Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 132437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
Measuring the arrangement of stars and galaxies and planets and moons, and mentally laying a grid over them, she tried to see his life in the positions of all the most important quadrants: Love. Family. Young. Spirituality. Purpose. Bloodline. There were so many others, but the big six, as she liked to call them, were what she knew best.
And of them, she focused on… love.
There was one star. One single star.
An abiding love that lasted his whole life, that defined it, and marked it so completely, that no other existed for him.
Her eyes swam with tears. She’d only ever seen it before in one other chart. Her own. And she’d assumed it justified the mating with t’On.
Now she knew the truth.
She would love Al for her entire lonely life of duty as well.
Denne had to look away from the screen. And as soon as she did, she started properly crying. That star was her. It was the only explanation: Somehow, he was going to be faithful to her memory for all of his nights, however many they were. As if they had been long-mated and she’d died.
Unless he didn’t live very long?
With dread, she looked into the other quadrants, but it was like she was reading gibberish. Her mind was jammed with fear and sadness, and no doubt the way her eyes were tripping around the constellations wasn’t helping.
Still, she stayed curled around the screen as if it were a hearth giving her warmth.
It was hard to say when things formed a pattern, and at first, she fought the conclusion that was manifesting. And then she rubbed her eyes and leaned in even closer. As if that was going to change anything?
Except no. There was an arrangement of stars that she had seen just the night before, in her own chart. In the family quadrant, where her parents had been in danger unless she mated t’On. And also in the quadrant associated with the s’Hisbe itself.
Death.
His sister? Oh, fuck. His sister was going to die.
Unless… maybe she was reading it wrong?
Twisting around, she glanced at her slot. Then got up and went over to it. The wax seal had no seams she could ease off, so she ended up breaking the thing. It was her own damn chart, anyway.
Back at the desk, she moved the laptop over and unrolled the parchment from her transition’s reading on top of the glass viewing pane.
There were two parts to every astrological chart, the arrangement of the stars and then the grid. Where the grid was placed on the night sky was determined by your birth date and time, and what its precise position revealed was supposed to represent the person’s destiny. The role of the Tretary, apart from doing nightly maps for consultation, was to read and interpret the intersections between the grid and the cosmos and record what was shown.
Pinpointing the grids on her own chart, she then triangulated what was on the parchment with what showed on the laptop screen.
In the family section, her chart had two death marks that were shadowed, indicating what would happen if she did not take the throne: Her parents died because of something she did.
Allhan’s was not shaded.
It had to be his sister, and she felt a rush of sympathy for him. Something he was going to do would cause her death, and what a curse to bear. And given how haunted he was as he stared across the river at that glass house, it was like he knew what was coming.
To have the blood of a family member on your hands… she couldn’t imagine bearing that guilt.
Which was why she was mating a male she didn’t love.
Maybe there was still a way she could help Al? Even with every-thing she was going through herself?
Was the answer in the stars, she wondered.
Opening another tab on the laptop, she entered her own birthday and instantly the screen populated with her grid system and star arrangement. A couple of clicks on the mouse pad and she added a grid to Al’s and then merged the two charts, everything swinging around to overlay, her in yellow, Al in red.
Her eyes bounced around again, looking for a place to land.
Of course she went to love first, and though their other grid parts were in different places, boxing different stars, both of their heart sections settled over that single northern star.
And framing the upper corners were two shooting stars on a path to intersect right across that glowing pinpoint of light.
A chill went through her.
9:19 on a winter’s night. The pair of them in that clearing. Every-thing changing in her life at that moment.
Wait a minute.
What if the prophecy was about her meeting Allhan. And he was her destiny.
What if the sacred intersection in the heavens had been about them?
Except of course, because fate was a fucking asshole, it didn’t mean they ended up together. Nah, they just got to be miserable for the rest of their lives, missing the true love they should have had, could have had, if the rest of the world didn’t exist.