Page 16 of Silvercloak

Tiernan gave a bitter laugh. “If we knew that, it would have prevented a lot of wars.”

Stomach sinking, Saffron knew he was right. The question over whether prophecies were airtight had plagued the Augurests for a thousand years. Tiernan’s homeland of Bellandry had endured plentiful civil wars over the very subject, while the two aged prophets who sat the thrones of Esvaine and Tarsa perpetually clashed over their differing opinions on what the future may hold.

Tiernan passed Saff the bowl of dark chocolate truffles, and she palmed three into her mouth at once. As they melted over her tongue, a shiver of pleasure rolled through her, the feeling of fallow ground being watered after a long drought. Still, she’d need a lot more to replenish the well in full.Praegeloshad been so taxing to sustain that exhaustion burrowed all the way to her marrow.

Perhaps Saffron would seek Nissa out later. Her forked tongue could revive magic like nothing else. Besides, she craved Nissa’s solidity, the way she never yielded beneath the weight of Saff’s pain.

Because while Saffron loved Tiernan and Auria, she did so in a guarded sort of way. She never let them all the way in, never let them see how broken she was—not out of self-preservation, although there was an element of that, but to protectthem. She worried that her dark outlook, her lack of faith in humanity, would somehow damage them. She’d never forgive herself for tarnishing Auria’s shine, for eroding herfaith in karma. During Auria’s impassioned tirades about all the good she wanted to do for the city when she became Grand Arbiter, she genuinely seemed like she’d never entertained the notion of failure.

And Tiernan … Tiernan could barely handle his own negative thoughts, let alone anyone else’s. He was a sweet man, but there was a kind of innate fragility to him that alienated Saff—although she supposed he hadn’t survived his father’s brutality for this long by accident.

Such was the appeal of Nissa. She was robust enough to bear witness to Saff’s innermost despair without withering beneath the black gloom of it. Saff never worried for a second that Nissa could be tainted.

Just as Saffron and Tiernan were finishing off the truffles, an auburn-haired Healer entered the hospital wing, shaking her head defeatedly.

“Summoning spells are coming back empty, even for Jebat. The ear is nowhere to be found. Probably nothing but dust. We’ll have to reanimate without it.”

“Alright,” said Paliran, the chief Healer, tucking their chin-length, caramel-colored hair behind an ear and rolling up their violet cloak sleeves. They had dozens of gold and silver bangles stacked up to the elbow, each engraved with the names of obscure healing charms, but Paliran didn’t need to refer to the bracelets for this. They’d been reanimating fake hostages and Bloodmoons all afternoon. “Are you ready?”

Tiernan turned to the six-sided golden teapot on the bedside table, pouring out a cup of hot ginger tea for Auria’s awakening. She was never without a flask of the stuff.

Relief coursed through Saff like a pulse. They were going to bring Auria back, and she was going to be alright, less for a missing ear, and Saff might be able to glean some answers about the prophecy before the job listings were posted.

Auria had always been generous with knowledge, never hoarding it for herself so that she’d appear brighter than everyone else. She left annotated notes on Saff’s desk during exam season, helping her out on the subjects she struggled with, sharing strategies and shortcuts for remembering common law. She quizzed Sebran, the other Brewer, on elixir ingredients until they were both ready to drop with exhaustion.She picked up rare books from secondhand shops in town, wrapping them in brown paper and gifting them to Nissa, her sworn enemy, because even sworn enemies deserved good reading material.

She was prim and sanctimonious, yes. Relentlessly assiduous, irritatingly upbeat, and often judgmental. A veritable stick up her backside at least seventy-four percent of the time. But she was also warm and smart and wonderful, with a fierce underpinning of righteous anger and a fundamental faith in the world.

And just like Saff, she always held a grudge.

Paliran raised their wand with a long, slow intake of breath, bangles clinking on olive-skinned arms. But before Saffron could bear witness to her friend’s reanimation, there was a sharp touch on her shoulder.

One insistent tap, like a mourncrow’s beak.

Saff swiveled to see Malcus, the captain’s straitlaced assistant, standing behind her. A Ludder, but an excruciatingly thorough—and naturally deferential—one.

At the sight of him, dread sank into Saff’s gut, the childish feeling of being caught just when you thought you’d gotten away with a misdeed.

That stony silence in the Grand Atrium still echoed in her ears.

“Captain Aspar wants to speak to you,” Malcus muttered, voice low and grim. “Alone.”

AS SAFF WAITED OUTSIDE HER CAPTAIN’S CHAMBERS, HERhand went to her necklace.

Hung on a delicate gold chain was a wooden oval pendant, made from a small corner of her parents’ once enchanted front door—still a faded teak, its magic stripped out by the force of the Bloodmoons’ opening spell. Set into the wooden oval were two gleaming jewels, one emerald green and one purple sapphire.

The remains of her parents.

In Vallin, bodies were not dug into the cold, dark earth with their cloaks and wands, as they were in Bellandry and the Eastern Republics. Nor were they turned to stone and ground into sand, as was the Eqoran custom, so that their souls might return to the desert. The Vallish tradition—one that transcended religion—was to purify and heat ashes with raw magic until they compressed into glistening jewels, which were then set into all manner of jewelry. It was said that whatever color of gemstone emerged reflected the true soul of the deceased.

The honor of who got toweartheir dead was a hotly contested thing, the most crucial part of any will and testament. Her Knight’s Scroll in Modern History had taught Saff just how many civil wars had broken out over who bore the diamonds of slain queens. Jilted lovers and bitter exes, siblings and sons and daughters, all of them clamoring for the crown that carried the jewels of the past.

But nobody had fought Saffron’s right to carry her parents with her.

The wooden pendant warmed beneath her grip, and it anchored her, brought breath back to her lungs.

Exhaustion pressed her eyes closed, despite the foreboding over what awaited her behind those chamber doors. As she teetered on the brink of sleep, she thought of her father, and of the day he taught her, at five years old, how to cast illusions.

“Listen to me, sweetling.” Joran had knelt on the rug before her, palms rested on her narrow shoulders, the heat of the ever-burning fire pressed against her apple-round cheeks. “I know it stung you that old Renzel was reluctant to sell you a wand. But the fact you’re immune to magic is a good thing, alright? No terrible curses will ever befall you. You’ll never be rendered mute or immobile by magic, never be compelled to do anything against your will. But you’re old enough now to understand that there are dark mages out there who may try to exploit your gift.”

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