Page 66 of An Empress of Air & Chaos

Torin tried to control the vicious rising of rage in his chest as Viktir poured from the decanter that always sat on top of his desk. Before taking a sip, he swirled the liquid in his glass and said, “You will not speak of the weakening wards to the clan. Instead, you will focus on what you can do to impress the Empress of Air at the annual uplift.” He sipped the liquid and savoured the taste on his tongue before saying, “That, my son, is your concern.”

Torin’s body trembled with anger.

“Now, see yourself out. There is work to be done here that you cannot even comprehend.”

Torin rose slowly from his chair, as the thirst to smack his father in the face almost overcame any sensibility. He crossed the room to the door, thinking about how much he wanted to rip the solid wood from its hinges.Challenging your commander was one of the worst offences you could commit as a hunter. And Torin was the closest he had ever been to it. As he opened the door, he looked over his shoulder. He wondered if his father had been born without a heart, or if he was so conditioned to life as a hunter that his heart had emptied of everything that made him human. Viktir sat at his desk, the ruthless Blacksteel Commander, and Torin saw what his future looked like. Lonely and bleak and resentful.

With the promise of a loveless marriage in front of him, this was what his future looked like, and it was something Torin wanted to run in the opposite direction from.

It had taken some time for Emara to sneak out of the tower and get to Mossgrave by foot, but when she arrived she headed straight for her grandmother’s art gallery. There had been a light flurry of rain, but nothing that her borrowed cloak didn’t keep out. Thankful that she had kept a key to the gallery in her personal box, she walked up the cobblestone path with it tightly in her palm. Looking around, the village was eerie in the quiet of winter, but also in the stillness of destruction. Clearly, the Gods had been protecting her grandmother’s gallery as no flames or demons had touched the exterior of the brick building. Maybe it was blessed by magic?

Pushing the key into the lock, she felt the weight of the mechanics click and she pushed down on the handle. Before going inside, Emara surveyed the street to make sure no eyes watched.

Her grandmother’s art gallery had three rooms. The first room had whitewashed walls splashed with colourful art as you walked in the door. A counter was set up where her customers could pay their coin and have their art packaged.

She felt a pull in her heart knowing that her grandmother would never stand in the main gallery again, welcoming the villagers or the Elite customers who travelled to purchase the paintings. The gallery held another room that was situated in the back, used for storage and supplies. But Emara knew she wasn’t headed there, either. She was headed to the gallery’s third room. A room she was never allowed to venture into.

Emara walked to the painting of a sunset that loitered behind the trees of a forest and ran her hand down the back. She had witnessed her grandmother do it many times before. Feeling her hand brush over something cool, she gripped it in between two fingers.

“There you are,” she murmured.

She pulled the brass key from its safe place and headed to the third room of the gallery.

Her grandmother’s private room.

She remembered being rushed through the space as a child, but she had never taken in much of what it held. As she had gotten older, her grandmother had forbidden her to go into that room, saying the natural light would affect the art pieces she had stored in there.

Pushing the brass key into the door, it clicked twice and then the door sprung open. The lighting in the room was a dark crimson, and before any natural light could make its way to the art, she swerved around the door and closed herself inside.

At first, it was overwhelming as the red light filtered into the darkness of the room, casting unnerving shadows onto the wall. She blinked a few times to adjust her eyes to the lighting and it seemed to do the trick.

Emara walked slowly, taking it all in, everything that her grandmother had painted in secret. She couldn’t believe the amount of artwork that was collected in this small room, and most of the paintings were of women.

All women of magical origin.

She had painted them bathing in water, dancing naked under a full moon, expressing themselves, owning their bodies. She had painted females who walked through fire, unapologetically. Women who gathered air around themselves as they moved mountains. Girls who grew flowers and were surrounded by wildlife. Women who sat bedecked with cards and crystals.

Emara studied all the paintings in awe.

Witches. The women are witches. They were women who were all beautifully in touch with their own magic. Their element. Women of empowerment.

That was all Emara needed to confirm who her grandmother had been, of the life she had once lived. There was no doubt in her mind that that was who Theodora Clearwater had been once upon a time.

But what happened?

Emara turned to face the middle of the room. A large painting hung as a centrepiece in a golden frame that swirled around a grand portrait of watercolour. Emara’s eyes filled with emotion as she took in her grandmother dressed in a black gown with a spectacular crown displayed on her head, of gilded golds, dancing rubies, and stones of onyx black. She looked down to her hands and a platinum ring gleamed, bearing the initial ‘S.’

Supreme.

In the painting, Theodora Clearwater looked only a year or two older than Emara was now. She was radiant and sovereign. Looking around, it was the only portrait that didn’t have her grandmother’s initials engraved on it, which told her she hadn’t painted it. Someone else had.

A dark painting caught Emara’s eye from the side. A woman who was depicted as her grandmother, taking off her crown and passing it to a beautiful girl as she sat on a starlit throne. As she looked at the painting, she realised that her own mother’s eyes stared back, but it was not honey brown hair that flowed down her shoulders. No, the girl’s hair was midnight black.

Emara stumbled back as she took in the face on the painting.

It was her.

She looked down to a corner of the painting, and the date was signed five days after her birth. Had this been what her grandmother envisioned? Was this her prophecy? It couldn’t be.

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