Page 59 of Silvercloak

Saffron reeled at the revelation.

His ancestors had once sat the throne of Vallin.

House Rezaran’s fifty-year Dreadreign had almost unmade the world. The royal house had written and unwritten time so frequently and indiscriminately that the very fabric of the world wore thin. Careless rewinds and redoes created paradoxical knots, and it took an immense amount of ascenite to smooth them out again. Entire days and weeks went missing from time, fraying and disintegrating, while others repeated in frantic loops. Mages vanished between the cracks ofthenandnow,never to be seen again.

As the Augurests had predicted.

The dragons—the longest-standing allies of Timeweavers—scorned this cavalier manipulation of time, and so they deserted House Rezaran, fleeing north to the ice-capped mountains of northeastern Nyrøth. House Veliron, who were proud Augurests, used this weakening of House Rezaran to take the throne, executing over a hundred Timeweavers outside the Palace.

House Rezaran was eradicated in its entirety—or so the world believed.

Not that they had been mourned.

And now there stood a mage before her with their blood running through his veins.

The fourth prophecy from Augur Emalin said that the Augurests would emerge triumphant, but a few Timeweavers would slip through the cracks, and the Augurests would have to remain vigilant for centuries after their initial conquest, awaiting the second uprising, making sure to slaughter every last one.

Saff struggled to process the magnitude. The prospect of a time-wielding kingpin was almost too hideous to comprehend.

“So the Bloodmoons are Timeweavers?” she asked, throat dry.

Levan shook his head. “My mother had a trace of it, but barely enough to roll back a few minutes, and even that would drain her for weeks. Rasso was hers. After she died, he stuck with me, though I don’t have a single weaving muscle in my body. Not for lack of trying. My father was obsessed with learning the lost art, for a while, even though the Rezaran bloodline was on my mother’s side. He still uses my mother’s weaverwick wand in the vague hope a dormant power will eventually show itself.”

Saff’s mouth fell open. Levan’s mother had been the notorious Lorissa Celadon. Her bloody ambition and ruthless genius had raised the Bloodmoons from a lowly street gang to the most feared criminal organization Vallin had ever seen. When she died, her husband, Lyrian, had taken the reins.

LorissaRezaran.

“Why are you telling me this?” Saff asked, breathless. “It’s not common knowledge that you have Rezaran blood. It could see you hunted by Augurests the world over.”

Levan’s jaw clenched. “Because I see no reason to hide. If they want to hunt me, let them come. I fear no one. And as for why I told you so freely …” He tapped two fingers over his heart to symbolize the brand. “You can’t share it any further.”

Oh, but I can.

Aspar would salivate at the knowledge that the Bloodmoons were descendants of House Rezaran. As an Augurest, she supported the eradication of all Timeweavers. This revelation would not only solidifyher motivations for bringing them down, but it would pay credence to the fourth prophecy she had devoted her life to.

How she wouldloveto be the one to end the Timeweaver bloodline once and for all. Not only would she be named commissioner, but she would also fulfill her own religious mandate.

And as for Levan fearing no one …

Well. His killer was sitting right in front of him. He was wrong not to be afraid, and his arrogance would be his downfall.

“Eat your breakfast.” Levan gestured to the pile of almond pastry cones and the mug of hot chocolate on her bedside table. “I know the first kill is rough, and the brand hurts like all hells, but you’ve wallowed enough. Time to earn your place.”

“I thought finding Nalezen Zares was earning my place.”

“You have to earn your place over and over again, like watering a plant. You can’t feed it once and expect it to thrive forever.”

“I knew you were a poetic sort.”

For some reason, the quip landed. There was a flash of something childlike on Levan’s face, and it was only then that Saffron noticed the black leather-bound book tucked beneath his arm. He stuffed it awkwardly inside his cloak, but not before Saff caught sight of the novel’s title in embossed gold foil:The Great Adventures of the Lost Dragonborn.

All at once, Saffron’s memory was yanked back fifteen years.

She stood in front of the dressmaker’s mirror in her uncles’ Cloakery, willing herself to speak. It had been over half a decade since her parents were killed, and grief was no longer a blade-sharp shock; rather a hollow shaft had opened inside her, emptiness pressing against all her vital organs.

And still she had not been able to find her words—which meant she had not cast a lick of magic in that time either.

Her uncles had been warned that if she didn’t start casting soon, she’d have to be sent to a Ludder school on the outskirts of the city. The niece of Vallin’s finest cloakiers would not be permitted to wear a cloak at all. There was an elegant sort of irony to it.