Page 20 of Only Cold Depths
I entered the library, my favorite room in the castle, and trailed my fingers over the spines of the real paper books that lined the shelves. Despite all the years I had been dreaming about the castle, I had never been able to read the books’ titles until Kyrion and I had accepted our truebond. My gaze skimmed over the gold, silver, and copper foil words stamped on the spines. Kyrion had eclectic tastes, although the books leaned toward the action-packed and fantastical—fairy tales, stories about clever animals, even one about a talking sword.
Smiling, I moved over to a silver-framed portrait hanging above the fireplace. On the canvas, a man with black hair and eyes and tan skin beamed at a woman with blond hair, blue eyes, and pale skin. Chauncey and Desdemona Caldaren, Kyrion’s parents. A young Kyrion was also featured in the family portrait, glaring sourly at the artist while his parents rested their hands on his shoulders.
I stared up at the painting, waiting for what I knew was coming next. After a few seconds, an eerie, invisible force swirled through the air, like a ghost ruffling my hair. In the portrait, Desdemona’s head swiveled to the front, and she peered down at me.
Just like with the book titles, I had never been able to see the faces in the painting until I had met Kyrion. But now, every time I came in here, Desdemona turned her head and stared at me. When it first happened, I had screamed and jumped like a kitten scared of its own shadow, but now the Regal lady’s movements were yet another puzzle I needed to solve.
“Where do I know you from?” I asked. “What are you trying to tell me?”
Desdemona Caldaren was one of the most famous people in the Archipelago Galaxy, and countless gossipcasts had covered her fairy-tale romance, wedding, and marriage to Chauncey Caldaren. But over the last few weeks, I’d had the growing, nagging sense I actuallyknewDesdemona, that I had seen or met or even spoken to her once upon a time, although I couldn’t remember when or where or why. Something that greatly confused me, since I was a seer who supposedly never forgot anything I saw, heard, or experienced.
A secretive smile slowly curved Desdemona’s lips. I waited for the better part of a minute, but the Regal lady didn’t do anything else, so I moved away from the portrait.
At my approach, a door appeared along the wall and swung open, revealing a tight, narrow staircase. I went down the spiral steps, skimming my fingers over the sigils carved into the dark stone banister.
The sigils were something else I had never been able to make out until I had accepted my bond with Kyrion. Some were butterflies with flapping wings that stirred the air, while others were stormswords that shimmered, sparked, and crackled with cold, heat, and even small bursts of lightning. But many of the sigils were still indecipherable, as were the whispers they emitted, as though I was walking through a group of invisible people murmuring secrets I couldn’t quite hear.
I reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped into the large round room that was the foundation of my mindscape, the place deep inside my mind, heart, and body where my seer magic resided. According to the books I’d read on psionic theory, each mindscape was unique to its seer and reflected something about their personality, powers, and experiences. I had been coming here since I was seven years old, but even now, thirty years later, I was still trying to figure out what my mindscape said about me.
Thick black vines snaked along the floor and climbed up the wall, while pale blue flowers scented the air with a sharp but sweet aroma that reminded me of the spearmint candy sticks I had loved as a child. According to Kyrion, the flowers were blue-moon peonies, which also bloomed in his mother’s garden at Castle Caldaren. The flowers were another odd, unexpected connection between Desdemona and me, although I didn’t know what, if anything, they meant.
The vines and peonies draped over arched doors set into the wall. The doors were different shapes and sizes, some tall and wide, others short and narrow. Some of the doors were closed and locked, and I had no idea what lay behind them, but several were open, and images flickered on the other side, like videos playing on a holoscreen.
All the memories of everything I had seen, done, and experienced in my life—good, bad, and undeniably ugly.
In the smallest door, which was just large enough for a child to walk through, a woman with pale skin, long dark brown hair, and dark blue eyes glared at another woman who could have been her twin. My mother, Nerezza, and her cousin, Liesl, facing off the day the Imperium academy instructors had told my mother that my seer magic was too weak to waste time training me to properly use it.
The memory played out just as it had in real life, and Nerezza’s sharp voice boomed out of the door.
I should be back on Corios. I should be part of the Regals, not rotting away on a useless planet trapped in a useless life with an utterly useless child.
Even though this had taken place thirty years ago, I still flinched. No matter how much time passed, my magic never let me forget my mother’s deep disdain and casual cruelty, and this memory was always lurking in here, ready to wound me again.
Sometimes I really hated being a seer.
In the doorway, Nerezza stormed away. Liesl looked up at the stairs where I was hiding, opened her mouth, and stretched out a hand as if to comfort me, but the seven-year-old version of me clutched a book and ran away crying.
The memory rewound and started playing again. I rubbed my chest, trying to massage the dull ache out of my heart. Reliving that moment was bad enough, but the worst parts were the witnesses to my misery. I wasn’t alone in my mindscape. Not really.
Not while the eyes followed my every movement.
Dozens and dozens of wide, open, unblinking eyes stared at me from the doors, the walls, and even the low ceiling. Many of the jeweled eyes seemed to be a dull, flat black, but a closer look revealed their true, deep blue color. The eyes were all made of sapphsidian, and sparkling black flecks swirled through their blue depths, like comets constantly spinning around and around deep inside the winking facets.
I plucked my stormsword off my belt, carefully gripped the lunarium blade, and held the weapon up to one of the eyes. The three sapphsidian jewels embedded in the silver hilt were a perfect match to the eyes in my mindscape, although I didn’t know how they all might be connected. I excelled at figuring things out, but these days, I had far more questions than answers, especially when it came to my seer magic.
How was I supposed to help Kyrion when I couldn’t even master my own magic? Much less how my power worked with his and how they worked together as part of the truebond.
I sighed, slid my sword back onto my belt, and moved on. Near the back of the room, I stopped in front of a door that featured a large stylizedZmade of alternating pieces of sapphsidian and blue opals that sparkled with inner rings of fiery color. Even in my mindscape, I couldn’t escape the cursed sigil for House Zimmer—or my brother.
A few weeks ago, I had been in my workshop on theDream Worldwatching Zane give a press conference about the summer solstice attack, when I’d fallen asleep and entered my mindscape. This door had appeared and flung itself open, showing a cozy, cluttered tower. I’d been so curious that I’d done something I’d never tried before: I’d walked through the door and ended up in Zane’s library in Castle Zimmer on Corios.
Even stranger was the fact that Zane had actually been able toseeme, as though I was really there and standing right in front of him, and we’d had a tense conversation about Beatrice, his grandmother, hiding my existence from Zane and his father, Wendell.
Astral projection, Zane had dubbed this new ability. He’d speculated that either my magic was growing or Kyrion’s power was pushing mine to new heights. Or maybe it was a combination of the two. Either way, it was yet another frustrating question with no obvious answer.
Ever since, I’d been replaying our threat-filled talk in my mind, parsing Zane’s words and analyzing every quirk of his lips and arch of his eyebrows. Despite my anger and disgust, I still wanted to know what Zane truly thought about me, beneath all his Regal bluster and Arrow bravado, and I couldn’t stop a sliver of my heart from longing—hoping—that he might view me as hisrealsister someday, and not just a grave mistake by his father.
My fingers twitched, and my hand crept toward the knob. I considered opening Zane’s door and trying to spy on him, but dread washed over me, and my arm dropped to my side. I had no desire to see Zane talking about how I would never be a part of his family.
