Page 21 of Summer of Sacrifice

Arielle nodded, her shoulders drooping. “How tragic.”

“What can you tell about her?” Seleste encouraged, pointing Arielle to the brighter side of her gift.

Chewing on the inside of her cheek, Arielle considered for a moment before speaking. “She was not a child, but still very young. It’s almost as if she was in a balanced state of melancholy and peace.” Her face broke into a smile. “I can sense more! Her father gave her this ring. She’d just learnt how to cast spells.” Holding the ring briefly to her chest as if in an embrace, Arielle then set it gently back on the shelf. “She was a mage.”

“Aha!” A voice drew them away, and Gaius popped up from where he was crouched before a shelf of relics at the far end of their aisle. “Sorscha!” he called, everyone rushing over to him at once.

It was a comical sight, and Seleste suppressed a smile. It was nice to have them all together. They were an interesting bunch, the lot of them, and she hoped to the goddess more times were in store of them gathered.

“What is it?” Sorscha pushed through the small throng.

“If this doesn’t scream our beloved petit serpent, I don’t know what does.” He held a tattered book aloft, identical in shape and size to the other three in the Sisters’ possession. It was open to a page that depicted a young woman lounging in a field of wildflowers, a black snake wrapped around her bare feet.

“My, my,” Seleste came up beside Sorscha and ran her finger over the page. “This is the most detailed of them all…”

“Come on!” Sorscha shouted at them, snatching the journal and rushing for the stairs. She must have decided it was taking too long because she threw, “Meeting chamber! Now!” over her shoulder just before she disappeared.

“As if any of us know where that is,” Winnie griped, gliding up the stairs.

Grimm began to follow her as the rest of them did, but something snagged his attention, which, in turn, snagged Seleste’s. “Winnie, wait,” he called out.

As if something were calling to him, pulling him forward, Grimm approached a shelf and picked up an object. “I know this one,” he said, his voice hardly audible as he gingerly picked it up.

Seleste came to inspect it as he flipped it over in his hands. It was a wheel carved out of wood. No, two conjoined wheels. The centre wheel gave a little spin as Grimm turned it over again. Holding it up for the rest of them to see, he addressed Asa. “These are Druid markings.”

“They are,” the general confirmed. “I don’t know all of their meanings, but I do recall many Druid relics in these catacombs.”

Grimm’s eyes grew wide, and he turned to Winnie like a child about to open their Yuletide gifts early. “Would Laurent know them?”

Winnie shrugged, one hand still on the bannister of the steep stairs. “I would assume so. He’s only third generation descended from the Elves.”

Seleste’s mind whirred, calculating information. They all bustled up the stairs while she stood, letting the silence of the catacombs aid in her thinking. The journal clearly meant for Winnie had resided with the Druids, descendants of the Elves, only in their realm because of Morgana’s fall—Athania’s fall.

Her journal had resided in Coronocco with humans tied to necromancy and Morgana—a dark tangle in her own past she’d rather not think on.

Sorscha’s had been in a magi rehabilitation abbey, the former location of The Fourth Order—a place designed to protect the realm against Morgana.

Agatha’s had been hidden away in Eridon by a family descended from Druids to keep it safe from Morgana until the birth of the Son of Bone.

Soon after the journals were placed with these people groups, Athania abandoned Morgana’s body and identity and took that of Chresedia Gauthier.

Thoughts aflutter within her, Seleste ambled up the steps after her chaotic, beautiful family, giving a passing look over her shoulder at all the relics. Something within that cave of artefacts had to lead them to where the eclipse would take place, and she was determined to find it before she needed to leave for Coronocco. With any blessed goddess luck, Grimm already had, if his strange pull to it were any indication.

Chapter

Five

SELESTE

Seleste caught up with everyone across the valley just before they disappeared through a massive door cut into yet another mountainside. Following silently behind them down a cave corridor, they entered a rather cramped meeting chamber to find Sorscha—unsurprisingly—arguing with Asa.

“Sister,” Seleste interrupted them as everyone else found a seat to drop into until they were all full.

In the split second between Sorscha’s acknowledgement of her interruption and her next words, Seleste noted far too much at once. Winnie was rubbing at her knee, something gnawing at her inwardly. Aggie was glowing with subtle pride as she watched Grimm vacate his seat for Arielle. Gaius angled himself toward the young woman, utterly smitten and apologetic he hadn’t noticed she had no chair. And Asa snuck a look at Sorscha’s arse while her attention was fixed on Seleste.

Gods, she was going to have one Hades of a migraine by the time she was finally alone, wholly overstimulated but with a full heart.

“You are ill at ease,” Seleste finally finished, ignoring the information flooding her cunning.

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