“I doubt you guys will have more on the Hermessi than what we found last night,” Varga replied.
“True. But we do have the temples.”
Amelia lit up like a bulb. “That’s right. The four Hermessi temples, each representing one of the natural elements. Of course, the Fire Temple is the authority figure on your planet, but, still, the cult revival may bring additional information to light. It’s safe to assume that the Hermessi faith was never fully dead and gone, in terms of, say, manuscripts and worship objects. Whatever we find in the temples will surely be protected and unknown to us all.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too,” I said. “No way the clerics just went and made up the Hermessi faith again, from scratch. Surely, they have some ancient parchments or manuscripts or anything physical about the Hermessi to begin with. Probably stuff that was hidden until the cult reemerged last year.”
“How are we doing this, then? Travel-wise? Portal? Interplanetary glowy, sparkly bubble?” Herakles asked, grinning like the devil. He loved the interplanetary travel spell because it gave him a real-time, full view of the cosmos. There was nothing more awe-inspiring, more wonderful than having the universe at your fingertips like that.
“Portal, buddy. Sorry,” I replied.
After all, Lumi and Kailani had helped the Daughters build another portal up here, on the platform, leading to multiple destinations across the In-Between, including my Fire Star. From there on, the interplanetary spell was an option, once we had to visit other planets and solar systems, since the portals were still rare and not easy to put up, in the first place.
Herakles instantly deflated, then took a long sip from his coffee thermos. “I packed ingredients for the travel spell, too, just in case.”
“We all did,” Raphael replied. “Relax, you’ll get to zoom through space soon enough.”
“And afterward, we can get ice cream!” Varga cooed, as if talking to a toddler.
As expected, it got a menacing hiss from Herakles. It wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. It was just his way of saying he’d get Varga back soon enough for the jab. I called it “supernatural guy talk.”
“All right, all right, get your ass in gear, Nevertide princess,” Herakles retorted. “We’re on a schedule!”
I laughed briefly, thankful to have Herakles, Varga, and Raphael with me on this mission. They were the triple whammy of bad jokes and funny burns, and I needed as much of that as possible. On top of that, the ladies on our crew were bound to add some more spice to the mix, as well. I could already see stolen glances between the six—fleeting looks that didn’t last more than a half-second but were bright enough to mean something.
We walked over to the portal, which waited quietly on the northern edge of the platform. Looking around one last time, I was surprised by how clean and smooth the place was. The castle staff were remarkably quick and efficient at cleaning up. Only yesterday, this place had a wide extension along its base disk, and the columns were dressed in soft tulles and flowers, celebrating Serena and Draven’s baby naming. Only yesterday, there had been joy and glee blossoming all over, until a fire fae stood up, his skin covered in bloody symbols, and nearly killed more innocents. And for what?
Well, that’s what we’re going to find out.
I wrote the Fire Star’s coordinates on the stony frame of the portal, watching the mist flicker white and red for a while, until it settled on a fiery shade of crimson. I walked through first, followed by Varga, then Raphael, who had to tug Herakles’s arm in order to get him in—the Faulty didn’t seem to be a fan of portals. Riza, Amelia, and Eva came through after them.
The portal was akin to a wormhole, crossing millions of miles, thousands of light-years, in mere minutes. Cosmos warped around the transparent, membrane-like walls of the passage connecting Calliope to the Fire Star. Billions of stars streaked past us. Pink, purple, yellow, green, blue, and red stardust stretched around the passage like uneven strips on a never-ending kaleidoscope.
As we walked forward, what struck me most, every time, was the utter silence.
Space was devoid of sound. Our ears couldn’t perceive the hum of the universe, the rumble of planets and asteroids hurtling at thousands of miles an hour through the vast and seemingly endless space. Looking back over my shoulder, I stifled a chuckle as I watched Herakles take careful step after careful step, as if fearful that the passage might just collapse. His perception was skewed because he could see clearly below—much like walking on a glass strip across the deepest pit. It could be scary as hell, since the brain always considered the possibility of a sudden, unstoppable freefall.
The Fire Star grew bigger ahead.
A few seconds later, I walked out into the reception room of the royal palace. Varga and Raphael were next. Breathing an audible sigh of relief, Herakles followed. He grumbled something about being better off with the interplanetary travel spell, but I didn’t catch the whole thing. Riza came through next, then Eva and Amelia.
“Tae, honey!” My mother’s voice cut through the room’s heavy silence.
I turned my head and saw her and Dad standing in the double doorway, both of them wearing warm and welcoming smiles. “Hey, Mom,” I mumbled.
“Welcome to the Fire Star,” Dad said to all of us. “May the sun shine upon you.”
Raphael offered a courteous nod. “Thank you, Your Majesty. It’s an honor to be here.”
“Come on, there’s no time to waste,” I said, then motioned for the crew to follow as I joined my parents outside in the main hallway. “You have everything I asked for, right, Mom?”
She nodded. “That we do, honey.”
“We’ve gathered all the information we had in our archives,” Dad added. “Well, the staff did. But I checked every page. It all seems in order and as complete as it can be, given how old the documents are.”
By the time we reached my father’s study, where he’d had the papers delivered, I was filled with a sense of burning curiosity. My resolve was strong, shining like a beacon as it guided me down the road ahead. I knew, deep down, that this wasn’t going to be easy. I was aware that I might not get anything useful out of these documents, in the end. But it was worth a shot. We had to try every possible avenue.
All the documents were piled up on his desk—a small mountain of yellowed notebooks and brownish parchment scrolls, arranged in chronological order.
“Okay,” I breathed, surprised by the size of paperwork ahead. “Shall we dig in?”
Amelia flashed me a grin. “I thought you’d never ask.”
I was permanently amazed by her intellectual capacities. Her reading speed was downright scary. While the rest of us flipped through pages, needing good chunks of an hour to read up to five manuscripts—which, I was told, was already faster than humans—Amelia devoured the stack of materials she’d been assigned to read even faster.
Her eyes scanned two pages per second, the pupils dilating and contracting like the shutter of a professional camera. Snap. Snap. Snap. I could almost hear her synapses popping as the new information zipped through and nestled somewhere in her titanic memory palace. Amelia completely forgot herself. We no longer existed. It was just her and the manuscripts.
About two hours passed before she started going through our stacks, too, after finishing hers. None of us seemed to mind. Most of the texts were old and clunky, often difficult to follow. Amelia, however, was undeterred. Another four hours later, we were left standing and quietly watching her, as she scanned the last parchment.
At the very end, she let a deep sigh roll out of her chest, then carefully rolled the last parchment back up and tied its velvety string around the middle. Mom and Dad were both sitting on the other side of the desk, fascinated.
Amelia looked up, her eyebrows arched as she noticed our befuddlement. “What?”
“Nothing. We’re just in awe of you,” Eva replied dryly.
That got us another pink flush from Amelia’s cheeks.
“The question is… do we have anything useful out of this pile?” Raphael asked, briefly glancing at the desk, once more burdened with all the documents.
