What seems like mere minutes later, I’m shaken out of a deep, dreamless sleep by a panicked Bronwyn. “Veda, get up! We have to go!”
When I snap awake, she’s pulling me up by the arms and I sit bolt upright. “What’s happening?”
“Flooding … In the main cavern and moving fast. We have to get to higher ground now.”
“Where’s Dorian?” I ask, and the minute the words leave my mouth, the way Bronwyn pauses a fraction of a second, I realize it was probably the strangest question for me to ask. “I mean…”
“He’s fine. With the Sindaco and the other officers.”
I nod. Really, Veda? Instead of, How can I help? Or, Is everyone safe? Or, Is there damage? for some Sun-forsaken reason, I ask about Dorian.
Bronwyn and I sprint through the tunnels, the trickling of water growing closer and closer.
“Shouldn’t we be running away from the flooding?” I ask.
“This is the closest way to higher ground.”
Higher ground? “We’re going up to the island?”
“No … It’s not that bad yet. Just to the Crag.”
The rock floor is slippery, at least half an inch of standing water turning the already smooth surface into slick stone, our boots sliding with each quick step. We run into several others along the same route and the narrow tunnel grows tighter and tighter, the air thinner and thinner.
Shoulder to shoulder, our boots collectively slosh through the low flood. There’s a constant low chatter full of “What if the water rises?” and “What if we have to go up to the island?” and “We’re not ready for battle!” Hell, I don’t even know my way to the Crag.
I feel a tug on the sleeve of my shirt. “Will we have to go to the Upper?” one boy asks, looking up at me over the flicker of his lantern as we stumble through the damp darkness. “Is our army ready to fight the Imperi?”
And despite not having the faintest idea how to fight anything other than a fish on the end of a hook, I stop dead, lean down to his level, and lie. “Whenever our army has to go up, whether it’s in five minutes or in five years, we’ll be ready.” I’m literally lying through my teeth because I have no idea.
Doe-eyed, slowly, he nods his head up and down, and I decide the lie was worth it.
Then I realize everyone’s stopped.
All eyes are on me. A few appear near tears. Several smile. Most wear an expression of hardened strength. One I know well. It tells the story of someone who’s fought in one way or another all their lives. I suppose you don’t have to have physically fought to be ready for battle.
We’re all warriors here.
The Sindaco’s words about how I’ve been a part of the Night, their history, their family for years edges to the surface. I’m seeing it firsthand and it terrifies me.
While their belief in their Lunalette is heartwarming, it stirs the nausea already building in my belly, sending signals to my brain that shout, “Impostor!” and “Liar!” and “You can’t do this!”
But before I shrink too small, we’re back en route. Our feet are soaked and our breathing is labored and sharp, but eventually we reach the Crag and an enormous cavern full of what must be the majority of the Night.
It’s cramped, but there’s still room to breathe.
The space—nearly as tall as the volcano is wide—echoes and buzzes with organized chaos. Several officers are calling out orders, rounding people up in groups, assigning them tasks and rotating them out while others sleep.
Bronwyn and I are shuffled into a line with several of those around us. An officer assigns the kids in our group trash duty; the adults are tasked with gathering any and all dry bedding they can find, while Bronwyn, me, and the rest of our group are to refill canteens with fresh drinking water from a nearby spring and check on anyone who’s missing or injured. All of us are told to get a few hours’ rest after we’ve finished.
Only a handful of people were hurt slipping on the wet cave floors or scraped in the dark, but nothing life threatening. No one’s missing, though one little girl claims she’s forgotten her favorite blanket back in her cave. Bronwyn gives her one of Dorian’s tiny glass animals—a cat. Apparently, she grabbed a handful on her way out of her cave where she has an entire menagerie stashed away, which only further endears me to Dorian.
Once we’ve made our rounds through our assigned section of the upper caverns and at least three trips to the spring and back, we’re to rest until the lower tunnels and caves—where most of the living quarters are—are out of danger of flooding further.
There’s one pillow and one mat for Bronwyn and me to share. We end up giving it to a woman with three young children and use our jackets for pillows, lying on the cold stone floor, which, honestly, is welcome after all the back-and-forth we’ve been doing.
Instantly, I drift off, but awaken to a loud crash. I sit up to find the noise was only the rumbling of thunder outside the not-so-thick walls of the volcano and that Bronwyn, who was right beside me when I fell asleep, is now gone.
