Page 37 of Return of the Darkness
“There is an air about you—authority, certainty.” Athena finally looked up with wide hazel eyes, blowing a tuft of grey hair from her vision. “Like a queen.” Her lip quirked as she brushed her hands on her splattered apron, knocking fragments of dried sage onto the floor.
“We are not yet married. I am still a princess.” Sadira smiled and approached the counter, placing the silver trinket box before Athena. The old Wiccan did not immediately look at the box but watched Sadira with a tilted head.
“The marriage is merely a formality. You are and always have been destined to be a queen. And remember, queen or not, you still owe me a secret.” Sadira recalled the woman’s last words from her previous visit, a secret owed in exchange for knowing Athena’s secret: she was Wiccan, and a skilled one at that. Though it was information that did not need to remain a secret. Not when neither Caellum nor Sadira would condemn the race as Wren and Jorah had before them. The old woman pulled the box towards her and flicked open the lids. Her hands stilled. She glanced at Sadira through her lashes. “Where did you find these?” she whispered, wide-eyed. Athena knew something.
“The king found them in his father’s belongings.”
A phantom of a smile traced Athena’s lips as she whispered, seemingly to herself. “That would make sense.”
“Why?”
She did not reply. Instead, Athena reached for the candle at the edge of the countertop, bringing it into her eye line and squinting. She hovered the pin with the wolf's head by the flame to better see the engravings. Patiently, Sadira waited as Athena switched between the pins, pausing longer on the one Sadira could also not discern, the symbol similar to the Wiccan one but harsher in its lines.
“This one.” Athena held up one. It was the symbol of the Brodie Clan, her family lineage from the non-royal side, which she had learned from the Wiccans in Albyn. It matched the one on her book.
“It is the symbol of the Wiccan,” Athena said, and Sadira frowned.
“Not a specific clan?” Athena raised an eyebrow, moving the wrinkles on her forehead.
“Once, yes, but they were the first clan, thus it became the symbol forallWiccans.” Sadira nodded slowly in understanding. Her family line from her great-grandfather’s side, Lyra’s father, had been the very first Wiccan clan. Perhaps even the first ever Wiccan.
“Who would wear such a pin?” Sadira asked, and Athena shrugged.
“It could simply be an old pin worn by Wiccans to identify themselves to others of their kind.”
“Then why would it be in the Balfour family's possessions?” asked Sadira. Caellum’s family had no connection to the Wiccan lineage. Jorah himself had outlawed them on Garridon. Athena frowned, swaying where she sat on her stool, the pins slipping from her fingers and clinking against the table. When the old woman clutched her head, Sadira rushed around the counter to join her, steadying Athena on her stool. Sadira glanced at the window, wondering whether to summon her personal guard, Taryn.
“I am fine,” Athena mumbled, waving Sadira off. “I have had odd visions recently.”
“Of the future?” Sadira asked, recalling Athena had onceforeseen the creatures’ attack. Athena shook her head.
“I cannot tell.”
“Memories,” Sadira murmured. Athena glanced at her, pouring a liquid into a glass. She glugged it before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and focusing on the pins again. “There is a man from different lands.” At that, Athena finally met Sadira’s gaze. “He said there was a power withholding the memories of those on Novisia; he said when the prophecy was triggered, people would begin remembering things.” Athena glanced at a painting on the back wall, hidden by trailing plants. Sadira could barely discern its contents, though it appeared to be a castle hidden amongst towering tree trunks, with a slumped body on the castle wall, and a red-headed woman lifting a sword. What had prompted Athena to look at it?
“A painting from a story?” Sadira asked, but Athena simply frowned and turned her attention back to the pins.
“Who is this man?”
“Osiris,” Sadira said.
“Last name?” Sadira opened her mouth to answer but realised she did not know.
“Can you trust the information of a man who has not revealed everything he possibly could?” Athena stared at the pin with the unreadable symbol, gripping the counter’s edge and squinting.
“Please, let me get help,” Sadira begged. Athena shook her head before shooting up to meet Sadira’s stare. She dropped the pin in a pot of ink. When her voice emerged from her throat, it echoed throughout the room and sent shivers along Sadira’s arms.
“What once was hidden can again be found,
Listen to the land and understand you are bound.
A reverse, a reflection, a sister, a mirror,
Find the truth beneath you and all will be clearer.
Healing and prophecies, curses and spells,
One abides, one rebels.
