Neve was very knowable. She wanted so little. Safety for her sister. Someone who loved her. A measure of control, as large a measure as she could get. To be an active player in her life rather than led along by outside forces, pushed in different directions as easily as a plume of smoke from a snuffed candle.
Fire fed, she stepped back, squinted up at the painting. She knew most of the names of the constellations, knowledge she’d found in this very library. The Leviathan, the Plague Stars, the Sisters, the Far-Flung Queen. She knew some of the stories, too, though they varied so widely from country to country, it was hard to believe there was any kernel of truth in them. In Nioh, the Far-Flung Queen had been a conniving daughter who usurped a throne and plunged the world into war; the constellation was considered an ill omen. In Valleyda, the constellation’s story was one of gentleness and peace, a queen who’d been raised far away coming of age and ushering in a period of prosperity. And in Alpera, they didn’t think the shape in the stars was a queen at all, but a dagger.
Destruction and rebirth and peace and war, all of it twisted, none of it true. Neve’s squint became a scowl.
Neve walked to the bookshelf she’d been working through, rubbing the heel of her hand against her tired eyes. Three books, plucked from the shelves and held against her chest like shields, then dumped unceremoniously on a nearby table. She sat down, yawned, opened the first one. A singular edition, the cover cracked leather, the pages smelling of dust. The letters looked handwritten, ink faded to ghostliness in some places.
Most of the entries were formatted like poems. Her nose wrinkled. At this point, Neve couldn’t really afford to be picky, but she didn’t have much faith that she would find what she needed here, in what looked more like an old journal than anything else.
In fact, she was so sure the book would be useless that she had the cover halfway closed before a stray line caught her eye: the Golden-Veined, the Wood-Entangled.
She swallowed, hard. Then she opened the book and read.
I have heard the whispering in the branches, and they tell of one who becomes two, who become three.
One to be the vessel—the Shadow Queen, the Dark-Holder.
Two to make the doorway—the Shadow Queen and the Golden-Veined, Wood-Entangled.
Three to make a throne—the Shadow Queen, the Golden-Veined, and the Holy Traitor, Blasphemy-Bound.
“Gibberish,” Neve muttered to the book. She slammed it shut so hard, the old pages kicked out a faint cloud of dust. “Kings and shadows damn it.”
Her throat felt thick, raw. Neve crossed her arms on the table and laid her forehead against them, teeth bared at the expectation of frustrated tears. Neve wasn’t much of a crier, but it was always things like this that brought her to weeping—wasted time, useless effort, reminders of how little she could do.
She hiccupped one sob, quiet against the shush of the fire, then pushed the emotions down. That, at least, she could control.
After a moment, she stood, leaning wearily against the table like an old woman, before heading to the door. She couldn’t do this tonight, insomnia or no.
Neve was halfway to the door before a surge of rage eclipsed the gentler kind of anger that raised tears. She didn’t think before she acted; she strode back to the table, grabbed the useless book, and threw it into the fire.
The leather popped and bubbled, filling the room with an acrid smell as the paper inside caught flame. The book flipped open, as if in a death throe, shrinking as the fire winnowed it away, turned it into so much smoke. The force of such rapid destruction made the pages flip. Neve caught the lines and arcs of half-eaten letters on the back cover—a T, an N, a Y.
She left before the book finished burning.
As she passed Red’s room again, she looked to the window on the wall opposite and told herself it wasn’t because she didn’t want to see Red’s closed door, didn’t want to think about her sister sleeping behind it and how the clock was rapidly ticking down to a time when Red wouldn’t be.
Most of the lights in the city were doused at such a late hour, and the sky spread above the streets in a swath of midnight blue, pocked with stars. It was clear enough to pick out constellations, and Neve stopped almost unconsciously, eyes tracing brilliant patterns.
The Sisters constellation was halfway over the horizon. One of the Sister shapes was visible, hand outstretched to the other still hidden behind the curve of the world.
The angle made it look as if she were reaching into the earth.
Chapter One
Neve
In the trees, something was moving.