Worried I must have slept through our next shift, I set out to find her. Why the Sun would she let me sleep?
Only a few days ago, anywhere I went, I caught straying eyes—questioning looks of speculation and longing gazes of admiration, both. Now? Here amid organized chaos? I’m just another member of the Night. But at the moment, no one’s paying me any mind. And it’s nice.
I weave in and out of sleeping bodies on the floor, members handing out food, smaller groups of two and three rushing here and there, carrying buckets of flood water and sand inside burlap bags.
When I return to the officer who initially assigned our tasks, some other soldier’s taken his place. I ask a few people about Bronwyn, but no one knows where anyone is, much less someone not in their group. Though she can’t be that far.
I leave through the same tunnel we used to get water and then head toward the spring.
But when I’m sure I’ll see the small hole of fresh water around the next corner, I hit a dead end.
I retrace my steps, and somehow end up at a fork I know I didn’t encounter before. I flip a mental coin and go right, snake back and forth down a long, narrow cave. This tunnel opens up, then descends down some rocky stairs where I trudge through a knee-deep puddle no one’s cleared yet, making a mental note to tell someone about it once I find my way back.
From there, the cave goes up. And up. And up some more until I recognize where I am by the ladder before me and the mumbling of voices not far above.
The Sindaco’s office.
I freeze, stuck between finding my own damn way out of here and not wanting to be caught looking like I’m eavesdropping.
I try my best to think back to when Dorian and I were here a few days ago … Which way did we go to get back? We definitely didn’t go down where that puddle was, so if I keep going, I should find my way out.
Hopefully.
I’ll chance it. I can always come back and ask for help if I need it.
Decision made. Two steps forward and I’m startled by the whack of metal on stone—a door opening—then, “Sir, you must tell her.” It’s Dorian, his voice raised, an angry edge to it. Surely, he’s not speaking to …
“Please understand my position here.” The Sindaco. “I need her to trust me—to trust us, the Night. I can’t risk overwhelming her with too much at once.”
“But, sir—”
“She knows she’s the Lunalette.” My stomach drops, that nausea reaching right up into my throat. “How could I possibly explain her father’s still alive?”
I gasp, but thankfully swallow it down.
Dorian takes a deep breath. “I understand, I do, but think of how much more she’ll trust and respect you—respect us, her role as Lunalette—if we’re honest.”
There’s a long pause.
“I’ve thought long and hard about this, Dorian. She needs more time.”
“She’s heir to Bellona … What she needs is time to swallow that!”
“Enough.”
“Please, sir, at least consider it?”
“I said enough!” Silence. “Now. We have flooding to deal with.”
I know I should get out of there, run as far away as fast as I possibly can, but my feet are cement. I’m holding out. Hoping they’ll say something more, clue me in to where my father is, discuss this heir-to-Bellona thing, which I can’t even begin to fathom and causes me to run my hand over the scar on my chest.
But they’ve been quiet too long.
And before I can get out of there, Dorian’s jumped the last several rungs of the ladder and stands before me.
“Did you just…?” But I don’t hear the end of his sentence because I turn and take off down the tunnel.
“VEDA, WAIT!”
I ignore him and keep walking. I can’t deal with this right now. I just can’t. If Dorian and the Sindaco have been lying to me about something this significant, I can’t trust either of them.
I’m going to get answers from the one and only person I know I can trust. My grandfather. Now.
“Please stop. You have no idea where you’re going,” Dorian pleads.
“I’ll find my way.” Glancing over my shoulder, I see that he’s not far behind me now.
“No. I’m serious, STOP!”
When I turn my head forward, there’s only five steps or so of cave ahead and then … nothing. Blackness. I hold the lantern out before me. It’s a drop-off. So steep, I can’t begin to see the ground below.
I stumble back, grip the rock wall behind me, and then slide down onto the ground. “Someone should really block that off,” I manage.
“There’s nothing on this side of the volcano—no one ever comes out this far. Those who do know to avoid it.”
I swallow hard, taking a shaky breath in. “My father’s alive?” I finally say. Dorian nods. “Where the hell’s he been all these years, then?”
Dorian doesn’t answer, only stares, brow knit. Finally, “You didn’t hear our whole conversation back there, did you?”
