Page 5 of The Garnet Daughter
Chapter
Three
PRESENT
Iheard tales of Cosima’s cruelty and still I came. In my life, I was reminded constantly of the priestess order’s corruption, and now I have flown close enough to the heart of such crimes to sense the warmth of one of its temple’s burning.
The relief of that scorching heat cooling from my skin is instant the moment I fold back into our safe house on the outskirts of the city, my final view the eyes of my dearest friend, panicked and desperate for help replacing the city’s protection ward that was destroyed as Cosima’s highest priestess took her last breath.
Leaving Ferren was difficult, but not letting my gift overtake me as I cling on to my desired destination without my mind tugging at something else becomes a new all-consuming focus. My entire body wants to retreat to safety, but I fight against it, forcing it to complete the path I must go. My gift has never appeared like that, and something inside me frays just a little from going against it.
My feet touch the safe house’s floor and I sprint to the room I have stayed in these last few weeks. The books I brought with me are arranged neatly on the modest dresser within it. The one I seek is inside, hidden under the clothes I have acquired sincemy departure from Frith. I shove them to the side, looking for the spell book that has kept me from sleep with its secrets for many nights. The pages are so thin, they are almost transparent and would take months to read to completion.
“Where is it?” I whisper to myself and push more clothing out of the way until panic takes over and I strip it of the entire contents.
The faint ring of the Estate’s bell is audible as I switch to another drawer, the flames engulfing the Temple of Divine Mothers likely growing so tall it can be seen even from this part of the city.
I rip out the last drawer and dump everything inside.
It’s not here. The spell book is gone.
I run my hands down my face, defeated and perplexed of what to do next, but then a strange sound rings in my ears, a high-pitched wind increasing in power and then a blast so loud my ears pop. The distant noise came from the Estate, a world-crumbling explosion I have only heard when a Frithian mountain shakes in tremor and its boulders come loose, wreaking havoc in their wake.
I steady myself on the doorframe and search around the safe house, desperate to locate that book I thought was safely kept with my possessions. Whatever that sound was, it means I need to be quicker.
“Calliape!” August’s voice cuts through the walls, as frantic and searching as I am within them. He bursts into the windowless home inside the skyship hangar and pants in the doorway once his eyes fall to mine. Suddenly, I realize where my body was pulling me to, the location it truly wanted to fold instead of here, to the safety of his ship.
Another trembling explosion rumbles down from the Estate and we both duck on instinct.
“99 sent word you were coming back here!” he yells over the booming sound of more bells and citizens outside screaming.
“We have to find the spell book!” I run into Selene’s room, the only other place that would make sense.
“What book?” He follows me into the threshold as I rip the room apart.
“She took it. I know it.” I lift her mattress and there it is. Stuffed between the base is the thick book of spells she thought necessary to take from me. “The ward is down. We need this to place another.”
I walk to the dining room, where artificial lights can illuminate the words better, and flip through the thin pages, hunting for the spell I came across weeks ago and then pausing.
“We can’t stay in here,” August warns. “We need to get to the ship in case there is another explosion. These walls cannot protect us from their weapons.”
I glance up at him, searching his face and trying to make sense of his words, of more dangers now present in just the short time I have left the others.
“Calliape.” He stands in the doorway and flicks his fingers, begging me to come with him. “There is a First Son ship near the Estate. They are attacking and more may come.”
“The others?” Terror runs through me from picturing the damage that explosion must have done to the very building our friends dwell in.
“They’re alive. But we need to go. Do you have what you came for?”
“Yes,” I say on an exhale of relief.
The moment I grip his hand, he pulls me toward the door and I fold us both into the cockpit of his ship. He is so used to the transition now, he doesn’t even stumble over his next steps to his command station’s blinking lights.
I watch him lean over it, pressing the comm and asking 99 for an update with so much urgency in his voice. The wait for a reply is agonizing. I can see the moment August’s shoulders drop in impatient defeat, sending a sour twist in my guts.
Static cracks over the silence. “Standby.”
“Was that them?” I demand.
