Tolek’s head fell back against the pillows, and he rubbed his eyes. “Valyrie knows something she doesn’t want us to see.”
“And what could be a part of this Angelcurse that I’m not meant to know?” I bit my lip. My skin was still sticky from the sweat that had beaded during my dream, but the rain-soaked breeze from the open window was helping.
That storm would slow us down in the morning, though. The knot of worry in my gut tightened.
“Once she’s feeling better, we’ll talk to Vale.” Tol reached up, tugging my bottom lip from between my teeth and resting his thumb on it. “She got that emblem somehow. Perhaps she knows something about what Valyrie may want to hide.”
Taking his hand in mine, I traced circles across the back as I thought. “I’m supposed to be their chosen. The one to solve this curse, and yet…”
“Yet?”
“Yet lately, I’m wondering if Annellius was right.” Even saying the words felt dangerous. Damien had insinuated he was watching my every move.
I continued, “Damien warned me not to follow Annellius’s path. History remembers him as greedy, but when Kakias died, she implied maybe that wasn’t the case. She’d said he was a fool and gave up power. That hehidthe emblems.”
All of Kakias’s last moments came back to me.History is written by the survivors, girl.
Annellius surely hadn’t survived his battle with the Angels.
“You think he devised the trials, then?”
I shook my head, enchanted corpses screeching through my mind. “No. Those reek of higher power. I don’t think Annellius was capable of it. But perhaps he found the emblems—found out what they did—and returned them rather than used them? Damien and Valyrie want me to complete these tasks, unlike whatever Annellius did.”
“It sounds like they would prefer you didn’t even know about Annellius.”
“Why, though?” I asked.
“Maybe what the Angels want isn’t what’s best for you,” Tolek offered. “It didkillAnnellius.” His hand tightened on mine, pure terror in that vicelike grip.
“It did,” I mused, staring out the window to where those stars I was not supposed to question gleamed tauntingly, peeking through scattered storm clouds high above the earth. In them, I saw my ancestor staring back at us, and I wished he could speak to me again. “Why do you think Annellius’s eyes were brown when Vale saw him in a reading?”
“Instead of magenta?”
I whipped my gaze back toward Tol’s, remembering the time in Seawatcher Territory when I bled on the emblems as Vale read. She’d seen Annellius, then. “If my eye color is a sign of being chosen as we thought, why did he not share it?”
“I don’t know, Alabath,” Tol said, defeated.
Sighing, I crawled back into the warmth of his arms, allowing the nearness to steady both of us. “There are so many questions, Tol. So many things that haven’t been what they’ve seemed.”
He stroked my arm with gentle fingertips. “What do you want to do about it?”
“We’re finding that last damn emblem,” I swore, and he laughed at the conviction in my voice. “We’ve come this far, sacrificed so much, we’re finishing this. But then…then we’ll need to find answers before we act.” I sighed. “Perhaps giving the emblems to Ritaliawouldbe best.”
“You think so?”
“I don’t know.” I nuzzled closer to him, my mind whirling though sleep beckoned after the ordeals we’d gone through.
“We’ll talk to everyone tomorrow,” he assured me. “Go back to sleep, Alabath.”
I kissed his chest, right over his heart, and watched the stars until my eyes grew heavy.
The storm returned ferociouslyin the morning. I was drenched head to toe after one minute outside, trying to visit Sapphire. She couldn’t fly in this; with how it was pelting down, her wings would be waterlogged in seconds.
We were stuck here. If someone from Titus’s manor found us…
The possibility made my skin prickle, fingers jittering over my tea as I sat before the fire in the dining room. Rain and wind lashed the windows, cyphers swaying. My boots tapped on the stone hearth.
“I give her one day,” Jezebel muttered where she sat with Erista at the table nearest the grate. The wooden surfaces had been cleared of the bloody linens, ointments, and satchels. Santorina was upstairs checking on her patients now.
