Astrid's blood raced through her veins.
She saw a different woman at Matthias's side.
Not Abel, though the girl's changed appearance was drastic enough. No, Astrid saw the poorly dressed farmer's wife from the Saviour's Toast. The Elven Elder whom she had slaughtered. Sword-torn flesh. Silver blood seeping across the shattered floor—
Astrid blinked, and it was Abel once more who stood before her. An Abel who now had an oddly ethereal face. It was her: the same old husky street face that bothered Astrid if only for the ridiculous fact that Sebastian seemed to like it so much. So, yes, it was her, but it also wasn't. Abel's pale skin glowed like she had swallowed an insect with a luminescent arse, skin pulled tight over her arched cheekbones, auburn hair falling around her alluring face, which she tucked behind slightly pointed ears.
Pointed ears.
Curse the Skies!
"What the bleeding Hel happened to you, Husky?"
Abel swore right back at her, but it was Sebastian she sought with her weary, tawny stare.
Her voice wavered like a broken melody. "Bash?"
"Oh." Sebastian sounded only a little dumb, right before Abel collided with him.
In the next instant, their arms wrapped around each other.
Again, Astrid shook her head, felt one of her braids unravel—had Sebastian's hand been in it? Oh, holy Scribal Hel, I kissed the fisherboy!—and fought the threat of a blush when she felt Matthias's eyes on her.
Their cautious gazes met and held across the narrow cavern.
"An elf? You knew?" The thoughts came to her so rapidly that Astrid could barely form the words correctly before they tumbled from her lips in accusation. "How long? Oh, gods! That Elven Elder—did I murder Husky Street Girl's mother?"
"Such dramatics," Matthias mumbled. He took a slow step closer, fingers hovering above his hip where his lovely blood-sword swung, sheathed. "Tonight. I found out tonight. So did she. The girl grew up in Eilibir. I doubt the intruder was her mother. Abel wouldn't have even known if it were. Take a breath."
Abel. He had called her by her name. And the tone of it, the way his tongue seemed to cradle it—When had the two of them gotten so cozy and close? You should know I did not live in Rainier during the Purge, he had told her.
Astrid narrowed her eyes. "You are both from Soleita, aren't you? What does that make you, then? A seductive wench of a dragon?"
His jaw twitched. "You and I both know female dragons are the only ones who can shift forms. Besides, the dragon species lives in Demue."
"You failed to answer my question."
Matthias scowled. "I am who I've always been, Astrid. Why must you be so stubborn?"
"Because you have given me no reason to trust you!"
He took another step towards her, his boots eerily quiet against the ground. "Is that why you were going to Lambert? Right after I warned you not to?"
There was an honest burn behind his expression of which Astrid did not wish to take note. It would make it all too hard. All of this. She glanced to the side only to land on Sebastian and Abel whose heads were lowered together, speaking to each other with an ease that made her heart squeeze.
She was, quite literally, stuck between a rock and a hard place.
With a frown and a sigh, she turned back to Matthias. "What makes you believe I was on my way to Lambert?"
He tilted one corner of his lips in disbelief.
Astrid crossed her arms. "Perhaps I'm only back in these blasted tunnels because I hoped to lure Sebastian down here to have my way with him."
As was typical, Matthias ignored her theatrics. He observed her without a word, jaw ticking as if he had already determined her worth. She expected he most likely found her lacking. In his next breath, he stomped back from her and cleared his throat. Finally, his left hand fell back onto the hilt of his blade.
"Damn it, Astrid!" His tone was at odds with his posture. "It would be helpful if you stopped throwing my attempts at saving you back into my face."
She spread her arms wide. "Saving me from whom, 'Thias?" She gestured around them. "From dear old Wormy? Newsflash: a gigantic worm that size does not exist!"
"From yourself!"
Well, then.
His admission gave her pause, but it was suddenly the voice of her mother she heard instead, hissing in her ear: Control leads to power. Power without control is chaos. Control must always come first.
And you are weak.
