Children with Stars in their Veins (Chapter 40)

a/n: hey, thanks for checking out Starry Veins! This is the novel I wrote for Round V of LMS, and it's still a first draft! While I don't discourage any feedback, I prefer not to receive feedback on grammar! I'm not polishing this draft up yet, so I'm not as concerned about editing. I am, of course, open to all feedback, but I ask that you keep this in consideration! Thanks <3

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[Mishal]

Though he knew there was no concrete truth to an oracle’s prophecy, Mishal couldn’t help replaying the words Inala had spoken over and over in his mind.

And the terrible metallic taste of blood and destruction wouldn’t leave his mouth. Was his future, all of them or just one Inala had seen, to be drenched in blood and strife? What happens?

Oathbreaker. She made it sound like he wouldn’t have a choice in the matter, regardless of his own decisions or desires.

If nothing else, Mishal wished to be true, to be honest, and to do his part for good in this world. To break an oath went against all of that, or nearly all of that.

Luthera’s manor was exquisite and dazzling, more than one would expect of cartography, which was not all that fruitful or useful of a practise. What with the shifting lands, never to remain constant, the only maps were those that could be made for the domesticated lands or the kingdoms and villages.

But for all the marble floors and lacquered wood-panelled walls, Mishal rather preferred himself outside. It was warmer, and a fountain spat silver water from the mouth of a siren statue. The siren was carved beautifully, shining in the sun. And somehow, it captured the wild and dangerous demeanour of the rare dwellers of the deep.

Not that Mishal had ever seen a siren, or for that matter, wanted to.

There was little to be said about the landscape though. What could have been an incredible garden terrace was instead a bland clearing interrupted by the city rising in the background. The houses that disrupted the lush, thick grass that grew to his ankles and swayed in the breeze. There were silver trellises lining the walls, with not a single flowering vine or ivy in sight.

Rowan and their mother would have built something divine and colourful here, given the opportunity. A place like this, next to a cottage on an open and arable field, would have been a place of wonder to them.

The door from the back of the manor clattered open. From within came Margaretta and Isadora, stepping onto the granite-step pathway leading onto the lawn.

He rose from his seat on an eloquently hewn stone bench, with curling scroll designs at each corner. “Did you learn anything of the ruins?”

Isadora approached him first. “Not much beyond what we already knew,” she said. Tucked under her arm was what appeared to be a leather-bound book or journal. “Only that there may be strange magic there, of some sort, which could be the curse that everyone is so apt to mention. And whatever you may be able to glean from this.” She held out the journal towards him.

He took it and opened to the first page. It was streaked by mud and age and who knew what else. There was a chunk of text in a block at the centre of the paper, written in a deep sienna ink with what had probably been a quill.

The language itself was nonsense. At first glance, the script looked to be that of Magic, but he couldn’t make out any words. Several of the letters seemed to be switched out from another script altogether. And it would be nonsense to him anyway, for the most part. He knew what Magic’s language looked like but couldn’t read more than the simplest words.

He flipped to the next page. At the top, in the mundane language, it read: Kagervon’s Company. Spyder. 3092. Fifth day of Cloudburst.

“What is this?” he asked. He skimmed through several more pages, but aside from the signature and more dates that marked each separate entry, there was nothing more he could read. At a glance, anyway.

One of the last pages he looked at was smeared with something dark. He shut the journal as the smell of blood began to fill his senses again. He blinked and shook his head to dismiss it.

“A journal,” Margaretta said. She crossed her arms and stood behind Isadora, looking more like a sentry than a guild’s master. “It was the only possession the surviving member of that expedition was carrying when they were found. Can you read it?”

He handed it back over to her and she took it with a frown. “It looks like a bastardised version of Magic script. So no, I can’t. One of the professors, maybe, but it’s strange. I’d suggest Coquelin, and or Rowan for that matter, but obviously that is not what our current situation permits.”

Isadora folded her arms over her chest, steeling her expression. “Unless we went back, translated, and found out more about it. We’d be better prepared too. And Ori could come this time, there would be no one better to bring.”

Margaretta shot Isadora a scathing look. “And when we find out it’s useless, we’ll have wasted all that time for nothing.” She put the journal under her arm. “I’ve already asked everyone we brought. I’ll go around the city to see if I can find anyone who recognises the script.”

“The ruins aren’t going anywhere,” Isadora remarked. “We’re not on a deadline.”

