When I nod, she leans closer and clasps it between her fingers. I inhale as she closes her eyes and takes a long breath, as if she’s connecting to the high gods and the power they wield.
“I see your family, Sol.”
My heart thumps wildly against my chest. “Who are they?”
Something stirs within me. Something that longs to know the people who brought me into the world. To connect with them. To get to know them.
“Don’t you feel it?” The Seer releases my pendant and straightens.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
A smile bends her lips upward and twinkles in her eyes. “Everly is your sister.”
Everly?
Maybe that explains my bond with her. Maybe that even explains why I formed a quick connection with Kassandra too.
“And Kassandra?” I ask, hope stirring in my words.
“Yes, but she was a summer younger. Everly is your twin.”
My heart soars, and tears of joy blur my vision as I embrace this profound revelation. Everly is my sister. My twin sister! This is incredible, beautiful, wonderful. I couldn’t have picked a better star to align with.
But even as my heart soars, it crumbles as I remember Kassandra. Those bitter, hateful people in Astarobane stole her from me.
I swallow and force aside those awful memories as the Seer speaks again.
“The prophecy spoke of your birth summers before you were ever born. How you would be the spark to bring back magic to the Bloodstone. A girl with both Kyanite and Bloodstone blood. A girl with fire in her veins and vengeance in her heart. Youarehalf ofthe prophecy.”
“Why me?” I ask, my words soft, tentative. “All I ever wanted was to be normal and to heal people.”
“I know, but sometimes, we’re more than we think we are. You brought magic back, and now you will help Hector tame it…”
Tame Bloodstone magic?
Is that even possible?
“…so it does not destroy you both and Tarrobane,” she finishes.
Her words ricochet through me, echoing a fear I have had for a long time. The fear that someday the Bloodstone would regain their magic and destroy Tarrobane again.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Hector is the other half of the prophecy,” she says.
Of course. He’s the origin, the beginning.
“Do you remember when I told you that you must leave Karra?”
“Yes.” Knots tighten in my throat as I remember how cruel it felt to be told to leave Hector.
“And I told you I saw a serpent swallowing a tree.” The Seer leans back in her chair and continues. “What do you think would have happened if the mark issued by the Kyanites had taken your life?”
Tersah leans forward and speaks bluntly. “Hector would have destroyed the entire Kyanite tribe.”
The sky above!
Why did I never consider that?
