Passing from the royal residence to the administrative wing took them through the heart of the palace — the multi-story hall that served as both the grand entry to the palace and the hub connecting all the various extensions. Every surface was slathered in white marble, which would have seemed bleak and washed out had it not been chosen to serve as a canvas for the true beauty of the space. Splashes of vibrant color cast from the immense stained-glass dome painted the white giving the illusion that the hall had been carved of prismatic opal.
Entering the administrative wing, one could forget that the palace was home at all. Secretaries tabulated and dictated rapid-fire on their machines. Clerks darted from desk to desk, picking up and delivering envelopes. Officials swept in and out of meetings, of which Verity had no idea what was discussed or decided. Wasn’t that precisely why all these departments within the administrative branch existed in the first place? To allow the Sovereign to delegate these tasks of lesser importance down a chain of command?
A clerk cut across their path, startled when she realized that she’d nearly plowed into members of the royal family, her stack of envelopes plummeting to the floor.
“My apologies,” she gasped, nodding to each of them respectively without meeting their eyes, “Your Graced Majesty, Your Graced Highness,” before dropping to her knees to collect the disheveled mess. “I was in such a hurry that I wasn’t paying attention.”
Crouching down, Verity helped to gather the remaining envelopes, offering the collected stack to the astonished clerk, who seemed horrified. “Please, you’ll dirty your clothes, Your Graced Highness.”
“It’s fine,” she dismissed the clerk’s concerns. “Normally, I’m covered in grease anyway.”
After a pause, the clerk chuckled nervously, realizing he was meant to laugh.
“You’re so amusing, Your Graced Highness.”
It drove nails beneath her skin when they did that. They were constantly tripping over themselves to show how proper or pious they could be. She despised it. Sighing, Verity stood, but the clerk remained, head bowed towards the floor, waiting for Verity to rise before standing herself. It was insufferable. Verity’s eye roll must have been apparent because Avadiel clenched her arm and pushed her forward again in the direction of the Sovereign’s office. Guards saluted before swinging open the double doors, and every head swiveled towards the opening door as they entered, casting glares in varying degrees of annoyance. In addition to her apparent divine abilities, Verity had learned as a child she possessed a secret power— the ability to disappoint everyone in a room simply by entering it.
The three heads of state— the Sovereign, the Legislature General, and the Chief Magistrate— were all seated. Her father, Rowan Starling, held court from his seat at his massive wooden desk. At the same time, the Chief Magistrate Gideon and the Legislature General Obelisk enjoyed refreshments on one of the lounges. Primly sipping tea as comfortably as if she were in her own home, Nathania Obelisk watched Verity approach over the rim of her cup. The woman was the personification of the word severe, from the style of her immaculate ensemble to the sharp angle of her chin-length silver hair. Merciful universe, it hurt to look at her. Unfortunately, Verity found no reprieve when she turned away, catching the hardness Rowan Starling leveled at her from his desk. The Captain of the Royal Guard stood eclipsed by the window behind him, as always, waiting for instructions. Finally meeting the eyes she sought, she found Kleio Gerathy in the lounge opposite the Legislature General and the Chief Magistrate. There was frustration, but beneath that, there was a bearing of sympathy. At least, until her mother took her open seat next to Kleio, silently covering the woman's hand to move it from the leather lockbox resting on her lap to the Divine Consort’s thigh. A subtle but undeniable show of solidarity in this matter.
As the doors closed behind them, Verity stood at the top of the circle they formed, pushing away the tightness in her chest that told her she was walking into a trap. Instinctively, apologies and excuses raced through her head, but why bother putting a bandage on a broken arm. Unlike her father, she wasn’t naturally diplomatic. Her most significant faults were that she perpetually wore her heart on her sleeve and gave her opinion decidedly. Perhaps, it was a detriment to someone who needed to be more cunning in politics, but she preferred to let people know where she stood with them from the beginning.
“Forgive my tardiness.” She touched her hand to her chest, lacquering her words with a thick coat of sarcasm. “Had I known today was such an auspicious day, I would’ve hurried. I mean…” She sighed in a wistful, melodramatic fashion. “It’s not every day you pick your first sentinel.”
Tea was expectorated, china rattled in unsteady hands, and then the room fell quiet. For as long as Verity lived, she never wanted to forget the image of the pristine Nathania Obelisk spitting all over herself.
“Pardon me? Did you say you have chosen a sentinel?” She sputtered, setting the cup onto the flooded saucer and abandoning it on the side table as she turned on the Sovereign. “This meeting was set to discuss the Heir Apparent’s impending ascension.” She adjusted her posture, shoulders straight and chin high. “Should we see fit to allow it.”
