*****************
Chapter 192
~Valerie’s POV~
The world stopped for a mont as my brain tried to process the information.
"What?" I breathed a few seconds later.
"There’s no heat," she repeated, blinking fast. "Valerie, you..."
I thought I had absorbed the news, but still, the world tilted—not like a spin or a sway, but like the ground beneath shifted just enough to make question if it was ever solid.
"What?" I breathed, though my lungs barely worked. "What did you just say?"
Solstice didn’t flinch. Her voice ca gentler now, but no less serious. "There’s no heat."
I stared at her, the words sinking in slowly, like syrup down a drain. Too thick to make sense at first.
"No heat?" I repeated, blinking fast. "What does that even an?"
Solstice bit her lip. "I an... you know how most heirs—especially females—start to emit a kind of... signature warmth? A signal that their elental magic is reaching maturation? You don’t have that. I thought it was the necklace suppressing your heat, like how it blocks your scent. But it’s not. Valerie, there was never any heat to begin with."
I opened my mouth. Closed it again. My eyes dropped to the necklace at my collarbone.
The pendant glinted faintly under the sunlight filtering through the courtyard windows. The silver chain nestled into my skin like a promise—or a prison.
"You’re sure?" I asked, voice low.
Solstice hesitated. "Yes. I didn’t want to say anything before... but after what I just saw—how it reacted—it’s not your heat it’s hiding. It’s sothing else. Sothing bigger."
My chest hollowed like soone had scooped it out. The scroll. The necklace. The weird reactions. And now... this.
My hand reached up, fingers brushing the cool tal. "Is that why it pulsed when I saw the scroll?" My voice cracked. "Has it all been a lie?"
Without waiting for an answer, I turned on my heel and walked off. Solstice called my na, footsteps slapping the tile behind , but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Not with my mind spinning like this.
Everything felt fake.
Everything felt rigged.
I slamd open the front doors of our dorm lodge, startling Erald, who was lounging by the counter with a smoothie cup in hand.
"Whoa," she blinked. "Did soone die?"
I didn’t answer. I marched straight past her to my room door. Isla and Astraea both peered out from their rooms down the hallway.
"What’s going on?" Isla asked.
"Everything okay?" Astraea followed up, eyes narrowing with suspicion.
Solstice, ever the charming diplomat, tossed them a smile. "All good! Just girl stuff."
Before either of them could dig deeper, we slipped inside my room, and I shut the door behind us with a firm click.
I didn’t speak. I just crossed to the drawer beside my bed, yanked it open, and pulled out the scroll—the sa one Ash and I had uncovered from the library archives.
It was still as I left it and looking dormant. I placed it carefully on the table. Solstice hovered near the wall, arms crossed tightly.
"You sure you want to do this now?" she asked.
"I don’t know," I said honestly. "But I have to."
I pulled the necklace from beneath my shirt. The mont it ca free and hung in the air above the scroll, the stone at its center began to glow—a soft blue, dim at first, then pulsing brighter.
Nothing happened right away.
Solstice squinted at it. "Huh. Should anything be happening?"
"Give it a second," I muttered.
"I an, you’ve been holding that thing up like a priestess for five minutes and the scroll’s still in napti."
"Silver—get back."
"But I just—"
Before she could finish, the necklace flared.
A rush of heat slamd through my body—sharp, sudden, real. It was like being dropped into hot water without warning. My breath hitched.
The scroll beneath us began to shift. The runes rearranged themselves again, sliding and twisting like snakes across the page.
Solstice gasped audibly beside . "Holy goddess..."
Right there, in front of us, the symbol erged.
The Nightshade crest. A thorny sigil surrounded by a pale white rose—delicate, deadly, beautiful.
The sigil glowed softly on the parchnt, etched into it like living ink. My body had gone still, frozen in ti.
Solstice waved a hand in front of my face. "Val?"
No response.
"Valerie!"
She reached for the necklace, gripped it and tried to yank it away from my chest. The mont her fingers touched it—
Boom.
A blast of energy knocked her backward, sending her crashing into the wall with a gasp.
The glow vanished.
I blinked, disoriented, the warmth still echoing in my chest. "Silver?"
I scrambled to her side as she groaned and sat up, rubbing her back. "Okay. That... sucked."
The knock ca almost imdiately.
"Everything okay in there?" Isla called out.
"Sounded like soone body-slamd a bookshelf," Erald added.
I stood and wiped my palms on my thighs. "We’re good!"
"That was Silver," I said as I opened the door slightly, keeping them from seeing too far in. "She tripped trying to do a ballet dance to cheer up."
There was a pause, and then Erald chuckled. "Of course she did."
"You need to be more careful, Silver," Isla added, amused.
"Tell about it," Solstice called from behind , groaning exaggeratedly.
Once their footsteps faded down the hallway, I shut the door again.
Solstice sat up straighter now, face serious. "Valerie... you need to take that necklace off. It’s dangerous. You could’ve passed out. You could’ve hurt soone."
"Off or on," I said softly, "I have to keep it."
Her brows furrowed. "Why?"
"Because the heirs fought to return it to . If I suddenly stop wearing it, they’ll know sothing’s wrong. Suspicion will spread. I’m not ready to explain this yet—not until I understand what it ans."
"You want to cover this up?"
"For now," I said. "Until I find out what this power really is. Until I know who I am."
Solstice’s mouth opened as if to argue, but she stopped. She looked at —really looked at —and nodded.
"Okay," she said, quietly. "But you’re not doing it alone."
I squeezed her hand. "I know."
She tried to lighten the mood with a smirk. "Still no heat, though."
"Not helpful."
She laughed anyway. I looked back at the scroll, at the sigil still glowing faintly.
"Heat or no heat," I whispered, "this necklace stays."
Reviews
All reviews (0)