“A Descendant?” Lunelle asked.
Yallara clapped her hands together. “They’re Pluto’s devotees! They can tell you about your past Descents!”
“Oh,” Lunelle whispered, unsure if that was information she wanted. Yallara grabbed her hands and dragged her toward the palace gardens, where a table had been set with a black tablecloth and an elderly figure was setting out crystals in varying colors and cuts.
They—the Descendant, Lunelle realized—wore black head to toe, with a smoky veil covering their head, their eyes hardly visible through the thin fabric.
“Who is first?” the Descendant asked, their voice rough as they finished their spread.
“Me,” Lunelle said, surprising herself. Yallara pushed her forward, standing behind her as she sank onto the iron chair across from the reader.
The Descendant’s energy was that of death itself, Lunelle thought. A drifting chill rolled from their shoulders, pushing her away as they stared at her with unseeing eyes.
“Pick one,” they said, gesturing vaguely to the crystals between them, waving a withered hand over the stones.
Lunelle surveyed them but did not need long to decide. She reached for the small, oblong stone that shone with a rainbow gleam that reminded her of the Rift.
The stibnite.
“Mmm,” the Descendant hummed, holding Lunelle’s palm flat with the stone resting in the center. “Fascinating,” they breathed as they observed her.
The crystal whirred in her hand with the same strange turning of inner light as the piece she stole from Proserpina’s festival.
The Descendant held their breath for a moment, leaning back from her, as if she were the one to be frightened of.
“What strange magic you possess,” the Descendant said quietly.
“Magic?” Lunelle asked.
“She does not know,” they whispered to whoever it was they called to.
“What doesn’t she know?” Yallara asked.
The Descendant hissed in her direction, the black veil ruffling on the breeze. Yallara stepped back, no longer her playful self.
“Who will tell her?” they asked again, but Lunelle could not follow the thread of their thoughts.
She leaned forward. “Tell me?—”
The Descendant jerked her hand closer, holding the stone up to Lunelle’s eyes.
“Theywill tell you.”
“They?” Lunelle closed her palm over the stone, feeling the insides stutter and disappear.
“You woke your dead, Princess. Ask them.”
Lunelle blinked, a shiver running down her spine. Proserpina’s gaze flashed to her mind—perhaps that was what they meant.
“There is a star,” the Descendant whispered, their breath rolling over Lunelle’s fingers like a morning fog. “You must embrace it.”
Lunelle felt that second decision straining to the surface of her skin.
“If you don’t, it will embrace you, and it will be all-consuming.”
The Descendant dropped her hand, folding her fingers over the stone and leaning back, turning their eyes to Yallara.
“Pick a stone,” they said, dismissing Lunelle with little more than a dusty breath.