But Margaretta’s back was already turned, and she did not respond. The door, as she stepped inside, clattered shut behind her.

Mishal sank back to the stone bench with a sigh. Isadora scowled at the door, then kicked the granite step. She opened her mouth to say something as she turned to face him, but then stopped herself. Her expression softened instead.

She sat beside him. “What’s wrong?”

He doubted that was what she had been intending to say, but he didn’t want to get into another heated debate about Margaretta was or was not hiding. He was tired of secrets and feeling small for questioning her.

“It’s inconsequential, don’t worry about it,” he said, dismissive. He didn’t particularly want to speak his thoughts into existence. They were bad enough bouncing around in his head.

“It’s not if it’s troubling you.” She hesitated, leaned forward onto her knees with a soft exhale. Her silvery-blonde hair fell glistening off her shoulder, tumbling down her back in streams. “Is it about the oracle’s reading? You’ve been really quiet about it since.”

He shut his eyes and listened to the sound of a nearby bird’s trill. The stench of gore filled his nostrils. “I know it could be a path I’ll never walk. In my head, I know that. It’s just what she said… Even the possibility of it. And the way it made me feel…”

When he opened his eyes and glanced towards Isadora, she looked sympathetic. Sad. “I wouldn’t have pushed you into it if I knew it was going to upset you.”

“But it would be ignorance then, wouldn’t it? That’s no better.” He stopped, managed half a smile. “I guess you should have asked her how I was going to react.”

She laughed. “As long as you know that, likely, none of it will come to pass.” She put her chin into her hands. “Perhaps the oath she was referring to needs to be broken. Maybe you’re forced into it. Maybe she was saying it to be dramatic, or ominous. She was an oracle, after all. They are known and praised for their theatrics. It’s their job.”

He might have believed that too, had he not felt what he had. Everything, perhaps in particular and stark in his mind, a terrible and crushing guilt all at once, the moment Inala had called him Oathbreaker.

“Maybe,” he said, instead of burdening her with the same dread. “But if I wasn’t forced into it, why would I take an oath and give my solemn word if it was to something I didn’t believe in?”

Isadora shrugged. “Situations change. Maybe you learn something new and your honour demands a different outlook and solution. And that’s only if it comes true. Maybe you won’t break any oath.”

Whatever you choose, you will become oathbreaker. “Maybe I won’t.”

She smiled, lips curling in a way that he knew he was going to dislike whatever came out of her mouth next. Stars, it looked like one of Cassius’ expressions.

“It wasn’t all bad anyway. Sounds like she saw someone awful important to you. With lovely blue eyes too. And you’ll save him.”

“Or doom him. You forgot there’s a chance he’ll die, or possibly something worse, because of me.” When Inala had spoken of his ‘golden falcon’, his mouth had filled with the taste of soil and dust and fresh water and he swore he could see the sky on his eyelids. But he could still smell the blood.

“But I know you,” Isadora said, insistent. “You’re brave and smart. You’ll save him, Mishal. I know you will.”

The dark fog plaguing his mind eased as he watched Isadora’s calm and confident smile. He released tension he’d been unaware he was holding from his shoulders and abdomen. “You think so?”

She nodded. “I know so. I’m almost jealous of this mystery man. It sounds as though you’ll spoil him something fierce.”

He smiled, and though it was all he could manage, he felt lighter. “No more than you or the other four.”

She laughed again, clear as the bells she loved. “Don’t let Alanna hear you say that. If it were up to her, I bet she’d steal up all your time and energy.”

“And I would give it to her,” he said.

But even with Isadora’s reassurances, he laid awake that night. Isadora’s steady breathing nearby softened some of the fear wrapped in his chest, but it also isolated him. She had fallen asleep at least an hour ago, reading the tome Ashael had given her, now splayed out on her pillow beside her head.

Mishal was left to himself, staring up at the smooth, impeccably clean ceiling, white and almost threatening somehow.

It was not the smell of blood, nor the threat of honour that so greatly disquieted him. Though terrible both were, and deeply unsettled he was by them.

No. He had heard screaming. It was momentary, hardly more than half a second, but he would never forget it. It was pure rage, fury unleashed and echoing. Someone had called his name, more than one person, and it made him want to shrivel.

What would he do, even in only one life he may never live, that would make someone scream his name with so much hatred?

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1,747