Page 111 of Threaded

All eyes in the room snapped to her. She could only gaze blankly ahead, her mind racing. Then, her movements slow, she stood from the couch and padded softly into her bedroom, heading straight for the side of her bed. She dropped to her knees and slid a hand beneath the heavy mattress, drawing out theGinnelevébook where she'd kept it hidden, the gray cover embossed in silver.

Mariah hadn’t opened it since that day she’d read from it, driven by a wave of curiosity, then chased away by feelings of terror at the words she’d found within. She’d fought desperately to push those words from her mind, but had still kept the book hidden, touching it only once to move it to a hidden recess in her closet while her room had been cleaned and cleared of all traces of the Uroboros. She’d replaced it back beneath her mattress on the same night she stopped staying with Andrian, some instinct urging her to keep it close and safe and hidden.

She walked back into the living room, the weight of the stares of her court like lead upon her skin, and when she stood back before them she flipped open the book to the page she’d first turned to, when she’d sat comfortably on the window seat in her room. Back when she’d still felt excitement for her new life, before lingering uncertainty and fear had crept its way into every shadow of her mind.

In a soft voice, she read the words out loud to the room:

“I dreamed of silver and gold flames, of leathery wings both blazing and shadowed.

I dreamed of that which was feared, saving us all.”

The room was so quiet, the near-silent wing beats of Attlehonian Eagles, great birds of prey that prowled the skies just beyond the spires of the palace, could be heard filtering in through the open windows.

“Mariah,” said Sebastian, his voice carefully controlled. “What is that?”

She lifted her gaze from the pages, her mind blank as she retold the story from the night before her twenty-first birthday, the night before her life changed forever, her voice lacking emotions as that careful wall in her mind threatened to crack and break and fall.

“It belonged to my mom. When she gave it to me, she said it contained wisdom accumulated over many generations. That whenever I felt truly lost, it would tell me everything I needed to know.” She paused, looking back at the book, inspecting the binding and the pages more closely. “Although … it looks to be in awfully good shape for a supposedly ancient book, doesn’t it?”

No one answered her. They only watched her with steadily growing curiosity, waiting for her to piece together the missing links in her head.

“I met a strange woman on the night of thePorofirat. She found me on a balcony. Told me the journal I’d been gifted would guide me, but I needed to let whatever was inside it lead me.” She glanced at a wild blue stare. “I then saw the same woman being chased by Shawth’s men through the game park.” Andrian narrowed his eyes but said nothing, even as murmurs of excited confusion raced through the rest of the gathered group.

Mariah supposed she was the only one who felt dread unspooling in her stomach, right there with the threads of her magic.

She fanned the pages, the words on them blurring together, until she landed on the final entry. She didn’t recognize the handwriting, but tucked in the binding was a folded piece of parchment. She carefully removed the paper before setting the book onto the small table beside her, the room falling unearthly silent once again. With trembling hands, she unfolded it, and when she saw the words written neatly on the page, she felt her heart drop completely out of her chest.

The handwriting … it was her mother’s.

But that wasn’t what shocked her completely. She’d figured her mother had left an entry or two in the book before passing it to her.

What shocked her was that the page wasn’t a journal entry, but a letter.

A letter addressed to Mariah.

Mariah inhaled deeply, the air thick with heavy anticipation, and began to read the letter out loud.

To my daughter, the brilliant light of my life, Mariah:

If you are reading this, then everything I felt and thought from the moment you came into this world is true, and now a reality.

Until now, I have not even permitted myself to think it. Thoughts can be just as deadly as words, and those that lurk in the dark know how to draw even our most suppressed memories out to be used against us. So, to protect you, I allowed myself this letter, using the last drop of magic that I carry in my veins to create a place to tell you the full truth, a place to seal away all my suspicions and knowledge from even myself, until the day comes when you are strong enough to fulfill the destiny I saw for you.

The first of my confessions to you, my daughter, is about that magic. In our family, it has always manifested differently. Our gifts are remarkable, and utterly unique from any other on the continent.

This is because our magic is not a gift from Qhohena.

It is a gift from her sister, Zadione.

And everything that has ever been taught to you about the silver goddess, the Goddess of Death and Darkness, is a lie.

The name “Ginnelevé” belonged to my mother, and her mother before her, to me. It is the name of our female line, never spoken but never forgotten. The first Ginnelevé was Xara’s equivalent, hand-chosen instead by Zadione to serve as advisor to the new Golden Queen, the first and only Silver Priestess. She was meant to be the physical embodiment of our Goddess on the earth, the other side to the same coin, the balance to the scales.

For Zadione is—and has always been—so much more than the Goddess of Death. She is also the Goddess of the Wilds, of passion, of free will, of everything untamed. She is Qhohena’s necessary equal, as important to the world as her sister.

For what is life, of living, without the knowledge and wildness and uncertainty of death?

But then … Xara lost the First War. The true knowledge of what Zadione is to this world was lost, just as she was taken from it. The blame for the loss was passed to her, and the only reminder of her existence was her silver moon still hanging in the sky and the kernel of her magic still flowing in the first Ginnelevé’s veins.

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