Page 1 of Jeweler to the Blessed (Champions of Chaos #1)

Whether it’s a blessing or a curse, she must decide.

— ALARIC SARE’S LETTERS TO ISABELLE ARKOVA

B eing Alaric Sare’s niece was a blessing and a curse.

Many would consider the before-sunrise study sessions as falling firmly in the curse column, but an uncle willing to invest in my education felt like a blessing.

“Are you still making your horrid coffee?” Alaric called from the shop front.

A curse—Alaric hated coffee. He was always raving about the soothing properties of his tea. It smelled like mint, but he mixed more than a few herbs into the tiny sachets. I boiled enough water for both drinks, no matter my distaste.

“It’s almost done,” I said.

A thick, gold curtain that had seen better days hung between his workspace and the front counter.

It separated Alaric’s workshop the way I imagined he compartmentalized his mind.

The front, where he met with his exclusively Blessed customers, was pristine.

Fine gold rings, broaches, and even necklaces with pendant settings were in glass display cases, each waiting for an adamas gem to make them whole.

This space—behind the curtain—felt like the true version of my uncle.

Bookcases lined one wall, filled top to bottom with leather-bound tomes.

Some he double-stacked, and others, he shoved in horizontally and vertically to maximize space.

One of the shelves opened to reveal a small, tightly packed storage room where he kept his more interesting books.

We’d been looking at some of those this morning.

The other side of the workshop looked like it belonged to a frenetic alchemist convinced he was about to crack the secret of a philosopher’s stone.

Glass beakers, precious metals, and all manner of tools were scattered across an L-shaped table.

Additional books, logs for the fire, and other objects that made me scratch my head were tucked away beneath.

I was sure Alaric had precise applications in mind for each one.

My fingers tingled as I reached for a piece of adamas, anticipating the comforting warmth of its weight in my palm. The gem felt right in my hand, which was odd because all it seemed to do was ruin my life.

It was why I was leaving the city—why this would be one of my last study sessions with Alaric for the foreseeable future. The Library of Linia would have the answers I sought. Few left Kavios, but I had to know why the Blessed’s magic didn’t affect me. It was proving too dangerous not to.

I bounced the stone lightly in my hand while I waited.

Due to the nature of Alaric’s clientele, he worked primarily in adamas.

Officially, I apprenticed at Father’s jewelry shop, though it felt more like I ran the place these days.

We worked in Woodside, a district devoid of Blessed, and dealt exclusively in quartz.

The two gems looked remarkably similar to the untrained eye—well, to nearly every eye except mine and Alaric’s.

Both were hard stones, clear when cut and polished, but one could store stolen emotion, transforming it into magic. The other could not.

The gurgle of boiling water drew my attention. I set the adamas down and searched the room for a towel to pull the pot from the fire.

Alaric parted the curtain and joined me as I filled a cup with his herb mixture. I slid a second cup under my makeshift filter and grounds, pouring over the water and leaving it to drip.

He had an uncut gemstone from the Oldwood Mine outside the city.

“Quartz or adamas?” He dropped the stone into my left hand as I passed him his mug with my right.

This was definitely a curse of being Alaric’s niece.

I must have given him a look because he offered a tentative smile. “Admit it: You’ll miss our game.”

Swallowing thickly around the swell of emotion, I tried to speak. Of course I’d miss my uncle and my parents, but as Mother pointed out in her more lucid moments, this was my life, and I needed to take control of it.

Avoiding the topic, I focused on the cold stone in my hand. I was never sure how Alaric knew the answer. He refused to tell me. We’d started playing this game when I was five. I was now twenty-one and no closer to understanding.

I rolled it between my pointer finger and thumb, lifting the stone to the light.

It had a glassy luster, but that, too, was common in both stones, as was the crystalline structure.

This was all for show. The answer was quartz.

I knew it when he dropped it into my hand, absent the familiar heat of adamas.

But as I enjoyed learning history and how things came to be, I desperately wanted facts, reason, and requirements for how I knew this was quartz.

I’d never been comfortable with gut instinct—especially my own.

Even with all I’d learned about cutting, shaping, shining, and caring for the stones, I was no closer to a concrete method of distinguishment. I could answer Alaric correctly, but I couldn’t teach someone else how to do so, which was maddening.