I glare at him. “Apparently not.” He shifts his position, shoves his hands into his pockets, glances ahead into the nothingness. Stalling. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Dorian shakes his head, then begins speaking so quietly that I have to strain to hear him. “I’ll be going against his wishes—his orders—but you heard most of it on your own. I have no choice.” He slides down the wall and takes a seat beside me.
Turning his head to face mine, Dorian makes eye contact over the slowly dimming lamp between us. He leans in closer. “Your father’s alive. But you must believe me when I say, I swear, I didn’t know until last night in the memorial room. I didn’t realize it until we discovered who your mother was. I mean, I’d always known her memory was special, that the Sindaco held her in great regard for her sacrifice. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.” He pauses, lets a breath out. “I don’t know, but you being here? It’s like everything suddenly came together.” I realize I’m leaning in too, that our hands are nearly touching. “Veda?”
“Yes?” I whisper.
“Your father’s the Sindaco.”
“Yeah, right.” I shake my head, releasing a sort of snort-hiccup.
Dorian’s eyes turn stern. “I’m dead serious. The Sindaco’s real name is Vincent Raevald. You said they never married, which would explain why you took your mother’s surname, another reason I never put it together. I don’t think of the Sindaco as ‘Vincent’; he’s extremely private about his past, never speaks of it. I had no idea he was your father.”
“Truly. You had no idea,” I say, my tone monotone, body numb with shock.
“Truly.” He inserts the emotion I’m lacking. Well, not lacking so much as unwilling to muster. Incapable of exploring right now.
I pull my knees to my chest and try to rub the headache erupting between my eyes with my palms. Could it possibly be true? Dorian has no reason to lie. Especially about this of all things. He wants me to stay, and, if anything, he’d know this new revelation would push me away.
What had the Sindaco said? That he didn’t want to dump too much information on me at once? That checks out too. He definitely wants me to stay and play Lunalette. Why push me away before I’ve had a chance to wrap my mind around the first shock by hitting me over the head with another?
I’m quiet for a long while, but don’t realize quite how long until I see the lantern is fading and that Dorian has resorted to patiently pelting small pebbles against the cave wall like he’s playing a game.
Raevald … If it’s true and my father’s last name is Raevald … “Wait.” I finally break the silence. Dorian whips his head toward mine, dropping the handful of gravel. “So…” The word heir repeats over and over in my head until it’s only noise. Nonsensical gibberish. “If my father’s last name is Raevald, he’s related to THE Raevald—as in, High Regent—which would make me…”
“His granddaughter. Your father—the Sindaco—is his son. The Imperi High Regent is your grandfather.”
I’m shaking my head. It can’t be. It’s impossible. “Whether it’s true or not I have to go back up. I’ve got to speak with my grandfather—my actual grandfather—Poppy. I need to hear this from him.”
“I understand, I do, but you can’t. Not now. The Imperi’s planning another Night of Reckoning. It’s too risky.”
“What?”
He nods. “Tomorrow night.” He squints at his hourglass. “I mean, tonight.” He scrubs his tired eyes with his hands.
My Sun, it’s all lies. All made up by the Imperi. “Then I definitely have to go back up and warn Poppy.”
“Veda—”
I grab the lantern, stand, and—for once—tower over him. “Dorian Winters, either you show me how the hell to get back up to Bellona or your Lunalette will find her own way or die trying.” I put my free hand on my hip. “Your choice, but I’m going this way.” I walk past him.
I don’t hear any sign Dorian moves, and then, suddenly, he’s right behind me. “Fine.” He throws his hands up. “You win.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I can’t help but say it, but my tone is dry.
Dorian sighs. “I said”—he holds his hand out for the lantern—“You. Win.” I hand it over. “But only because, like an idiot, I promised you I’d take you back after and only after you’d given us a chance.” He motions we take the tunnel to the left. “I’d say you’ve done that. Plus, I should check on my uncle, make some hourglasses, a few pantera fish.”
“See? It all works out.”
“Yes. Perfect. We just have to get past the Sindaco—he won’t be happy.” I quirk an eyebrow, purse my lips. “We’ll deal with that later.”
Dorian’s words are strong. I do sense the tiniest hint of worry, but decide not to push him for answers. I’m having enough trouble with the information he’s already given me. “Right now we need to focus on getting out of here undetected, which shouldn’t be too hard in all of this.” He shines the lamp ahead, highlighting the few inches of water we’re sloshing through.
