Page 48 of A Sky of Emerald Stars

“I don’t believe you.” I laughed bitterly. “What reason have you given me to trust you?”

I looked all around me, studying the place and trying to ignore him. When I got a waft of fresh flatbread, I turned from him and started stalking toward the smell of food, my stomach rumbling. A trail of water droplets was left in my wake as I took the third tunnel down into a massive kitchen. Tables dotted the airy open space, covered in bowls of fruits and greens. Clay stoves and firepits lined one wall, one still smoking with a fresh plate of flatbread beside it. I hustled over, lifting the cloth that covered the plate and snatching a piece. I moaned as the garlic and oil flavors lit up my tongue, and I hungrily took another giant bite.

“Here,” Navin offered, setting a bowl of red dipping spices beside me.

I kept my back to him and continued to eat, the need to fill my belly suddenly overwhelming. It was only once I’d eaten a whole piece of flatbread and was on to my second that I noticed a knife sitting at the edge of the table next to some chopped figs. I grabbed the knife and set it closer on the table beside me.

“Still thinking of killing me?” Navin asked from where he perched against the tabletop. “If you kill me, there’ll be no getting out of this place, remember? I’d hoped that wouldn’t be the only reason you’d want to keep me alive, but still,” he mused, “it’s worth mentioning.”

I picked up the blade and flicked it back and forth in my hand. Not as satisfying as my own knives but still it felt good to have a weapon. “It would feel so good to drive this into your heart,” I said quietly as I turned to look at him. I brushed crumbs from my nearly dry dress. “Maybe it would be worth it.”

His eyes narrowed at me as one cheek dimpled. “But you won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you want to live,” he said, his eyes scanning me up and down again. “And because even though you hate yourself for it, you still care for me.”

I guffawed, crumbs flying from my mouth. “I absolutely do not.”

Navin folded his arms across his chest. “It would be much easier if that was true, wouldn’t it?” His lips curved, but his eyes were sad. “Come, I’ll show you everything.”

Sadie

Sunlight filtered into the gilded library. Light wood shelves stretched up to where the roof began to slope with rolling golden ladders on either side of the aisles. A burgundy carpet bisected the room upon which sat tables strewn with giant tomes, scrolls, and maps. It looked more impressive than the temple of knowledge in Damrienn, more gilded than the castle of Olmdere, the frescoed ceilings more beautiful than any painting I’d ever seen before.

I walked through the space, taking it all in as Navin walked to the center table littered with books. Histories written in four of the Aotrean languages lay in front of me along with sheets and sheets of music. Navin’s long fingers traced over one of the sheets. Blotted with ink, it seemed hastily scribbled by someone, the browning curled edges denoting its age.

“Long before the written word,” he said, peeking up at me and then back down to the page, “there was song. Songs were the first magic in the world. Songs did far more than tell our people’s stories. They mended and they moved. They created and they destroyed.” His eyes flicked up to me and he said, “And then the Wolves came.” I shuddered as he passed me another scroll, reading over the poem of the Wolves appearing from the sky.

“The Onyx Mountains?” I flipped over the page. “Is this... Valta?”

“Those mountains weren’t always there in the sky,” he said, passing me another piece of paper. One of the faded yellowing pages was a map, but where the telltale spots of floating mountains usually were was nothing but desert sand. “One day, as the songs go, the sun vanished from the sky. The whole world went dark. And when the light shone again, there were mountains in the sky and Wolves roamed the land.”

I shook my head. “Our histories say the humans arrived on our shores, bringing their monsters along with them, begging the Wolves to rid them of the creatures.”

Navin weighed his head side to side. “The humans did beg in the end,” he said. “It was our own folly. When the Wolves came, they wanted our song magic, and not just the smaller tunes. They wanted the eternal songs—the ones that created and destroyed. When the humans denied them, the Wolves attacked.” He passed me another sheet of music. “And so we did what we did best. We sang something new into creation.” He twisted one of the heavy leather-bound tomes toward me, a painting of a juvleck battling an ostekke on the page.

I sucked in a breath. “Humanscreatedthe monsters?”

“They were meant to battle the Wolves, to protect us and our secrets.” His throat bobbed and he nodded. “They were once within our control.”

My mind spun so fast I thought I might topple over. “Like the way Rasil controls the samsavet?”

“Yes,” Navin said. “Rasil’s grandfather created that samsavet, and the beast is still controlled by his direct descendants through song and blood. But that creature’s creation came at a great cost to the world.”

“What about the other monsters? What happened to that control?”

“More and more were created, more hastily and by those who didn’t possess a strong enough hold on their magic. This place wasonce a bastion for the Songkeepers. A refuge filled with hundreds of musicians who wielded the magical songs in the wars...” He shook his head, sorting through the stacks of paper and books. “The Songkeepers were dying in droves. If their magic didn’t consume them, they died in the ancient wars. So few were left with the eternals songs to protect humankind... Our sect was almost entirely destroyed.” His fingertips trailed delicately over the pages. “You’d think we’d have learned the cost of wielding such magic was too great, but they were desperate times and the War of Wolves demanded more and more power from us. But all magic comes at a price, a balance that the humans weren’t respecting.”

“Like the giving of one’s soul for a dying wish,” I murmured, studying a painting of a golden scale weighing two orbs—one golden, one emerald. The gold was the same shade that now scarred Calla’s body, the emerald a perfect match to Sawyn’s lightning bolts. My limbs felt light. My fingers tingled as I mindlessly turned through the pages.

“The creation of monsters needed a counterbalance. Their creation brought dark magic into the world.” Navin continued on quicker as I whipped my head toward him. “That dark magic found the first hosts that would claim it. It turned some on both sides into the first sorcerers.” I sucked in a sharp breath. “In the end, humans were so plagued by the beasts that they’d created, and the sorcerers that had turned to the darkness because of their creation, that they begged the Wolves to save them. Humans vowed they’d lay down their magic and never bring dark magic into the world again. They knelt to the Wolves, promised that they’d make them kings and Gods if they saved us.” I gaped at the pages. “That is where our stories can agree at least.”

“When Rasil’s grandfather created that samsavet?” I whispered as my heartbeat thundered in my ears. “That created dark magic.”

“At a terrible price. One he and I both paid for our whole lives along with the rest of our court.” Navin’s eyes glassed over. “The dark magic that samsavet created was claimed by Sawyn.”

“By all the Gods.” I braced my hands on the table to keep from toppling over. My cheeks flamed, my stomach clenched, and bile burned its way up my throat. “I thought sorcerers were created by death magic. I thought it was through their killing that the darkness took over.”

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