Page 29 of The Rebel and the Rose
‘You seem to know a lot about me.’
‘Not as much as you seem to know about me.’
Fontaine gave a rasping chuckle. ‘I suppose it makes sense… this suddeneagernessto learn of our great saints. Or indeed the ones yet to come.’
‘Why do you say that?’ said Theo warily.
‘Look at her.’ Fontaine didn’t take her milky eyes off Sera. ‘You couldn’t hide that new blood in your veins even if you tried, Seraphine. I can see the sheen of it behind your eyes.’ She bared her greying teeth. ‘Gold blood, they used to call it. The blood of the saints. Fate has bound you with its thread.’ With surprising sprightliness, she pitched forward, blowing a ring of smoke right in her face. ‘And itterrifiesyou.’
Sera took a step back, the grass whispering under her feet. Just like the other night with Theo, a part of her wanted to outrun the accusation – the inherent truth she felt in it – but another part of her was eager to grasp for more.
Theo inhaled. ‘So Sera is a saint.’
Humming to herself, Fontaine said, ‘It would appear so. The second coming is finally upon us. I was hoping I’d be dead by now.’
‘Why do I feel like you’re going to outlive us all?’ muttered Val.
Fontaine kept her penetrating gaze on Sera, like she could see the war raging inside her head: fear giving way to wonder, only to be snatched away again. ‘No need to look so disturbed. You haven’t made any choices worth making yet. And for that matter, neither have the rest of you.’
‘What does that mean?’ said Sera warily.
‘It means in this new age you don’t know what kind of player you are. Or what you’re truly capable of.’ A long pause then, her lips twisting and twisting. ‘And neither do I.’ She leaned back against the window, setting her pipe to one side. ‘I will tell you what I know about the Second Coming. If only to keep you from seeking the same answers from those who would use you for their own nefarious means.’
Without meaning to, Sera drifted closer.
‘The original twelve saints of Fantome were made under the same storm over a thousand years ago. Each one struck down and remade by the kind of lightning that cleaved the entire sky in two, erupting from the ether like a long golden finger,’ Fontaine began, looking up to the stars as she weaved her tale.
Sera’s cheeks prickled at the memory of the fork of lightning that had skewered her just the same not half a year ago. She had never wondered how the saints of Valterre had come to be, only that theywere, and that they had lived with the soul of the kingdom in their hearts, striving always to protect and serve its people in their own varied ways.
‘During the first coming of the saints, the storm raged for three days and three nights, as though a vengeful god wasshaking the heavens. In that time, twelve strikes skewered the kingdom. Twelve different magical gifts were gifted to twelve plain folk. Golden-gazed and gold-blooded, they rose up, one by one, discovered the new power slumbering inside them, and eventually became the saints of Valterre.’
In barely more than a whisper, Sera said, ‘How did they know what they were meant to be? What magic they possessed?’
‘They opened their souls,’ said Fontaine, like it was as simple as that. ‘Theywelcomedtheir gifts with gratitude for what it meant for their kingdom, not the small-minded fear of what it meant for them.’
The barb stung all the worse because it was unintentional. And it was true. Sera couldn’t see how to change that, to welcome the very thing her own consciousness rebelled against. How to tame a beast that so easily overwhelmed her. How to trust it.
All her life, she had never known a benevolent power. Not the cold deadly dust of Shade that used to stain her mother’s fingers, or the kind her own father, Gaspard Dufort, wielded over Fantome as Head of the Order of Daggers.
How could Sera trust the power that now slumbered inside her? The twisting, burning, hissing thing that she didn’t understand? If her own father had turned on her, what was to say the magic inside her wouldn’t, too?
Reaching into her shawl, Fontaine removed her tarot deck. The gilded cards shimmered in the moonlight. She closed her eyes as she shuffled, her lips tightening.
They stepped in close, drawn to the whispering cards.
‘The storm will choose new saints to crown, where three stone towers crumble down…’ Fontaine muttered, her frown deepening. ‘Let’s see what shapes our figures take…’
Fontaine drew three cards and placed them on the windowsill.
The silence thickened as they stared down at them. The first card portrayed a figure in a plain brown tunic, kneeling over a slab of clay, with an axe in one hand and a chisel in the other.
‘The Stone Maiden,’ said Fontaine, distantly. ‘Both builder and breaker of clay.’
It meant little to Sera.
The second card revealed a skeletal figure dressed in rags.
‘The Necromancer.’ Theo read the words at the bottom.
