“Nine,” she confirmed.
And it all made sense. Why Vale had been taken to that temple as a child, why Titus was so set on keeping her, why her magic seemed to work differently than any other searcher we knew of.
Lyria, chin propped in a hand, utterly rapt, asked, “And there’s never been another Starsearcher with that many?”
Vale shook her head. “Not to my knowledge.”
Cyren elaborated with an awed look at Vale, “Even two is uncommon.”
“I think the way it manipulates my magic is why I was able to see Annellius in the past.”
Tolek asked, “And that’s how you found the emblem? You read Valyrie and saw where her emblem was?”
“Yes,” Vale said. “She was in the catacombs with a brass telescope?—”
“A telescope?” I asked, looking concernedly up at Tolek. “There was no telescope there.”
“There wouldn’t have been,” Vale confirmed. “It was where the heart was stored, within that glass box, but I had to wrench it from its fixture.”
Tolek’s brows flicked up. “Had to?”
“The dead wanted the telescope,” Vale deadpanned. “But it didn’t seem to care about Valyrie’s heart.”
Shivers danced down my spine. “You escaped them? All of those corpse warriors?”
“All of…There was only one?” Her words turned up at the end like a question. “When I gave it the telescope, it fled, and I was able to leave with the heart. I hid it from Ti—” Her words cut off in a choke, but she sniffed and lifted her chin. Beside her, Cyren’s lips twisted in disgust at their chancellor. “I hid it. My plan last night was to get it to Barrett. To ask him to pass it along to you so you could do what you must while I remained here to keep the chancellor distracted.”
Cypherion leaned forward, tugging Vale from her seat and into his lap. His hand stroked her hip, right over the bloodstained fabric. “Doesn’t matter now. And we have another emblem, regardless of how.”
Though he was only trying to keep Vale from having to relive everything, he was right.
“We have one more left to find.” I stood from the fireplace, pacing in a slow circle. “When I spoke to Valyrie, she said togo to the ones who recount the histories in the land of your ancestors, and find out the truth.”
“The mountains?” Jezebel asked, brows scrunching together.
“That’s what I thought she meant at first,” I answered, “but I don’t feel like there’s much in the mountains that can help us. Who are our other ancestors, Jez?”
Jezebel grinned, and that—the camaraderie, the flutter through my gut as we prepared a plan—it all chased away the chill wrought by the unknown. “Grandmother’s side of the family…”
With a smile, I turned to Erista. “Are you ready to return home?”
Erista’s feline grin was dazzling. “Oh, Revered. I thought you’d never ask.”
“I assume we should start at the capital?” I asked, mentally mapping how long it would take to get to the Soulguider capital, Xenovia, near the Mystique Mountains. “It will be a bit of a journey.”
“Who recounts the histories, though?” Lyria inserted, hopping off the bar to stand beside me in the middle of the room. Her eyes brightening at the choice to strategize—to hold a position on this council—warmed my spirit. “Are there some grand historians to the chancellor in the capital?”
“Or,” Tolek blurted, shooting up, “perhaps it’s not Xenovia.” Without further explanation, he hurried up the rickety, creaking staircase.
Erista continued, one eye on where he’d fled, “We don’t have historians beyond the usual of any clan. But we do have a wealth of Storytellers.”
Storytellers.
Warriors who abstained from associating with any clan formally when feeling the call of a particular rare brand of magic. They instead joined the cult roaming freely across Gallantia, giving life to the tales of antiquity. They kept them sacred and preserved by word of mouth alone.
I’d seen one once, in the Wayward Inn when I was on my way to rescue Tolek. She’d spoken of the foundations of the Angels. Of their feuds and struggles and eventual succession, all things I’d now seen firsthand.
Storytellers were increasingly rare, though.
