AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I pushed myself up to sit and let my fingers brush over that abyss in my chest that seemed to hunger and churn beneath the creamy cotton of my shift. “What am I?”
Marla closed the book, propped it behind her lower back on the chair, lowered her feet to the ground, and leaned forward slightly. “You, Galantia, are a void.”
A void.
I expected something to surge within me—excitement, exhilaration, maybe even a strange sort of pride—but instead, my shoulders slouched.
I wasn’t a deathweaver, feared by all. Not a pathfinder, able to enjoy the delicate nuances of the air. Not a fate, able to find excitement in glimpses of visions. Hells, I couldn’t even knit a damn shadow scarf. In the grand scale of things, I felt as though I had been gifted nothing.
Quite literally.
Marla chuckled, rose, and grabbed the metal carafe from the nearby table, from which she poured into a wooden cup, her black dress simple with no adornments. “You are disappointed.”
“Is it so obvious?” After all, I’d balanced along a damn wall, had been pushed off a cliff, and, most recently, nearly been squished beneath boulders. And for what? Exaggerated heartburn? “What do voids even do, other than remove shadows?”
“Nothing.”
“Exactly…” They didnothing, like I had all my life, with no shadows of my own, no agency. “Does it always hurt like this?”
“After a lifetime of being deprived the shadows it craves, your void is starved, child. Now drink.” She handed me the cup of water, then brushed her hands up and down her arms as she glanced out the window over the snow-capped cliffs that reflected the rich sun. “Voids are rare, Galantia. So very rare, blessed with the gift to undo darkness—also to wield it, should it turn out you can indeed mirror the shadows of others.”
I quickly swallowed my final gulp of water. “An echo.”
“Yes, an echo,” she said with a nod over her shoulder back at me, a soft smile curving her lips. “My Asker told me you read up on all the gifts. It will prove helpful during your training.”
“Training,” I repeated, quite liking that word. “Presume we’re not talking about knitting, sitting straight, or the mastery of the curtsy.”
Her smile lifted higher, almost resembling a grin that made deep wrinkles appear over her cheeks and around her lips as if she’d enjoyed a lifetime of laughter. “We have yet to figure out just how deep your void is, or the potential variation of your gift. The only way to do so is have you use it under guidance.”
“Wield my gift.” Oh, Ireallyliked the sound of that one, sparks of energy tingling my fingertips. I’d never wielded much beyond an embroidery needle. “Guide me, then. I’m ready.”
“No. What you are, is bruised, with a nasty cut on one side of your forehead requiring a bit more healing,” she said with a sigh. “But even then, as a fate, I have no shadows for you to absorb. There is, however, one particular deathweaver who has enough shadows to spare, it would feed four voids a lifetime.”
My stomach clenched. “I’m glad Malyr saved me, I truly am, but I have no interest in being anywhere near him.”
“All night, he spent beside you, guarding over your sleep until other responsibilities called him away,” she said, as though he’d done so out of concern for me, and not how I could benefit him. “He is your fated mate, Galantia.”
“And Aros is Lorn’s fated mate. If she manages to avoid the bond and reject heranoaley, then so will I.”
“You have been dealt a fate wrought with hardship and pain, a price our goddess wants you to pay for another chance at life,” she said. “And with that, I mean thebothof you.”
“I’m not oblivious to the hardships Malyr endured.” But ones suffering in the past could not excuse every misdeed of the present. “Maybe fate made a mistake.”
“Fate is woven with precision, not chance; every thread perceived woven wrong is nothing but an essential right in the complex tapestry of a life.” Marla tortured her upper lip between her teeth for a moment. “Yet, your mother’s interference was like a tug on a web too intrinsically spun for me to grasp completely.”
Mother.
That word sent a subtle rise of dread through me. “Lady Brisden. She, um… she…” A heavy swallow, then I placed the cup on the bedside table. “Did she succumb to her injuries?”
Marla shook her head, but it held a certain surprised reluctance. “I know nothing of injuries, nor could I, for she was neither found among the living nor the dead.”
My core lifted at the possibility of her survival. “Maybe she escaped?”
“Perhaps,” Marla said. “Lord Brisden escaped on one of the ships. She might have boarded alongside him.”
After he found out about what I was, my existence nothing but living proof of her betrayal? Was that likely?
Linens shifted with a soft rustle.