“Are we going to have to swim out?”
“Hope not. I’m thinking the worst is behind us. The biggest threat isn’t so much high water, but of caves collapsing. The mudslides are unpredictable.” I’m hit with the most terrible image of caves tumbling in, children running, mud crashing through walls. I swallow, blink my eyes to erase the sight from my mind. I note Dorian’s slowed his pace and is watching me. “Everyone will stay in the volcano until it’s one hundred percent safe,” he says, his voice smoothed over as if trying to comfort me. It works. “As for us, we’ll keep to the higher ground, the upper tunnels. Some of the exits are closed off, but I know a way.”
“Guess I’ll just have to trust you, eh?”
He laughs. “I’ve gotten us this far.” Dorian gives me a small smile, and I can’t help but wonder if the double meaning of our exchange is as evident to him as it is to me.
“I won’t congratulate you until I’ve got the sea and the sky in my sights.”
“I’d better get you that far—at least. It was one thing when you were simply the Lunalette, but now, being the Sindaco’s daughter? He’d kill me. Literally. String me up and let the mud beetles and cave snakes feast off me.”
I snort, being sure the cynicism comes through. “The Sindaco’s daughter…”
Dorian catches my eye. “You’ll see, V. You’ll see…”
He drops the subject, rolling into an explanation of our general route, how cave snakes are afraid of fire, and that he’ll send word back to the Sindaco after we’re up on Bellona. From there, we walk quickly (for fear our lamp’s going out) and in silence.
It’s a shorter walk than I expect to the main tunnel, but Dorian was right. I’m sure not to mention it, but there’s no way I’d have ever found my way out of this section of the Lower, much less back up onto the island.
Dorian leads as we traverse the labyrinth of twists and turns, stairs, tunnels that branch into other tunnels, until we’ve gone through several locked doors and have our feet firmly planted on the surface of the island.
It’s dark as midnight. We stand still under the cover of the forbidden shadow of the Crag. The one Poppy’s warned me of for as long as I can remember.
Rain mists lightly down from the sky, yet each drop stings with cold as it mingles with salty spray from the Great Sea. It’s only been a few days, but winter’s undoubtedly taken hold.
From across the island, high on Imperi Hill, a single bell rings. It’s one o’clock in the morning. The devil’s hour. Two things immediately seize my mind: I’m out after dark.
And I’m home.
Without a word, Dorian tilts his head to the right, motioning I follow him. From the darkness of the Crag and over the supposed land mines I’d been taught to avoid by threat of lost limb or two, we move toward the thick tree line. Sandy beach turns to muddy, root-laced, mossy woods.
Dorian leans in, and whispers, “Shortcut.”
His lips graze my ear, sending a simultaneous shiver and jolt down my neck. I nod so he knows I understand. Ignoring it, unable to react (not that I would if I was able), I swear, Dorian feels it too. The way his eyes, reflecting like blue glass in the moonlight, linger a sigh longer than they normally would speaks more than words ever could.
Before I can reflect too long on any of that a whistle sounds from the other side of the woods. An Imperi soldier. I’ve heard those whistles countless times, but the sound’s too distant to be for us. Still, Dorian quickens his pace and I’m sure to walk double time to keep up.
Like a couple of mice sneaking through a field, we’re quiet on our feet, and thanks to the harsh wind, I can’t imagine many forest animals are wise to our location, much less that soldier or any others who might be near.
Once it seems the whistler’s moved on, I steal a moment to breathe … To take in the night version of a familiar landscape … Home. My Bellona. But the dead-of-night version. Here, the scents and sounds are so different from what I’m used to. Everything’s cool, slick, and fresh with rain, so quiet save a chorus of crickets, an owl or two, and the squish, squish of the saturated, part-frozen ground beneath our boots.
It isn’t long before we’ve reached the main pathway and the tunnel where, what feels like forever ago, Dorian helped me escape those Imperi soldiers. From behind the last copse of trees, we search for signs of anything from soldiers to vagrants to members of the Imperi version of the Night—the Not-Night. But there’s no one.
“On three, we run for it,” Dorian says so low I’m reading his lips more than hearing his words.
“On three,” I repeat.
He holds up three fingers.
The entrance to the tunnel is only five, six strides away at most, a thick moat of fog the only obstacle. My heart speeds up.
One.
It’s wet, the stone slippery. Don’t fall, Veda. My breathing thins.