But Astrid had control. More than Matthias could possibly know about. Because he couldn't know the truth of her. He absolutely could not. When she met his watchful stare, her stomach dropped to her knees. Do you know? Their mutual suspicion clashed between them. You have your secrets, 'Thias, and I have mine.
"Why would you particularly care about me?" She prepared to shoot his own words back at him. "Why bother when I was never meant to be yours?"
"Because I will not lose another sister!"
Astrid had never heard him raise his voice. Not like that. Emotional. She wasn't sure what to say, but her lips parted regardless, perhaps to tell him that she was not, in fact, his sister, that she had never been particularly sure of what they were to each other, that she could be nothing to him with all these lies and secrets—
The ground beneath her feet trembled.
It knocked Astrid off kilter. She braced a hand against the tunnel wall to steady herself. It quaked, too. She quirked an eyebrow at Matthias whose fist had clenched around his blood-sword. Is this your doing?
She wanted to ask it, but her voice left her when her balance had.
Clumps of dirt and pebbles clattered down from above.
Not again!
From behind her, she heard Sebastian utter some Scribal curse.
And then Matthias moved. He leapt across the width of the tunnel in one stride—to be fair, the tunnel was hardly that wide—and grabbed Abel around the wrist. Sebastian shouted in protest, and Abel gasped like a dying fish as Matthias yanked her away and swung her around.
"Calm down," he barked into Abel's paling cheeks. Her pink lips were turning a strange blue. "Astrid, come here. Now!"
Another round of tunnel shrapnel fell around their heads.
It was the panic in Sebastian's wide-eyed expression that sent Astrid rushing towards them, tripping on her final step when the ground rolled beneath her feet. Matthias caught her with his other arm; he had abandoned his grasp on his sword in favor of tearing Astrid's cloak from her shoulders. Shocked, she barely had time to utter a protest before Matthias shoved her long-sleeved tunic up to her shoulder. Her copper cuff gleamed even in the shadows of the unlit tunnel until Matthias slapped Abel's bare hand over it.
The cuff squeezed.
Astrid hissed through her teeth at the immediate sensation, but Abel screamed.
The husky elf's eyes shot open like a bubble expanding, mouth twisted in a pained, silent grimace, a silver glow blowing out her pupils. Until they shone as black star-lit orbs. Until Matthias wrenched Abel away again.
Abel fell, limp, and, without a single word, Matthias lowered Abel's prone form to the now-stable ground.
Her fingers slipped from Astrid's cuff, its gleam untainted. The vice-like grip around Astrid's arm loosened like it had been Abel who had held her there. The tunnel stilled around the four of them. The only sound came from Abel, whose breaths spluttered in and out like a rusted saw, her knees to her chest. Her auburn hair fell around her somehow still alluring face, obscuring her sobs. Astrid was sure Husky had never looked so defeated.
Vulnerable.
Unsure.
"What the bloody Hel was that?" Astrid demanded.
But she knew. Of course she did. Because if Abel truly was an elf, then those from Galandreal held the elemental control over Earth's threads.
Abel had almost brought down the entire tunnel.
When Astrid looked at Sebastian, she remembered the night of the Fae attack. He had insisted it had not been his doing when the first tunnel had collapsed. Maybe it truly hadn't been. Curse the Scribes, the realms had it out for her.
"You—" Astrid clasped her hands together and stared down at Abel. "You were the one responsible for the tunnel that night."
Abel lifted her watery gaze from her knees. "I-I swear I didn't mean to. I—it happened so fast—!"
Sebastian knelt beside her and brushed her damp hair from her cheeks. "You saved us that night."
I saved you, Astrid thought in the voice of her mother. I saved you from that portal.
Abel offered him a shaky grin. "I-I can't be down here," she stuttered. "Get me out of these tunnels, Bash."
Matthias threw out an arm. It halted Sebastian from abiding by Abel's wishes. Astrid's captain still had a hand twisted around Abel's wrist like the elf meant something to him, and where would that leave her?
"The moment we leave from here," Matthias began, his brow cut in a severe line, "we must be in this together. We do not breathe a word of this to anyone." His sharp gaze crashed into Astrid's. "Not even that thieving mother of yours."