I hid my frustration with practiced ease. Letting the gem roll back into my palm, I answered as I had for the last sixteen years—with intuition.

“Quartz.” I handed it back to him.

The smile he returned was big and bright, warming the room the same way the fire did. “Very good.”

“How can you tell I’m right?”

“Quartz doesn’t hold and wield magic.”

A curse: his wholly unsatisfying responses.

I shook my head, turned, and headed toward the front. “I need to water the plants.”

Potted plants covered almost every surface by the windows.

My fingers sank into the still-damp soil of the first pot.

The dirt came from the Oldwood, the forest surrounding the city, just like the plants.

Though moist, a lingering warmth dwelled below the surface.

The Oldwood was all contrast like that: hot and cold, dead and alive, terrifying and captivating.

As I pressed my fingers deeper into the dirt, I felt the woods call.

Darkness overtook my vision as I strained to hold myself apart.

“Alright, Emberline?” Alaric placed a hand on my shoulder.

Flinching, I shook my head in direct contradiction to my words. “I’m fine.”

I’d have to pass through the forest to leave the city and begin my journey. My experiences in the Oldwood had been abnormal at best. This practice was supposed to help keep my mind clear when I ventured through tomorrow night.

I glared at the dirt like it had personally offended me. My tests had been going so well. Whatever just happened was disconcerting.

Alaric didn’t speak as he followed me behind the curtain.

I gestured to the books strewn across the two highbacked chairs and footstools. “I’ll get this cleaned up. The sun is rising.”

Being in this part of town when the rest of the city woke up was dangerous.

Alaric’s shop was in Lower Hill, a city district in the shadow of the looming spires of Glanmore Castle. This part of Kavios would soon be overrun with the Blessed, and the risk was too high for me to be in their proximity.

I had one rule: Never let the Blessed touch my skin.

They were so-called because they’d received the king’s blessing, as evidenced by the adamas jewelry he permitted them. When wearing adamas, the Blessed’s touch stole emotion, granting them magic.

My secret, and the reason I was leaving, was that they couldn’t steal from me.

I had no explanation for why their magic didn’t work on me.

Emotion was stolen from citizens on the streets every day.

Alaric told me Eris, Goddess of Chaos, protected me.

That answer was no longer good enough. The texts in Alaric’s collection cataloged information about the Sibling Goddesses, magic, and history.

I’d spent years sifting through it all but had found no satisfying answer for my condition.

The books referenced a library in a neighboring kingdom. It claimed to have answers to the most unique forms of magic. Anywhere had to be better than Kavios, where the only information freely given was that which supported the king’s narrative for the city.

In the meantime, I didn’t want to discover the consequences if a Blessed learned of my immunity. It threatened the validity of King Rodric’s blessing if someone could be unaffected. I might miss my family, but they would be in danger if I remained.

It was a true curse that Alaric worked for the Blessed.

He was responsible for sourcing the precious adamas stones and making them into jewelry.

No one else in the city could do it. Well, I could, but he refused to let me.

Everything he did was to keep my unique abilities hidden from the Glanmores.

I was done with him risking everything on my behalf.

My one rule, to never let the Blessed touch me, had come from him and Mother. It was a hard lesson to learn, and the familiar roil of guilt churned in my stomach as I thought of the price Mother paid for my education.

I sipped my coffee and flipped through the first open book on the chair.

“Sneaking another glimpse at Champions of Kavios ?” Alaric bent to close and stack another book.

“No,” I said with little conviction.

He chuckled. “You don’t have to be embarrassed. Everyone wants to root for the handsome ruler raging against a goddess-given fate.”

He was right. I was embarrassed, but not for the reason he thought .

Champions of Kavios was part history and part musings.

My interest lay in the supplemental material.

The less cynical considered them prophecy.

They made little sense to me, but Mother loved trying to decipher the passages.

On her good nights, she asked about specific sections, and I refused to disappoint.

The book was banned literature under the current king. He’d outlawed any writing that told of the Goddess of Chaos.

King Rodric Glanmore’s city worshiped the Goddess of Order.