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CHAPTER TWO

OMENS

T he blade made no noise when King Castor cut himself. He did it over the heartline of his palm, then curled his fingers, holding the responding swell of blood in his hand like a chalice holds wine. It was a sacred act—giving a bit of oneself up for the art of Divination.

The abbess took King Castor by the wrist and brought his bloody hand to my mouth. The king went gray and turned his gaze to the wall, like he could not bear the sight of his blood—or me.

“Drink,” the abbess commanded.

I opened my mouth, and the king’s blood poured over my tongue, viscous and warm. It tasted vile. Blood always did.

I swallowed, straining against the urge to be sick.

The abbess began her oration. “Traum is an old name for an even older land. Its history is as outlandish, as lurid, as a dream. But in many ways, its true history began upon this very tor—”

She paused, turning to the king. “Though perhaps a Castor like yourself would not like to hear the story I tell before a Divination. Shall we simply proceed with the dream?”

King Castor shuffled his feet. “I would like to do things the proper way. Please, go on.”

The abbess touched my cheek, a familiar act of silent affection, then continued. “We know Traum and its hamlets like our own five fingers. Coulson Faire, the hamlet of merchants. The scholarly city-heart—the Seacht—the hamlet of scribes. The Fervent Peaks, near the mouth of our river, the hamlet of fishers. The cosseted birch forest, the Chiming Wood, where the foresters dwell. The florid Cliffs of Bellidine, occupied by weavers.”

The abbess sighed. “The old stories vary, of course, but in one way they are all alike. Traum was full of monstrous creatures. Sprites, who roamed the hamlets. Folk tried to fight them, but the hamlets were not unified, floundering without gods, without divine principles, without a ruler. And when none of those things exist—”

There are inevitable tragedies , I recited to myself.

“There are inevitable tragedies.” The abbess’s voice echoed. “Food and coin and children were stolen from the hamlets by sprites. Murder was committed. Crops died, boats crashed, wool was infested by beetles. Soon, Traum’s people were like sprites themselves—wild creatures, strange and ravenous and entirely without virtue.”

“Sounds like a good time to me,” one of the knights muttered.

King Castor managed a shaky grin. I glowered at him from behind my shroud.

The abbess continued. “The deaths grew, and so did discord between the hamlets.”

Until one night.

“Until one night. One dark, lonely night, when the air was so cold it painted the sky an incomparable purple hue, six gods visited Traum.”

A scoff echoed through the cathedral.

Armor rattled and low voices sounded, then one of the knights was pushing away from a pew, his steps loud on the stone floor. He shoved the cathedral door open, evening light flittering through dark hair and over three gold bands in his right ear.

The knight from the road. He cast one baleful look over his shoulder—

Then kicked the ancient wood door shut behind him.

The abbess waited for the echoes of his departure to settle, then continued, unperturbed. “One dark, lonely night, a foundling child left its hamlet and climbed a looming tor in search of food. The tor did not offer much life save whispering grass and gowan flowers and pale moths. But then—a spring! A strange spring at the top of the tor, leaching from a great stone. The child came to the lip of the water—drank deeply.” She drew in an affected breath. “And was swept into a dream.”

I’d heard the story so many times I could see it in my mind. A child, like I’d been when I’d come to Aisling Cathedral, lying in dark water before transfixed onlookers. It made me proud that a foundling—like me—should be the most important figure in Traum’s most sanctified story.

Even if that child didn’t have a name.

The abbess carried on. “When the child woke, sick and weak, it told passersby a vivid tale of six unearthly figures who had visited its wakeless mind—shadowy figures who bore stone objects, each object possessing unique power. The child’s tale grew legs, and folk of the hamlets came to the tor to see the spring. Again and again, the child drank the water and dreamed. In time, the child learned that the movements of the stone objects were presages. And so, the gods who wielded them were named.”

“Omens,” I whispered.

“Omens,” the abbess repeated. She lifted a finger, pointing to the windows on high, and every soul in the cathedral raised their eyes to the stained glass. “The Omen who bore a stone coin, the child named the Artful Brigand. The Omen fitted with the inkwell was christened the Harried Scribe. The Omen who wielded a stone oar was called the Ardent Oarsman. The Faithful Forester carries the chime.” She pointed at the last arched window. “And the Heartsore Weaver employs her sacred loom stone.”

