Page 5

5

A Sign

EMILIA

C lasses were canceled for the next week. Half the girls went home to grieve and recover with their families. Destiny stayed. I’d told her she should go. I knew her family would want her to. But she had been unwavering, looking at me with fire smoldering in her irises, literally, and said, “I’m not going anywhere.”

At first, I’d figured she was doing it for me. Pathetic little me with no family to be found. After spending the day with her, though, I wasn’t so sure. It seemed like something else entirely. My friend had a vendetta blooming inside of her like a dark, fiery rose. Her glare had a new hardness to it. Her words, a new edge.

She reminded me of Nyx that way.

Right now, she was on her stomach on her bed, feet behind her in the air. Her eyes were lit up with the light of her blackmirror as she scrolled relentlessly. Determined to keep up with everything being posted online. Scrolling through hundreds of threads and comments.

“Fuck. There haven’t been any new updates on Celestial Media in forever. I want to check the mortal stuff.”

“Can you even do that on a blackmirror?”

She gave me a look that made me feel stupid. “Yeah. There’s a setting you can unlock to access their internet.”

“Oh. Cool.” Just more shit I don’t know.

My glazed-over eyes hadn’t left the window much. Patterns of frost had grown over the view of the violet sky. Steam rose gently in the warm air, the city not used to my winter.

“Oh, my Goddess!” Destiny shrieked, shooting up. “Dude… is this Solaris ?” She leaped off her bed and shoved her blackmirror at me.

My breath caught. I snatched the device and watched the video while incredulity spiked my blood.

A winged creature flew out of the fallen, smoldering coliseum.

I stared at the screen. The shot was taken from far away, but it was clear enough. Disbelief rendered me mute for a few seconds. There was no way… “This is mortal media?”

“Yes,” Destiny affirmed. “Is that him?”

I swallowed. Handed back her blackmirror and looked anywhere but her eyes. “How should I know?”

But it was. Oh, Goddess . It was.

The video was titled: Winged Phantom Escapes Burning Coliseum.

“Someone has wings ! Emilia! This is crazy! No Celestial has had wings since the Old World.”

“It’s probably fake,” I suggested, hating the way the lie tasted on my tongue. “Mortals love making computer-generated stuff.”

She gave me a wry look. “My blackmirror would alert us if it was fake. They’re designed to detect AI. It’s real, dude. Someone has wings.”

I inhaled a breath through my nose. My fingers had iced over at some point, I noticed now.

“Nyx will know.” Destiny’s words slapped me in the face. I physically winced. “When she gets back, she’ll tell us. I wonder if she’s back now? Have you checked?”

After everything. My best friend still believed in my sister. Didn’t think anything would be wrong, despite what had gone down. Nyx was that formidable in her eyes.

“I don’t think she’s coming back, Destiny.”

Her golden-brown glare met mine. “What do you mean? Of course she will.”

Ice began to coat my bed frame, rising up the metal, sounding like crackling flames. I focused on my breathing. In and out. Sharp, so sharp. Tiny phantom knives up and down my throat.

“Didn’t you hear what Artemis said?” I grit out. “He’s blaming her for what happened.”

I wasn’t quite sure why it felt like I needed to keep what I knew a secret. I could trust Destiny. Yet the idea of saying the words out loud felt wrong. The vision of my sister and the gold dragon…lying among the rubble, like a painting. Like a legend . With that dark angel looming over her, eyeing her in a way I had no words for. He was as breathtaking as he was terrifying, and he took her.

The memory felt like something I had to keep hidden and protect at all costs.

“No one’s gonna believe that!” Destiny cawed, waving me off. “She’s Nyx Morningstar.”

“Exactly,” I muttered.

“Nah. She killed those vampires. There were enough witnesses of her heroic badassery. Don’t worry, girl. Your sister will be fine.”

I rested my head on the pillow and turned away from her so she couldn’t see the tears streaming down my cheeks.

Hours later, when the moon rose, I gathered everything we’d need for Dreamwalking. Silver, copper, tourmaline, an item of Natalia’—a dainty crown she’d made of thorny twigs. What I didn’t have was the sleep potion she’d made. I, of course, had no idea how to make one. This meant Michael and I would have to fall asleep organically…

No pressure .

But this was a good idea, I realized. We needed to get Natalia back. She’d know what to do. She always knew what to do in a crisis.