Two.
The light above the tunnel entrance flickers on, then back off, illuminating a familiar face on an unfamiliar posting. Raevald’s eyes stare through the darkness, the words below him reading THE IMPERI NEEDS YOU!
I don’t know if it’s the shadows or my mind playing tricks on me, the words having all-new meaning, but I see something. An unshakable resemblance.
Three.
We run for it, but it’s like a dream, my mind elsewhere, my body going through the motions. One foot, then the other. Repeat.
Once in the tunnel, we don’t dare slow.
One foot, then the other. Repeat.
Raevald’s image—one part the Sindaco, another part myself, the rest the Imperi High Regent I’ve both revered and feared all my life—hasn’t left my head. There’s no denying it. The resemblance is as real as the mangled five-pointed scar on my chest.
DORIAN AND I split up in the woods behind my cottage. He heads back to his uncle, and I enter through our back door to find Poppy’s awake, sitting in his chair before the fire.
I bound toward him. What I expect of my grandfather is to be wrapped in a long, lingering hug. Then for him to check me over, be sure I’m all right. Then, of course, complete relief will smooth the lines on his face when he sees I’m safe.
Instead, “My Veda! What the devil are you doing here?”
“I…” I skid to a stop, halting about two feet away. “Wait, what?”
“You have to go back.” He starts to push me toward the door. “Now!”
“Poppy!” I turn on my heels and stand tall, cement my boots to the floor. “I’m not going anywhere until I get answers. You owe me answers.” Catching us both by surprise, my voice cracks and my eyes begin to burn. “Please,” I barely manage, suddenly so exhausted I melt into the chair across from his. “Please,” I repeat under my breath.
His tired, gray eyes bore into mine. Although he clearly wants me out of this house, safe and sound underground, he knows he owes me seventeen years’ worth of explanations.
Finally, he exhales, relenting. “Yes … Of course.” He smooths my hair from my face. “You’re right.” But before he sits back down, he runs around making sure every last curtain is drawn and every door and window is latched.
Then he sits across from me, elbows resting on his knees, eyes intent on mine. “Ask me anything, my Veda.”
“Was my mother killed by the Imperi instead of the Night?”
He nods his head, gaze heavy, somber. “Yes.”
“Did she fight in the first war?”
Nod. “In the very beginning. She was so brave.”
I don’t know my mother, I never met her. Yet, somehow, especially after the past twenty-four hours, I feel I know her. A strong knot forms in my throat. “And my father?”
Poppy’s eyes flick to mine. “The Sindaco.” He all but whispers the words like they’re painful on his lips.
“His name is Vincent, isn’t it?”
“Aye…” He stares, unblinking.
“I heard you say it once. Curse it, actually. I never asked you about him because I didn’t want to upset you. I also assumed he was dead.”
He shakes his head. “I would have had to lie anyway … But yes, Vincent Raevald, the Sindaco, is your father.”
Hearing him say the words puts all doubt to rest. It also sends an aching to the back of my throat, one that stretches up into my eyes. I breathe deep and then shakily exhale. “So I’m…?”
“You’re the rightful heir to all of Bellona.” He smiles in a sad yet proud way, the corners of his mouth twitching from either exhaustion or emotion. “Veda, you must know, Raevald will never stand for it. He’d deny it to his dying day that you, an orphaned Basso, are heir to his legacy, especially when, in his mind, your father’s a traitor. A disgrace to his name and his position.”
A disgrace. Of course. Bastard child of his traitor son. The Basso fisher girl with permanent mud staining her knees. But if it’s true, if I’m really the heir, maybe … “If the truth got out…”
“Raevald will never let that happen. He’ll die before he disgraces his family’s lineage with the truth: that his son wasn’t executed by the Night but is actually the leader. There’d be no trust in the name Raevald. He’s made the Night out to be such monsters. Can you imagine if all of Bellona heard the truth? That not only had Raevald fabricated this ruthless, cruel version of the Night, sent his Imperi soldiers to do his bidding, but that his son was their true leader? They’d drag him off that Hill so fast, he’d never know what hit him. He’d lose everything.” He scoots his chair closer, the legs scraping the wood floor. “Promise me, Veda. Promise me you won’t tell a soul of this.”