The abbess directed her finger to the final window—the great rose window. “But the sixth Omen bore no stone object. It revealed nothing of itself at all, appearing only as a pale moth on tender wing. Some say it shows itself the moment you are born, others believe it comes just before you die. Which is true”—she opened her palms, like two pans of a scale—“we cannot know. We may read their signs, but it is not our place to question the gods. The moth is mercurial, distant—never to be known, even by Diviners.”

She put a gloved hand to her chest. “Of course, there are those of us who have long believed the Omens are vaster than the dreamscape they occupy. That the moth and the others exist—hidden in the hamlets, killing horrible sprites and swaying the fate of Traum with their magical stone objects. Ever present—always watching.”

Saliva pooled in my mouth, heavy and tasting of iron. It was almost time.

“And so,” the abbess said, “we find ourselves in the center of Traum’s greatest story. A great cathedral was built upon the spring’s tor, and more foundling children were brought there to dream, and they became daughters of Aisling, revered Diviners. A king was crowned, and Traum’s five hamlets were unified by belief, thusly named the Stonewater Kingdom. The king’s knights were tasked with defending the faith as well as they defended the hamlets against sprites.”

She paused, looming over young Benedict Castor, whose eyes were on his feet. “And the king swore to be more supplicant than sovereign, that he would never take up the mantle of his faith for personal gain—never seek the Omens or their stone objects for his own power or vanity.

“For in the end,” the abbess said, “we are all supplicants. Whether craftsman or a king, knight or foundling or Diviner—faith is the same. It, like Aisling Cathedral, holds up the hamlets. And while we all bear our own creeds, we must never forget—it is the Omens who rule Traum. Omens who scrawl the signs. We are but witnesses to their wonders. Pupils of their portents.” She raised her hands in beckoning. “Ever but visitors to their greatness.”

“Ever but visitors,” I called.

“Ever but visitors,” the king murmured.

“Ever but visitors,” the knighthood echoed.

The gargoyles closed in around the spring.

Breath shuddered out of me. “What name, with blood, would you give the Omens?” I said to the king.

He startled, as if he’d forgotten me. “Benedict Castor the Third.”

The abbess put her hands on my shoulders.

“Lie down,” she instructed me.

The smell of rotting flowers—the taste of blood—the slip of oily water—were everywhere. I lay on my back in the spring, looking up into Aisling’s reaching cloister and the windows therein, it in light, I in darkness.

The abbess leaned over me. “Dream,” came her final, resolute command.

She pressed down on my clavicle, hard enough to bruise.

I sank into cold, terrible water.

I shut my eyes, opened my mouth. Sucked water into my lungs and choked. My body spasmed once, twice—a ripple in the spring. Then I did what I’d always done since my very first day at Aisling Cathedral.

I drowned.

There was pain, pain, then—

Nothingness. A bright, pallid nothingness.

I lay on a clean stone floor, looking up at the same windows as before. Only now, it seemed much higher, the vaulted cathedral roof cloudy, as if far above me in the sky.

Gargoyles, Diviners—the abbess and the king and his knights—were gone. Not even the mahogany pews remained. I was alone in a pale, liminal version of Aisling that had never existed in my waking hours.

I got to my feet. My robe had disappeared. The only stitch of fabric I wore now was my shroud. I looked down at my nakedness, hair and flesh, fat, muscle, and bone. A strange laugh bubbled in my throat. I always felt a mile wide after swallowing blood and water and drowning in the spring. As if I were infinite, holding all that discomfort so well within my body. It made me sick with self-loathing—and flushed with pride.

A shadow shifted in the corner of my eye. I turned, but the shadow flickered, then vanished.

I was small in the vast space. “Omens,” I called. “I am your harbinger, your dreamer—ever but a visitor. I’ve come to Divine.”

Silence. Then—

The cathedral began to ripple. Light blurred away the details, pillars and windows and buttresses all caught in a strange, undulating glow. I walked through the pale nothingness, the world sluggish, but my heart upon a hummingbird beat.

