Page 24 of Daughter of the Ninth Line, Part Three

Twenty-Three

Avalon

Thirty minutes earlier

“ I have to go and find Lucio or Vox. I need to know what’s going on.” Hayle was still clutching my hand tightly.

“Heir Taeme!” The Librarian appeared, and Hayle shook his head at her.

“I’m sorry, Librarian, but we’re under siege. We won’t have time?—”

The Librarian’s jaw tightened. “You will make time. Come.”

Hayle looked between the crowd and the Librarian. I pushed at his chest. “Go. Find Vox and Lucio, and figure out what’s going on. I’ll go with the Librarian to see what’s so important.”

He hesitated. “You won’t leave the library without me or Vox?”

I shook my head. “Braxus will be by my side the whole time too. Go, your Line needs you.”

He kissed me hard, then dipped his head respectfully at the Librarian before rushing off, Quarry on his shoulder and Alucius at his heels.

The Librarian watched him go and nodded approvingly.

“You’ve chosen consorts well. Come, time is of the essence.

” She hurried through the crowds of conscripts, while I followed along behind her.

It helped that people moved out of her way, though I doubted even a tenth of the conscripts had even met the Librarian. She just had that kind of presence.

The crowds grew more and more sparse, until the corridor to the library was basically empty.

She pushed through the doors into the tranquility of the large shelves, filled with knowledge.

In a crisis, the library was the perfect place to be, but apparently, I was the only one in Boellium who felt that way.

“Mr. Vylan and Mr. Taeme brought me a package of books back from the library in the Hall of Ebrus. I’ve only just gotten around to reading them, which I regret.” She muttered that last part more to herself than to me. “I wish we’d had more time.”

She stopped and pulled a few things off a shelf. The first book was a weathered tome, with gold embossing reading A Future History of Ebrus. I raised an eyebrow. I wasn’t sure that was even grammatically correct.

The second tome was titled Reconstructionists and the Hands of the Goddess.

The last thing was a letter with my name on it. It was weathered, the edges of the folded paper yellowing. It looked old.

“This is for you. I haven’t read it, but I believe I might have an inkling about its author, and I knew it would be important.” The Librarian pushed it into my hands. It felt heavy, and not just physically.

I recognised the handwriting, though that was impossible. Opening the back flap, I carefully removed the letter from the envelope. Several thick sheets of paper were folded neatly within, and I gently opened them.

Dear Avalon,

If you’re reading this, your stars are beginning to align and your future is being set into motion. It annoys me that it took so many resets for me to be able to send this, but that is the will of the Goddess and her greater plan.

Our family was once incredibly powerful, Avalon, and you, the Ninth Daughter of the Ninth Line, will be the most powerful of all, if not the one steeped in the most pain. Because the universe is about balance, and the Goddess gifts with both hands.

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 a soul 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 he doing that?

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.

Standing, I spun to face the threat. He was beautiful, and I fucking hated it. He’d killed someone I loved, and I’d make him so ugly, he’d regret the day he was born.

“No!” I screamed at him. Wind started to swirl around him, around us both, and he stood there, eyes wide and full lips parted. The word Recreationist spun in my brain, over and over and over again.

This wasn’t right. This couldn’t have been the plan. I refused to accept it.

Light began to seep from the pores of my skin, burning through the space around us in the courtyard. “ NO! ” I screamed again, but the guy just stood there, awe on his face.

“You’re real,” he breathed. “It’s really you.”

I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t care. Because there wouldn’t—couldn’t—be a world without Vox. The streaks of light, the burning wind, they all pressed close to me.

The guy in front of me grinned. “I’ll see you in the next life, Ninth Daughter of the Ninth Line.”

The burning fires that surrounded me exploded outwards, demolishing everything in its path, until there was nothing.

No lifeless body of the man I loved.

No beautiful killer.

No Avalon Halhed, Recreationist.