Page 31 of Harbinger

My heart pounds in my chest. Did I really fuck up that badly last night?

I did what needed to be done. There was no reason to kill the oscen. The vesper told me it wasn’t a test. My hands shake as I set the knife back onto the edge of the well.

Why aren’t the Stars binding me? The audience begins to whisper, breaking the uncomfortable silence and filling it with something much worse. Everyone else received their Kindling. I’ll be the only one who doesn’t.

And they all know why.

Dread pools in the pit of my stomach as my eyes dart around the room. Until they snag on Bishop. His posture still screams boredom, but his gaze drills into mine.

I square my shoulders, refusing to turn away like I did something wrong. Fuck him. Fuck all of them.

If killing an innocent creature without purpose is the only way to earn the privilege of magic, I don’t deserve it.

None of them do.

Bishop leans forward, eyes narrowing slightly. Probably debating throwing me out of the palace. If the Stars rejected me …

The ground begins to tremble beneath my feet, and I gasp.

I grab the basin’s rim as the floor actually shakes, like something deep below has awakened. All of a sudden, there’s movement in the corner of my eye. Murmurs ripple among the audience as the silver light races through every etched channel like the magic can’t decide which path to choose.

Pain slices along my skin so sharp and sudden, I almost pass out. A scream claws its way up my throat, but I clamp my mouth shut. If this is the Stars’ punishment, I won’t give them the satisfaction of hearing me break.

Instead, I cling to the basin, eyes flying around the room so quickly that everything is a blur until I look up at the night sky, searching for my own constellation. For the stars that mark the tips of its wings, the ones that make up the line of its body. But the pegasus of Order Icaros doesn’t flare with recognition.

Please.

The twinkling starlight dims, and relief floods through me. But before I can pry my fingers from the well, the sky goes black. Like every star is rejecting me at once.

I close my eyes, hoping that I might open them and find myself in bed. That this is just a nightmare brought on by nerves and too much wine.

“Look!” someone shouts, and my eyes snap open again to find a single star blazing overhead … in the center of the Night’s Scar.

Wrong. This is all wrong. Beneath me, the silver light diverges from the normal channels toward the unthinkable. Mortar cracks in the floor as it carves its way into the lines of the fallen constellation. I step back, instinct telling me to run, but white-hot agony erupts across my chest. Not on my wrist or palm or neck like the others. My hands fly out, lifted by some unseen force as red light sears the skin over my heart, burning lines like fire. There’s no way to stop it. I can only watch as a new pattern forms.

One I’ve only seen in a blackened alcove, cracked into the mortar under my feet, illustrated on the cover of a banned book in a shop. One in the shape of a bird—the fallen constellation that disappeared five hundred years ago. The one that only exists as a warning.

Except it’s burning itself into my skin right now.

A hush falls over the room, the kind of silence that hits before a storm.

And then a single word rips through the air. “Harbinger!”

SEVEN

The pain in my chest intensifies, tendrils of fire rooting under my flesh as the magic claims me. The pain ebbs, and under it … nothing. There’s no stirring sensation like everyone describes. Not even a faint fluttering. But I still can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything but clutch my chest as chaos descends in the throne room.

Chairs scrape against stone as people leap to their feet. Some rush forward, others back, torn between attacking and fleeing. Everyone is shouting, and I want to cover my ears with my hands.

“Not possible—”

“It’s the burning raven—”

“Kill her before—”

“Get the high vesper!”

Strong hands close around my upper arms, and I look up to find Bishop staring down at me. How in all seven hells can he look so fucking calm right now? A group of knights surrounds me, and panic grips me even more tightly than the man holding me. I try to pull free—of him, of the fear—but neither releases me.