I finally have some power, a bit of control over our future, and I have to keep it quiet? I worry the inside of my cheek, trying to find a way around it, but as upsetting as it is, I know he’s right. If anyone found out I’d be killed. Poppy too. “I promise.” That aching in my throat now burns; my eyes prickle with heat.
Poppy releases a long sigh. “Good.”
“Is that why you hid the truth from me all these years? Because, Poppy…” Speaking his name, I look into the familiar silver flecks of his eyes. He’s the only parent I’ve ever known. The only person I’ve ever truly looked up to. I’ve hung on to Poppy’s every word as gospel since I could understand them.
So, knowing what I’m about to say sends a heavy torrent of hot tears down my face. “You’ve lied.” Of everything, that definitely hurts the worst.
Without a word, Poppy scoots out of his chair and onto his knees, wraps his arms around my shoulders. “It killed me to lie. My Sun, it killed me.” He pulls away and finds my eyes, reflecting the sadness and anger and disappointment of my own. “But.” Poppy straightens his shoulders. “It was what I had to do. For your safety. For the Night. For your father and, bless her, your mother.” The undersides of his eyes swell with water.
All I can do is shake my head. Because I understand he had to protect me, that he was sworn to secrecy, but that doesn’t make his betrayal any less painful.
“Veda, you must understand or I’ll never be able to live with myself. If the wrong person had found out who you truly were—that you were a threat to the most powerful man on the island—you’d have been taken and killed. I lied for your life.” He glances toward the fire. “Your happiness and your well-being. It’s the only thing I’d ever lie to you for. Do you understand?”
I slide from my chair and meet him on the floor, wipe my face with my sleeve. “In my head, I do understand all of that, truly, I do. It’s my heart”—my voice quakes—“that’s having trouble coming around.”
He grasps my hands in his. “It’ll take time. I’ve always known this would be hard. My Sun, I’ve dreaded it for seventeen years. Forget the Night of Reckoning; it’s facing you after all of this I’ve feared.” Poppy finds my eyes, his bushy eyebrows raised, deep creases lining his forehead.
I can’t help but give a hiccup of a laugh.
“Give it time, Veda. The one thing that’s brought me peace is that I know you.” He gives my hand a slight squeeze.
I throw my arms around him.
Because it’s Poppy—mint leaves and soil and castile soap. Home. The one person in the world I could ever fully trust.
I’d lie for his life too.
I’d do it a million times over if I had to.
WE SIT ON the floor well into the night talking. It’s not the first time we’ve had a long talk, far from it, and certainly won’t be the last, but this is the most honest, most important one so far.
Poppy tells me of my mother, how it killed him to hide her true sacrifice, her true cause of death. How painful it was to concoct a tale about how no one knew where my father was and that I’d been left with Poppy after she was taken by the Night. That, by the grace of the Sun, I’d somehow been spared.
How he’d raised me in his daughter’s memory. At the time, he explains, many were going missing—either truly joining the Night or being taken by the Imperi—and no one thought twice about a child being left motherless or the Basso woman who’d had me out of wedlock.
He had to pretend his own daughter had been taken by the Night and killed when it was actually the Imperi who ultimately took her from us. That, although Raevald never knew her identity, that his son ran off with her to join the Night and that they had a child, the truth couldn’t be risked.
And when she was tortured for information all alone, secluded beneath the Coliseum, ultimately executed, she refused to give her name. For me. To protect me and Poppy and the Sindaco, the Night and the cause.
The Imperi killed my mother with no one around to see her sacrifice, to know the truth. The last thing they wanted was to make a martyr out of her. She died alone, not a witness at her side, by the hand of some nameless, faceless Imperi soldier. Simply a “traitorous member of the Night.”
Poppy all but had to erase his daughter from history. For our protection, Amalie Adeline practically never existed.
Thankfully, the Night did know her identity. Amalie Adeline was a true hero, and one whose life and sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain.
Unfortunately, their uprising didn’t end the way anyone would have hoped. But with me, they have a second chance. Renewed hope.
Finally, the truth from someone I know is being honest. Someone I know no longer has any reason to lie to me. In this moment, despite the betrayal I logically understand but am still working through, I trust my grandfather without hesitation.
But Poppy’s words are more painful than I expect them to be. It’s like one truth after another is stacked on top of me until the weight is too much to hold. For fear of toppling, I stuff and lock all the information inside, push some of it to the back, dissect what I can right now. The simplest parts. And even those I break down, skin, and clean until it’s only bones left to sift through.