The cathedral rippled in earnest. Dark spots, like stains upon fabric, perforated the wide white space. “I’ve tasted the blood of Benedict Castor the Third.” Once more, I said, “I’ve come to Divine.”

The cathedral rippled, rippled—

Then winked out entirely.

The floor beneath my feet gave way, and I fell through seams of light into darkness. My stomach lurched, hands and feet hollowed out as my body gave way to the sense of falling.

A flash of silver in the darkness. Then—

My knees hit first, then my hands, the substance beneath them cold and hard and unsteady. I swallowed a groan and teetered. Tipped, toppled, then rolled over myself like a pin over dough. There was a chorus of clinking, and when I stopped rolling, twisted and naked and already bruising, I braced myself and sat up.

Coins. I’d fallen upon a bed of coins. Hundreds, thousands of coins stacked in a dark room.

I scanned my surroundings. Looked up. There were purple banners in the room, long windows, and an illuminating blue sky. Still, I could see the ghost of Aisling’s buttresses, her vaulted ceilings—her cold stone innards.

They’d have dragged me out of the spring by now. Once rendered unconscious by the drowning, a Diviner was always pulled from the water and laid down to dream upon the chancel, set on her back with open arms, like an offering.

I could still hear what was happening outside my dream, but the sound was muddled. “Well?” the abbess’s faraway voice called.

I opened my mouth to answer—

Then saw it. A coin, different from the rest, suspended in air. One side was smooth stone, the other dark and rutted and rough.

“The Artful Brigand’s coin,” I called. “I can see it. The rough side is up.” I let out a breath. “A presage of bad fortune.”

If the abbess responded, I didn’t hear it. The floor beneath my feet vanished, coins raining into darkness and me with them.

I fell with an unceremonious oomph onto wool carpet. The coins were gone. I was in a new space—a dark corridor with high walls covered in paintings that, no matter how hard I squinted, I could not make out. They looked like bodies, naked like mine, contorted into all manner of shapes.

High above, nigh transparent, Aisling’s ceiling loomed.

My steps made no sound upon the carpet, but my heart was frantic. To drown in Aisling’s Cathedral’s magical spring, to dream of the Omens, was always like this. Painful. Eerie. No matter how many times I dreamed, I could not escape the keen sense of entrapment that settled over me, as if someone I could not see, a hooded figure, perhaps, was watching me—darkening the edges of my periphery.

My lower back, my underarms, the soles of my bare feet, dampened with sweat.

Then it wasn’t just sweat. Something wet leached onto my feet, cold as it burrowed between my toes.

I saw it then. An inkwell at the edge of the corridor, black ink spilling from it onto the carpet like a bleeding wound.

“The Harried Scribe’s inkwell,” I said, making my voice as loud as I could. “It’s overturned. Leaching black ink. A terrible sign.”

Whispers sounded above me. Then the ink, the carpet, the corridor were all falling away, and so was I. I plummeted through darkness, through nothingness, into wan gray light. A rush of air slapped me over the face. There were no coins, no carpet to catch me this time. Just jagged, unforgiving shale and mountainous stone. I put out my hands to catch myself—

And slammed onto a boulder, shattering my collarbone.

“Where are you now, Six?”

I gnashed and writhed and swallowed the overpowering urge to be sick, hot agony scraping over me.

“Six?” The abbess’s voice was an echo, but no less commanding.

I’d watched Four dream once. I’d been young and curious to know what I must look like while Divining, but seeing Four drown had unnerved me so acutely I’d nearly left. Then the abbess, who was so much stronger than I’d estimated, pulled Four out of the spring like she weighed no more than a broom and laid her down, supine, upon the chancel. I’d always imagined there was flailing—maybe even writhing—involved in the craft of Divination. To dream of the Omens was to fall into nightmares, and the pain I felt while unconscious was as real to me as the pain in my waking life.

