Page 100 of Threaded
Not even her mother.
The woman glided further onto the balcony until she stood at the railing, about three feet to Mariah’s left. Her head tilted up to gaze at the night sky above, where the twin moons hung as thin waxing crescents, their light still enough to illuminate the air around them. Those moons would only continue to grow larger and closer as the weeks passed until the Winter Solstice, when they would be at both their lowest and largest and brightest. Just as they were on the Summer Solstice.
There was pure, raw magic to be found on those nights when the moons were huge and blazing in the sky. Magic that was not just reserved for men or priestesses or queens.
“The moons are beautiful tonight, don’t you think?”
The woman’s voice was soft, yet strong and smooth. Mariah narrowed her eyes as she looked at her, opening her mouth to speak, when the woman continued.
“I think there is something so powerful about when they wax. They all but vanish from the sky during the Equinox, but watching them reappear as we move closer to the Solstice is such a marvelous thing to witness.” Mariah swore she could hear a smile on the woman’s words.
This woman was … quite strange.
“Yes, it sure is … something.” Mariah paused, leaning forward, trying to peer beneath that thick veil. “I’m sorry, but … can I help you? Who are you?”
The woman ignored Mariah’s questions, continuing her monologue as if she’d heard nothing. “It is funny, I think, how your people worship and celebrate only one of those moons, when they both provide us all with light against the darkness of the world.”
Her words skittered over Mariah’s skin, goosebumps erupting in their wake. She stared at the woman, her mouth agape. Slowly, the strange woman turned away from the night sky above and finally turned to face Mariah. While Mariah couldn’t see her eyes, she still felt the burn of the woman’s gaze, the weight of it so heavy and intense she felt her soul shriek and crawl as it caved under the scrutiny.
She didn’t particularly like that, being so seen.
“You know of the Ginnelevé, Your Majesty. Do not forget her. The journal you have been gifted shall guide you, but let what is inside of it lead you.”
Mariah’s heart stopped in her chest as the mysterious woman turned, the silver material of her strange clothing whispering around her, and disappeared back through the balcony doors and into the shadows of the hallway beyond.
CHAPTER44
The chill was instant as Mariah yanked herself from Andrian’s grasp and pushed herself into the depths of the crowds, slipping away from him like mist through his fingers As she went, it felt as if a piece of him were being ripped from his soul, pulled out and carried away in her soft yet calloused hands.
He’d meant what he’d said to her in the library yesterday. Or, at least, hethoughthe’d meant what he said. Andrian knew she was growing too close to him, and he had to push her away, into the arms of Sebastian or literallyanyoneelse who was more deserving of her than him. He’d meant to stand by his word and stay away from her tonight, to be present only because his position and the oath he’d unintentionally swore demanded it. He absolutely had not intended to do the equivalent of kissing her feet before every eye on the continent.
But the second that swine—Donnet—had opened his mouth …
Andrian had never felt such fury in his entire, angry life. The darkness dwelling in his veins had swirled up and out, veiling his vision so suddenly that when he’d finally been able to recapture its reins, he’d found himself standing between Mariah and the lord, his dagger pressed against the man’s sweaty throat.
And even with a semblance of regained control, it hadn’t stopped him from issuing that threat for the entire world to hear. But that wasn’t even what surprised him the most.
What shocked him to his core was that he’dmeantit. Gods, he’d wanted to spill the blood of that poor excuse of a man right there on the dais, let it wash around Mariah’s feet in a beautiful, macabre painting just for her. She’d worn that dress of sinful night; not a speck would have marred it.
He’d somehow wrestled control of himself enough to turn and meet Mariah’s gaze just as her voice had spoken his name. It had snapped his bloodthirsty trance, and the emotions shining in her eyes hadn’t been fear, or apprehension, or anything of the sort.
Mariah had looked at him withappreciation.
He didn’t think anyone had ever looked at him that way before.
She’d taken in all his darkness, light magic sparkling in her incredible green eyes, alighting across her golden skin and in the near-black waves of her hair, and was utterly unafraid. That had been nowhere near as dark as he could go, but to see her staring at him like that, with so much acceptance …
He still hated her, he’d reminded himself.
Hated her.
Hated her.
But words, when you start to repeat them often enough to yourself, begin to lose all their meaning. Begin to sound like nothing at all.
The sparkling brilliance of her magic in the air around them had suddenly cracked something in the icy depths of his soul, splintering everything he’d fought so hard to keep locked down and frozen away.
Those cracks made it impossible to resist reaching out to her. To ask her to dance with him.