Now seething, Rowan clenched his jaw, glaring at his heir. Clearly, she had given the game away and ruined the surprise. A small victory.
“Your failure to see the relevant connection is further evidence of how dangerously out of touch you are.” Avadiel interrupted. “Our daughter will be the first Divine Sovereign to rule Evren. She will be the head of a new pantheon.”
The withering look she shot back made Verity question if Obelisk had sucked down a slice of lemon when she had choked on her tea, even if she couldn’t enjoy it as much. She was too busy trying to confront the grim prospect of a future where she was expected to shoulder both the crown and the Infinite.
“A new pantheon,” Obelisk repeated, unchecked disdain dripping from each word. “How predictably blasphemous.”
“Whether you choose to accept it or not,” Rowan finally spoke, “the Dereliction disconnected Evren from the Infinite and derailed the course of its collective fate. Without a course correction to restore what the Paragons took from it, Evren will perish.”
“There is no reason to fear this, Nathania.” Avadiel’s voice was a velvet ribbon of soothing patronization. “The Soraline created the Infinite as a living, continuous thing. It birthed the Paragons, the Paragons birthed mortals, but Evren is the child of both. It requires a ruler who is capable of bridging the etheric and the physical. This is the natural progression of existence. It is inevitability coming full circle.”
“Constancy is the only cure for chaos.” Nathania corrected, reciting words that had become part of Zealot scripture in the absence of her former Patron. Bowing her head respectfully, strategically, she added, “Praise, Graced Valen. Order in all things.”
“Constancy is a poison that stagnates the cosmos. New life cannot prosper cast in the shadow of old, dead things.”
“For the sake of the argument,” the Chief Magistrate redirected to douse the quickly rising contention, “she may be touched by the divine, but how will the Heir Apparent be able to find someone worthy of her service if she is as grounded in the physical as the rest of us?”
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“The wisdom of the Infinite is not the exclusive right of those inhabiting it,” Kleio answered, sliding her hand from Avadiel’s grip to set the leather box on the table next to the tea tray, lifting the lid to reveal a drawstring pouch and a set of foxed cards.
“Divination? Oh, Kleio, that is truly tragic.” Obelisk laughed, aghast. “Are you so obsolete you’ve been reduced to working as a back alley charlatan?”
“Everyone needs a hobby.” Kleio grinned.
Nathania turned, seeking support. “Your Honor, surely you cannot possibly believe this nonsense.”
“Nonsense is a word used to define the limits of what mortals conceive as possible.” The Magistrate said. “A Paragon leaving the Infinite was once nonsense until it wasn’t.”
“This is absolutely absurd!”
Verity had never seen Nathania Obelisk this uncontrolled. It made her uneasy, off-kilter like she’d woken up in a different reality. Then again, the rate things were changing, maybe she had.
“Careful, Nat,” Kleio smirked. “Your envy is showing.”
“Oh, yes,” Nathania replied flatly. “I’m simply mad with jealousy over the fact that for the first time in recorded history, the Soraline spoke, and it happened to be to you.”
“Why not me?” Kleio postulated. “If the transcendence of my patron was the fall from grace you claim, then why was her Sentinel blessed with a divine heir that will forever strengthen the dynasty? Perhaps a promotion from prophet to oracle is their way of affirming that I backed the right Paragon.”
“Enough!” The Sovereign announced as he pushed up from the desk, everyone turning abruptly. “Legislature General, Chief Magistrate, this is not a debate. I have invited you to this momentous occasion because you have the right to witness it under the constitution. So, to avoid any more unnecessary bickering, this is what will happen: With the guidance of the Soraline, Verity will choose a Sentinel. Once they are located, the Captain will bring them to the palace. Seeing as the Temple of Infinite Wonder no longer has the capacity, I will oversee their training, to be concluded with their oath swearing immediately following Verity’s Ascension ceremony.” Winded, the Sovereign paused to catch his breath before asking, “Is any part of this plan unclear?”
“Nope,” Verity responded for the first time since she’d been given an opening without everyone speaking as if she weren’t even there. “Seems like you’ve got my future all figured out.”
“Kleio,” he addressed the prophet, even though his narrowed glare was directed in warning at Verity. “Please proceed.”
Motioning with her hand, Kleio called Verity forward. Daring anyone to protest that she shouldn’t sit on the floor, Verity lowered to her knees at the table facing Kleio.
“The Soraline don’t communicate directly, like a Paragon,” Kleio explained to Verity. “They operate more like a guide. They give you the map, but I’ll have to read it, okay?”