Astrid should have gaped at the blasphemous treason of his words. Possibly even arrested her Captain of the Guard right down there in those unstable tunnels. And she would have, possibly, if it were not for the fact that they had brought forth others, words that Serah had revealed, and Astrid's mouth shut.
While the Mother slumbers in winter's breath,
A thief will arise to conquer the rest.
The Saviour's Prophecy. Davina's prophecy. At least, that was what Astrid had always been taught to believe.
But what if her mother was the thief and not the redeemer?
"Salveretta is a farce."
Astrid was surprised when she heard those words come out in her own low, quiet voice, unaware that she had spoken them out loud.
She tried to keep her flush at bay as the others all stared at her.
Sebastian offered her a small smile and inclined his head, but it was Matthias who offered her his hand. It was large and sturdy, a strangely significant presence in the space built between them. She stared at it with a frown, her heart forcing its way to her throat.
"I will answer your questions," he promised. "Honestly. But you must trust me."
When he bent at the waist in the old-fashioned gesture of a knight dedicating his life to a sovereign, Astrid froze. Holy Scribal Hel. She knew of this tradition, had learned of it from her mother, the blood-binding ceremony between an Author and his or her Scribe.
She knew it, but how did Matthias?
"So, what do you say, Your Highness? Will you accept the oath I will swear to you."
The remaining breath left in her lungs soured.
Guilt stung like acid in her stomach.
She had no choice.
If this was a test, it was imperative she passed.
Astrid bit her tongue but extended her own hand, forcing her fingers steady. They hesitated just short of Matthias's reach. He raised an eyebrow at her. Astrid reciprocated, feeling rather nauseous.
You don't understand, she wanted to say, you will all despise me.
She felt Sebastian's unspoken questions burning into her skin. In fact, she could almost imagine verbatim the theories playing out in his mind.
Lies.
So many of them.
I will drown in them.
Regardless, her palm pressed against Matthias's, gazes clashing over their clasped hands. "Cut us," she demanded.
With his opposite hand, Matthias unsheathed his blood-sword, eyes remaining on her face throughout it all. She refused to blink as he flipped her palm atop his own and drew the edge of his blade across her skin. The violent twisting in her gut was more painful, even as her scarlet blood bubbled up through the wound. She curled her fingers inwards to keep the blood from spilling to the ground and watched Matthias slice a replica of her own cut into his hand.
"Monverta," Astrid muttered.
Their hands intertwined, blood to blood.
Astrid's cuff jolted.
Something beneath Matthias sleeve, where that jagged scar ran down his forearm, emitted a soft, silver glow. "Secrets lived within their black; so Scribes took on ink well's slack," he recited.
"But Authors held a mind for control, and bade the others halfway whole," Astrid finished the inscription. "It is done." She tossed his offered hand back to him. "Though I wish you could have simply accepted me based on my merit."
"I could say the same."
They watched each other until Abel's soft, hoarse voice interrupted them. "And what merit would that be, exactly?"
Astrid stepped back, pulling her cloak from the ground and wiping her bleeding palm on its hem. "No longer crying about how you almost killed us all, I see."
Abel tossed her long hair over her shoulder. "Perhaps I cried because I had failed."
Astrid snorted, but Sebastian appeared at her shoulder, grabbing her injured hand and examining it. "That was the Scribal ceremony of Monverta," he said.
Of course he knew. Probably read about it in no less than ten books.
"Matthias is your Scribe now," he continued. "You spoke the words. The inscription from the Fables of Monverta."
"Not technically," Matthias broke in. He had torn off the edge of his tunic and wrapped the material around his own palm.
"What was the point, then?" Abel asked.
"Our blood is connected," Astrid explained. "A house divided cannot stand. Shared blood cannot lie to its brethren."
But my blood is tainted, 'Thias.
He must not have known that bit of Astrid's past, at least, otherwise he would have never offered those words to her.
Sebastian released Astrid's hand. "What does that mean, exactly?"
