Fall of Ruin and Wrath (Awakening, #1)

Looking up from the chamomile I’d been grinding into a powder for Baron Huntington’s teas, I saw Naomi standing in the doorway of my chamber. The brunette was already dressed for the evening; the gossamer of her gown would’ve been completely transparent if not for the fabric’s strategically placed panels in a deep shade of cerulean.

The Baron of Archwood led, well, an unorthodox life compared to most mortals, but then again, Claude wasn’t just a mortal. He was a caelestia— a mortal that descended from the rare joining of a lowborn and Hyhborn. Caelestias were born and caelestias aged, just like us lowborn, and at twenty-six, Claude had no plans to marry. Instead, he preferred to spread his affection upon many. He, much like the Hyhborn, was a collector of anything beautiful and unique. And one would be unwise if one thought to compare oneself to any of the Baron’s paramours, but it was doubly foolish to measure oneself against Naomi.

With her glossy hair and delicate features, she was utterly breathtaking.

I, on the other hand, happened to look like someone had taken different traits from other people and pieced them together on my face. My small mouth didn’t match the natural pucker of my lips. My too-round, too-big eyes seemed to take up the entirety of my face, giving me the appearance of looking far more innocent than I was. That had come in handy more than once while I was on the streets, but I thought that I vaguely resembled those creepy dolls I’d seen in shopwindows, except with golden-olive skin instead of porcelain.

The Baron once told me I was interesting to look upon— “stunning” in an odd sort of way— but even if that weren’t so, I would still be his most favored, the one he kept close to him, and that had nothing to do with my odd attractiveness.

Tension crept into my shoulders as I shifted on the settee and nodded. Dragging my teeth over my lower lip, I watched her close the door and cross the sitting area of my quarters— my private quarters.

Gods, at twenty-two years of age, I’d been here for . . . for six years. Long enough for me not to be shocked by the knowledge that I had my own space, my own rooms with electricity and hot water, something that many places in the kingdom didn’t have. I had my own bed— an actual bed and not a pile of flat blankets or a mattress made of flea-infested straw— but I still couldn’t wrap my head around it.

I focused on Naomi. She was behaving strangely, repeatedly clasping her hands together and releasing them. Naomi was nervous, and I had never known her to be such.

“What do you need?” I asked, even though I had a feeling— no, I knew exactly what she wanted. Why she was nervous.

“I . . . I wanted to talk to you about my sister,” she began— tentatively, and Naomi was never tentative in anything she did. There were few who were as brave and bold as her. “Laurelin has been unwell.”

My chest squeezed as my gaze returned to the bowl in my lap and the yellowish-brown powder within. This was what I’d dreaded.

Her sister had married a wealthy landowner above her so-called station in life. A union heralded as a true love match, something I would’ve normally scoffed at, but it was true. Laurelin was the rarity in a world where most married for convenience, opportunity, or security.

But what did love really do for anyone? Even her? It hadn’t stopped her husband from wanting a son even though Laurelin’s last birth had nearly taken her life. So she kept trying, no matter the risk.

He’d gotten his son now, and Laurelin had been struck with the fever that had taken so many after birth.

“I wanted to know if she will . . . ?” Naomi took a deep breath, stiffening her shoulders. “If she will recover?”

“I’m assuming you’re not looking for my opinion,” I said, grinding the pestle into the mound of chamomile. The slightly fruity tobacco scent increased. “Are you?”

“Not unless you have been moonlighting as a physician or midwife,” she replied dryly. “I . . . I want to know what the future holds for her.”

I exhaled softly. “You shouldn’t be asking this.”

“I know.” Naomi lowered herself to her knees on the floor beside me, the skirt of her gown pooling around her. “And I know the Baron doesn’t like it when someone asks you to do this, but I swear he will never know.”

My reluctance had little to do with Claude, even though he didn’t like it when I used my foresight— my heightened intuition— for anyone but him. He feared I’d be accused of being a conjurer dabbling in forbidden bone magic, and while I knew the Baron did worry about that, I also knew that it wasn’t the magistrates of Archwood he was concerned about. All of them were in the Baron’s pocket, and none of them would go against a Hyhborn, even if he was only a descendant of one. What he truly feared was that another with more coin or power would steal me away.

But his command to keep my abilities hidden and my own fear of being labeled a conjurer hadn’t stopped me. I just . . . I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut when I saw or felt something and was foolishly compelled to speak up. It was the same in all the places Grady and I had lived in before the Midlands’ city of Archwood, which had caused me to be accused of being a conjurer and led to us fleeing in the middle of the night more times than I cared to remember to avoid the hangman’s noose. My terminal inability to mind my own business was how I met Claude.

And it was also how people in the manor and beyond had learned of me— the woman who knew things. Not many, but enough.

The reason I didn’t want Naomi to ask this had everything to do with her.

When I first came to Archwood Manor, at sixteen, Naomi had already been here for about thirteen months. The same age as Claude, she was only a few years older than me, and clever, and she was so much more worldly than I could ever hope to be that I assumed she’d want little to do with me.

That hadn’t been the case.

Naomi had become, well, my first . . . friend outside of Grady.

I would do anything for her.

But I feared I’d break her heart, and I was as terrified of losing her friendship as I was of losing the life I’d finally carved out for myself in Archwood. Because more times than not, people really didn’t want the answers they sought, and the truth of what was to come was often far more destructive than a lie.

“Please,” Naomi whispered. “I have never asked you anything like this before, and I . . .” She swallowed thickly. “I hate doing it, but I’m just so worried, Lis. I’m afraid that she will leave this realm.”

Her dark eyes began to glimmer with tears, and I couldn’t bear it. “Are you sure?”

“Of course— ”

“You say that now, but what if it’s an answer you fear? Because if it is, I won’t lie. Your worry will turn to heartache,” I reminded her.

“I know. Trust me, I do,” she swore, the rich brown curls spilling over her shoulders as she leaned toward me. “It’s why I didn’t ask when I first learned of the fever.”

I bit down on my lip, my grip on the mortar tightening.

“I won’t hold it against you,” she said softly. “Whatever the answer is, I will not blame you.”

“You promise?”

“Of course,” she swore.

“Okay,” I said, hoping she spoke the truth. Naomi wasn’t a projector, meaning she didn’t broadcast her thoughts and intentions like so many did, making them far too easy to read.

But I could get inside her mind if I wanted to and find out if she spoke the truth. All I would need to do was open my senses to her and allow that connection to snap to life.

I didn’t do that when I could help it. It was too much of an invasion. A violation. However, knowing that hadn’t stopped me from doing it when it benefited me, had it?

Shoving that little truth aside, I drew in a breath that tasted of the chamomile as I set the bowl on a small table. “Give me your hand.”