The bones:
My father is the Sindaco.
My mother was a soldier, a hero killed by the Imperi.
Regardless of whether the Lunalette story is real, an entire society of people believe in me as if there is a prophecy. To them, I am their hope for revolution.
And I know quite well that believing in something makes it very real.
I don’t speak for some time as I sort all those bones of truth.
Poppy gives me the time and space to work through it all, but keeps glancing at the hourglass. I’m about to ask him if he has someplace to be, if he’s taken on a lady friend in the few days I’ve been gone, when I realize I should be the one watching the time. I should be the one itching to get moving. We have two days’ worth of work to do to prepare and only until vesper bells to do it.
Jerked out of the past and into the present, I speak loudly, quickly. “Poppy—the Imperi’s attacking. Tonight. Another Night of Reckoning.” I jump up, start packing things away, covering the furniture.
“Veda, I know already. Stop, stop.” He stands, swatting my hands away from the blanket-covered chair. “I’ve known for days. The Imperi’s posted warnings all over the island. Bragging their spies got word of the attack just in time.”
“Just in time?” I ask. “For what?”
“For an Offering. Tomorrow.” Yet again, Poppy glances at the hourglass on the table. “Today. A preemptive pleading to the Sun that he might shine through the night. Also in preparation for another Ever-Sol Feast.”
I shake my head. So many lies. “Tell me,” I say, changing the subject back to something that’s been nagging at me since I first saw that mural of the Lunalette in my cave. “Did I really get my scar the way you’ve always told me?”
“Aye,” Poppy says. “That was the day I truly believed. Before that, I’ll admit, the Lunalette was a fantastic legend, but you never know with prophecies … So many things can thwart their paths.” He guffaws. “Something as innocent as a gust of wind’s been known to change the course of fate. Just ask your father.” I raise an eyebrow, wondering where in the world he’s going with this. “Had fate not intervened, he’d be preparing to take over as High Regent. Instead he’s leading a revolt.”
“I don’t know, Poppy … Do you truly believe in all that?”
He smiles wide and proud. “I’ve always said there’s no harm in questioning things.” He has always said that. “But when, all of one year old, you wandered off that day—I’d only left you for a second and off you went! Down to the canal—always toward the water—and splash! You fell … or maybe you dove … right in. I wasn’t the wiser until I heard your scream. Rushed out back, yanked you out by your ankle, and detached that pantera fish’s jaw right from your chest. Damned thing took some skin with it.” He shakes his head, staring in the direction of the canal. “I couldn’t believe my eyes … The most jagged, gnarled, scar I’d ever seen, smack-dab over your heart. And curse me to hell and back if it didn’t resemble a star. I knew right then…”
“Knew what?”
“Well, two things … That you’d be a great fisher and I’d better start taking you fishing more so you didn’t sneak out on your own and get eaten by pantera fish.” He smiles, that unmistakable twinkle in his eye. “And that fate, when not thwarted, is truth. Just look at the Lunalette legend. That star on your chest is an omen. I truly believe, had you not fallen in the canal, some other way you’d have gotten that scar. The mark was there all along; something just had to bring it to the surface. This Lunalette, your secret claim as heir, it’s true. The whole of it.”
We sit in silence as I think on that. That Poppy believes in it. In me.
“Now.” He claps his knee, making me jump. “You have to go back.”
“What?”
“It’s not safe here for you, my Veda. With the Offering tomorrow…”
“Wait. Did the medallions arrive?” I glance toward the front door, the metal slot, then down to the floor. No medallions.
“Yes. Yours is in your room on your bedside table. No Sun.”
“Okay. Good.” I stare, brow furrowed.
“Mine’s fine too.” He waves my concern off with a flick of his wrist.
I let out a long, relieved sigh. “Don’t do that to me, Poppy!”
“Sorry.”
“I can’t go back yet. I have to help you prepare for tonight.” I glance around the house, note that nothing’s been done. Nothing. “I promise I’ll leave before vesper bells, once you’re safe in the cellar.”
“Veda…”
I place my hands on my hips. “I’m not leaving.”
He narrows his eyes at me, crooked smirk dancing at the corner of his mouth. “I never could get you to mind me. Stubborn to a fault, just like your mother.” He shakes his head as if imagining memories from long ago. “Fine. But once the house is secure, you leave, eh?”
“I promise.”