, you mean?"
"You followed Light's essence. I saw it, too."
Sebastian stared at her, rubbing his temples that pounded restlessly. He jabbed a finger towards that wretched book. "And what is that?"
"It's Rainier's last hope," Astrid said. "It preserves the last remaining knowledge of magic in the lands. Queen Davina saved it from the Purge. She wishes to unlock it, to give its trapped elements back to the kingdom."
Sebastian swallowed. A preservationist, Astrid had called the queen. Davina Salvera was a preservationist of...magic? He remembered the prophecy she had shown him. The one created by a Soleitan priestess...His head pounded thickly against his skull.
"How did this book have my face in it?"
She picked her way across the debris-littered floor. "The queen took your blood, didn't she?"
"Yes, but why?"
Astrid stuck her head out the doors. "She uses mine, too."
"Uses it for what?"
"To feed the book. You felt its hunger, right?"
Sebastian gaped at her back. Books couldn't feel hunger, and they certainly did not eat. When Astrid spun back to him, the only color on her cheeks came from the shallow cuts left behind by the wooden shrapnel. Sebastian's own anxiety tripled at her expression. He barely had time to formulate an educated guess as to what any of this meant when Captain Matthias lunged into the room.
He was more disheveled than the last time Sebastian had seen him. His helmet was hanging off one ear, his gear crooked and unraveled, but his eyes were dark and fierce as they took in the destroyed room and then landed on Astrid amidst it all.
It was hard not to feel offended when he completely disregarded Sebastian.
"You put the entire castle to sleep!"
Astrid placed her hands to her hips. "I'm glad you think so highly of me. Always so quick to point fingers, Captain Soiree." She didn't even so much as glance at the sword Matthias gripped offensively in front of his chest.
But Sebastian did. It looked impossibly long and sharp.
Sebastian glanced between them. "The guards outside my room were asleep, too."
Astrid shot a pointed look at him, but when she turned back to Matthias, she was all smirks. "See? It wasn't me. It was him."
"Me?" Sebastian yelped. Matthias finally deigned half a glance at him. "It was not! I swear. I was awoken by a voice—"
Astrid's head cocked to him in surprise, but it was Matthias that demanded, "Do you have any idea what you two have done?"
"You mean besides blowing up yet another thing in this blasted place?"
Her attention flickered to Sebastian, fingers flexing at her sides as if they pained at the memory of touching him. Perhaps they did. Red, angry blisters marred her fingertips, just like Sebastian's own. She forced her hands behind her back when she felt him looking.
The captain's jaw ticked when he noticed the wounds, too. "On your head be it, Astrid."
But Sebastian knew that Astrid wasn't the only one to blame for this mess.
From the splintered remnants of its stand, Sebastian swore he could still hear the book calling to him in a grating whisper.
Sebastian. Come to me. Find me. Help me.
_ _ _
Whelp. Those two definitely did something. Something big. Life altering, perhaps? Tune in next time to find out...