Verity nodded her understanding, and Kleio removed the pouch from the lockbox. The Captain moved behind the lounge, watching Kleio’s work with interest. Like Kleio, the Captain had invested greater interest in her than the Sovereign and the Divine Consort. If pressed, she’d admit that she liked him, but he always seemed to be on the periphery, like now, a constant presence in her orbit, but never really moving close enough to be more than a likable mystery.
“Great Fates above, witnesses to all that is known, knowers of a greater truth,” Kleio began, eyes closed in concentration as Obelisk leaned back, crossing both her legs and her arms, rather unimpressed. “We seek your guidance in matters outside our awareness. Please lend your wisdom to all that is, was, and ever will be.” Working it in her hand, Verity could hear clicking as her fingers jostled the contents. “Which worthy mortal will serve as Sentinel to the Graced Verity?” Loosening the cord cinching the mouth of the pouch, Kleio extended the bag to Verity. “Pick two.”
Slipping her hand through the dark void of the opening, the cool touch of polished stone brushed her fingertips, each marked by distinct grooves. Closing her fist around a handful of stones, she opened her grip as she pulled away, allowing all but two to fall from the gap made by her fingers. She presented them to Kleio — a beige stone marked with an O and gray stone marked with a C.
Taking them from Verity, Kleio set them aside, retrieving the well-worn oracle deck as the others craned their necks to get a better look at the stones. To Verity’s surprise, Kleio shuffled the cards with the finesse of someone who’d been doing this all her life, but she’d never known Kleio to be a practitioner. The realization she hadn’t unnerved her. Unlike the Captain, until now, she thought she’d learned everything there was to know about Kleio.
Separating the stack into three piles on the table, she flipped the first card on each smaller stack. The first card revealed the symbol for man. The second, mountain. The third, a key in the lock.
Obelisk leaned in over the card, raising a haughty brow. “Seems rather vague.”
“What does it mean?” Verity asked.
Methodically, Kleio examined the cards, ignoring the fidgeting and impatience of those waiting on her determination. When she finally looked up, it was directly at Verity and paused.
“Kleio.” Worry gnawed at Verity’s gut. “What does it mean?”
Taking a deep breath, she looked around the room to the others, each one of them restless with anticipation.“The Sentinel will be found in the Grand Soren Peaks,” she said matter-of-factly. “He is serving a sentence at the labor mine.”
“The Sentinel is a convict?” The Chief magistrate gasped. “Are you absolutely positive? Perhaps we should ask again?”
“I don’t require my work to be checked like some kid learning their times tables.” Kleio asserted.
Reaching for the stones, Verity picked them up, considering carved initials. O. C. Stinging heat crept up her neck. Then she clenched them in her hand as she looked back at the three cards face-up on the table. As usual, anything involving her was a delightful mess of Infinite-fucking-proportions.
“This has to be a mistake.” She said, but no one seemed to acknowledge her except the Captain, who cast her an apologetic look before shifting his weight off the back of the lounge, moving back to stand behind the Sovereign.
“None of this makes sense,” Rowan interjected. “Sentinels are chosen for our laudable qualities. How can a criminal be worthy to serve a Paragon.”
The floor shifted from beneath her, and the room teetered out of balance around her. Verity let the stones fall back to the table and braced her weight against the table to keep from keeling over. Then, she noticed Obelisk staring at something on the floor.
Using the table to support her weight, she bent to retrieve a stray card that had fallen to the floor. Obelisk studied the card, her lips pressed into a hard line, then averted her gaze back to Verity, assessing her with intense scrutiny.
“Divine servants are chosen for the qualities their patron deem laudable.” Obelisk jeered, chucking the card to the table, and it landed diagonally across the other three, the image of a palace built on a mount, cast into flames and ruin. “Perhaps the Prophet is as blessed as claims. Who else but a degenerate criminal could ever serve a daughter of chaos?”
The odor of smoke filled the room before Verity realized what she had done. Energy crackled under her palms, searing her handprints into the hardwood table as flames licked across the surface in tiny waves. Hissing, Obelisk snatched her hand from where it rested on the table, cradling it against her chest, scowling at Verity.
Hands were guiding Verity by the shoulders before she could even conjure the words to apologize. Before the door closed, she caught the morose look of complete disappointment on her father’s face and fury on her mother’s. Turning away in absolute disgrace, she convulsed, and Kleio instinctively wrapped an arm around her back to help support her weight. It wasn’t that Verity hadn’t lost control before. When she had first come into her power as a child, accidents had been commonplace. But, in losing her temper, regardless of being provoked, she’d actually hurt Nathania Obelisk, and for that, she felt painted in shame.