We’d get her back then we’d get Nyx back. I told myself this over and over until it felt true.

Somehow, as if I were on autopilot, I’d managed to get myself cleaned up and dressed. My long black hair fell down my back, undone. I chose a flowy dark blue dress that could pass as day or nightwear, depending. I stood in front of the floor length mirror between mine and Destiny’s bed while I slid a pair of white slippers over my feet. A silver crescent moon pendant rested above the neckline of my dress, catching the candlelight at certain angles.

Destiny was still on her bed scrolling her blackmirror.

“Ready?” I asked.

She sighed and tossed her blackmirror aside. “Are you sure this is such a good idea?”

Her hesitation made me feel slightly better about my own. I lifted a shoulder. “We have to at least try. Natalia would do it for us.”

“True.” Destiny stood up and smoothed out her black dress. “I just don’t want to lose another one of us. So, don’t fuck this up.” She grinned at me to lighten up the severity of her words.

A piece of red paper slid underneath our door, into our room. We shared a quick glance before Destiny went and grabbed it, reading it silently.

“What does it say? Who’s it from?”

“It doesn’t say,” she murmured. “It just says there’s a meeting in the Sphere and everyone needs to attend.”

I frowned. We’d never been summoned by the Luminary in such a way.

“Maybe this is a sign,” Destiny said. “A sign that we shouldn’t try Dreamwalking tonight.”

I opened our door and looked both ways down the hall. No one was there. “A meeting? There are barely any girls here. Everyone’s gone home for the week. Something’s off.”

Destiny stepped closer to me, a severe shine in her eyes. “Dude. It’s probably Nyx.”

My heart tumbled. “What?”

“Think about it! She’s probably back and wants to lay low. The red paper, the fancy handwriting? Don’t you think it’s her?”

I was breathing hard, staring down at the mysterious note. Flashes of her being carried away into the sky haunted my mind’s eye. But if anyone could escape the claws of that ‘winged phantom’, it was my sister. “Fine. We’ll check it out.”

We found the Sphere dark and empty.

Great.

The giant moon ceiling glowed with muted light, illuminating the space just enough to see the outlines of everything. The elevated Elemental Ring in the middle, where we practiced wielding our elements at each other. The racks of weapons and training mats on the side. Vines growing up and down the sphere, hanging dauntingly like spindling shadows.

My sister was not here. I could feel it in my bones.

My heart raced, the instinct to run taking over me. But Destiny moved forward, looking around, as if there were something to find.

“There’s clearly no meeting!” I whispered frantically.

“Can’t you feel that?” she shot back. “Someone’s in here.”

“That’s not comforting, Destiny! Something is definitely—” My words cut off with a yelp as an invisible force smacked into my chest, thrusting me back. Destiny’s scream in my ear was chopped short.

Before I could hit the wall, another force snatched me midair, whirling around me impossibly before consuming me whole. Water—it was water that attacked me, lifted me off the ground, and rushed into my mouth, stomping out the air from my lungs. I tried to scream which was the worst instinct . I breathed in the vengeful water that captured me in its merciless grasp. It tore my throat and lungs bloody and roared in my ears while it spun me in a whirlpool.

Only once my vision began to twinkle with delirious stars did the Goddess have mercy on my soul.

The water dropped me. I hit the ground on my back with an awful splat . A drowned rat sputtering for air, I stared up at the moon roof. Shock corrupted me whole while the silence slithered by.

Two figures appeared in my line of sight. I blinked away the sting, gasping a horrible, rattling gasp when I saw their faces. Bianca and Cassiopeia. Powerful fifth-years that hated my guts. The sources of the air and water magic that just viciously assaulted me.

“She really is nothing like Nyx,” Cassiopeia muttered darkly.

“You’d think that would be a compliment. But somehow, it’s not.” Bianca laughed.

“Enough, girls,” a shrill voice from out of sight commanded. “Stand her up.”

They obeyed, bending down and each grabbing one of my arms, yanking me to my feet. I coughed, unable to fight them off since my brain was still a reeling mess. Where the hell was Destiny?

The two girls shoved me toward the Elemental Ring. Someone stood in the center of the elevated platform, waiting for me.

Pale light from above outlined her long hair so it shone blood red. A pair of long-lashed conniving eyes met mine.

Venus St. Claire.

She had Destiny trapped against her chest with a black dagger pressed to her bare throat.