Matthias lowered his head. "We cannot lie to one another." He glanced from Astrid to Abel. "It comes from the old Elvish tradition, back in the days of Queen Branwyn. Elvish folk cannot lie to one another without being uprooted from Earth's elemental threads. Queen Branwyn made the first Monverta pact with Lady Guinevere to allow her into the trusted fold of Galandreal."
He paused to sheath his sword. "To officially be decreed Astrid's Scribe, we would have to go to Soleita and get the blessing of the priestesses in the Elementi Temples. They would then have to use the Black Quill to write our names in blood into the stones of the temple's crypt."
"Sounds pleasant," Abel remarked.
But Astrid hardly heard her because her neck had cricked so severely at Matthias's words that a fiery pain shot up the side of her neck. "The Black Quill?" She tried to play off her pained hiss as a scoff. "It has been lost."
His assessment of her was so steady that she was sure he had just reached into her head and plucked out all her truths. "Has it?"
"Yes," Sebastian interjected. "According to the histories, it has been lost for centuries, rumored to be buried with Lady Guinevere herself."
The tense expression around Matthias's mouth only tightened. "Histories are often untrue."
"And hidden, it seems." Astrid's gaze narrowed into slits. He may have kept all of this from her, but now he would have to tell her. Matthias was, after all, duty-bound. "How do you know of these things, 'Thias?"
As he drew down the heavy sleeve of his cloak, that quiet, metallic luminescence on his arm caught her attention again. She caught his sleeve, drawing it back further. "And what is that?" She felt the rough edges of his scar through the material of his thin tunic. "It glows like the veins of the Fae."
Oh, holy Goddess Elayn! Was Matthias one of the legendary Fae warriors? In league with those two brutes who had come through the portal and into Halorium that night?
Matthias shook his head like he had read her mind. "I'm not from the Court of Avylon—" he frowned before wrestling his arm out of his sleeve and extending his bare skin towards her. "Your mother did this to me, the night you and Sebastian freed the Monverta's imprisoned threads." He ran his index finger down his scar and swallowed. "Elves can use stone magic, did you know that? Since stones are connected to the Earth, Elves learned to imbue Earth's threads into rocks and create magical conduits. I'm not sure how your mother got her hands on one, but she sewed a malachite crystal into my arm to keep my identity from manifesting when magic awoke in Rainier."
"Identity?" She looked him over, as if seeing him for the first time.
I will not lose another sister, he had said.
Astrid hadn't even known he had a sibling. And now he spoke of Elvish stone magic? She turned to look at Abel, appraising the tall, willowy girl.
Abel noticed and shrugged. "I don't even know what malachite is."
"It's a stone emerald in color and has been researched by alchemists due to its rumored properties of protection—"
Astrid cut off Sebastian's textbook monologue. "Who are you?"
Matthias licked his lips; she had never seen him do such a nervous tick. "I'll tell you. I will," he emphasized when Astrid sneered, "but I think it would be best to not be in these tunnels." His gaze shifted to Abel.
"Fine," Astrid agreed. "We'll go to Lambert."
That shocked him. "No, we won't."
"He is the master of the Halorian Library," Sebastian interjected. "He is rather intelligent."
Both Matthias and Astrid shot him such a look that Sebastian took a step back and clenched his lips shut.
Astrid turned back to Matthias, her blood-of-thine-blood sworn partner, and smirked. "Take it as your first test of approval," she said. "You claimed Lambert was out to kill me—"
"What?" Sebastian yelped.
Even Abel ignored that.
Astrid grinned wider. "So, we'll all go to Lambert. If he is as shady as you claim him to be, I assume he knows something of your secrets. Now, if he tries to kill me, it is your duty to stop him, is it not, 'Thias?"
Matthias's teeth clenched so tightly she was sure at least two of his molars cracked.
- - -
Oh, shoot, so much is going down that I can't even keep up with it all! I'm so pumped to reveal these next few chapters and all the truth bombs that are about to explode everywhere.
Thank you for reading! Please leave a vote and a comment. :)