Page 107 of Jeweler to the Blessed
“Ah, Chaos, that’s what I’ve been asking myself every day since he’s been gone.”
“You haven’t come up with any answers?” I asked.
He held my gaze. “I have my suspicions. But I’ve been striving to prove them wrong.”
The words sank below my skin in a way that felt familiar.
“If you think I’m …that …what’s your role in all of this?”
His gaze held a little disappointment as he spoke. He stepped toward me again. “I thought I’d made that clear, Chaos. I’m here for you.”
Something in my chest fluttered, and I pushed it down. It occurred to me that I was doing exactly what he accused me of, but this was too much.
I couldn’t feel this. I couldn’t be this.
“We should get back to the castle.”
Hart gave me a final assessing gaze before following me from the workshop.
32
I worry she closed off too much and buried everything too deep. She needs safety and security to feel freely.
— ALARIC SARE’S LETTERS TO ISABELLE ARKOVA
Unsettled was the best way I could describe myself that night. Hart didn’t say another word about magic or our plans. It was better that he didn’t. I needed time to think.
I was supposed to be immune to their magic—that was all. That was my … condition. Well, that and my connection to the stones. And … I guess the connection to the captive in the mines. I sighed as the evidence, even in my own mind, stacked against me. I wasn’t supposed tohavemagic.
Arguing further with Hart would be nowherenear as convincing as arguing with myself, which I did—the entire evening.
The sun rose too quickly. I was no closer to certainty, but I couldn’t disregard the points that he’d made. I’d done things when I felt strongly that didn’t make sense.
Could I really be Chaos’s Champion?
Hart looked me up and down when he greeted me the following day and ushered me to the workshop to finish the rings. He was a quiet presence while I worked, settling into one of the wingback chairs, a book open in his lap. The chair remained between me and the front door.
I gave up on my internal argument and focused on the Masquerade that evening. “We’ll stick with the original plan. We’ll just have to start later than anticipated.”
Hart looked up, setting down Alaric’s copy ofChampions of Kavios.
I glared daggers at the book. It had always bothered me that so much was said about the Cursed King, and there was next to no clear information about Chaos’s Champion. If what he’d said the other day was true—if this was the only copy in existence, and the seer was someone close to Alaric—I needed to talk to Mother. She would have to know. Whether she could access the information when I asked for it was another question.
If Hart’s assumptions about me were true—if I was Chaos’s Champion—it changed nothing about tonight. I couldn’t begin to untangle the implications for my future, but that was another matter. We would stick to our plan to save the captive. Then, I would try to talk to Mother after that.
“Is it everything you thought it would be?” I pointed at the book he’d waited so long to get his hands on.
It hadn’t crossed my mind until now that I might wonderwhy Alaric didn’t let him read it. Alaric had always shared his books so freely with me.
He set the book on the table. “It’s infuriating and devastating.”
“Hence its appeal.” I stared at the book a beat longer.
How could Alaric have kept so much from me? It was no easy task to re-read everything in a book I’d studied almost daily, to study it through a new lens, one that I thought I should have had from the start.
“Did Alaric ever talk about me?” I wasn’t sure what answer I wanted, but Hart and Alaric were friends.
It looked like it pained Hart to respond. “No, he didn’t talk about you or your abilities. I knew his sister was sick. He mentioned his niece trained with him to take over the quartz shop in Woodside, but?—”
