Page 109 of Daughter Of The Ninth Line
What I’m about to tell you is of the utmost importance, Avalon. You control the fate of Ebrus. The lives of hundreds of thousands of people rests on your shoulders and will be decided by your decisions.
You are a Recreationist. Long before the Line system, before even the Halhed name, our ancestors were the hands of Fate, directed by the Goddess herself. She used us to shape her favored children into something that could be great. Something she was proud of.
But as with every child, they eventually grow and change, no longer yours to control. Some flourish and some fail. That’s the nature of life.
However, for thousands of years, we failed more than we flourished, until even our family’s powers dwindled far from what we once were. The last women in our Line gave themselves to the Goddess’s temples to keep Her knowledge, cursing our Line to bear only sons.
For centuries, it remained the same. Enough power to influence pivotal points, shifting small fates, but not restoring what we once were. Until Hopus Vylan gave us hope, and I was born, a herald of a new age. But love, like hope, is fickle. Ivan Vylan ripped it away once more, and I fled. The vision of the future where I stayed was too bleak to contemplate.
Then I saw you. The Ninth Daughter of the Ninth Line, so full of promise and power. A life filled with tragedy, but asoul that remained so pure and ready to love. You were the next turning point, and so much hung on your shoulders.
Although I can’t be there for you—I am probably just dust on the Veria ice plains by now—I can give you the knowledge gifted to me by our Goddess, through the magic of our Line.
I can’t tell you what will happen. I can only tell you what has happened before, so you aren’t doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over.
Read the books. Learn from our mistakes.
Eternally yours,
Ellanora Halhed.
I stared at the paper, letting the sheets slip through my fingers. What did that all even mean?
I reached for the books, but the doors to the library banged open. Instructor Perot appeared, his expression harried. “Librarian, we have a problem. You have to get to safety.”
She shook her head. “There is nowhere safer than the library.” She said it with such conviction, I couldn’t help but be in complete agreement.
“Enora, please,” he whispered, and I realized that he wasn’t just asking as another staff member. The Librarian and Instructor Perot were a thing. Lovers?
I screwed up my nose. I didn’t want to think about that too hard.
“It’s fine. I promise,” she murmured to him softly.
He gripped her shoulders. “It isn’t. Svenna and the Vylan Heir are out on the beach, trying to work out who?—”
I didn’t hear the rest. I was already running, Braxus at my side. I should’ve known Vox would put himself in danger. I should’ve known he wouldn’t be like the rest of us, following orders and staying inside the atrium.
Where was Master Proxius? Why was it Vox, and not one of the instructors out there with Svenna?
Pushing my way through the crowd, I couldn’t see through the windows, though I could hear the confused murmuring.
“What’s she doing?”
“Who is that?”
“Is Svenna a traitor?”
I didn’t pause to see what they were talking about. Something inside me was pushing me to get out of the atrium. I needed to have Vox’s back.
I slammed through the doors that led to the courtyard too late. My eyes had to be lying to me, as Vox turned the gun in his hand and pointed it at his chest.
Why was hedoingthat?
I was running across the cobblestones before I even heard the gunshot. I screamed, the sound ricocheting around the thick stone walls, and the man in front of Vox whipped his head toward me. I didn’t even pay attention to him, my eyes focused solely on the crumbling body of Vox.
“No!” I sobbed, skidding to a stop beside him. Braxus growled, leaping between the man and me, snarling and snapping, his bark drowning out my pleas to the Goddess. “No, Vox. Please, please, please, stay with me.” I pressed my hand to his chest, blood and shredded flesh oozing through the gaps in my fingers. I almost knew the pain he was feeling, an echo of it in my own chest. “Goddess,please.”
People were yelling, and there were soldiers coming up the path behind the man who’d killed Vox. I didn’t know how, but I knew it was his fault.