But Four had just… lain there, looking peaceful. Only her voice, slipping from her parted lips, lent animation to her disquiet. She’d groaned—screamed. After, she’d told me that she’d landed on her back atop the Artful Brigand’s pile of coins and knocked the wind from herself. But all I’d heard was a gasp, and all I’d seen was a motionless girl in a wet silk robe, arms open in beckoning, lying upon the chancel.

And for some perverse reason, I liked that. Knowing I could hold so much pain without anyone being the wiser made me feel…

Strong.

Even if my broken collarbone fucking hurt.

With my good arm, I pushed myself to my knees. My breasts and stomach were covered with scrapes from the rocks. When I looked out it was upon a basin of water, surrounded by seven mountain peaks, each of them so sheer, so jagged, they looked like the storybook claws of an ancient craggy giant.

But it wasn’t them I was looking to. It was the water. The crystalline-blue water within the basin—and the large stone oar, suspended over it. “I’m in the mountains,” I said through clenched teeth. “The Ardent Oarsman’s oar does not touch the water—there is no current. Another bad sign for the king.”

There was a drop in my stomach— here we go again —and then I was no longer standing upon rocks or looking out on water, but alone in a woodland. My broken collarbone—the cuts in my skin—were gone. I stood in a wood of pale birch trees, nary a soul in sight.

But I was not alone.

Warm light flittered through a canopy of yellow leaves. The birch trees bore no branches and swayed on a breeze like sallow arms, grasping for the thin visage of Aisling’s ceiling.

I listened.

There. A chime, hung in the tree before me. A stone chime that called several high, unsteady notes.

“The Faithful Forester’s chime rings discordantly,” I called. “An ill portent.”

I couldn’t hear the abbess’s voice. I imagined her gloating behind her shroud at King Castor. Four stone objects—four bad signs.

Only one left.

The chime stopped short.

The wood went silent. And the birch trees—the trees stood tightly bound, nearer than before, like a pack of wolves tightening ranks around a lost deer. This close, I could see their pale bark was not translucent or papery as a birch’s might be. No. This bark was mottled. Heavy. Like old flesh. And the knots in the trunks, gashes of darkness in all that pale, sloughing bark—

Were eyes. Hundreds of black lidless eyes, watching me.

The wood disappeared. When the world righted, I lay upon earth that was hard and cold and slimy. The air was dank and close, and I could hardly see my own nakedness—everything was painted by blackness.

“I’m in the dark,” I called.

I’m in the dark , my echo recited from far away.

I knew what came next. I had dreamed of all the places I had visited hundreds of times over—the room full of coins, the carpeted corridor, the mountains, the birch forest, and now this, the dank darkness. And I knew what stone objects awaited me and how to interpret them. I was good at reading the signs. Which was why it shamed me, after all this time, that I should be so loath to do it.

That I should still be afraid to dream.

I got to my feet and shuffled forward, hands out in front of me. For a time there was nothing, just blackness and the sound of my pulse in my ears. Then—silver light. High above, moonlight filtered in through narrow cracks, as if I were looking out at the night sky from within a huge, dark egg.

It wasn’t much light. Just enough to keep me from slamming my shins into the stone bench stationed against the wall. Upon it sat a tapestry, faded and frayed. Tied to the bottom of its threads, weighing them down—

Was a loom stone.

“The Heartsore Weaver’s loom stone,” I called, stomaching the urge to whisper. “It hangs from frayed thread. The fifth bad sign.” I shook my head. “That’s an answer to King Castor’s question. The Omens do not favor him.”

Voices echoed from far away.

The dream had served its purpose. The abbess would wake me now—

A noise sounded. Footsteps in the dark. Not a thump like a cobbled shoe or boot or even a bare foot might make, but harsh. Like stone upon stone. Clack , clack , they went. Clack , clack , right behind me.

I whirled.

There was no one there.

My skin prickled, the cloying feeling that I was being watched heightening all my senses.

Clack , clack , near and far.

The silver moonlight blotted out, plunging me into true darkness. I bit down on a cry and did what I always did at this part of the dream.

Ran.

I fled through the dark innards of the dream until I was falling, plummeting into bottomless blackness, into nothingness. I fell, fell—

“Six,” came the abbess’s voice.

I woke with a wrenching gasp.